How Quickly Life Changes

Hello from sunny Florida!  The weather is amazing here and despite missing my friends and family very much, I am amazed how quickly I am becoming comfortable in this new life.  Jimmy and I have been working hard getting things unpacked and have made amazing progress.   Some of us work harder than others.



Just kidding.  I just wanted an excuse to sneak this picture in because I love it so much.  

One of the most shocking changes to this new life is that I have somehow become a morning person.  I haven't been asleep past 7:30 am in over a week and I'm not even setting an alarm.  The verdict is still out on how I actually feel about this.  On one hand it's nice to have accomplished so much by 9 am, and it's nice this time of year to have more hours of sunshine.  But on the other hand, it's me, and I'm not a morning person.

The best change is how relaxed I feel and how active we've already become.  Sunday we took a long walk on the beach and this evening we went for a bike ride around the neighborhood next to us.  We also went to the American Police Hall of Fame & Museum this afternoon which was pretty cool.  We were bummed to find out they are no longer offering helicopter rides, and we were even more disappointed when we found out they'd only been charging $35 a person for the helicopter rides when they were still doing them.  But we had the place to ourselves and got to 
see some cool stuff.  




The first thing when you walk in is a car of an officer who died in the line of duty.  While is car was on display after the tragedy people from his  community signed his car.   The car is literally 
signed from bumper to bumper.  It was very moving to see.



The Fallen Officers Memorial



Not moving, but very funny was when I walked around a corner to find Jimmy having a puppet show with the McGruff's dogs.



Jimmy and I trying out the electric chair.





Jimmy checking out the forensic evidence display.  I was thinking about my friend Detective Jordan while we were looking at this.  Jordan, if you're reading this, I hope your first homicide investigation is going well!



Jimmy and I playing dress up with some of the uniforms they had.







I thought this was pretty cool.  Before towns had jails built they used to keep people overnight in "Tramp Chairs".  Prisoners were normally undressed and left out in the elements while neighborhood children would poke them with sticks.





And a really cool old police car.



So that's what we've been up to so far.  I'll be spending the next two days continuing to get our place organized before our first guests arrive and will be job hunting in full force come Monday.



"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."  ~A. Sachs

Look Mom, No Tears!

Amazingly it has been over a week since the last time I cried and I managed to get to our new home without crying once!  We got in safe last night, just got internet this afternoon and have the moving truck showing up tomorrow morning.  We have had some issues, most notably the fact that we went to the community office this afternoon to be informed no trucks over 24' are allowed on the property.  Our truck, which is WELL over 24', was supposed to be here at 8 am tomorrow.  Luckily the government transfer office is taking good care of us and 
have made arrangements to have our stuff unloaded onto a smaller truck so they can get to us.  It'll be later in the day, but our stuff should still be here tomorrow.  What a pain!  

And my plan was to go get our new FL licenses and tags this afternoon only I realized we carefully packed our lockbox with our birth certificates, social security cards, and other important documents in the car with us, but the key is packed on the truck and some of those documents we need for our new licenses.  So much for best laid plans!  

Anyway, I wanted to check in with those of you who I haven't talked 
to and let you know we got here safe.  We slept with our bedroom door open last night and woke up to the sounds of the ocean, so I have nothing really to complain about!  We will be very busy the next few days unpacking, but are excited to have Mike and Lydia coming down to watch NASA graciously launch the shuttle to celebrate my birthday!  I will update soon!

The House is SOLD!

The house did go to settlement as planned last Wednesday.  I was so thankful that not only did it go off without a hitch, but I also managed to make it through without crying or otherwise making an ass out of myself in front of the buyers, which I was concerned about beforehand.  We won't talk about how much we had to pay to sell the house because it's just depressing, but as sad as I am about selling our home, it is a relief to have it over.  It is weird and sad to be here knowing it isn't our house, but I am trying hard not to think about it and just enjoy the last week we are here.  I have taken some strange comfort in the fact that the buyers are around our age and are engaged.  For whatever reason I really like the fact that this will be their first house together and they will get to have similar first memories here.  I guess whatever makes me feel better.

Since I never got around to it before, I figure this would be the perfect post to finally show off all all the work we put into the house over the last 3 1/2 years.  Please ignore the dark shadows in some of the before pics, I'm not sure what the deal with the camera was.

The front before.  


The front after.





The foyer before.


The foyer after.





The kitchen before.  Can you say 1970???  Be sure to note the lovely plaid wallpaper, the disco ball light fixture, army green counters and of course, the crafty pineapple stencils.  Not to mention there was zero counter space.








The kitchen after. By far the hardest part about leaving our first house behind is leaving my FANTASTIC kitchen. Jimmy was thrilled when he realized by putting in the island that we had in fact installed a regulation sized beer pong table! We knocked down the walls dividing the kitchen from the living room and dining room, and installed all new custom built cabinets with soft close drawers (which I did not pay extra for and thought were completely pointless, but now do not know how I will live without), granite counters, a HUGE granite composite sink, under-cabinet lighting and more. There is so much room to work and I love that everyone hangs out at the island when they come over. I am going to MISS my kitchen!









The living room before.


The living room after.  Really just fresh paint and more stylish furnishings.





The dining room before.  Could that light fixture be any uglier?


The dining room after.



The hall bath before. It was my bathroom since I refused to use the tiny master bath. The sage green honestly wouldn't have been so bad with better accessories, but that wood toilet seat made me crazy!




My bathroom after.





The guest room before.  They must have gotten an incredible deal on that hideous green paint because it was everywhere, including the cement block walls in the laundry room.


The guest room after.  A word of advice ~ DO NOT EVER paint a room red until you have purchased the bedding, curtains, or any other furnishings you might need to match.  Red can be surprisingly hard to match/compliment depending on the shade.  



The office before.


The office after.



The master bedroom before.


The master bedroom after.



The master bathroom before.  I cannot begin to describe how much I HATED this bathroom.  So much so, that if I needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would still walk down the hall to the other bathroom.  




The master bath after. It KILLS me that we only finished it about 6 months ago. It's still small, but I finally like it and now we're leaving. I have to say the pictures really don't do it justice. The tile is really pretty with decorative insets and for some reason the colors in the room just didn't come out well in the pictures.





The basement rec room before.




The basement rec room after.  It is amazing what a difference painting over the dark paneling made.  Another project I am kicking myself for putting off for so long!





The basement powder room before.  Apparently mismatching the toilet seat to the toilet was in style at one point???  And more stencils.  I did feel a little bad painting over them knowing the last owner had lovingly applied them, but they had to go.


The powder room after.  I actually borrowed a wet tile saw from a friend and tiled the bathroom myself while Jimmy was at work.  He was super impressed despite the fact me, my cell phone and the cat were all covered in grout!



The basement bedroom before.


The basement bedroom after.  This was my office until a few months ago and I really love how it turned out after I staged it to sell.



There's really no before and after to these, but since the deck was one of my favorite spots I still wanted to show off the backyard.








With everything going on my life this quote is particularly touching to me right now:

"Some people think it's holding on that makes one strong.  Sometimes it's letting go."
~Sylvia Robinson