There are a few things that I've found during the Great Purge of 2018 and one of them was my library card. I've belonged to the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library for as long as I can remember. The Sandy Springs location was where I researched and wrote many a school paper. Post-college, I was a literacy tutor for the homeless out of the downtown location. While the boys may not remember it, I have many memories of being a young Mom and escaping into the stacks while they were e

Saying goodbye can be challenging for me, especially when I know that it is a final goodbye. I will not gloss over the fact that--though very much part of the plan--it was exceptionally difficult watching a large majority of our things sell for pennies on the dollar to complete strangers. I am grateful that we hired Ruth's Reselling to do the heavy lifting of the sale for our family (if you are in the Atlanta-metro area and need a great company to help you with a sale, please

This past weekend, we officially moved out of our house/home. While closing doesn't happen for 11 days, we are having our Estate Sale this week and the hardwood floors touched-up next week; with all the upheaval, plus the fact that we are selling our beds and our bedroom furniture, it was impossible to live at the house any longer. We are very fortunate that my parents have plenty of space in their home to accommodate all of us, including the pups, until we are ready to leave

C and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary towards the end of the month, and for the majority of those years, we have been in stuff acquisition mode: furniture, televisions, home decor, books, stereo equipment...you name it, we've likely bought it. And now we are selling off of a good portion of those carefully curated things in a garage sale/jumble sale/venta de garaje. We've had a few friends ask about specific items and those things are promised out: the kitc

This week has been full of activity for visas, dog transportation, storage locations, and Estate Sales because we've crossed another hurdle. We are under contract on our house. The offer came in last Friday and we agreed to terms and went into the "Due Diligence" period by Sunday. Things are moving along at lightspeed, with an expected closing at the end of April. Over the next week or so we will have contractors (theirs), inspectors, appraisers, more inspectors, and Gd knows

My apologies for disappearing for so long. I can't believe that my last post was almost 2 weeks ago! I've been fully engulfed in the throes of house selling--cleaning, planning, getting the pups out of the house during showings, etc. The house has been on the market for 1 week and we've had a number of showings, which my agent assures me is appropriate for our price-point. Until a final contract is signed, I am not going to say much more about the process, but we are happy wi

Today we hit two big milestones in the process of getting ourselves over to Spain: we had photographs taken of our home for the real estate listing and the lockbox was put on the door. I'm so pleased with how everything turned out in the house and I think we will be under contract quickly (fingers crossed). It's always hard to gauge things when you're close to the source, so I asked the photographer how he thought the house looked. To my delight he said that the house was pho

Last week I posted about my powder room including a picture taken as the wallpaper was coming down, and now it is Sherwin Williams Neutral Ground, which is a very pretty, tan with light brown undertones. I also posted pictures of my cleared bookshelves on IG but here they are staged: It looks great, right?!?! I wish I could say that the house really looks as good as these pictures make it appear, but it doesn't. We have things out of every cabinet and drawer on the main floor

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas doing whatever it is that you do to celebrate. Since we do not observe Christmas as a holiday, we typically eat Chinese food and see movies. Instead, this year we made soup and bread, and kept on clearing out the house. Before we moved to this house, we had a yellow and red kitchen. I loved the happy, sunny colors even if they weren’t everyone’s cup of tea. When we were looking for a house in our current neighborhood, I took it as a sign t

We had the first contractor out to the house today to handle a small issue. And, while it's small, it was the first thing that needed to be handled before we could bring in anyone else. Aside from the banging, and dust that is everywhere, there is no sign that anything has been done...which stinks. If you're going to have to put money into a house, it's always fun to have some sort of physical transformation. Having said that, without fixing this issue, any of the subsequent

I've mentioned that I have 3 sons, an (almost) 18-year-old, a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old. Along with C, they are the best (and most challenging) things in my life. Each of these boys has their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and ways to make me crazy. #1 has an amazing aptitude for languages. He speaks both Mandarin & Hebrew and can pretty easily switch back and forth between the 3 languages. I am constantly amazed by his talent. #2 is artistic and smart. He skipped 7th

I think I have a lot of time before we move, but I'm realizing quickly that is an illusion. I leave for Spain the week the kids go back to school and return on Friday, February 16th. The window washers and house cleaner will come that next Monday, the 19th. We will finish staging on Tuesday and pictures for the website are being taken on Wednesday. House will officially be on the market on Thursday, March 1st. Because of my upcoming trip, the work we are going to do in the ho

I'm a planner. I research, read, learn, schedule, check, double-check, and then begin. I usually get to that last step and cross my fingers and hope that nothing pops up that I'm not prepared for. I'm also self-aware enough to know that I'm visual and I do much better when I write things out on paper long-hand and not rely on a screen, whether phone or computer. We've got some work to do on our house to get it ready for market. There's not a ton, but in order to get things do

I have never been to Valencia and neither has C. We've been to Spain, and we loved it. However, deciding to pick up and move across an ocean to a city that we've never been to is, admittedly, a lot of crazy. But it isn't insane. Albert Einstein is widely attributed with the quote: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." We have a great life in Atlanta. My family is here, we have good friends, great jobs, the kids are in wonderf

I've been asked a few questions several times, and thought I'd put together a quick answer sheet. Eventually I guess I'll create a FAQ page: Q: Are the boys moving with you? A: While I think this is an odd question, it's been asked more than once. So, the short answer is yes. Longer answer is, child #1 will be moving to Israel to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces and will not be living in Spain with us. However, before he leaves for Israel in July, and will visit u

Just because we're excited doesn't mean that we aren't scared and sometimes sad. The emotions come in waves and I've found that it's usually the small things, not the big ones, that turn me into a weepy mess. I've been struggling with the thought that this is going to be our last Thanksgiving celebrating as a family, both immediate and extended. Between our oldest son graduating and starting his military career, and the other 4 of us being in Spain, I cannot think of when we