On the move…

One of my favorite things about living on the boat was being able to move to a new place without having to move anything but the boat. Pick up the anchor or drop the lines, that’s all it took to be on the way. On land, moving is a much more tedious, yet labor intensive, process. Pick up, pack up, carry stuff out, load the truck, unload the truck, carry stuff in, unpack, and put things away. There is furniture to be disassembled and then put back together, and everything needs to find its new place in the new place. So when we moved back on land the plan was to move no more than two times. Once back onto the dirt and then, cruising kitty full, once more back to water. But, apparently land plans are as much written on a beach at low tide as are the cruising kind. Not even six months in this place we are off to a different place. It's a strange and wonderful tale.

Daughter Middle has a big family, with grandkids (six) growing every day. They knew they were going to need more room in the not-too-distant future and so starting looking around. Nothing serious, just getting the lay of the housing land. Things got a bit more interesting when they recently managed to sell a house they have owned on the East coast where they used to live, many a moon ago. With money for a down payment they started to look just a bit more seriously. They found a place that would be perfect, though likely far out of their price range. But, with nothing to lose they offered as much as they could, though it was still far below the asking price.

Less than a week later the offer was accepted. Yikes!

Thus began a blizzard of activity to get their current house sold as soon as possible. Painting, cleaning, fixing, they all worked like crazy, Deb included. (I did what I could but there is this whole “earning a paycheck” thing that fills up a lot of my days.) The house barely made it to market before it was sold, and I mean barely. It sold in something like 18 hours.

This morning they closed on the new place. Two houses a thousand miles apart sold, and a new one purchased, all in the matter or a few weeks. I'm not sure I believe it even though I had a ring side seat to the show.

The Granny Flat Salon (sale photo-not our furniture)

Anyway, their new place has all the room they need for the growing family, including grand daughters (2) scarily close to being teenagers. It also has a detached garage in the back. One with a two room apartment on top, something known as a “Granny Flat.” By the end of next week it will be known as the "T and DeMa flat." How can you not love the idea of having rent money stay in the family?

The Granny Flat Galley

The hardest part of our leaving the boat was leaving Daughter Eldest and her brood behind. There is a few minutes of every day when my heart hurts from not having them as a part of my daily life, not waving to them from the next mooring ball over, not settling into a quiet anchorage with the two boats rafted together. Those days are some of the very best days I have ever known and, someday, we plan to live like that again.

The days to come hold the promise of being the land version of those days. Days filled with strumming my Uke with a little one on my lap, of whittling sticks with grandsons, of seeing the youngest take some of her very first steps. I know a lot of people believe in some kind of reincarnation, or of karma. It sounds good, but I fear it can’t be so. There is no way I ever lived a former life so well as to have this one working out the way it is. But I'll whisper my thanks that it is, and start packing.  

The Granny Flat Aft Cabin (sale photo-not our furniture)

The Granny Flat Cockpit