I’ve always been a tomboy. Skinned knees and stubbed toes. Messy hair and dripping brow….dirty and able to work with endless energy.

When we moved to this property I embraced the garden – dove right in and came up sweating and dirty. As I mentioned before, one of my favorite things is my weed whacker – a professional model with a harness. When I strap that thing on I am Wonder Woman Weed Whacker! I can go all day, and have cleared blackberries off a lot of our property with that thing. When I’m done for the day I usually have to strip off my clothes outside since they are way too filthy to walk in the door!

So, it is with some surprise that the amount of manual labor in getting this property ready to sell is starting to get me down. This week I painted the upstairs bathroom, three coats. I was so tired of getting up and down the ladder and painting the same places over and over! I also cleaned out our furnace room, hauled out old boxes we were saving (?) and took a load of wood and cardboard to the dump for recycling. I hauled more junk to our shed, where we are collecting things to have hauled to the dump. I was so tired yesterday that I didn’t really do anything after about 2 pm. Every day is physical labor all day long.

I’m not complaining, I actually enjoy working hard. Today is a trip to Goodwill and then continuing to clear out the basement room. The painters come Monday so I need to have everything ready, including moving the birds out of the bird room….I guess they will spend next week in the laundry rooom.

It’s a gorgeous sunny day here, and if I’m lucky and the basement cleanout goes well I hope to be able to get in a little weed whacking this afternoon… I never forget the goal of all this hard work…to help our property sell faster so we can get to Mexico soon!

I sat outside this morning with my coffee, listening to the birds and noticing all the signs of spring.

The dogwood is about to bloom, and the japanese maple behind it already has its leaves.

We had a busy weekend, mostly moving wood chips to make the place look neat for when the house goes on the market. We are about halfway through the huge pile of chips our tree trimmers left us last winter.

We spread weed block fabric and have almost finished the bed here with the buddleia bushes.

Next week when the painters are here painting the interior ceilings I won’t be able to be inside so I plan on putting new plastic on the raised garden beds we aren’t using this year. You can see I probably should make a rhubarb crisp for dessert tonight!

I know I’m lucky to be able to take this time to say goodbye to this property. I’m not sad, I am just noticing all the lovely things about it every day and enjoying them. I am ready to move on, to move to Mexico. My enjoyment of the present in no way reduces the anticipation and excitement of the next chapter in our lives.