General Update, Happy Thanksgiving

Oh my, where to begin. It’s been quite the month at least mentally.

The divorce is finally almost wrapped up. I’ll be free on 11/29 and plan to have a party in the Triune! I’m sure there’ll be Zoom and wine and lots of laughs. I went through a few weeks of thinking through my options about what to do with the house, and decided this is NOT the time to move. It’s too scary out there, and finding a rental that would allow 2 dogs and 2 ferrets without costing me $1000 non refundable deposit was impossible. Even finding anything available to rent was difficult, and the list of things I’d have to do to get the house ready to list ASAP was overwhelming.

I had to stop and ask myself a very important question. A question that I’ve not been able to answer in a very very VERY long time.

What do I want to do?

In a perfect world, what’s the best option for me and the kids? What’s the best way for the next few months to unfold?

I know it sounds dumb, but since I was 18 years old, it was never what I wanted to do. It was what “we” wanted to do – and I’m a very adaptive, and yes, passive, person for the most part. I don’t like to rock the boat. I don’t like anyone to be mad at me.

Once I stepped back and really asked myself what would be the perfect outcome… I realized that scrambling to move and list the house was not something I was prepared or wanted to do. I’d have to table my writing projects YET AGAIN. I’d have to use my holiday vacation for stressful packing, moving, and cleaning. Any savings would be sucked up by movers and deposits. It’s just not the right time.

The perfect time will be in the spring. That gives me several months to clean, declutter, minimize, pack non-necessities. That allows time for my youngest to decide where she wants to go for college. I can still finish my book as I planned – as soon as possible! – rather than stressing out about nothing available to rent.

Even more importantly, we can hunker down and wait out the winter surge of COVID. The housing market in my area is really good right now, which was why everyone was telling me to sell, but it’s not worth having strangers in my house fixing or loading things right now, putting us at risk. We cancelled Thanksgiving plans. No big family dinner. My dad stayed home. Molly stayed home. We’re not going to my mom’s. Why on earth would I sacrifice family time – but then risk us all with movers in and out of my home? It just didn’t make sense. If the housing market crashes before I can sell, so be it. At least I’ll have a roof over our heads.

So I’m a little off my schedule with Sunfires2 thanks to all the mental gymnastics I’ve done the past two weeks, but not completely off the rails. I have about 1/4 of the book to write. Maybe 1/3 if the last few scenes get really long. I may not finish this month as I hoped – but it’s definitely SOON.

Today was a cooking day, since my youngest is working at the hospital all day tomorrow. We didn’t do the turkey today because it’s still frozen (I ordered a breast – but got a full 27 lb bird!), but I made some of our usual dishes to eat over the next few days. I’ll hope to roast the turkey tomorrow for carcass soup and homemade noodles. I’ve got a huge stack of dishes to do yet, but I’m hoping to get back to a decent writing schedule and use the next few days to see how far I can get.

If you’re in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! I’m so grateful for all of you.

Long live House Isador!