It’s a beautiful, all-be-it rainy, early Thursday morning here in Anchorage. Yup, you hear and see correctly. Although we have put our property up for sale and have quit our job, “taking the leap” still only means you can go as far as circumstance will allow. And for now? That means we have not leapt to anywhere. We sit.
I can’t say it’s without disappoint, but true to my nature I will choose to be positive. It is, after all, not a terrible week, and if you’re going to be ‘stuck’ somewhere, Anchorage, Alaska, isn’t the worst place. I mean, given, no one wants to be stuck in their hometown… but I’ll move on.
It’s been about a month since we closed our home daycare. We were stuck in a place where showing the property, our 4-plex, wasn’t going very well. Who walks into a daycare full of kids and toy mess, and says, “Yeah! I can see myself owner occupying this place!” After a few disinterested walk-throughs we decided to give our families 5 weeks notice and closed the daycare.
Unfortunately those 5 weeks were the first good 5 for walk-throughs. After that it got quiet. Pretty much the whole Anchorage market got quiet.
We took out some money to buy our little RV trailer, and even looked at a few, but with no buyer lined-up and no paying job we decided we needed to use that money for this transition and just buy the trailer when we sell. So that is the short story of where we are.
Life is a Journey
We’ve sold, or mostly given away, everything that we knew we would not be bringing in the RV, though there are plenty of toys still stashed for Nathan, and I’m positive we’ll be doing more down-sizing when it’s all said and done. And it’s quiet around here, right?
Funny, we quite doing daycare, but our house is no less quiet or messy. Instead we have a group of about 5 neighborhood kids who drop in and out to play with Nathan. The nice thing is that we can work on the computer with minimal supervising needed, and Nathan isn’t bored. So this is the first of the positive things I’m trying to focus on. Andrew and I are able to add a lot of new recipes to the site and it feels really good! And it’s paying off, too! Yesterday we made 85 cents!
But we get down, too. Who wouldn’t? We can do everything possible to create a good property for a sale, new exterior paint, new interior paint, new floors in areas, 9 new windows…. but if there aren’t buyers, there just aren’t buyers. At least with a rental property it’s mostly about numbers. At times I feel like we’re NEVER going to sell this place and that we’ll be stuck going right back to what we were doing before. But properties sell. It’s what they do. Eventually, anyway.
And we’re wanting to sell to go on our great adventure, right? Sometimes I’m so focused on planning for where we will be, that I forget to look at where we are. With Nathan so distracted with friends, and Andrew and I so excited to finally work feverishly on the website, I have to stop sometimes and ask myself, “Have I played with Nathan today?” I mean, that’s why we’re doing this, right? To spend time together.
Nathan has CF clinic this afternoon. Because we’re still at ‘home’ it’s on schedule and with the same doctors and staff we’ve always seen. He’s been doing really well, and I don’t expect any surprises. It’s yet again another area in which I can easily count my blessings.
After that, (all 3-4 hours!) who knows what we’ll go do! The world, well here-in-Anchorage-the-world, is our [on a tight budget] oyster! We can take a bike ride, have a picnic, go play tennis, or chip golf balls in a park.
Visiting a small stream this wet and cold morning I was reminded to always stop and smell the roses. I’ve known this phrase all my life, remembering that we need to take time to look at the small, pretty things, and not just rush by, but today I realized the other half of this very important idiom. The roses; they bloom, but they also wither. It isn’t just taking the time to notice them. It’s doing it while you still have the time. Right now I have a lot of time to notice, sniff, tickle, giggle, and play with our son. Don’t miss the beauty that’s right in front of you, right?
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