A Weekend of Firsts

This was quite an eventful weekend. It started with the First Friday celebration in Warrenton. On the first Friday of every month (May to October, I think) they shut down Main Street to traffic. Many of the Main Street area merchants stay open extra late, there was a bluegrass band in front of the post office, there were street vendors, charity groups, etc. It was like a mini fair.

We were quite tickled to walk to the event. And I was thrilled to finally get a peek inside many of the cute little shops that line or are close to Main Street.

Then we had our first visitors on Saturday. (I know the lighting is horrible. My Mom was tired so I didn’t want to make everyone move.)

First Group Photo at New House

We are nowhere near being unpacked and settled. Two of the bathrooms, the family room, kitchen, master bedroom, and guest bedroom are in decent shape. There’s nothing on the walls yet, but there are no boxes scattered around and those rooms have been cleaned.

I’ve got lots more cleaning to do. The people that lived here before us were not the cleanest folks…

Anyway, as I was saying, we had our first visitors. My parents and Hubby’s Mom live close to each other. And they actually like each other, too. So they all drove down together for a visit. Even though the house isn’t exactly presentable yet, they were anxious to see where we’d moved. They were curious about the house AND about the area. None of them had ever been to Warrenton either.

Before they arrived, I did something I’d been wanting to do for months. I walked to the bakery and the farmers’ market.

Neighborhood Bakery

That may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but it is to me. I’ve been living in suburbia since 1993. Where you can’t safely walk to anything. You’re lucky if you have sidewalks in your neighborhood. Main streets with sidewalks are very rare.

I got some blondies, muffins, and a scone at the bakery. Since we haven’t been doing much cooking yet, all I got at the farmers’ market were some fresh flowers.

First Farmers' Market Purchase

Again, that may not sound super-exciting, but it made me happy. What made me even happier was seeing the parents when I got back to the house. They’d arrived a bit quicker than anticipated. We thought the drive would take them about 3 hours, but it only took 2.5 hours. An easy day trip.

Overgrown Flower Beds

Since today was such a pretty day (mid to upper 70s), I decided to spend it outdoors tidying up the flower beds and scrubbing the front porch. Remember I said the previous owners weren’t the neatest people? Apparently they weren’t very good gardeners either.

Dirty Porch

I also made my first trip to the nursery for some mums, pansies, and pumpkins.

Neater Flower Beds

As is the case with a lot of stuff at this house, the closer you look, the more things you see wrong. We haven’t noticed anything major yet, except for the dirt. These people were slobs! Cleaning takes about three times longer than it should because I really have to scrub.

The flower beds were the same way. What I thought would be some minor cutting back turned into a major trim and weed-pulling adventure. I never did get the pansies planted. But see how cute my flowers and pumpkins look?

Fall Flowers

Now that the parents have seen the place, I can share pictures. I LOVE our front porch. Here it is from a different angle.

Our Front Yard

Rounding out our weekend of firsts is this first group of house pictures.

There’s so much more to show and tell you about. Like this funky little table…

A Recently Acquired Treasure

My friend Tracey would call this table a treasure. I was thinking I’d paint it. And maybe remove those furniture nails around the edges. But the more I see it, the more I think I like it just the way it is.

Reconnected

After what seemed like an eternity (four whole days with no internet, phone, or television – GASP!), we were reconnected with the broader world.

It’s not like we didn’t have plenty of stuff to keep us busy. And we do have cell phones, which we could use to call people. It was just sort of a pain. The biggest inconvenience was not being able to work from home. I had planned to just work from the town library. Until I found out they don’t open until 10:00 AM. Thank goodness there’s a Panera nearby.

Fauquier County Public Library in Warrenton

That, too, wasn’t horrible. Especially since this is the month of the Pink Ribbon Bagel. You do know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, right?

One can only sit at Panera for so long, though. I moved to the library around noon on Monday. Yesterday, given that I forgot my cell phone, I came back to the house around 9, let the dogs out, grabbed my phone, let the dogs back in, and headed to the library. Since this is such a small town, after all that, it was still only about 9:35 when I got to the library. Which was still closed. Sigh…

To kill time, I walked around a bit. Lucky for me, I had my camera in my purse.

Warrenton really is a cute little town. Once we get more stuff unpacked and I have more time, I hope to get some more (better) images to share. For now, these few will have to do.

There’s so much to see and do here. And there are little surprises seemingly around every corner. Like this beautiful little garden in front of the library.

Then there’s the Old Warren Green Hotel, currently known as the Warren Green Building, which now serves as office space for Fauquier County.

Side View of the Warren Green Building

The image shown below is one that always makes me smile. It’s just cool to me (and to Hubby) to be able to see the mountains from Main Street.

View from in front of the courthouse.

In case you’re wondering how to pronounce Fauquier… it’s FAW-KEER.

I hope you enjoyed that little peek. More will come one day…

Not Quite Over

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I have no idea if this multiple image post will work from my phone. If not, I’ll follow up later.

It’s been an adventure, that’s for sure.

Because Hubby has lots of very heavy woodworking tools, we needed a bigger than normal truck. We didn’t need a jumbo moving van. A too small truck would be a problem, but a too big one just means extra space, right?

Wrong. The too big truck wouldn’t fit onto our small street. So they had to find a place to park and rent a smaller truck to shuttle the stuff in.

It sounded like a fine solution. But after a couple hour delay getting the rental, they realized they didn’t have the keys to open the really big trailer.

Sigh. They should have been done by 3:00. It’s almost 5 and they still have one more shuttle load…

More story later. I have unpacking to do.

Moving Day

Today is moving day! Yay!

It’s a happy/sad day of course. We’re not moving very far, so we don’t think about it as leaving our family and friends behind. But we’re leaving a house we’ve lived in for 13 years. And great neighbors.

Here’s hoping we’re just as happy in the new house.

I won’t have Internet connectivity for a few days, so I won’t post an update until we’re settled. Unless I use my phone.

Soon life will be back to normal.

I hope.

Move Status Update

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been busy. Plus, something is wrong with the settings at my host and I can’t post any pictures. I don’t have the time or mental energy to figure that out right now. I can link to stuff, I just can’t post new images. It’s been really slow, too. I’ll do something about it after the move. Hopefully it isn’t too painful for you.

Anyway… I decided an update was in order. This moving house is a long, drawn-out process. It started months ago when we decided to start getting the house ready to sell.

How does one prepare for such an event? First, you de-clutter (aka tossing a bunch of crap). Then you spruce things up. Our biggest “spruce-up” was the kitchen re-do. Well, biggest after Hubby’s basement finishing project. (He added an in-law apartment.) Then there was all the yard work. Painting. Power washing. De-personalizing (removing people and pet pictures).

It was a time-consuming endeavor. Then, when the house is finally ready to sell, you have to keep it neat and clean so it’s always ready when potential buyers want to visit.

We weren’t sure how things were going to go. This isn’t the best housing market after all. But we did our homework with regards to getting the house ready (that’s called “staging”) and setting a price. And it paid off. After just three weeks on the market, we had a contract. We’ve made it through the pest inspection, general home inspection, and radon tests. There are no more hurdles. Almost. There’s nothing to stand in the way of the buyers closing as planned, but there is the small problem that we haven’t found a house yet.

A bigger problem? Ninety-five percent of the houses we would consider buying do not have the Internet access we need.

Yep. Who knew?

We’re looking primarily in Northern Virginia. In counties right beside the nations capital. One of the counties we have been looking in is Loudon County, which happens to be THE county that consistently ranks in the top five counties in all of the US for highest median income. Don’t worry, we won’t be living there. Property taxes are really quite high. Which also makes me wonder…

How is it that I can get DSL service in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country, but not in Northern Virginia? It’s one of the richest areas in the country! Really. Do a Google image search for “homes in virginia hunt country” and see what pops up.

You’ll see places like this.

Someone's Summer Home

You think McMansions are big? Think again.

Another Virginia Hunt Country Estate

The major cities and towns have wired service (cable or DSL), but a very large portion of the state is without wired access. People have to rely on satellite or wireless broadband.

I’m not talking remote areas either. Or poor areas. I’m talking a whole lot of places in Loudon, Fauquier, Clarke, Frederick, and Warren Counties. Amazing.

We could go a bit further west to Shenandoah County, but that’s too far for Hubby’s commute.

So… we’ve not had a whole lot of luck finding a place.

We are NOT in the market for a Virginia Hunt Country estate. We probably couldn’t even afford a guest house at one of those places. Of course, even if we could, WE WOULDN’T HAVE INTERNET ACCESS! (We need that for our work.)

We’re still hopeful that we’ll get something that will allow us to take occupancy on October 1. But if we don’t find a place in the next week or so, that isn’t likely.

There’s a tiny chance we might find a place this weekend. Small. Teeny.

Whether we end up temporary residents of West Virginia until we find a suitable place in Virginia, one thing is for sure. You’re going to see a much wider variety of pictures here once we do move. The locales we’ve been scouring are gorgeous. Horse farms. Historic towns. Mountain streams. Miles and miles and miles of stone walls. The Manassas Battlefield Park. Skyline Drive.

I could go on all night.

I’m looking forward to the change of scenery. I hope you are, too.

As soon as we find something, I’ll let y’all know. Until then, we need to do some serious packing.