Five Ways You Know You Are Home

Five years ago I moved into my new home. But allow me to start at the beginning of this story. The story of how it happened is what makes my home, so very important to me.

My previous home was a nice roomy three bedroom house with garage, spacious living room and master bedroom. It was a good roomy home with a lovely view of trees in all of their beauty throughout the changing seasons. After living there for 7 years with my husband, (who died ten years ago) I lived there four more years with my two cats.

Backyard view. — Golden fall trees in the backyard of my old home.

But I soon realized I did not have the ability to care for the mountains of lovely leaves that fell every fall and the patchy grass that needed watering weekly and mowing about every other week during the summer. I had to hire someone to care for my yard for me because of the sciatica that put me on disability for two years.

Finally I realized it was time to downsize. My two sons had their own homes, 45 and 90 minutes away. It seemed a bad idea to be living in such a big house for no good reason. It was just me and the two cats in the house except when I had company from out of town maybe twice or three times a year.

But first I had some herculean feats to perform. I had to throw away, donate, disperse to the kids, and sell 3/4 of what was in the house and garage because there was no room in my condo for everything.

I had been working on disposing of my husband’s collections for 5 years but only made a dent in the CDs, DVDs, laser discs, and oh, did I mention books; books on multiple topics?

There were old financial records and pictures I had to shred too. Finally with help from my friends and sons and their wife and future wife I was ready for the movers to move my belongings to the storage building near my condo.

Even though I knew I had to sell my house, before I could buy a new home, I couldn’t resist home hunting months before the sale of my house. I knew as soon as I walked into my future home, a condominium, that it was to be my future home! But my offer to purchase it, was refused.

Once my house was posted for sale I had a buyer in 3 weeks. While the paper work for the buyer was processing, I put in a bid again on my condo and the owners accepted my offer.

But then came the month while I was unable to close on my new dream home because the mortgage company had certain requirements that took a month for the home owners association to fulfill.

So I vacated my home, put everything in storage while I waited a whole month, moved in with my second son and his wife until the bank’s requirements were met. Finally I moved into my new home.

While living with my son and his wife I enjoyed buying items to decorate with, that would make my home distinctly mine. I chose the Asian theme because of the peacefulness I wanted in my own home that had often been lacking in my old home during my husband’s illness. I chose a few nice things but kept the atmosphere relaxing.

After the long wait and the anxiety and the stress and not having access to my own home and belongings, I really appreciated and loved my own home! I still have some things to give the kids and donate. But this is truly the most “me” place I could have found.