On Moving Across the Country, Procrastination, and Moving Through the Forest

On Moving Across the Country

It’s the middle of the night, and I’m awake with thoughts on moving to Colorado. Or, more specifically, I’m awake with thoughts of everything that needs to be done. I worry I didn’t check behind the table under the television for marks on the wall. I pick up my phone; email myself a reminder to remove the hooks from the bathroom and replace them with ones less sentimental.

To say this move to Colorado is kicking my butt wouldn’t be all-the-way fair because it’s All The Things before the move that are doing me in.

Pretty much everybody who knows me recognizes my Olympian procrastination skills. Not to brag or anything, but I’m so good at it that I only recently(ish) tossed the un-read article about procrastination my dad gave me back in college.

Here’s the thing. I thought I wasn’t procrastinating with this move.

I was Magic Erasering (totally a word AND a verb) the walls days before I truly needed to. I fixed the broken blind in my bedroom, even though I didn’t actually have to. “They’re just renting,” people say.

But I want them to love this home. I have.

Selfishly, I want them to take care of it because we might be back here, in this home, in three years. If I, as the owner, don’t do All The Things, how can I expect them to do any of them?

I worked at getting this home ready to be lived in by somebody else. Saw it with fresh and critical eyes. Fixed All The Things.

Also, this week is kicking my butt.

We had to buy a new refrigerator tonight, because ours broke. Yes, it’s good it happened now, because what would our renters do?? But also, it’s One More Thing, you know?

And the cleaning people knocked the toilet paper roll off the wall, and I thought, ONE MORE THING but then was all “Kristi, be less dramatic. You can get the Biggest Things done, and leave the rest. The renters will be fine.”

But then, I took the drywall screw off the wall, after I’d decided to fix it myself, because it looked like this and was no big deal because I thought that spackle stuff would fix it just fine:

Then, when the screw was off, it was all soft and mushy. The drywall crumbled. She must’ve knocked it really hard with her “back.”

HANG ON…
My five minutes isn’t up, but it’s on pause…

Our realtor in Colorado just FaceTimed us with her walk-through of the new house. And it’s beautiful and has a barn door between the master and the bath.

“But wait. Where’s the washer and dryer?”

“Were they included?” she asked.

“Um.” “We assumed,” we said.

ONE MORE THING. But a thing for when we get there, which feels less horrible somehow.

***
Timer resumed. So there’s excitement and craziness and Tucker’s

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Timer paused. Our realtor in Colorado just FaceTimed again, which is awesome and wonderful because she wanted to let us know that the lock box doesn’t work, (which is good to know but also One More Thing, and I hope so much you’ll forgive this long rant stream-of-consciousness going on for longer because now I can’t remember when the timer was on or off, and it’s most definitely more than five minutes because I just looked at it and it’s still on pause from before, or the before this before. I don’t know).

(not knowing how to spell “consciousness” is One More Thing, tonight, FYI)

Part of me is all “stop talking” but the other part is like “but you have something to say and even though it’s boring, maybe typing right now will motivate you to NOT wake up at 4am to worry about Magic Erasering, and instead, you’ll go back to sleep or read a book or write a better blog post than this one.”

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STOP NOW IF YOU ARE ANNOYED by this not being 5 minutes. I almost deleted the following for a future post thinking “OMG SO LONG” but then was like “who’s website is this anyway? And also when am I ever going to write this so who cares?”

(as in I’m keeping it even though the 5-minute thing is past laughable now) (and stop if you need to and obviously I’m keeping the stream-of-consciousness that I can’t even spell!)

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PS On Moving Across the Forest

Ok so even though way *way, way* above should’ve been the end of this too-long-for-a-five-minute-post, I had this idea about “Move” where I’d write about being stressed about moving to Colorado but then write about moving across the forest.

For the two of you still here… thank you.

This past weekend, we visited my husband’s family in Tennessee. I didn’t want to go. Not because I didn’t want to see them, but because I’m feeling maxed out completely on the stress of moving and All The Things to do before we can kiss the front door with tears, and thank this house for our memories here (and yes, everybody does that you weirdo).

In Tennessee, we went to the mountains both days. Saturday, we visited the dam, and Sunday, went to Roan Mountain. We hiked across these amazing trails that must be hundreds of years old. They’re near the Appalachian Trail, and we saw real hikers, with gear and backpacks and everything.

Moving through the forest, I was in awe. The ferns and the moss on the trees was so green it looked fake. Neon fake.

And somewhere, somehow between wondering about the neon green growing on trees here, versus trees there, I forgot about all the things.

All The Things became a bunch of stuff. Which then turned into my hearing my footprints, my breathing.

Noticing the calm, and the smell of Christmas trees. Every now and again, Tucker’s squeal, when he found a piece of mika because I’d told him it was my favorite as a girl.

I used to collect it, and it was so hard to get home because it flakes so easily.

I have several pieces of mika in my car now that will likely come with us on our move to Colorado.

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This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. Tonight’s prompt is “Move” with a 5-minute stream-of-consciousness (that I can’t spell), put on with my co-host, Kenya of Sporadically Yours.