thelaughingmuse: A close-up photo of a tailfeather from a peacock. The text, a quote from James Gardner's book Vigilance, reads "The peacock can show its whole tail at once. I can only tell you a story." (I can only tell you a story.)
thelaughingmuse ([personal profile] thelaughingmuse) wrote2024-01-27 03:14 pm

On reaching milestones, and just seeing more milestones...

I now have big ol' lined journals (360+ pages, hardcover) for the next 30 years. And there are three varieties with large amounts of each, for my matchy-matchy twitchy-brain. And because I was happy to drive around to different stores, I paid $15 per journal instead of $25 or $41. (The journals are discontinued, and available to purchase at certain stores; but some enterprising folks also were selling them on Bezos' List for a bit of a markup.)

I've begun the pare-down process, donating lots of clothing, shoes, and bedding. I'm now reducing my absurdly huge nail polish collection. With a neighborhood full of teenagers, I'm hoping that I'll be able to find most of these good homes. I've only started culling my nail polish collection, though. I've got over a thousand bottles, so it's not going to be a snappy process.

I have to get actual walk-through / in-person quotes from the international shipping companies, make my choice, and schedule pickup-day. I've got two quotes so far, and they're about 10K apart, so one of them is giving me a pretty obvious teaser-rate. I don't want to end up with my stuff "held hostage" for however much they underbid on the job, so I might get quotes from additional companies and filter out Lowball Inc.

Home-polishing tasks are underway! Some more interior painting, a spot of floor refinishing, one window pane replaced, et voila! It'll be all ready to put on the market. According to my realtor the maintenance I've done is going to make my home look very attractive, so hopefully I'll be able to find a buyer who won't have problems renting back to me until I'm ready to drive away in late autumn.

And, of course, none of this even begins to touch on finding my first home in Mexico, and then finding an architect so that I can build the place that will be my forever home.