1. Selling is the best! For as much as I will miss my old house, the neighbors and the neighborhood, it’s a relief to have sold it. Because…
2. Buying is the best! Even though the processes of buying (can you say “red tape and hoop-jumping”?) and moving suck, it is so exciting that we now own this awesome house! Thank you* to the many people who worked so hard for this to come together.
3. Buy/Sell a House, Kill a Tree (or two). Holy moly, you would not believe how much paperwork is involved with the undertaking, in triplicate.
4. What’s worse? Getting boxes, packing boxes, moving boxes, unpacking boxes, or disposing of boxes? Yes.
5. After only five days in the new place, the most important thing I have learned is this:
   I am home.

Thank you: Zach, Elizabeth Wirsing, Scott Becker, John Corneille, Two Men & a Truck, Bubba from Schwan’s, friends and family for your support and patience while I obsessed over my new crush and complained about packing, and especially Dave who still loves me despite all my stuff.

Bonus lesson: It’s fully light by 5:30 a.m. I did not know that. But thanks to sheer blinds, I know now! (Top of the to-do list: window treatments.)

And it might as well stay chilly until I’ve earned (unpacked) a spot by the pool. That’s mighty fine incentive, if you ask me.