Moving Day

All over the world, people are starting to ring in the New Year. As the globe turns, from time zone to time zone, the last day of 2012 is becoming the first day of 2013.

But at our house, New Year’s Eve will always be ‘Moving Day Anniversary.’ On this day 10 years ago, we moved into our current residence.

For the record, I wouldn’t recommend moving on New Year’s Eve. On the other hand, circumstances dictated the date.

To set the scene for that gloomy, rainy December 31, I have to take you back a few months.

During the summer of 2002, Lisa and I began one of those Sunday afternoon conversations that started off like, “Know what I’ve been thinking?” In this case, we had both been thinking the same thing. For different reasons, we had both considered that our former residence - the one I told you about last winter - wasn’t going to be the one where we stayed for the long haul.

Our former home was on the fringe of Farragut and it was fairly remote. But we foresaw a scenarion which the surrounding woods and fields would be developed (they were). Also, we feared that area was likely to be re-zoned (it was).

We both agreed we wanted to move into a neighborhood within the Town limits and securely in the Farragut schools zone. So, as soon as we had made that decision, we were meeting with a real estate agent and prepping ’The House in Between’ to be listed.

We:

• Cleaned
• De-cluttered
• Landscaped

And by late October, we were ready to list the Twin Hill Lane house for sale. We weren’t expecting things to move very quickly. In fact, during the first week of November, there weren’t many nibbles at all.

Then, on Sunday November 10, 2002, the four of us headed to Nashville to see the Titans take on the Houston Texans on an unusually warm early November Sunday. We didn’t expect any surprises.

For starters, the favored Titans won that day by the score of 17-10.  That was the end of conventional wisdom for the day.

Mother Nature had the first surprise for us all. That Sunday was the day that would be known for the killer tornado outbreak on the Cumberland Plateau. You might recall, that on that day tornadoes touched down in both Cumberland County and Morgan County. In fact, as we left the parking lot in Nashville to begin our commute home, we turned on the radio to hear the Titans post-game show and began hearing the news.

Instead of totals and highlights of the football game, we heard weather reports as the storm system rapidly approached the Nashville area. In fact, as we headed east, it seemed like we were trying to outrace the storm. Each time we entered a new county, it seemed, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for that particular county!

As we headed home and dodged the severe weather, one other surprising thing happened. The cell phone rang. It was our real estate agent calling to say that a family who had looked at the house over the weekend had placed an offer on our home.

In other words, the unsettled weather pattern that night was a metaphor for us for the final six weeks of 2002.

We hadn’t looked at any homes. Honestly, we didn’t think we would need to do so. Quite frankly, we didn’t want to lock in on some dream house while our’s languished in a slow real estate market. That wasn’t to be the case, however. The first folks who seriously looked at our former home made a credible offer that we accepted. Now, we needed to kick our home search into high gear.

Meanwhile, there were negotiations to finalize with the buyers of our Twin Hill home and a punch list of home repairs to complete.

Somewhere along the way, the owners of our would-be new home listed it on the market. We looked at it and fell in love with it. We made an offer and that offer was accepted. We gave them a punch list of home repairs to complete and they agreed.

And the moving process began in earnest.

As you can imagine the 2002 holiday season was unique. We didn’t unpack many decorations. Instead, we put them in storage. We sent very few Christmas cards. We bought a cut tree that year - our one and only - and after Christmas we put it in the woods behind our Twin Hill home to serve as wildlife habitat.

Instead of celebrating the season, all our spare time that December was spent in getting ready for the move as we boxed up all our possessions in preparation for Moving Day.

When Christmas came and went, it was time for moving day. On the 30th, the guys from “Two Men and a Truck” showed up and loaded up.

We spent a hectic last day at Twin Hill. Once their truck was full, we ferried some items to my folks’ house for overnight storage.

Then, on the 31st, we had two closings and we began moving into our new home…in a driving rain. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t recommend moving on New Year’s Eve.

The end result, of course, was very good. We love our street, our neighborhood and, especially, we love this home. We plan to stay here for a while.

And today, we celebrate 10 years in this special place. So, while most folks raise a glass of champagne tonight and shout, “Happy New Year,” you’ll understand why our family also says “Happy Anniversary.”

JG

Originally posted 12/31/2012