Jekyll Island Beach 2012

Jekyll Island Beach 2012

Friday, July 6, 2012

G is for GRIPING!

The Rogue Speaks:


SO LONG, TUCSON!

I wish Blogger would get it's act together and realize that some things are best left alone!  Now if you want to leave a comment here, you have to click on the title of my post!  One more silly step to take! Or maybe not!  Maybe they've changed their minds again!  Who knows??? Why do they have to make things so hard????

Hey!  That's it!!  I'll title this post Griping!  My head is spinning these days and my body aches because we are selling our house and moving back to the southeast.  I am way too old for these HOT temperatures!  Tucson is a beautiful place, and the mountains and the desert have been a comfort for me for 14 years.  I love being able to see the horizon, and being able to navigate my way around town by keeping my eyes on the Catalinas.  I've made some wonderful friends, too, both in the art world and the world of golfing, bridge, and bunco, but it's time for a change.


Now for the gripes:  Did you know that if you want your possessions protected on the trek across the country, you now have to buy insurance from the moving companies?  Kind of like buying an appliance or electronics.  They tell us their product is Great!  Superior in every way!  and then they suggest that we buy their insurance "just in case."  Of course, if the van has a wreck on the interstate and burns up all your belongings, then the trucker has to pay for everything since he was driving.  Yeah, like THAT's gonna happen!  BUT if we don't buy the movers' insurance, and they break my grandmother's china, oops! Too bad.


In the documents for selling a house, there's one called "disclosure" in which we must tell, among other things, if we have had an issue with snakes, bees, scorpions, Gila monsters, and other manner of desert creatures.  We had to answer "Yes" to that one, even though each one of those things was a one time incident in fourteen years.  Of course, there isn't a line to write in that little fact.


My main gripe is really about myself.  Why on earth did I save all those artsy items I thought I might use sometime in the future?  Why did I store it in a 10 x 10 room?  How did that room suddenly turn into fodder for "Hoarders--Buried Alive?"  Now I know how some of those people feel when they have to clean.  It is overwhelming!  Toward the end, during the 6th Waste Management big green garbage can full of "stuff,"  I am kicking myself and making a firm decision to live a cleaner life in the future. HA!  We shall see!!!
BEFORE
AFTER

Here's another gripe:  We really have been working our asses off here, and falling into bed half-dead at eight o'clock every night, only to wake up at 3 a.m., not being able to sleep.  I have turned into a raging fanatic of cleanliness--scrubbing the dust off the top of the baseboards with a toothbrush and picking stubborn stuff out of the corners with a toothpick.  How sick is that????  Rod has been asking me "what should I do next?"  You have to ASK????  Finally, I said, "FIND SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AND DO IT."


Here's my final "gripe of the day:"  We paid landscape men to spruce up our back yard, because we'd rather a stranger drop dead from working in the searing heat than one of us.  It looked pretty good when they finished.  Two days later, we have what my son Jeff used to call, "a belly washer" that dropped 3.3 inches of rain in less than an hour and a half, washing debris into our pool, and dirt out of our giant flower pots and onto the patio.  Rod had to go out into the searing heat to clean up the mess.  I held my breath.


Everything looks pretty darned good, and the agents tell us our house should sell quickly.  Now we can rest, go to bed at an adult-type hour, and sleep until at least 7 a.m.  BUT, NOOOOOOO!  We had gotten so used to not sleeping, that we were awake and up at 5 a.m.  There's no justice.

28 comments:

Helen said...

I moved from the southeast to the northwest seven years ago ~~ after reading your post, I'm fairly certain I don't want to go through that again (at the age of 70!) Good luck with the sale of your home and your move! I was just in Tucson a few months ago, love it!!

JJ said...

Judie: When you get here, let me know if you need any help.

Robin said...

Yay! The Southeast. I live in Georgia, but my family is considering moving back to the Jacksonville area. Perhaps one day our paths will cross. That would really be lovely:-)

Every time I move I think about the Native Americans. I scratch my head and think, "You know there were onto something. They could pack up and be gone in 15 minutes flat. They understood essential. They had their priorities in place. Possessions didn't have much meaning for them. They knew something I have yet to figure out." But I still let go. I have too many things that I think, "But this is priceless. This is memories. Ah. Someday....

Robin said...

Here we go again. If only I proofread.. I still CANNOT let go.

Jo said...

Ohhhh ... moving? I pity you ... I have finally become overwhelmed with my findings for "just in case art" that I'm about to do some tossing myself ... and I'm staying put ...

I you hope you sell quickly, that your move goes well, and surely there will be less pesky desert things for Lizzie to get into ... so it should all be good ... and remember to send me your new address!

dianesartnow said...

Moving? Oh no! But I get it. We are contemplating the same thing as we sit in this sweltering heat. We have no family here--all are in Texas or Missouri--but ohhh that art crap packing (again). We moved here 6 years ago and I bet I have more stuff than you do--

The question for us a couple years younger than you is-- "do we want to move when we can?" "or do we move when we "have" to?"

Aging is hell!

Love to you!

Pondside said...

BIG sympathy!! We have sold and bought a number of times and I dread the thought of doing it again, but I know it's coming. Good luck with it - fingers crossed for an amazingly quick sale that will make everyone jealous and skew the days-to-sell figures for your city!

The Poet said...

My beautiful Judie,
Wishing you all the best with selling and moving to your new home. I really do appreciate your sense of humor and your kindness when you visit my blog. Where ever you live, your neighbors will have a great Lady Flower as a friend (smile).

Jim said...

Hi Judy ~~ My Omaha cousin sold her Tuscon house a few years ago and now she and her husband rent a condo for the winter. You'd think perhaps they would come here with some family. But Tuscon is where they want to be.

Are your sure your 'junk room' is the same one as in the 'after' picture? That seems like it never could be. (My office has turned into a junk room, I just hate that!)

BTW, now you have a comment link, at the bottom in yellow, it will say '9 comments:' in when I post this.

Best wishes on your move. You might be driving through Houston? More probably it would be Dallas which city I detest driving through.
..

Judie said...

Jim, my studio was way worse than that, with stacks of paintings, easels, boxes filled with glazes for clay, and tons of collage materials! Plus I had a big desk for my computer, cabinets hanging on the wall, and a couple of floor cabinets. Oh, and a bookcase filled with art books!

We take I-10 from Tucson, all the way to I-95, then up to Brunswick. We try to go through Houston before rush hour. We'll stop in New Orleans and see our daughter for a day or two before heading to the Georgia coast.

Ames said...

You poor thing. Sometimes it's just easier to send the men on ahead, when they get under foot. I can sympathize. I didn't even list my house and some woman came buy and asked could she buy it.

Well after saying yes she gave us two stinkin' weeks to move 18 years of stuff plus we had to find somewhere else to live while we bought a lot and built another house...through 4 hurricanes. The last hurricane ripped off the roof of the condo we were renting. I cried every morning on the drive in to work. It was the most stressful time in my life. I was writing a grant for $86,000 and the specifications for two new department apparatus.

We're going on 8 years in this new house and the dent in the arm of my sofa has finally popped out from being in storage for almost a year. I still can't find things I used to have too. I hate moving! And because of the experience I now purge everyday.

If you need my help, I will try to work around any babysitting to come up there. Just let me know.

Hang in there girl! Love ya mean it!~Ames

Gattina said...

Oh my ! I don't want to be at your place ! Cleaning a house to sell it a nightmare ! I can understand that you want to move away from Arizona, I only know people who live there in winter, when it's too cold at home.
Over here the moving companies include the insurance in the price, that's the law. So you don't realize it, but it is the same, lol !

~✽Mumsy✽~ said...

Judie, blogger seems to work just fine in the comment part now..Not to worry..

As for moving, I don't like it from the sheer fear of pile up junks in my house. I tried to give away bags and bags of things, but they keep coming back.

Good luck with selling your house, and your move!

I can no longer have more than 4-5 hours a night, and it really sucks!

Personalized Sketches and Sentiments said...

Wow! First of all...how cool is that you are heading to the Georgia coast! Like in Savannah area? We live near Savannah! ...anywhooo...had to say that first. Now about your room before and after! You did an amazing job!

After growing up moving with my parents in the Air Force, every 2 years...and then moving with my hubby almost every 3 years, you'd think that we (I) would keep our (my) "stuff" to a manageable minimum...Nope! my sweet hubby has so sweetly "gone through" my stuff (organized our garage-full) without me, so that things could be "tossed' without me around to "save it for...you never know what".

We have been blessed to have the military move us.

Wishing all the best for your home to sell and your move!
Blessings & Aloha!

SarahBeth said...

Oh my, they may be gripes to you, but to me they were some good laughs this morning!! And don't worry -- you're not alone in the hoarders department! I have a couple of corners that are about to take over the room!!

Funny, funny post! That searing heat and toothpick stuff really knocked me off my chair with laughter!

Hope your move has no gripes attached! Now I must grab my toothpicks and get to work in those corners :D

H said...

Having to clean and move all of that stuff is a nightmare! We still have boxes on the loft which haven't been unpacked from our last move - 12 years ago! (Rather begs the question as to whether we actually need the stuff that's in them!)

Linda O'Connell said...

My friend is an a rtist and the only thing that is preventing her from moving is that 10 X 10 room filled with her art supplies, so I can relate to your post. However, if somebody gave me a beach house, I'd pack in a heartbeat. Back form vacation and blog hopping. Please stop by if you have time.

ChrisJ said...

Good luck with selling, etc. Glad it's you and not me!

Splendid Little Stars said...

sending you tons and tons of sympathy, dear Judie!!
I do understand having moved 12 years ago, and after that time, rehabbing 3 houses to flip.
One does scrub and clean like one never has before when it's time to sell. Plus then one gets to live in a house that's practically perfectly clean ALL THE TIME! not fun at all!
So I wish you and Rod the best of luck!

anitamombanita said...

I hate moving. No matter how much you don't collect, there's always more stuff than you need or want and deciding what to get rid of is a pain. Hope things settle down and you get some good rest soon!

debra said...

Well I have to say that reading your post made me sorry for you but also gave me a few chuckles/ you are a funny griper! :)

EG CameraGirl said...

I'm not sure why Blogger feels it must change everything over and over. I guess if they don't they'd live in fear of being called outmoded.

Moving is such a big chore especially if you are a hoarder. This is a great time to start anew. :)

Judie said...

Actually, I think I pretty much have a handle on things now that my house is spotlessly clean and all the closets are cleaned out! I just hope we sell it quickly.

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Good luck with your house sale and move, Judie! I will be facing a big move in a year or two and I know I will have a big job ahead clearing out my house that I've lived in 36 out of my 38 years of marriage!

KDL said...

I moved on average every year from ages 18-30. Now I pray to God that I never have to move again. Partly I love our little house that we spent lots of time and money remodeling, and partly...moving all our stuff? Are you kidding? I would be griping, too. I hope the rest of it goes better for you. Hang in there!

Joann Mannix said...

Congratulations, Judie!

But don't forget, we're pretty broiling down here, too. Although I'll take our jungle heat over the dry heat any day. Welcome back to the south, friend!

Your house looks great. Wanna come over to my house with your toothpicks?

Big time luck with the move. I hope the house sells quickly and the moving truck doesn't crash and burn on the interstate. All will be well, I just know it.

Annesphamily said...

Best of luck with you and the house sale! I wish you a quick and chaos free move! You sure pick great topics here! I love knowing you!

Jenny said...

I know we've e-mailed many times since this post, but I still wanted to come by so you knew I visited!

Hang in there girl!

The new place is gonna be GRAND!