...And That's a Wrap

This year finished up with the sale of our Morning Vista house, which closed and recorded on December 29th, 2017. With the entire year revolving around buying/selling/moving/renovating, it is nothing short of miraculous that, after almost eight months, the house is finally off the market. That chapter is closed. Relieved doesn't begin to describe how we feel. When we bought the Sunnyside house, Dylan recognized that, while it was exciting, the more exciting real estate transaction would be the sale of Morning Vista. I agreed with him 100%. We are so grateful to be ending 2017 on this note. We've spent over eight years at Morning Vista, and the story of that life journey is one to stand alone for when we actually move. (Right now we are leasing the house back from the buyers until the end of January.) For this post, I'll just stick to the year in review.

Here we are toasting to the closing of our house!

While I would never recommend being involved in two real estate transactions, moving and renovating during the holiday season while shuffling all the duties of regular life, I would do it all over again to get here. I don't deal well with being busy...I am so run-down right now. I caught the virus that everyone else seems to have, including my kids, and it has knocked me flat on my butt since Wednesday. Could this be the actual flu? I can't remember something that has made me feel so awful from head to toe for such a long time. But it has also forced me to slow down and take a breath, and it has made me a million times grateful for our eventless New Year's weekend.

If I had to sum up the year in short, it would be The Year of Finding Hope. I can remember a time, just less than a decade ago, where I was showing up to work every day at a job that I hated. Like, I hated it. I would cry before I had to go to work. (I'm not even a crier!) I had student loans to pay off, and I was making a decent paycheck in a crashing economy, so I really had no options. At that time, I was hopeless. I was miserable, and everybody knew it. (Not the finest time of my life.) I would drive home and think about how completely and utterly stuck I was. I had a lot of growing up to do back then. I didn't know about letting go of things that I had no control over and valuing things that are actually important in life. I made it worse for myself, but I didn't know any better.

Of course, things changed and improved. Life evolved, as it tends to do. And then a few years later, I found myself with a tiny baby and was totally swallowed up by new motherhood. Not really in a good way. I was an anxious mess, and the baby was, too. He cried a lot. Dylan traveled a lot. Like, A LOT. He flew charter, and he'd have to leave on long trips with no notice. We couldn't make plans to do anything, ever. I almost came unglued. I think I'll always be a little mentally and emotionally fragile from that. I still have issues relaxing. During that time, I was hopeless. Like before, I would drive home with a crying baby and think to myself that I was completely stuck. Everything was so, so hard, and I had no hope that it would ever change.

But...the baby got a little older, and Dylan's job slowed down. Eventually he got a new job that was 85% more family-friendly. Things were so much better. Then, 2017 rolled along, and I knew it had come time to close out our chapter on the outskirts of town and rejoin civilization. We cleaned up and fixed up the house and then listed it. We spent every second shopping real estate on the MLS. It consumed everything we had, and we endured a lot of disappointment. 

Like the other times, I had no reason to hope that things would work out for us. Time kept passing, we kept lowering the list price, and we still weren't getting much action. The difference this time was that I held out hope anyway. I had my weak moments, but I did my best to let go of control and give it all over to God. I made a decision to trust in His timing. It was the only thing I could do, really. By the end of the year, all the good stuff started to happen. Things came together in ways I never could have imagined possible. This journey was the biggest test of patience and the most impactful time of personal growth that I've ever known. It took a long time, and it wasn't easy, but I am forever grateful for the lessons that this year has taught me and for the way it has all unfolded.

2017 was a year of trials and miracles. Nobody is the same person that they were a year ago, but I'm substantially different than the Lu of 2016. (Better, in my opinion.) Parts of the last year were really hard. Not tragic or awful, but hard. And here we are thriving and stronger than ever. Unlike during those other hard times of life, I am not coming out on the other side of this feeling rattled and angry and lost. I am hopeful, grateful and trusting, and my focus has been readjusted so that I now put energy toward the things people in life that really matter. It's a better way to live, and as I recognize how much good has come from this past year, it also makes me realize how much more I have to learn during my time as a person living here on earth.

And with that, I'd say that with the closing of the year and the closing of our house out in the boonies, that this is a most appropriate time to say good-bye to the blog, Boondocks Boulevard. I've been writing about all things real estate over in another space for some time, and I've been working my tail off the last few days to get the new blog reveal-ready. It's not quite there yet...but I'm sharing it with you anyway while it's still under construction. Bear with me while I get the pieces of it together. I thought about keeping separate blogs for the house renovation and for my family, but I'm not going to do that. If you're interested in one thing but not the other, I guess you'll have to do your own filtering or maybe find a new family blog to call home. As much as I love to hear about people reading my blog, I'm not so short-sighted that I fail to recognize it for what it is...a passion project that is really all about me. As such, I'll do what I want and tailor it how I see fit as it progresses. I hope you like it, but if you don't, I love you anyway!!!

So please, join me over at hello, Sunnyside. It has a long, complicated web address for now, but in a few weeks, it'll be hellosunnyside.com. I bought the domain name at GoDaddy, and they have a waiting period before you can transfer it to another host...so, just bookmark the site for a couple of weeks, if you care to follow. In fact, I'm pretty far behind in updating the content there, but I'll try to get on that this week. I will scale down the number of photos of my kids, but you'll still see them there, for sure.

I truly hope that everybody reading this right now is wrapping up 2017 by thinking about events from the past year that made them smile. From a worldview stance, it wasn't a great year. I know we can all do better as humans and make this planet a better place to be. I think a good start at that would be to seek gratitude and to be kind to one another. I haven't had the mental space to think about resolutions for 2018, but I'll start with those. Happy New Year!