When Adam and I originally found out we were going to be moving to India we immediately started wondering about what we would do with our house. After talking about it in depth – we decided that what might be best was to get a house sitter to come and take care of the place while we were gone. Maybe work something out where we paid the rent on the house, if the house sitter would pay the utilities. Originally we hoped to have Adam’s cousin Geoff (who we absolutely adore) come and stay, but it ended up that he was actually going to be traveling abroad as well – for around half the time we would be gone, so it didn’t sound like it would work out too well.
Then I had my wonderful friend Sandy Spencer in our ward come and approach me about allowing her grand daughter who was married and pregnant to come and house sit for us since they were hoping for an internship that summer. And although we met and really liked each other and thought it might be a great thing for both parties, it ended up that they didn’t get the internship after all and therefore had no need to move up from their home in St. George.
Then one day as I was weeding out in our backyard my back door neighbors Jen and Larry were out as well and we got talking and the idea came up to have THEM move into our house for 3 months. They were actually living with Jen’s parents (my wonderful neighbors the Weekly’s) but were in the basement and eager to get more space, but in the end decided not to take it in case they might inadvertently offend Jens Mom and make her feel like they were ungrateful for her hospitality. So they opted out too.
It wasn’t a huge deal though because neither Adam or I were opposed to just letting it sit empty seeing as Adobe would be paying our rent in India, but still I kept thinking it would be nice to have someone there to take care of the place, make sure the plants didn’t all die, and to take care of the yard and lawn. I then remembered that my friend Jacey Carpenter in the ward (who has 4 kids at home) had expressed interest MONTHS beforehand when they heard we may be moving, and so I sought out Jacey on facebook to find out what their plans were. Jacey at the time was renting the home our friends the Lawsons had lived in, but the Lawsons were selling the place and unfortunately the new house they found wasn’t available until August 1. So guess what? They had a 3 month gap they needed to fill. And guess what else? It was almost the EXACT dates of our trip as well (give or take a few days). Wow! Talk about good timing!
Jacey had actually tentatively set up to rent from another friend in the ward, Bandi Olsen, and so I wanted to make sure she talked to Bandi first as I didn’t want to cause any problems, but from what Jacey told me the two of them were able to come to an understanding and Bandi had actually been somewhat relieved because she’d wanted to do some work on the house before renting again. So it worked out. Jacey came over, took a look at the house and by the next day we had a verbal agreement to rent out our place! Wow! It all was happening so fast but was such a tender mercy! It must have been meant to be and was a great thing for both parties as Jacey and her family wouldn’t have to move twice, and we would have someone to watch over and take care of the house. Win. Win!
Because Jacey and her family were technically “renting” from us though there were some extra things we needed to do to get the house ready which ended up requiring A LOT more of our time, than we anticipated. Things like cleaning out and boxing up all our closets, taking everything out of dresser drawers. Cleaning out our pantry, fridge, & freezers, and even removing all our own kitchen stuff from the area to make room for theirs. Oh, and cleaning out the garage, basement, back patio, and yard! Whew! I’m getting tired just remembering all the work we did! đ
Therefore, for the next 10 days or so, our house was constantly in a state of complete chaos and disarray seeing as we were not only trying to pack for a 3 month trip, but we were also trying to pack up and clean everything in our house too! A woman does have her pride!
Adam and I literally would work on the house every waking hour of everyday (except Sundays which we became SO grateful for as we really did NEED that day of rest). Ad would go to work, but most of the day be trying to get Visa stuff together, find us a house to rent in India, get a car set up, utilities, flights, etc. Then I would focus on the house during the day and give myself a few big projects every day. Then Adam would come home and help me with house stuff or we would both get online and work on “logistics” to make our move possible. It was crazy, crazy, crazy! And I don’t think I cooked dinner more than twice during those 10 days! ha! (that was actually a pretty awesome part though, as I love to eat out!)
So I couldn’t help but snap some pictures of the crazy one day as I walked though my house because it literally looked like a tornado had hit. I didn’t even get ALL the rooms either. This is just a tiny sample! But this was our lives for 10 days so I wanted to record it. Moving is just nuts!
Sure glad to have this part of our adventure over with! đ