It's Moving Week!

and Rusty the Farm Dog has no idea

I walked to the post office yesterday morning to drop off a change-of-address form. Every time I turn in a new address to the post office I remember when David and I returned from a weekend of house hunting in Anchorage and told our 6-year-old that we would be moving to P Street. It had not occurred to me how funny this was until I saw him break into giggles at the news. Whatever were his parents thinking???

September 7, 2012. On our first morning in Anchorage, the 6-year-old and I walk west on 9th Street back toward our new home on P Street after eating at Snow City Cafe which instantly became his breakfast favorite, to which all else is compared even still.

David and I mark 27 years of marriage tomorrow. We have lived at many different addresses during our years together and an awful lot of them have been named with numbers and letters. In keeping, we are leaving A Street and moving to 5th Street this weekend.

I’ve always loved this picture from our rehearsal. That’s our wedding program on the ground beside me. We were in charge of that part. Never mind the details of formalities that were probably being sorted out all around us……I am just here telling a story and will someday look back with profound gratitude for this particular partner in my story-telling, story-making, story-surviving through all these years.

Or at least, we are planning to move this weekend. We signed stacks and stacks of official paper on Monday to make it so, but we have been working on this unpredictable, challenging sell/buy project since last September. There have been deeply discouraging moments along the way and it has generally felt like a grueling trail filled with many twists and turns. We look forward to the official end of the process!!! which was supposed to be today, but our realtor called last night just before 5p to say, it’s all okay! But a form for our buyer’s buyer had only just been tracked down and even though the paperwork was finally all in order at last, we did get dropped from the closing schedule that was set for today. Tomorrow is a holiday, so now we are scheduled to close first thing Friday morning.

Thankfully this revision is relatively minor and still allows our moving plans to remain intact and — never mind that it hasn’t really rained for weeks? and that it is also supposed to be nice and sunny again on Monday — we have our truck and our team set to face into the cold, rainy weekend forecast as soon as we get the keys on Friday and together we will paddle to the other side.

It is my habit to use my Dwell app while I walk the dog in the morning and this morning I listened to a devotional based on Psalm 31:8 —

You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.

As I listened, I thought about our next home and the ways it feels like a spacious place is being set for us and I have so much hope and gratitude for the possibilities that await us there. Also - it is in a neighborhood where the train track looks like this:

After the move I will probably rename Off the Rails to Window Thinking, which matches my longstanding blog name and will be able to serve whatever happens next for me in this Substack writing space.

As for Rusty the Farm Dog…..We took him to explore his new neighborhood a few weeks ago. I am sorry he has to leave his farm, but…..adventures and new friends await!

Before we go though — A few pics from the farm these last couple weeks:

In spite of his seemingly grumpy face in that picture with the boxes, he really has no idea what it means. Boxes and house uproar all around, it will be his first move since he joined our family and he is so far unaware and unconcerned.

That’s it for now…..I’ll be writing from Newberg next time! (I hope. 😬)