Now what?

Now what?  One of the things my mom says All. The. Time.  I think it's due to her failing eyesight and her inability to hear what's going on around her and perhaps a little from her dementia, but she is always asking me, "now what?"  That sums up how I feel a lot lately.  We've closed on this house...now what?

We had determined with a 1400 mile round trip drive between our current home and this new house that we would have to pack as much as safely possible into the van and open trailer every trip we make... so we showed up to the closing office with a FULL load in tow!  Not exactly sure what they thought about these folks as we were so loaded down!  But hey, there is no time to waste so much to do, so as soon as the keys were in our hands we headed back to the property to get started. Fortunately, we thought to have the power turned on ahead of time and the power company showed up just moments after we pulled up the driveway. Great timing!  Isn't it great when a plan comes together even better than you'd hoped?

We began by unloading.  Pretty much last thing on...first thing off. I was amazed at the seemingly pointless stuff we had packed for this first trip down.  But not sure what exactly we would find or what we might actually need, we brought more tools, tarps and building supplies than household stuff.  We did squeeze a queen mattress set and hollywood bed frame (some friends had given us) and a spare twin mattress into the load, as well as a spare Refrigerator. (Love to re-purpose!)
Thankfully I also remembered sheets for the beds as our grandson would stay and help us a few days... we also brought deck chairs which meant we had somewhere to sit and we thought to bring a spare gas grille which meant we could actually cook.
For the most part, we spent our first 3 1/2 days on property, measuring all the rooms, making lists of what we'd need the next trip down and cleaning and sweeping and managing a burn pile to help clean up the grounds and the leftover debris from the previous work that had been done there.
We left feeling accomplished and somewhat overwhelmed.  There seemed to be more work than we first thought as not all the mechanicals were configured or working properly.  That means before we can move forward we'll have to back up.  Ugh.  But that's life and I think it's facing these challenges life throws us that helps keep us humble and looking up!  We are all facing challenges and hurdles... they just don't always look or feel the same.  But we grow and mature by facing them head-on and hopefully, we are better and stronger for it.