Arriving home late Tuesday last week found things on our piece of the mountain (Centerville, Idaho) in great shape both on the homestead and, as we found with further inspection later in the week, also at our commercial locations in Idaho City. As mentioned in an earlier blog, we are amateurs at all things mountain living. A big thanks goes to those who we hired to assist us in our naivety. Stories of “worst winter conditions in twenty years” definitely had concerns laying in the back of my brain intermittently during our travels. Relief is what I felt, as only tidbits here and there in need of attention was what we found. After walking all areas, I am pretty proud of covering the winterization basics. We certainly feel blessed especially considering the age of our commercial properties, not to mention some of the less than conventional methods with which they were pieced together. When you have a chance it would be awesome if you would check out and give a “like” to my business Facebook pages, @BoCo Sluice Box (the shop I run) as well as @BoCo Collectibles which has been the hubster’s hangout the last couple years. Several new projects as well as his disdain for “sitting retail” may produce a bit different image at 204, as we refer to it, in 2017, time will tell, the verdict is still out. You should plan a trip to come visit this summer too. 😉 #drivetheseUnitedStates
By Friday, I had us unwinterized, unpacked, laundry completed, luggage stored (except enough for short summer getaways), home freshened up, phones switched back to Verizon and iPhones and refrigerator and cupboards restocked. I must confess that I am pleased with the “segment” style packing I did for the snowbird travels. Packing separately for 1) front end (Duck Creek, Vegas, SoCal), 2) overseas to Thailand (packing easy to carry bags inside big roller bags to hold new purchases worked awesome), 3) backend SoCal, Phoenix with late addition of Denver and 4) Cancun closeout. Marking them with duct tape with location names for ease of pulling them out of the truck as needed, worked super. The only “glitch” was the addition of the two sets of days added for Denver but I just did laundry from the other legs as needed one day while the oil was getting changed in the truck to make that come together. Monetizing this blog someday may lead me to write e-books on winterizing and packing. and all kinds of wothwhile info life experience provides. 🙂
Saturday we met with our handy people and aligned with them on the goals to prepare our Centerville home to go on the market. Kind of shocking since the only piece not checked off the full remodel list was the kitchen remodel/great room conversion. We surmised a few things during this last year and created goals via those opinions while traveling. We love our home, we love our piece of the mountain and couldn’t be happier about the neighborhood but two facts outweigh all that. First, we are too far from “the valley”, things to do, being out and about socially, or simply getting groceries or seeing a movie (be it on the big screen or from Redbox) especially on a whim. Second, we have waaaaay more living space than we need especially in light of how often we are gone. Now, I know many may think us a tad bit crazy, impulsive, unconventional etc etc but, well, maybe we are 😉 So what! Gonna live life. To the fullest. Try to satisfy all our idiosyncrasies. Why not? Staining the garage, refreshing the deck, some Spring property maintenance, a moderate kitchen update and a for sale sign are on the way.
The beginning of this week found us in some meetings, at baseball for one grandboy (we went to the littlest’s 1st tball game on grocery day), gathering and ordering project supplies, investigating new pieces of dirt on the Highway 21 side of Idaho City (we think we may want to build 😉 and oh ya, we worked out a move out date for our Caldwell renter (decided we want to be all the way done with residential rentals) and made arrangements to have the realtor go size it up. As I make these notations, we are traveling the familiar road to Reno. Business for my man and, as I hope to do most of this season, I’m not himming and hawing and missing time to wander because “I should do”….after all part of the time gone is the weekend and we have friends we haven’t seen since fall! Haha, any excuse will do for me. #travelwithme #livelifewithme
(I have some pics to post with this tale but they are on my droid. I’ll share them when I’m home again.)
