Millie will be “Sofa-less” in 4 weeks!

What an incredibly strange and amazing week this has been!  I started the week in complete stress mode trying to get my presentation finished for my first library speaking engagement, and was also worrying about all the work still left to do to get the house ready to list by my self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1st.  It turned a bit chilly here this week, and with that, the realization that snow will be flying here in Chicago again in just a few short months started to sink in.

What to do? What to do???

Well, the Library presentation was just a matter of “getting ‘er done.”  I pulled a couple near “all-nighters”, got the 135 slides put into some rational semblance of order, got the handout document done, and most-importantly, got the tub of treats and audience participation game created. 

Before introducing each featured park, I had a “Jeopardy”-style slide with a whacky clue.  I asked a member of the audience to be our Alex Trebeck and read the slide aloud, while others  tried to guess the name of the park.

Now here’s a clue that clever WinnieViews readers should be able to answer:

Answer?  Volo Bog (featured in my last blog post)!

While I didn’t get all the info communicated as perfectly as I had hoped, none of the 30 or so in the audience fell asleep or got up and left, so I guess those were good measures of success!   In the end, I had a great time and hope to do more of these in the future.

Returning home from the Library, I could now finally get some rest and recharge my weary body.  I decided I’d take the next day to just lounge around before diving into the final house prep projects, but had to first go meet my family for our weekly breakfast at the diner.

There, my stepbrother-in-law mentioned that friends of theirs’ from church had just sold their house faster than expected and were now needing to find something quickly to rent until next Spring or Summer.  He had showed them his condo, but it was too small for what they were hoping for.

“What about my house?” I asked.  He had completely forgotten to mention it to them and quickly texted his friend.  A brief phone call followed and it sounded like it might be a good fit, so they asked to come see my house the next morning….as in 24 hours to mow the yard, dust and vacuum the house, and get the myriad of “stuff” currently strewn all over the house boxed up into some semblance of order. 

So much for my lazy day of post-presentation rest!

The couple arrived and we seemed to instantly hit it off just great.  They are recent “empty nesters” who just sold their big home and are downsizing, but don’t know exactly to what or where yet.  So, renting for awhile will give them time to sort things out.

For me, I was coming to the realization that listing my house this late in the season would likely be for naught and that I’d more likely now need to find renters for the winter (and what a challenge THAT could be to find good tenants!).    

This couple are not only family friends, but they’re also extremely handy and enjoy doing house projects!  So, instead of me chasing around hiring contractors, or doing all the work myself,  I’ll hire them to do these projects at their leisure over the winter,  and I can now just focus on getting rid of all my remaining furniture & household items…within the next 4 weeks! 

Win-win for everyone….except poor Millie.   I sure wish I could figure out how to replicate her comfy sofa in the View, but for now, I’ll try not get rid of it until the very end.

Hard to believe that a month from now, I’ll finally be a full-time RVer!