I’ll be sure to pack this up.

During the last four weeks of delightful visits from friends and parents, we also managed to find a new house to rent which we get January 1^st.

The decision to move was not completely ours to make; the company we work for has been asking us for many months to move closer to the head office.  We have held off for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that we only just moved into the village we are now in a year ago today.  Before packing everything up and moving to an area completely new for us, we decided to wait until we found a house and area we loved. 

It will be hard to leave the friends we made and the village and area of Germany we have gotten to know well over the last number of years. I am also not fond of having Little T start another new school when he has settled so nicely into his current one, but he took the news of our move surprisingly well.  He views it as an exciting adventure.  Maybe too since he has moved around so much in such a short time of his life it is not so scary for him to start again new elsewhere.  I am hoping this move will change that for awhile as the constant moving is taking a toll.  But, we see this move as a positive one as it will greatly reduce the number of nights Hubby has to be away from us as he needs to be at the head office as much as possible.  We also are moving closer to his brother, his girlfriend, and family, which will be a treat.  And, there is a beach nearby.

Even though I have sadly become somewhat of an expert on the whole moving process, I have discovered that you really can’t choose which house can be made into a home until you actually go see it. It may look great in the pictures and the descriptions are incredibly inviting, but until you actually walk through the door and get a feel for the place, you have no idea.  For our upcoming move, I searched the internet for six months, and every time I accompanied Hubby on his trip to head office I drove around looking for villages that would be good for us.  The week we went specifically to view houses, I sent a request to 9 different places and only heard back from 4 of them.  Of the 4, I had identified one house as the one we would most likely rent.  The others, I felt at the time, were just for comparison.

Before each appointment, I made a point of doing a drive-by of each house as I believe not only should the house itself feel like something you want to make home, but the area it is in is equally important.  On our last visit we viewed a home from the outside before making an appointment to view the inside.  I knew the minute I stepped foot on the property that it wasn’t for us.  I felt no connection to it; instead I felt quite the opposite – a bad vibe.  It reminded me of a house we viewed back in Canada.  It was big enough, was in the neighbourhood we wanted, had a nice enough property but even though the layout of the house was not the best, that wasn’t the reason why we opted not to buy it. Both Hubby and I didn’t say a word as the agent let us through the house.  We just looked at each other after with horrified faces after we left and later confirmed what the other was thinking:  Dark things happened in that house.  There was no way we could ever live there.

The area of the first house on the list of 4 was in a charming area, and the house itself was quite nice with a surprisingly big kitchen not common in houses here.  I think Hubby was ready to move in that day based on the kitchen alone. But, the area was a little too remote to fit in with our goal of having only one car. The second house, which I thought was “the one” was a big disappointment.  The area was surrounded with townhouses and apartments which was positive in that there would be lots of kids for Little T to play with, but the postage stamp backyard with a million neighbours looking down into it was too open-concept for our strong desire for privacy. The previous tenants of the house were only there for 9 months, but they had successfully trashed the place.  It screamed neglect the minute I walked through the front door.  And, seeing spiders in pretty much every room was a no-brainer for me.   Thank you, but NO thanks.

I was feeling saddened after that viewing, as I had placed such high hopes on it. While Hubby worked, I did a drive-by of the other two houses we were seeing later that afternoon.  The first one was in an area that I simply didn’t like as I drove up to it – it had no soul.  When we viewed it, the same feeling applied to the inside plus the fact that the house reeked of smoke (there was even a lighter on top of the toilet – apparently the need for a butt didn’t stop when one sits their butt down to do a job).  I couldn’t wait to leave.

On our way to the last viewing, I was very unoptimistic. Even though my drive-by in the morning was positive – the area was beautiful and was close enough to get to the downtown area for the bakery, grocery store and schools (although a bit further to walk than I would have liked), the house was only listed the day before we planned this trip and didn’t have any pictures of the inside of the house. So, I took that to imply that the inside was likely a disaster and decided not to get my hopes up.

The minute both Hubby and I walked through the front door, we both knew it was the house for us and shared that confirmation without words but just a look into each other’s eyes.  Not only was the house beautiful and spacious, we could feel it was well cared for.  The current tenants had two boys – Little T ended up running around the backyard with one of them which I took as a good sign. And the clincher?  They had turned one of the rooms downstairs into a Bacchus haven decorated with vines, a table and chairs for tasting, and a wine fridge just like the one we have. Not only did we want to rent the house, we want to become friends with these people! And hopefully we can, as they bought a home just down the street.

Within a week, we rented our new home.  The next few months will be challenging not only with cancelling, registering and packing, but emotionally as we begin another journey. Hubby was reading a book by Paulo Coelho this morning and came across a line he wrote that summed up how we are both feeling about this move:

When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

And maybe we should view it as Little T does:   as an exciting adventure.