Not What I Expected!

Today took me by surprise, but probably not for the reasons that might be expected.

There's no doubt that Steve and I are making are a decent sized shift in our life, and that at some point (or points) along the journey the slight steps caused by that shift will reverberate around us.

Already there's been the moment we made the definite decision to take up the adventure, the moment we put our house on the market, when we first agreed with a home-owner to take care of their house, for examples. There are also a few adjustments I'm expecting in the future: when we settle on the house, actually move out, and so.

But today was by far the biggest change for me, both up until now and, I expect, in the future as well! What's more, it didn't happen in the way I expected. So what happened?

Steve drove our eldest daughter to the airport, she's off to study abroad for a year. Then, an hour after they left, our second daughter said 'goodbye,' and went off to catch a bus and stay with a friend for a few days.

All of which left just me (and the dog) alone in the house – not a big deal in itself, you'd have to agree, which is perhaps what threw me. Only I can't remember the last time I was alone for more than the time it takes to pop out to buy a bottle of milk. Of course, the timing probably had something to do with it as well. Maybe it was the being alone in a big house, with the dog and laundry to amuse me, whilst my first-born left home to start an adventure that would bring her back a totally independent and capable adult, and my second-born went off to experiment with hers. 2016 is definitely a year of changes, opportunities and adventures for so many.

So, after a cup of tea and a handful of tissues, I began to reflect on the day and realised this is when it all starts. This is the first day for us too. Our new adventure starts here  – not because we have clients, buyers, or only a suitcase of belongings – but because this is when it all falls into to place. Steve and I have reached a stage, crossed a border – our children are officially adults and we are officially … ?

How Do You Think Other People See You?

It's not something I ask myself particularly often, but it is a question that's crossed my mind a few times recently. After all, if you're offering to look after other people's most trusted things it's important they see you as you truly are.

But then, of course, how you see yourself might not be how others see you…

A long-time friend of ours was chatting to a soon-to-be-holidaying friend about our house-sitting services, when her friend asked her the all-important question:

     'Are they honest and trustworthy?'

     'Yes,' she replied.

     'Are you sure?'

     'Of course, even my boys refer to their family as The Brady Brunch.'

I sniggered for days (if not weeks) after I'd been told about this conversation. Quite a compliment really, and quite possibly true in many ways I guess, but not what I'd expected. Not that I knew what I'd expected, but it did lead to an even stranger thought - Do other people see us that way too? I mean this family have known us as long as we'd been married and their boys for well over twenty, so they should know…

So I ask you again, just for the fun of it, how do you think other people see you?

5 Garage Sales On

Well, this is how our pergola looks after five garage sales. I think we can safely say that although a lot of our things have gone, we're still left with a whole load of bits that need a new home – and price is not the deciding factor. How can I be sure of that? Because, for our last garage sale, we priced everything at a gold coin for ten items and we're still left with this!

So what does that mean? Two things as far as I can see – maybe our junk really is junk, and secondly, we have to be more creative with our shifting.

When we started with the sales the plan was to make at least a small amount of money – which we did. But as the number of garage sales we held increased that focus clearly decreased. In fact, to be honest, after a couple of weeks if somebody had turned up with a truck and a few hundred dollars, Steve would have happily loaded everything onto their truck.

Now the garage sales are just becoming frustrating. They're taking up time, having everything stored outside the house is distracting and probably not increasing our chances of getting an offer on the house, plus it feels like it's keeping us attached to the house when we really need to feel our connection to this house and lifestyle lessening.

So our decision… hold on to the minimal items we need for living (no matter how many times we've been asked for desks, televisions and fridges) and try out other ways of moving our goodies. Options like Gumtree, Facebook's buy and sell pages, and Paying-it Forward are at the top of the list. Funnily enough one of the biggest concerns isn't making a stack load of money from our everyday bits (although it would be nice), but simply shifting them off our property. There is, after all, only so much a green wheelie bin can hold – and even now we have enough for at least another six weeks.

You're What?!

You never know quite what people are going to say, especially friends, when you tell them you're going to do something they might consider unexpected – or even crazy. Over the years our patient friends have given us all kinds of surprised, jovial and 'you've got to be kidding' responses to our life choices, but their reactions to the news that we're going to become full-time house-sitters has (on the whole) been relatively consistent.

There were the predictable:
     'You're selling everything?'
     'Where will you stay when you haven't got somewhere to home-sit?'
     'What will you do with the dog?'

There were also a few hopefully well-meaning comments I can't repeat in print.

But also, much to our surprise, there were a lot of, 'Oh, we have friends who've been doing it for years and loving it!'

Again, it's been a case of us never having heard of anybody house-sitting – ever – and yet now everybody we speak to knows somebody who's doing it! Which I have to say is remarkably reassuring, especially since they all seem to be having a great time – with many of them becoming selective about where they stay and having very few 'homeless' nights in between stays.

All of which is really just making us more excited and impatient to get things happening, there are after all only so many plans you can put in place when you really have no definites (like when we will have sold our house) to work with. Still, it's all giving us more time to sell more things and sort, and I'm sure I'd be complaining if that had become incredibly rushed. Besides, all this extra time will just give us even more time to hear about other happy house-sitters, won't it…

ALSO, just for the record:

• Yes we are selling just about everything, except for the heirlooms we're storing and the backpack and suitcase of 'must haves' we're each taking with us.
• We're hoping there will be no 'homeless days', but if there are we've been offered a friends' spare room (or caravan), may buy a tent and may even go on holidays.
• Our much-loved dog is actually our daughter's so he will be moving in with her.

A Friend Solves A Problem

In the last post I mentioned the four piles we're sorting all our household contents in to. The Rubbish Pile and Sell Pile we had clear plans for (bin and sell obviously), the other two piles we're less sure of – especially the Store Pile.

Whilst it's possible to drastically reduce the things you own, you don't get to our age without gathering at least a few things that count as heirlooms, or hold huge amounts of sentimental value. In many respects, it would be easier to just stand up and walk away from a house, than sort everything. I remember somebody saying that, it's just a case of deciding what you want to take with you, but in truth I think it's actually deciding what you can't leave behind.

Many of the things we have I absolutely love, but in honesty it's unlikely we'll need them when we next buy a house. After all, this is a large family house we're packing up, it's served us well, and we've raised a wonderful family here, but chances are the next place we buy or rent will just be for the two of us. It won't quite be a retirement villa (unless we house-sit for the next twenty or more years), but it will be well on the way to it.

Even so, we're going to need more than a single cupboard to store our belongings in. Not a cheap thing when you look at commercial storage for an indefinite time.

Many people when they choose to house-sit still have local family they can fall back on, family who will let them put a shed on their block to store their things in, and guarantee them use of a spare room or sofa if they find themselves without a house to sit or bed to sleep on. Steve and I, though, don't have this option. As far as the back-up bed is concerned, we're not overly bothered – a tent and sleeping-bag work fine – but the storage issue is a concern and something I'm trusting will sort itself out.

UPDATE: Don't you love fate, just as I'm putting together this blog, a friend called over for lunch and offered us not only her spare bed when/if we need it, but also some space in the sea-container she uses for storage on her rural block. What's more she even arrived with a bunch of flowers for me! With some people the line between friend and family blurs. It looks like the PROBLEM'S
 SOLVED!

The Sorting

Well, it's taken a good few years, but we've finally done it, we finally found the back of the shed. Yes, believe it or not we have actually waded through all the standard shed contents, plus a whole stack of off-cuts, worn-outs, keep-for-laters, and even a few just-in-cases. Not that it any of it went very far, most of it is now under the pergola.

The good news is though that it is now in specific piles, all of which makes the sorting easier to deal with (and the disorganisation easier to live with). Although to the untrained eye it might look like a total mess, there are actually four piles. We have a Rubbish Pile, a Sell Pile, a Store Pile and the Must-Keep-And-Take-With-Us Pile.

The next step, along with so much more sorting, is this week to order a skip to take away all the rubbish. Hopefully, we'll gauge the right size one - otherwise, we'll be running up and down the street early each Tuesday for the next month helping our neighbours fill their bins.

As to the selling pile, we had planned on having a Garage Sale this coming Sunday until we saw the weather forecast was for 38 degrees! Suddenly it didn't seem like a good idea anymore (can't think why) and we're now planning one for Sunday week.

There's no two way about it, having all this junk outside our kitchen window is a little distracting, but having somewhere to put things as soon as they're sorted is definitely making clearing easier – and more appealing. After all, there's nothing appealing about clearing out a cupboard, desk, or drawer if you know that once it's done you're just going to be left with a stack of oddments in the middle of the carpet. 

So there you have it, sorting is one heck of a job – challenging, exhausting and distracting – but it certainly makes it feel like things are happening.

How It All Began

Two months ago if somebody had suggested Steve and I become full-time house-sitters… we'll I don't think I'd have laughed in their faces (that's rude after all), but I certainly wouldn't have considered it a serious option. 

Truth is, Steve and I were ready for a change, even if we weren't particularly sure what the change would be. We'd never been particularly good at living the traditional nine-to-five life, although we'd given it a good go for the last twenty-plus years for the sake of our two daughters, but they were off learning to be independent and we, much to our surprise, found ourselves free to explore the world and rediscover ourselves.

But where do you start? After so many years of convention and limitation how do you know which way to look?

The only thing we did know was that our new life could officially start in April when it would just be the two of us rattling around in our well-loved family home. So as is a norm for me, I simply trusted my instinct and that 'the path' would appear AND, equally as important, that I would notice it.

Thankfully, true to form, it did. But it was nowhere near to what I expected.
In the two weeks after our realisation it seemed as if I every time I chatted to somebody about our half-baked plans, they raised the topic of house-sitting. It was truly amazing, conversations went from everything bar house-sitting to everything to do with house-sitting – people knew house-sitters, hired house-sitters, quoted articles on house-sitting, shared stories on house-sitting, the list went on. The discussions on the topic were endless, and even though I didn't twig for the first week that this might be 'the path', by the second week I was in no doubt. There was some conspiracy going on. So I mentioned it to Steve, who did some research… and here we are starting one of the biggest, craziest, and thrilling adventures of our lives. Starting off by selling just about every single thing we own.

So please come join us, explore the world with us and be part of our blog.