All My Bags Are Packed

The big day is tomorrow. I'll be moving into my own place. I'll have my own kitchen for the first time in years. I can make popcorn in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone. I will have control over the HVAC unit. No one turning up the heat to tropical levels while I'm trying to sleep. My bathroom is small, but it's mine, all to myself.  No more waking up to holding it while someone else is taking a leisurely shower. I can take that leisurely shower whenever I choose. The cabinets, and closets and pantry are mine as well. I will have room to spread my things out. I can play the music that I want to hear without considering anyone else's tastes. 

I'm giving myself a week to get my things sorted. It will probably take a month. But I envision myself cooking in a kitchen where the utensils are in a drawer by the stove and the cups and glasses are in a cabinet by the sink. I want the chaos of packing gone as soon as I can make it happen. And Christmas is coming. I don't want to be living out of cardboard boxes for the holiday. 

Tomorrow night I will sleep in a bed that I bought for myself, on sheets that I chose. All of the things that I packed eight months ago, not knowing it would be so long before I enjoyed them again, will be around me.

I ordered the groceries on Monday of last week. I hope that they will arrive as planned. It's almost $400 of groceries. I gasped when I saw the total. But there are very few splurges with them. And the splurges tend to be things like apples and oranges, and natural katsup and peanut butter rather than the kind that uses HFCS.

My internet will be one of the no contract, pay by the month set-ups. I hope it will be okay. 

I hope this all will be okay. I have such high hopes for it. I really don't want to be disappointed.

Thankful

 The bird is there, in the freezer keeping the dinner rolls and frozen corn company. The cranberries and pineapple are in the fridge with the celery. The onion and potatoes are waiting in the bin on the counter. And the green beans and soups are in the pantry. Everything to bake the pies is here, ready to go. 

I told Aunt Joan not to worry about it. I would bring the food and prepare it. Her daughters were going to help me. Her son was going to bring the paper plates and the drinks. I learned to cook the Thanksgiving feast in that kitchen, watching my mother, grandmother and aunts. I was looking forward to doing it again. My cousin says they don't feel up to celebrating this year. I can understand that. They say maybe we can all get together next year. But the house will be sold by then. Or at least, for my cousin's sake I would hope so. For the very first time since the house was built in 1941 another family will live there. They will cook in that kitchen and never know that is where the core of my memories was built. It won't be the same.

My son will be working on Thanksgiving and then spending the evening with his fiancé and her family. I was invited, but he works in Georgia and they live there. It would be inconvenient to come back here after work to get me. I could drive there by myself, but I don't really want to. Jack will spend the day with his mother and her family so there is nothing really compelling me to do it.

I think I'm going to box the food up and take it to a food pantry, see if they know of someone needing a volunteer to serve potatoes and gravy at a community meal. If not, I will bake myself a pot pie and watch the parade and Christmas movies on TV. I like pot pies, and I make a really good one. Besides, I have a lot to pack up for my move the following Monday. 

I knew this was going to be a hard Thanksgiving. But I have a lot to look forward too. I'm not going to throw a pity party. Even if I'm doing it alone, I'll be doing things that I enjoy. And I'm almost done with the afghan that I've been knitting. Maybe I can finish it. It would be nice to have it complete for my new home.

Good things will happen in December. I just have to get through the rest of this month.

Dilemma

So, I have a dilemma. We are boycotting the Christmas rush this year. It's a really important event. No Kings rallies are great and well attended. But they don't do any real harm. Being loud and in your face is fine but if the other side has no shame and doesn't care, what good's it going to do ya? So the next big protest hits the only thing they care about and that is their pocketbooks. We are closing down the economy on the biggest money-making week of the year. No last-minute Thanksgiving. No Black Friday weekend. No Cyber Monday. I'm not sure why they are detonating Giving Tuesday, but it's on the list. We will not be spending money that week. 

It's not like I really have a ton of money to spend. So far I've spent around 3K getting into the apartment, considering the furnishings and goods I need to live alone, the fees and deposits etc. I still have another grand that I will need to pay on the first in rent and deposits. And then I will need to stock the larder. And that is my dilemma. I will need to buy groceries, and quite a lot of them even for just the basics.

The rules call for spending at local businesses. But the only grocery stores in the area are big box, Publix, Target, Aldi, Walmart, Kroger etc. If there is a mom and pop in the area, I don't know about it. And the amount that I need to purchase is staggering. Just basics to get set-up is coming out to be in the $300 range. How do I do this. My options feel like cheating. I can place an order on the 24th to be delivered on the first. But I've never had that much of a spread in the time between placing the order and having it delivered. And it really isn't the impact that the organizers are going for. I can purchase a few basics and frozen pizzas to get me through the couple of days. But that order is going to need to be placed. And breaking it up is adding a complication that I don't need. 

I'm open to suggestions. What would you do?

Homeward Bound

Once again, it's been a while. And a lot has happened since we last spoke. Thank all of you who reached out to your higher powers on my behalf. I am happy to say that I am officially no longer homeless. While the home I have found looks nothing like the picture to the left, it may well have been built in the same era. I will be moving into my own apartment on December 1. And I am almost shocked at how easy the process was in relation to my fear of it. The last time I lived in a commercial residential property was in 1987. Since then, I have lived in private lease situations with the exception of about a decade where I owned my own home. So, I was expecting some push back, if not hairy side eyes at my lease application. It was accepted within an hour of my submitting it.

The apartment is two bedrooms, which is more than I really need. And larger than the house that I shared in Washington and larger than the apartment that I am in right now. It really is much more space than I need. But I will try to adjust, wink-wink.  It is across the street from the post office and senior citizen center, And it is only a few blocks away from the university and all the surrounding shopping and community/campus life. From what I am told, my neighbors will be mostly college students. I don't expect it will be quiet.

There are things that I have missed about having my own place. I look forward to having a kitchen and bathroom all to myself. I will be able to pop popcorn at 3am if I so please. I won't go into the gruesome details of why I am excited to have a bathroom to myself. I'm sure you can imagine why. Let's suffice it to say that for the first time since I left Georgia, I will have a towel bar in the bathroom. That shouldn't be as exciting as it is. 

I left almost all of my belongings in Georgia when I left. And when we left Washington, again household items were left behind. It is far easier, and cheaper to replace items than to move them three thousand miles across the country. I have been busy the over the last six weeks gathering all the things that I will need to function in my own home. I haven't gotten the best of anything by a far shot. Mostly, it has been what is affordable, functional and light enough that I can dismantle it and move it myself should I ever desire to do so again. But I am getting excited about making a home out of the things I have bought. My new dishes are beautiful, and I have spent a good deal of the last few weeks daydreaming about serving myself a meal on them. This isn't the exact set I purchased. But it's pretty close and mine are all packed away waiting for the move.

I've signed the lease, have the utilities set up, and now I'm just waiting for the first of the month. Waiting is always the hard part for me. Patience isn't my strong point. 

In sadder news, my Aunt Joan died. She and my mother were exceptionally close. And she was the mother of my favorite cousin, a second mother to me. It hit me very hard. My cousins are having a very hard time with it too. Lots of tears have been shed over the last couple of weeks. 

She died in the early morning hours of November 1st. Almost as if she had been waiting for the veil between worlds to thin out so she could cross quickly over. She was the last of that generation for that family. And that fact alone struck us very hard. We are the elders now, I guess. 

I had hoped to visit her for Thanksgiving this year. I offered to cook the feast for her. I already have the turkey in the freezer. I will have to make other plans now. With the upcoming move it's probably better, but Thanksgiving will be a heavy day. But I will have the move to keep me busy and that is good.