park larks and pack stacks

We've had nearly nonstop rain for the past two weeks, and another week of rain is forecast.  It's been great for flowers...

...pretty spiderwebs...

...and especially fungus.  I believe this is called Witch's Butter, but I think it looks like an image of magnified mold!

We've got the usual slime molds...

...and dog vomit fungus.

The rain is relaxing, especially after the hectic spring we've had.  Our lives have had a little bit of this lately...

(waiting out a showing with the pets in the park)

...because of this!

Yes, we've put our house up for sale and are leaving South Carolina.  We have been talking about what's important to us - a network of good friends, proximity to great hiking and kayaking, four seasons, a town that's progressive and inclusive, somewhere with a lot going on and many ways to get involved.  South Carolina doesn't really check any of those boxes for us, but Bloomington, Indiana hits them all.  Todd lived there for a decade while attending Indiana University and we loved it.  Now that we're in our 40s and looking to improve our quality of life for the long term, settling there just makes sense. 

So back in March, we started packing up the house.

We filled two storage units...

...and are living in a fairly empty house now!  The empty house isn't so bad, but we've had several "Murphy's Law" events.  First, the improperly-installed back living room windows were bowing out more and more, so we had to have the entire wall of windows removed and rebuilt.

Next, an interior pane of glass in one of the guest bedroom doors experienced "spontaneous breakage" from, most likely, improper installation...fifteen years ago.  It's the door on the far left...

...which, close up, looks like this.

Eight glass-repair companies later, we've discovered that since these four doors were installed as a single unit, it may be impossible to separate them.  Meaning that this entire wall would have to be removed, trashed, and replaced with a new wall unit of doors.  It's a multi-thousand dollar repair and we're still hoping to find a contractor that can replace just one section of door. 

Besides these (and many, many other) professional repair jobs, we've also rolled up our sleeves and:  scrubbed and painted the trim and bookshelves throughout the entire upstairs, scrubbed and spot-painted walls, repainted interior and exterior kitchen cabinets, refinished the gas fireplace, did wall and floor repair in the basement, and a whole host of other jobs that just blur together for me now.  March, April, and May have been pack and clean, pack and clean, pack and clean.  The house was listed a little over 2 weeks ago...we've had some great showings...and just waiting for an offer. 

The cats miss the boxes...

...but they'll have an opportunity to frolic in them again once we sell the house and pack up our remaining things! 

Have a great week!