We sleep at a nearby hotel, and the next morning we do our own walk around the new house to make sure all is well before we finalize our purchase. Sometime later that afternoon, we meet the movers over at the new house and they bring our stuff in.
Even with the complexities of a 2-day process, it sounds simple enough. Only about a million in-between details, and at least as many pieces of paper to process before it all actually happens.
I'm nervous, excited, anxious, remorseful, hopeful. I know I haven't really had time to focus on what it is going to feel like to walk out of our empty house and leave it for good. Maybe it's a sign that I'm growing up, that I'm learning to look ahead rather than panicking to hold on to the past. And hey, I'm the one who thought moving was a good idea. I still think that, but it's hard. It's an emotionally, physically draining process, no matter what.
A couple of days ago, this groundhog took up residence in one of the rock walls in our garden. We got to watch him make friends with one of the wild rabbits who already live here -- seriously, they sized each other up as they nibbled at two different patches of clover on the front lawn and somehow they decided that neither needed to flee and they've been meeting up in the early evenings ever since. He's out and about quite a bit, although as soon as he hears me open a door or a window (to try to get a better picture) he scurries back to his den. So my pictures are all taken through a window with a screen on it, which is why this one isn't too sharp.
I was lamenting to Dean that this cool creature decides to move in just as we're moving out -- how unfair is that? He wisely said that it's a sign that the place will be watched over, and loved, and that it happened now as a last gift from our yard -- something for us to remember it by.
