T-Minus 350 Days: COVID really sucks (Part 2)

Our plan is to house shop in Florida in August. But.... Florida extended its quarantine for New Yorkers. If we went to Florida, we would have to remain quarantined for two weeks. Which... that isn't so bad. Being quarantined in Florida? I'll take it! But then... when we returned we would have to be quarantined in New York for two weeks. If we violate the New York quarantine? It is a $10,000 fine.

No trip to Florida in August! Instead, we are going to plan a week of virtually visiting neighborhoods, looking at houses, and talking with home builders.

In the meanwhile, we are purging the house as fast as we can. We have crossed the $1500 mark in online sales, and we have a huge yard sale planned for the 24th.

Previously we purged an eight foot area along one side of the garage. That was an enormous amount of work that took almost all day! Last weekend, we decided to go after the rest of that wall. The stuff is just piled 3 feet deep and six feet high, but we did it! We put many items out by the road for free, four lawn mowers at the street for sale, two tires, and a bunch of other things. With one wall completely done, there is only two more walls left to do!

Getting ready for a yard sale is another huge effort. It is funny how we spend our lives accumulating things we don't need so we can spend our lives trying to get rid of it. We take piles of this crap and move it here and there and accomplish nothing. We are marking things for fifty cents or a dollar hoping that all this hard work and effort pays off somehow. But it will never pay us back for all the effort we are putting into it.

According to our master plan, we were supposed to have picked a real estate agent for our New York Home and had a tour done so they could tell us what to fix. Due to the Pandemic, we have put that off. Instead, we have a four page list of work that we have identified that needs to get done. And I don't know when I am going to find the time to do all of this: re-caulk the bathroom sink, paint the living room ceiling, replace the kitchen faucet, change the molding around the side garage door, and the list just goes on and on. One of my biggest concerns? I finished the basement and turned it into store rooms, wood shop, a gym, man cave, and other rooms. But none of that work has ever been inspected! And I'm sure I didn't do everything correctly. Because none of it is inspected, I won't be able to include it as a selling point for the house, and a future buyer could demand it all be ripped out. Add to the list: find a contractor who can tell me what I need to fix in order to get it to pass an inspection.

If we weren't moving in 350 days, I'm not sure how I would be spending all my free time. Right now, every free moment is consumed and busy!