Calling on the Carpenter of Nazareth for Help with House-Selling Stress

According to a survey in the Daily Mail, selling a house is one of most stressful experiences people go through, topping death and divorce. 

Although I’d much rather lose a house than lose my husband, having sold five houses during the lifetime of our marriage, I can see why people think that way.

How to dismantle a mobile home—DIY Rule 1b:Beware the time-lapsed video

Marcia Moston

After we spent several thousand more than anticipated in clearing our newly purchased land, we discovered the old mobile home on it wasn’t so mobile after all. The person who wanted it for his own fixer-upper project abandoned the idea because he couldn’t get the permits to haul it down the road. So there we were with this big old doublewide parked right where we wanted to build. The man we hired to find the septic system offered to take it down. “$5,000,” he said. “You pick up the Dumpster fees.”

Ka-ching. Again. And we hadn’t even started to build. That’s the way it is, isn’t it? There’s always a high price to pay to get rid of the old before you can begin the new.

A Year of Nest Building

My intention when I walked into Pier 1 that day was to pick up the chairs I’d ordered. It was the picture of the bird with a beak full of miscellany that stopped me. I turned to my ever-agreeable Bob. “Building a nest. That sums up my life this past year. I’ve got to have it.”

This was before I remembered birds build nests mainly to raise their babies. They live (roost) elsewhere. Clearly not my situation. My nest is post–birdlings. It’s an empty-nester’s nest, one that this time around I expect to live in until I die.

 Nevertheless, I bought the picture and hung it on the naked wall of my newly erected house.

The fixer-upper saga continues: The things we leave behind

I was hoping to find what the Bible refers to as “hidden treasures of darkness.” The property we bought included a run-down mobile home and a metal shed. Both very dark and both packed, I say packed (some boxes since 1999) with the left-behinds of what was once a family. Or maybe it was several families—siblings who used the place to store the mementos of a former life.