April 2002               

   April started out with a trip to the flooring store where we were fortunate to find a carpet that we liked at a sale price.  Gary, from Rosenberg carpet came on the 8th and measured all four bedrooms, living room and dining room plus all closets for new carpet. He has ordered it for us and we hope to be ready for installation in May. 3 of the bedrooms and the living and dining rooms will need painting and we want to do it before the new carpet is put down. 

   After talking with Robert and also a realtor, we decided to contract a Building Inspector and have the house gone over.  We felt that doing so now would give us a chance to correct any problems and not have any surprises later.  We had the inspection done on Wednesday, the 11th.  Well, we did have a surprise.  That being that there was nothing major that needed correction, just small things like calking around windows, replacing some electrical outlets with GFCI ones, replacing three locksets, etc.  He was really surprised that we had NO foundation problems, something uncommon is this area of the country.  We feel the fee was well worth it. I also contacted a firm who does estate sales.  We have pretty well decided that is what we will do with everything left after the kids take the things they want.  They will come in, make sure everything is clean, price it, conduct a 2-day sale and then take care of cleaning up afterward. 

    On the 13th we went out to dinner and a movie, celebrating our 45th Wedding Anniversary, which is on the 15th.  On Sunday, the 14th we provided the flowers for our church service in honor of our Anniversary. After church, we came home and finished the attic project that we had started last month.  The only things left up there are the boxes of Christmas trim and some suitcases! 

   Friday evening the 19th we went to dinner and then stopped at Sears for paint.  Saturday found us moving the furniture out of the spare room and painting.  Painted the ceiling and walls, moved the furniture back in. I put up a new valance at the window and the room looks great.  All of the next week found us cleaning out things, Dick worked in the computer room and I started in the sewing room.  I can’t believe I had sooo much stuff in that room!

      Robert and Amanda arrived on Saturday afternoon and we started loading his trailer.

He had called earlier in the week to see about reserving a trailer from U-Haul and they told him they had plenty of the size he wanted and not to worry about it.  Guess what, when he got there at 7:00 Sat. morning, no big trailer.  He was able to take everything on his list except the large antique cabinet in the garage.  At least some of it is gone! 

      We got the sewing room emptied and that room painted.  On Monday, Dick called Gary and told him we were ready for 3 rooms of carpet.  On Tuesday, we got three rooms of carpet! The house is in total disarray,  but the carpet in down, three more rooms to go. No one warned us that getting ready for retirement would be so much work.  We are going to have to do a garage sale soon, the stuff is overflowing the garage.