As of noon today, we are homeless.  Kinda STRESSFUL.  However, our outlook is shifting towards ‘what’s next’ instead of ‘what’s in front of our face.’ A welcome change, I might add, from the angst of moving out of our family’s home!  [“Those are MY flowers in that yard! That’s OUR kitchen.  That was ROBERT’S place to sit…Those were BRENDAN’S stairs to hop down…”] I didn’t expect such strong emotions for all of this. It’s making my face break out!

‘Stuff’ is fleeting. Hear me.  Just sticks and stones.  It’s wonderful, and we’re thankful and grateful for the things we have….but at the end of the day, really, it’s still just STUFF.  It can’t go with you when it’s time for the big farewell in the sky.  The memories and the love, however, come along with us for the ride! 

Next stop, finding an apartment in Clermont-Ferrand. We’ve been sending emails at 3.00 am, literally, so that the person in France will receive it the first thing in their business day!  Typical crisis du jour things. We may even end up renting an apartment sight unseen (!!!), due to the possibility of a sweet opportunity that seems to have fallen in our lap through another Michelin ex-pat family.

Tanner had an oral & written exam via Skype with a professeur from the Université Clermont Auvergne.  I guarantee that mon mari is not the first American to say bonjour with a slightly Southernized accent.  🙂  I usually don’t believe in giving “A’s for Effort,” but considering the difficulty in learning and pronouncing Le Français, I’d award him a trophy!  (Most Improved, perhaps.  🙂 )

The Université has 37,000 students. Think University of Georgia!  An entire city unto itself.  We’ll be taking French lessons there twice a week once settled, and I think it will be very fun to be in class on campus.

—I just this hour found out that our lifetime family friend, Johnnie Frese, just passed away.  She and her husband hosted our wedding reception 34 years ago in their beautiful, fairy-tale backyard garden.  A fun, witty, smart professional woman who loved my mom and Dad and her two miniature horses, Gypsie and Molly.  God bless you, Johnnie, and your husband, Erwin “Red” Frese.

Heading to Tulsa tomorrow with Tanner (yippee!), courtesy of Brendan and Delta stand-by perks….thank you, thank you, thank you!  Can’t wait to see Mom, Larry, Myrna, Cheryl, family and friends.

Happy birthday to our beautiful daughter (IL), Leslie!!!!  Wishing you bouquets of happiness every day of the year! Je t’aime!One more thing – shoutout to Soraya, Brendan’s love, who slammed down a nursing school exam recently…..AWESOME JOB, GIRL! 

More from the plane tomorrow….those Espeys are all over the place…(Brendan-San Francisco, Robert-Las Vegas, Tanner et moi-Tulsa, Leslie-Georgia…)

Passe une bonne soirée!

“The Lord is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you.  He will not fail you or forsake you.  Do not fear or be dismayed.”  Deuteronomy 31:8

LAST WEEK.

TODAY. 

Soon, I promise, we’ll get back to talking about GOING to France instead of LEAVING Greenville.  But not today!

Apartment living – weird.  Empty house at 100 Lytle Street – completely weird. Age 57+, “homeless,” and sharing a car.  Strange, strange, strange!  We’ve just liquidated our life.

But, ah, such is the journey! Not everyone will think of our current chapter as achievement, but it is undoubtedly an adventure, and not for the faint of heart! Continue reading “WHOMP. #CRASHANDBURN”

Before. 

After. *

Before. 

After. 

Continue reading “Moving Days”

Major life events:

• Remodel a kitchen, because you are going to live in that house forever
• Leave a job, say farewells, pack up your office.
• Get a new job with people who all speak English as a Second Language
• Stop traveling to Dothan and Tuscaloosa and start going to China and Thailand
• Sell your home of two+ decades.  Quickly. With very little notice.  Leave your beautiful kitchen
• Pack and Move e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g you own – after you SORT EVERYTHING into “Stay” and “Go.”  Realize that you could have become a Horder.
• Sell your car that you love – to a Georgia Bulldog, no less (GO JACKETS!)
• Pack your suitcases for a 6-8 week stay in multiple places with limited laundry facilities
• Get work visas from the French Embassy in Atlanta.
• Learn a foreign language in an intense one-on-one class for hours every day with an instructor. Have homework, too, at age 55+.
• Move across an ocean to a foreign country
• Be completely open to wherever you are going to find an apartment in a new foreign urban city – knowing that the apartments are ALL tee-ninte-sy (sized for small children)
• Be prepared to share one small car, no garage, walk for groceries, pay $5/ gallon for gas,  and use stairs a lot
• Don’t know when you are leaving, with five suitcases, no plane tickets yet, and not sure where you are sleeping tomorrow night.
• New opportunities, new adventures, and a whole lot of UNKNOWNS

Now do it all at one time.    PRICELESS.    EVERY DAY’S A WINNER!!!!!

The potential buyers have come back with a rather large list of “we want these things fixed” ($$$), AND they want us to lower the price……

.

We’ll see how this little teapot tempest plays out.

My French tutor says my progress is “not bad.  [read: pretty bad]  Your sentence structures are weak, you need to work on your vocabulary, and you have [a strange] accent.”  BUT!  She said I had POTENTIAL!  I’m good with that!  I think my French is better than 99% of all the local Hispanics’ English!  🙂  Here’s the whiteboard snapshot of what I was working on yesterday –  and I have a four hour class today!

The plan is tentatively to make the plane reservations for October 16, arrive the 17th, choose an apartment on the 18th, and Tanner starts work on Friday October 20th.  (Still expect to be in a hotel for several +weeks there.) Can you say whirlwind? Continue reading “The trials and tribulations of selling your house…”