It's All Empty

Today we said good-bye to our Pleasant Grove house. It's cleaned out... totally empty except for a piece of PVC pipe, house keys, 2 garage door openers, 4 owners manuals, the Pleasant Grove/Lindon emergency guide, and the ugly flower pot that was sitting on top of one of the water heaters when we moved in (and it's still there). Tomorrow is closing! The buyers close at 8 a.m. and we close at 3 p.m. We've moved on, but it was good to take a last look at the house and reminisce. For example, we changed every bit of flooring in that house. Dan had to go admire the "best tile laying job ever" in the kitchen and marvel one last time and this tricky tile he cut... it looks like a tomahawk. I remembered why Jonathan's room had a wallpaper border... I didn't want to tape off the ceiling when painting it so I stopped painting a few inches from the ceiling and hid that with the border. Jonathan remembered the many colors of paint that Nolan's room tried on as we tried to find the right combination (I never was happy with that room). I remembered Jonathan breaking a kitchen cabinet in two during an impressive tantrum. Until today, Jonathan never realized how ugly the shelf paper was. One last look across the lake, one last look at Mt. Timp from the front porch, one last look at my favorite tree we planted... a small, twiggy Paperbark Maple that now stands 15 feet tall and I can no longer span its trunk with my hands. This spring I will find Paperbark Maples and plant them in the parking strip area at out Lindon house. I loved that tree! I closed the closet doors, turned out all the lights, and shut the front door for the last time in Pleasant Grove today. It's a good thing... we're looking forward to having only one house payment and one set of utility bills to pay. We will only have one driveway to shovel. Now we'll be able to focus on improvements and upgrades to our Lindon home. Still, a chapter closes, but there's still the next chapter to write!