I know that our plan is a bit complicated and confusing, so I want to use this post to give a status update. I thought about using my Microsoft Project plan, but decided against it… Here’s a small piece of it:

Perhaps a better approach is to summarize what we’ve done to support our transition from Virginia to Italy and what is next.

Here’s what we’ve completed:

• Mickey, Roni, and fishy moved to Ohio. Mickey is settled into her new home, living with Vicki and Vicki’s mother. Roni is busy guarding the backyard and Vicki’s tiny dog. Fishy is just waiting to be fed again. We shipped three pods of stuff, clothes, and furniture to Mickey in Ohio.
• Moved wine to Florida. After much consideration, we purchased a 622 bottle wine cellar for Derek’s house. It will keep our wine at the right temperature and humidity level and looks nice too! But we had about 1000 bottles, so here’s what we did to get to ~600 since April 1^st:
  • Drank 119 bottles. Don’t judge! And we shared with friends  😉
  • Gave away 94 bottles. Sorry if you didn’t get any!
  • Marked 150 bottles as missing or presumed drunk.
  • Sold 150 bottles. Maybe Jim bought just a few too many 2010 Brunello’s…
  • Threw away 6 bottles because they were spoiled.

Why did we move ~600 bottles to Florida? We plan to let them age for the next decade or so – and they will get better and better!

• Downsized. This was probably the biggest job of all. We went from a 4000 square foot house and a 2000 square foot basement to a single 6’x7’x8’ pod. We saved sentimental items (photographs, mementos from earlier days, family heirlooms, etc. and a few other items that we just didn’t want to let go. Everything else was sold, donated, recycled, or thrown away. Today we gave our trash guys tickets to a movie as a well-deserved thank you for taking lots and lots of extra trash for many weeks.
• Sold our house. We fixed it up first; resurfaced the driveway and a new roof were biggest projects. We spruced it up; painted most rooms inside “Agreeable Gray”, power washed the exterior, painted the front door 3 times, and lots more. Then we staged the house; lots of the furniture and decorations were removed; all of the junk was cleared away; and every pillow was placed properly. Jim said that it no longer felt like our house…  but we attracted a lot of buyers – and sold the house for a good price after 3 weeks with closing on October 31^st. Happy Halloween!

And here’s what’s next:

• 2-week trip to Italy. We are heading to Italy on October 31^st. We’ll have 3 fun days in Florence, including a really neat wine dinner at Antinori’s Caninetta. Then we’ll head to Lucca for 11 days. Our goals include setting up a bank account, leasing an apartment and starting on the visa paperwork. We’ll spend the last evening in Rome and hope to meet up with Angelo (a good friend from Pazzo Pomodoro’s).
• JoAn will head to Florida. A few days after we return from Italy, I will pack my Mini Cooper with as much as it will hold and drive to Lorton, Virginia to get onto the AutoTrain. I’ll arrive the next morning in Florida and will head to Derek’s house in Fort White. This will become Derek and JoAn’s house for the next few months…
• Jim will remain in Virginia. Jim will continue working until January when he will retire. He’s staying at the Residence Inn that is a few minutes from his work. Although he will be cooking in his miniature kitchen, I’m sure that he’d appreciate a real homecooked meal from any friends. In January, Jim will head to Florida and Derek’s house will become the only Ferguson Family residence.
• Visa application. We will apply for an Italian Elective Residence Visa, which will allow us to remain for longer than 90 days. We need to apply for it at the Miami consulate in person.  And like most things in Italy, there is a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork. It can take several months to get the visa.  We have Italian lawyers that are going to help us with the visa process.
• Move to Italy. Once the items above are completed, we’ll be off to Italy and saying “Arriverderci” to our family and friends.

Here are a few pictures of our Virginia home from the real estate listing:

Next post should include pictures of our Italian apartment and continued stories of this adventure…

Things got pretty exciting on Thursday and Friday of this week. We got our first offer but it was very low: $785K offer against the list price of $825K. Only one house in our neighborhood had sold for more than $800K and I believe that our house was definitely worth more than $800K. But those comps… Before I was able to talk to my realtor, we received our second offer: $807K. Whew! Much better. So my realtor went back to the first buyer and told them the news and they raised their offer to $810K – yep, they went up $25K! Turns out the second buyer had put an escalation clause in their offer, so it automatically was raised to $2K over the other offer: $812K. And to make things just a bit more crazy, I was out of the house because we were having a third buyer viewing our home as this was going on! So my realtor called the third buyer’s realtor and told them what was happening. They weren’t ready to make an offer quickly, so we accepted the $812K offer. What a bit of excitement! And Jim and I are quite satisfied with all aspects of the offer.

So our house was on the market for about 3 weeks, we had 2 open houses with 22 groups attending, and 13 individual showings. It takes me at least 2 hours to prep/restore the house, so I spent at least 30 hours turning lights on and off, tidying up, hiding laundry, cleaning the kitchen again, and making the bed so that it looked pretty! Glad to be done with this phase!

And this morning Jim updated our whiteboard. 🙂 We have been praying for the family that God had selected to own our home. And now we have names for them (and I found him on LinkedIn!)

So there will be a new flurry of activity this month. Closing will be on October 31st or before. There will be closing related activities: appraisal, survey, inspection, and re-mediating issues found. Derek will come to Virginia to get our wine collection. We’ll be sending off three pods: to Mickey’s house in Ohio, to a storage unit in Florida, and Derek’s house in Florida. We’ll hold an estate sale for whatever is left. We’ll find temporary housing for Jim and move him in. And so much more…

Jim and I will then head to Italy for the first two weeks of November. Our intent is to rent an apartment in Lucca so that we can begin the application process for our permanent residence visa. It’s happening!

Our house went on the market on September 9th. Check out the listing here: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12524-Philmont-Dr-Herndon-VA-20170/51702690_zpid/ (Views and saves help!)

We’ve had two open houses, more than a dozen private showings, and lots of questions from interested buyers. We almost had one offer, but they had a concern that we couldn’t address. And now we are waiting/hoping/praying for the offer – the one that we are going to take!

Our house is 90% ready for the next step. We still have some stuff in the basement to go through. Once we got it to be “presentable” we took a much needed break. Now we are just procrastinating!

My life currently revolves around text message with requests for showings. I quickly confirm the time and get busy on prep for the showing. Turn on all the lights; most rooms have 3 lights; the master bath has 5! Clean up the kitchen. Make the bed and clean up our bathroom. Sweep the patio. Out the door at least 30 minutes before scheduled showing. Then I run any errands, take walks, or get something to eat. My realtor warned me not to stay nearby. No worries… I have a few neighbors who always seem to have a bit of news for me after the showing. 🙂

I hope that my next post is called “We sold our house!”

I describe our plans to people and I see the excited/envious/wondrous look in their eyes. And I think of all of the mundane tasks that I am doing every day. This disconnect is succinctly described by John C. Maxwell as “Dreams don’t work unless you do”.

August has been spent working simultaneously on:

• Preparing the house for the market. Target date: early September. Repairing, cleaning, painting, staging.
• Downsizing A LOT. We plan to each take two suitcases to Italy when we move and we’ll be renting a 10’x10’ A/C storage unit in Florida for our sentimental items. Everything else is being sold, given away, donated, or thrown away.
• Moving my sister to Ohio. Mickey, her dog, her fish and her Harley left on August 19^th. Her first pod left our house on August 21^st. Second pod with furniture will be after our house sells.
• Preparing my son’s house to store our wine. Ceramic tile installed. Wine cellar ordered and is being shipped across the country. After delivery, Derek will drive the wine down in a cargo van.

So, no cool pictures with this posting. But the house will be ready for the market soon. Pictures will be taken on September 4th.

My favorite phrase these days is – it’s happening! Started move to Florida – it’s happening! Coming soon real estate sign on our driveway – it’s happening! Staging activities started – it’s happening! My day feels filled with minor tasks but each one is a stepping stone towards our journey to Italy.

I made a quick trip to Florida to begin the process of establishing residency in Florida. I needed to get my car to Florida and I’m a terrible long-distance driver so I took the auto train. (Thanks Rebecca for another great idea!) I got the train in Lorton, VA (south of DC) the afternoon of July 7^th and arrived in Sanford, FL (north of Orlando) the morning of July 8^th. I had the car packed full of stuff – can’t miss an opportunity to move stuff! They drove the car on one of the two level “auto-racks” and I rode in one of the passenger car, in a small sleeper compartment called a “roomette”. Although you can put two people in it, it seems better suited for only one person. I enjoyed my privacy, including some wine and a snack. They had three dinner seatings and they seat you at tables of four people. It’s easy to start a conversation with someone – “do you take the auto train often?” – and people chat with strangers very easily on the train. There’s a feeling that we’re all in this together; everyone gets on at the same place and off at the same place. I departed from the Sanford train station at 10am and had a 2.5-hour drive. I arrived at 2pm because I stopped three times. Can you imagine how long it would have taken me to drive the full distance?

I took care of my tasks at Derek’s house and we headed back to Orlando. I met my very first friend that I can remember – Kelly. We connected on Facebook a year or so ago and have been trying ever since to meet. We had a great dinner, talked about old times, and gave each other a Cliff Notes version of our lives. I look forward to spending more time with Kelly in the fall.

Derek and I spent a day in Animal Kingdom and had a blast. We got to the Pandora rides ASAP and didn’t have too long of waits. The rides are fantastic and the setting is amazing, especially after dark. We did the animal safari ride twice, once after a rain storm and once at dusk so we saw a fair amount of animal activity. And we did many of the other fun rides and attractions. AK is the smallest of the park so was good to do in a day. I was dead exhausted after 13 hours in the park and could have slept through anything, except the fire alarm at 2:30am. ☹

The next morning, I headed to Lake Apopka. Tara, a friend of Derek’s, told me about it. She knew that I would love it as there are tons of birds to see. She even let me borrow her binoculars, which I promise will be in the mail soon. It is an 11-mile drive around the lake and wetlands. The speed limit is 10 MPH, but we seldom went that fast. It took a few hours and I saw SO MANY birds. No first-time sightings but it got me excited about the birding opportunities ahead of me for this fall and winter.

Back to the train. This time I had a coach seat. A roomette was $250 extra on the return train due to a larger crowd. Coach wasn’t bad. Most people, including me, got two seats so I was able to sleep in all kinds of strange but semi-comfortable positions. My conclusion: the roomette is worth some extra dollars – but not $250!

So, I returned to Virginia and my seemingly endless tasks to prepare the house for sale. The electrician is doing electrical stuff. A stager did a consultation yesterday and I have a list of 97 things to do to stage the house. The exterior worker dude brought by the proposal today with plans to start work on Saturday or Monday. I met with the interior worker dude and gave him a long list; I should receive his estimate tonight. And I got 6 new gold fish for the pond. It’s happening!