In 1972 noted paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould (a hero of mine) and Niles Eldredge proposed a theory whereby evolutionary changes takes place in bursts during relatively short intervals of time in between which long stretches of time would pass with little change. We have entered that mode of living.
Soon after returning from Sacramento we contacted a realtor (someone who specializes in horse properties) and arranged to put the house on the market. This in turn led to a flurry of activity as we began to reduce the amount of what we own, which required photographing and posting items for sale (or for free) on FaceBook to see if friends and family were interested (thank goodness Elayne has taken care of these details or I would have been of the mind to "just chuck it") and label and store that in the garage, and haul multiple loads of junk to the landfill (more than a ton thus far). We had to decide upon a moving date and contact various movers for quotes and chose one, and decide which boarding stable to use, and plan a trip to Sacramento the week before our move to bring the horses, truck and trailer down to Sacramento, and book one way return flights, and hire cleaners to come out for biweekly cleaning, and find window washers to clean the outside and inside of our windows (and now repair the screen that they damaged), and stage the house for the photographer, and order packing supplies, and start to box up things we don't need, but not too much so we don't have things like empty bookcases, for example, when the potential buyers come. And Elayne had to find a home for her horse Kwest (she found the absolute perfect place for her) and I need to schedule when to take Whitney over to her new (old) home on the west side (we are only taking Taylor and Topaz with us), and find homes for the barn cats Dorito (lots of people want him -- but then he already knew that) and
Second cat (we will see if the new owners want to keep him on as their barn cat, but some friends have expressed an interest as well).
And now that much of that work has been done we are in a waiting period. The house is scheduled to be listed on Monday April 3rd (tomorrow as I type this), and other than keeping the place tidy we are mostly waiting for our place to sell or for when we actually move in May. I am grateful that I work through to the end of the month or I might be bored (the weather is still too cold and snowy for me to want to spend any time outside). Fortunately for Elayne there is no such thing as weather too severe to prevent her from riding.
And of course we still have things to do that we can't do right now. We need to find an apartment in which to live for a few months while we shop for a house (which we can't do until our current place sells) -- and of course finding a short term rental is both more difficult and expensive than long term. I will need to make a list of available apartments that we will visit when we bring down the horses. The moving company will take some of our stuff (selected beforehand) to the apartment and the rest will go into storage, which means we need to rent a storage unit large enough to hold the bulk of our belongings. And naturally all of this will need to be done at about the same time, which will spur another rush of activity.
After which I am sure we will need to wait.
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