Moving Day

This past Saturday was our official moving day.  We borrowed Jason & Duana's Element and Shannon's truck and proceeded to pack the remnants of our Seattle life up and out of our Columbia City home. 

Shannon was having a yard sale in a neighborhood with better traffic exposure than ours, so we dropped four car loads of stuff off at her place where her and her friends sold it for us while we continued the move to Jason & Duana's place on Queen Anne. 

We will never be able to repay Shannon for her kindness over this past weekend.  Her time and effort and willingness to help was so very much appreciated.  It was Shannon that inspired us to look at art schools in Scotland for Mike and it is Shannon that keeps us motivated and inspired towards this goal.  She is amazing and we are lucky to know her.

We are also immensely grateful to Jason & Duana for allowing us to invade their space over the next few weeks. They worked hard to give us a place of our own in their home and they have already made us feel welcome and comfortable. We are truly lucky to have friends like them.

Besides making time for dinner with Jason & Duana to celebrate our first night with them, our Saturday was almost entirely spent moving.  We called it a night at around midnight but, although we were seriously wiped out from all the heavy lifting and emotionally draining act of losing everything we've accumulated over the last 13 years, we did take a moment to observe our new surroundings and to celebrate our situation.  We are, after all, on our way to Scotland. 

Sunday morning we were up and out by 7:30AM to finish our move.  We had two car loads for the dump and three car loads for Goodwill before we finished up around noon.  We were exhausted, energized, sad, happy, and thoroughly grateful to our amazing friends for everything they did to help us throughout this process.

All things considered, this process has unfolded amazingly well.  For example, if we didn't rent our house early we would've waited until the last minute to do what we just did, resulting in us living our normal life rather than experiencing this alternate reality which is reminding us of what amazing friends we've made over these past 11 years in Seattle.  Now, because we had to move early, instead of just coasting to our move in August and inevitably forgetting these last few weeks leading up to that move, we're creating memories which we will cherish for a very long time.

Purge of 2010

The act of purging one's worldly belongings is hard.  We didn't think we were terribly attached to any of our things.  We also didn't think we owned very much.  But, over these past couple of months, we have found both those notions to be false.

We have given away, sold, or discarded most of our possessions, including our first major purchases, Desi's wedding dress and accessories, Mike's art, pictures, and a whole lot of junk.  Although most of these items will never be thought of again, the actual act of purging them is what makes this process so difficult.  And, though most of these items will be forgotten, there will no doubt be a time in the future where something pops into our head and we ask ourselves "didn't we used to own..." or "I wonder what happened to..." and that's when we'll remember the Purge of 2010.

Tickets Purchased

We bought our one-way tickets to Edinburgh this past Thursday night.  We fly on August 11th on Air France/Delta to Paris and then on to Edinburgh.  From there we'll grab a train north to Dundee.  We should arrive in the early afternoon of August 12th, plenty of time to grab our keys from the university housing office and move right in to our student housing flat.

We still need to both apply and receive our visas as well as confirm our student housing.  But, student financing has been finalized and both our houses have been rented and now we have our tickets.  In less than two months we'll officially be expats and living in Scotland.  The Two Year Plan realized.

Columbia City, You Were Good To Us

On June 26th, Mike and I begin our move to Scotland with a short detour to the west side of Queen Anne.  We have to be out of our cute little 1931 Columbia City bungalow by June 28th, when our new tenants will be moving in.  Expecting a 4-12 week vacancy, we were planning on remaining in our house until our August move to Scotland.  But, because our house rented in, what we believe to be, record time (less than two weeks), we've had to make alternative arrangements.

Our closest Seattle friends are allowing us to squat in their mother-in-law apartment on Queen Anne for six weeks.  This arrangement will allow us to spend more time with them than ever before which, we hope, will provide for fond memories of our last weeks in Seattle.  Additionally, in our 11 years in Seattle we have never lived on Queen Anne.  So, not only will this experience provide us with more time with friends but it will also allow us an opportunity to explore Seattle further before leaving it.

We don't foresee ever moving back to our Columbia City bungalow, or to Seattle for that matter.  And, realistically, we may never see our first home again.  It has been good to us though, especially these last few years, and we count ourselves lucky that we bought it when we did.  Even the bad times - no heat, no hot water, flooded basement, broken sewage pipes - are turning into good memories and we will, no doubt, look back on these years quite fondly.

Burgers, Bingo, and Brews

Not sure what possessed us, but last night we took advantage of a community benefit for the local senior center: "Burgers, Bingo & Brews."  This is something that is completely out of character for us, especially due to Desi's fear of the elderly, but there was no fighting her genetic addiction to bingo.  Plus, for only $52 (for both of us) we received entertainment (in the form of playing bingo and also watching people play bingo), food, and beer.  

Many quotable lines from the night, including "You only need to fill one box on your special" and "it's not a REAL bingo," the latter yelled by one of the senior players regarding the late call of "Bingo!" from one of the newbies.  Apparently, you have to call "bingo" before the next number is called.  Who knew?

Honestly, this was a great night!  And, we especially enjoyed getting to share it with our good friend T-Bird, who we were all sure was going to win the final blackout.  Unfortunately, none of us got to scream out the magic word but that has not prevented the bingo bug from biting us.  Sadly, the next round isn't until late August, and we hope to be nestling into our Dundee digs by that time.  Anyone know if bingo is big in Scotland?