After a whirlwind of house selling, house packing, apartment hunting and stuff moving, we are now in Toronto, tucked into a much smaller apartment than the little brick house we left. I’ve moved before. A few times. I hate it every time. But this time it was just gggguuuuuhhhhh. Honestly, words can’t adequately describe the misery. But despite the many times I wanted to throw the yogurt, there were lessons and moments of awe and wonder in all of the crazy.

The most miraculous was the selling of the house itself.

We listed our house at the end of August. Within the first week, we had a very interested buyer. But then her father fell ill and we didn’t hear from her.

Or anyone else… for about a month and a half.

Panic, though we tried to tell ourselves that we would be fine living in a basement bachelor apartment in order to stretch the funds while also paying the mortgage on this house (ha!).

But finally, another interested buyer was going to visit! I had a good feeling. How could someone not love our house?!

Seriously, cutest house ever.

Well, these people didn’t. Too much work, the necessary renovations…

But on the same day, our real estate agent got an excited call from a woman who had tried to buy the house two years ago, but lost it to our condition-free offer. I had thought of this lady, because she actually stopped by one day to ask us if we were selling any time soon (which, 2 months after moving in, we weren’t). When she drove by and saw the house for sale, she called our agent and promised to look soon. She didn’t. A few days later she just made an offer!

Within a week it was done, and she wanted the house on November 1st which actually worked–we already had our store lease, so it was time for us to go!

And the miraculousness continues… Apparently, St. Joseph is a fantastic realtor. I hadn’t heard about the superstition until my mother-in-law suggested that I bury a little St. Joseph figurine in our front garden. Who am I to question, especially when desperate?! About 3 hours after sticking this little guy (upside-down, according to directions) into the dirt next to our tulip bulbs, we got the offer.

It’s amazing how sometimes everything does fall into place at the last possible moment. I also found that it’s amazing how… 

• fast two a two-week closing on a home sale can go.
• much stuff you have, when all along you’ve patted yourself on the back for “living simply”.
• giddy you get after days of filling boxes–to the point where pushing a piano out your front door at 9:30pm gives you a second wind.
• easily you can fill a 26′ U-haul.

Mike with our 26′ foot U-Haul, Beastie.

• emotional it is to vacuum an empty house.
• difficult it can be for service providers to get your new address right (and how useless you feel without internet).
• eager your friends and family are to help, even with something as crappy as moving.
• quickly you can be consumed with a new life, and leave behind the old.

So it was with a big sigh of bleary-eyed relief that I logged in tonight, checking off the “remember me” box below my password. In my head, I added a question mark. “Remember Me?” I ask WordPress…

I’m back now, ready to share the details of this next chapter (the first, maybe?) of my self-styled life. Right now it’s just an empty store and streaks of drywall compound on my jeans. Soon, I hope it too will be a good story!

Do you have any fantastic, awful and/or miraculous moving stories? (I can appreciate them now that I’m mostly past it…)

Exhausted after dismantling the dining room table