This past month has been devoted to the many details of purchasing and moving into a new house.
My initial offer was met with a reasonable counter offer from the seller and we quickly converged on an intermediate price. Then there was the inspection, the discovery of a bum garbage disposal, followed by some quick plumbing and electrical repair by the seller.
The closing went very smoothly on Feb 22nd. By late that afternoon I began taking the first carloads of books to the new townhouse.
Then I rented a truck on Feb 23rd so that my younger son and I could move the large furniture. Some things went to the new townhouse; most went to the local Goodwill. Giving in to my son's strong urging, I said goodbye to much of my ragtag divorce-era furniture: the old pine kitchen table with its top covered with plastic sheeting (to protect the table surface during children's art projects), the kitchen chairs with rollers that kept falling off, the old sofa from the church basement, a former neighbor's discarded coffee table, several yard-sale book shelves, a cheap dresser of forgotten origin, a dented computer table that a neighbor gave me, and various other ill-matched and shabby items. Out with the old!
The result of freeing myself of all of this domestic jetsam is that I will have an empty living room for many months. But no matter: my first apartment out of college was furnished with just a card table, folding chairs, and a bed. It's no problem to return to my roots.
