Some Fun!

Things have been going great for us here in Big Rapids. Over the past week, we've done lots! On Thursday and Saturday, we participated in the Tucson/Michigan party, put on and attended mostly by those of us who live in MI in the summer, and at Far Horizons in Tucson in the winter. Dinner was at Donna and Al's on Thursday, and it was great. There was pork brought in, and we all brought food, too. Jack and I played that game with balls tied together and flung over a small goal-post. Once I got the hang of it, I won handily!

Saturday, the second half of the Michigan party took place. We kayaked down the river to Harold's new dock, which worked wonderfully. Then we celebrated the beauty of the day with a pig roast at Pete and Janet's house. It was good to see everyone, and the mood was merry.

Meanwhile, we got word that my bid on the house in Brownsburg, Indiana had not been accepted. There was another offer which had been accepted, and so ours was not even considered. Down? You bet! Out? No way!

We decided to look at houses in the Big Rapids area, and look we did! We looked at a bunch of them, spending a couple of Sunday afternoons with Doug at Canadian Lakes touring some neat houses. And we looked at some around Big Rapids and a couple in the Paris area.

We found one that we liked in Canadian Lakes... and then another. And then our realtor here found one for us on the Muskeegon River, in Paris, which we really liked. Sunday afternoon, we took Luanne and Dan with us and walked through the house again. They were helpful to us in giving their opinions and we had a great time looking around with them, and imagining it as our house.

Today we met with Judy from Big Rapids Realty, and made an offer. Tomorrow we'll know if they accept it as written, or if they have other ideas. I really hope this one goes through!

If this doesn't happen, we've decided that we'll go back to Brownsburg, IN and look there again! Jack and I are the kind of people who are just plain happy, so I know that we'll be happy wherever we are.

I will treat you all with photos and a link when the deal is done. For now, I don't want to jinx things. I will say that the house has mostly hardwood floors, beautiful hickory cabinetry throughout, a great kitchen, open floorplan, a separate guest area, quality construction, and fine fixtures. Its style is what I'd call Contemporary/Mission, which is clean and sleek and very me. Oh.. and did I mention the views of the river right outside the windows?

Because I have given away just about all of my things, we'll be doing quite a bit of shopping for furniture and other furnishings. I'm very excited about starting all over like this! And, what's more, we'll be doing our part to boost the local economy. What are you doing for your local economy?

And, while all of this excitement has been going on, we have been continuing our work on -the house-. We have now taken 84 bags of mostly clothing and shoes to Goodwill. And we've loaded up Chuck's truck with yet another bed full to go to the dump. We can now walk down the hall! And the Master is almost cleared out, and Bedroom #2 is cleared, except for a monstrous pile of stuff from this and other rooms that is to be sold at Jack's yard sale.

Having cleared a bit of floor, I've actually been able to vacuum some of the carpeting! I wanted to take recycling today, but we didn't get there in time, so we have the van packed full of our recyclables.

But progress is happening on that house front, and it's visible, finally.