Day 10 After The Fall

First, thank you all for the MANY well-wishes.  It is good to have friends.

Second, it has not escaped my awareness that I could very well have died!  I was fortunate to have fallen relatively flat.  A slight change of angle and I could have landed on my head.  SNAP!

Third, it seems odd to realize that I fell 10 days ago.  It seems like both forever and yesterday.  "Forever", because I am used to being active and there sure isn't very much I can do lately.  It is amazing the things you take for granted.  "Yesterday" because undifferentiated boring days all melt together.  When nothing about one day is much different from another, you lose track of them.  

Fourth, I've lived (pretty happily) on my own for 50 years.  It creates a habit of self-relience.  Suddenly not being self-reliant is quite a shock!  So, I make it a point to do what I can.  Its not much but even small things help.

Fifth, I want to assure everyone I do not blame Laz in the least.  I have told him several times "It was NOT your fault".  

Sixth, some of the initial bruises are beginning to fade.  Oddly, some of the original lighter bruises are deeper purple now.  I have never bruised easily, so I don't have much experience with how they heal.

Seventh, I am learning to be very efficient when I move around.  When I'm in one spot, I keep everything together on a counter or table.  Food (for example) gets separated by to-be-microwaved, to-be-stovetop-cooked, and edible raw (fruits, salad material).  And I don't leave a spot without making sure I have my cordless phone, eyeglasses, TV remote, etc with me.  Nothing like "walkering" across the house and realizing my glasses were left in the bedroom to make you sigh DEEPLY!

Again, thanks for all the good wishes, thoughts and prayers, POTP, and useful advice.

I'm Moving

Oh damn, I have to.  I received a legal notice in the mail today that "The Western Bypass" around Waldorf has finally been approved by the State after 30 years of fussing  It goes right through my property as planned years ago.  I thought after 5 years of no action, it was dead.

I have 6 months to move.  I can challenge that but I don't think I will.  Spring-to Fall is the easier time to move.  I just KNEW this would happen someday.

I started seeing some new road construction last month that suggested the bypass was being built, but I didn't want to believe it.  Sadly, it is.

They have been ripping out trees in a long straight line directly opposite the end on the existing Bypass, so I assume they are moving forward on the idea now.  And it is coming straight toward me...

I am of 2 minds on this.  First, I have spent a lot of time and effort planting stuff around the yard.  But The neighbors' trees cast so much shade that gardening is hard.  They may be doing me a favor.  I will get the assessed tax value of the property and (bizzarely) that is possibly even higher than the actual selling price (they assess taxes to the max here).

I have explored the idea of moving each Fall for the last 3 years but chickened out.  This time, I have no choice...

What I WANT is 2 acres of sunlight and a large 1 story open room house (the kind you can see across without walls).  Getting that without having well water will be trickey, but on the far edges of city water, I can probably afford that.  I love gardening enough to pay for that AND city water.

I'll be busy for a while...

But on the other hand, it looks like I will be able to start fresh from a new house and yard and that IS kind of exciting!  The hard part will be getting my woodworking equipment and all the garden equipment (I've accumulated more than you might think.)  But there are companies that specialize in that work and on online site suggests it is not TOO expensive.

Wish me luck.  It's going to be a very busy year.

Recent Posts and Comments

First, thank you to everyone who commented about my recent house searches. The comments all made good sense (and they were easy to agree with since I was coming to that understanding myself).  I have MUCH to like about my current house and LESS than I imagined to dislike.  After enough years, you have everything where you want it.  Minor problems seem larger than they really are.  Sometimes it seems easier to escape them than just fix them.

I argue with myself about many things.  I see both sides of issues and that can really make decision-making difficult.  I've had friends for whom any question gave them an immediate answer which they acted upon with no further concerns.  Personally, I thought they tended to make bad decisions sometimes, but at least they were never tortured by doubt. 

But thinking too much about everything can lead to "analysis-paralysis" and that can be just as big a problem.  You get to a close decision and you are STUCK in between.  I recently saw a TV ad that used the term "FOBO" (Fear Of Better Options).  I get that.

2 years ago, I looked at houses with County water and sewage and cable and large open yards with sunlight for gardening.  Last year, I looked at rural lots of converted farmland that I could build a new home on.  Starting from scratch in the yard and a new house that would outlast me seemed good.  But all the lots I could find were surrounded by working farmland with overpowering fertilizer smells and I never found the open house structure I could afford (like 100'x50' for one-level living and a workshop attached and a garage.   This year, I looked at large Ramblers about the size of my current size  over a large open basement large enough for my woodworking equipment, and had a 2 car garage (one car, one boat).

The good house was on a lawn dome that fell off into ravines in back and the large side, the house with the good yard had crumbling foundations and obvious water problems in the basement, and the last one had a good yard but was smaller than my current house and, even filtered and softened, the water tasted bad.  And was $150,000 more than my house is estimated

So I have decided to remain here for a while.  Perhaps in a few years County water and sewage will be installed in more rural areas, the cable companies will expand, solar panels will become cheaper and more efficient, etc.  But that time is not now.

There isn't a whole lot I can do about my lack of gardening sunlight, though some ideas occur to me.  Putting up silver-painted sheet metal on the shady side would reflect a fair amount of sunlight back into the garden, for example. 

There isn't much I can do about the trees.  They are tall and narrow.  It's not the overhanging branches; it is their sheer height.  And it has been years since I asked about removing them.  Perhaps paying to have them professionally removed and replacing them with flowering trees like dogwoods would work.  I'll at least ask again.

And if that doesn't work, I do have the right to cut out all roots invading my soil.  Since they are so close to the property line, that might kill them.  And THEN I can offer them lower growing flowering trees that won't cause me problems.  From the shade angles, all I need is that trees be not more than 20' high.  The current ones are 50 to 75'.

As far as the house itself goes, most of the things that bother me are fixable through my own or contractor efforts.  The basement bathroom I installed myself 20 years ago was a mistake, but it can also be removed.  I've never used it except for storage.  It goes back to when I paneled 3/4 of the basement and carpeted the area thinking I would have parties.  I didn't throw parties and tore out the carpet in favor of a wood-working area, but the bathroom remains as dead space.  The ancient refrigerator can go, in favor of a medium chest freezer in the cat room upstairs.

I have 3 rooms with original 30 year old carpeting.  The master bedroom carpet is still oddly good (it gets so little use), but the other 2 are trashable and I'm thinking linoleum for the computer room (getting rid of the annoying chair mats) and tight pile carpet for the cat room).

I have new shingles on the roof, a new deck, new siding, and I have raised the front lawn to solve  drainage problems.  The asphalt driveway is deteriorating gradually; that can be removed and replaced with concrete. 

My 25 year old perennial beds have less in them than my pictures show these days (which is why you have been seeing more pictures of potted deck plants this year).  I can dig up the good plants, rototill the areas, replant the good ones and add more.  But that is what I would be doing in a new place anyway, and with greater effort. 

I could go on, but you get the idea.  I was desiring to escape redoing and fixing things and just starting over.  Starting over is neat and clean.  Summer's Mom mentioned that HER passion was big beautiful houses  and those are what she wants to spend her time and effort on.    I when I lie in bed at night, thinking about what's not perfect about my house, my thoughts are on doing work to make it better.

I have reasons to want to move, but less than I thought a month ago.  I'm staying.  And if you are the kind of person who remembers things like this and I mention moving again next year, remind me about the past 3 years of searches.  LOL!

Houses Again

I visited another house today.  This one was listed a shade over $400k, but I could tell they would accept a lower offer.  The elderly lady and her son seemed to want to leave ASAP. 

The house is nice.  3 decent bedrooms, 3 baths,  large kitchen, combined dining/living room, 2 car garage, decent basement (divided into several rooms but they didn't seem to be structural so they could be removed).  Large front lawn, backyard sunny enough for gardening, and the place comes with a separate deed for 20 surrounding wooded acres.  I could probably sell a few acres and even make a profit on the cost of the house.

I discussed the purchase procedure with the agent and suggested starting the paperwork.  I could afford the new place, and what is the point of dying wealthy when you have no descendants?

There were some negatives.  The place is on  well water and a septic tank.  The direct water is OK for washing and showering etc, but not for drinking.  Even filtered and softened, the water tasted terrible (the agent looked at the system and said better ones are available).  I would need to build a 300' fence around the backyard to protect the cats from neighborhood dogs and the garden from deer.  I would have to have a large toolshed added.  I would have to remove interior basement walls.  The deck was tiny and I would want a much larger one. 

But those are problems that can be overcome.  The problem is ME!  I sat down after I returned home and thought about it.  Then I looked around the house and yard and realized I JUST COULDN'T GET MYSELF TO MOVE!  I have become part of the property.  I'm rooted, affixed, nailed down.  I don't want to change, I don't want to learn a new house, I like the taste of the water here, etc, etc, etc.  I have never lived in "someone else's" house before

For possibly the 1st time, I understand both sets of grandparents.  All 4 died "oldish" in the houses they moved into in their late 20s.  They had become part of their houses.  Or their houses had become their larger "skin".  My house and yard are part of me, and I can't shake that feeling.  Everything in the house is exactly where I want it to be.  The yard needs work, but that is always an ongoing process.  If I moved, I would feel like I abandoned a friend in need of assistance and care.

I don't need to move for a new job or anything.

For what it is worth, I can easily afford to buy the new house outright, empty the current one, and then have it professionally cleaned before selling it afterwards.  I could even sell the current place "as is" and not even bother with making the kinds of repairs that 30 years of living have inflicted.

Has my train gotten completely de-railed here?  Am I talking myself out of a good life decision?  Have you faced a similar uncertainty of moving, and if so, what decision did you make?

Annoyed

Well, I'm a bit depressed today.  I've lived here 30 years, improved the property, improved my gardening area, and I gain NOTHING!  Because every year, the neighbors' trees bordering my property grow taller and cut out more sunlight. 

If I had known those trash saplings of 2 feet 30 years ago would grow to massive shady sunlight-sucking monsters 50' tall by now, I would have mowed them dead!  I have asked the neighbors' if I could pay to have the tall trees replaced with fancy flowering smaller ones.  They say "no" because they like the shade.  Hint, hint; on the east and south sides THEY DON'T GET ANY SHADE FROM THOSE TREES!  But they are oblivious to that.  "Just saying NO" is easier.

So last year, after the gardening season was over, I looked at new homes on the internet.  I would like an open house layout with rooms defined vaguely by 30" high walls (all the better to put plants on). and a large enough property so that trees can't block the sunlight in some 40'x40' garden.

I visited some open lands.  They were all corners of farmland being sold off for cash, with working farmland next door.  Well, if you don't know what farmland fertilizer and/or a horse stable smells like all Spring and Summer; *I* do!

So that idea was a failure.

Last week, I looked for existing houses on 1-3 acres of rural land away from farms.  I found 5 that looked good.  Within a day, I learned that 2 were under contract for sale, 1 had a fussy homeowners association controlling almost anything you can image, and 2 were still available.

I visited those 2 houses with a realtor agent today.  Gosh, photographs can be deceptive.  Both were 3 bedroom/2 baths and 3-5 acres. 

The first, pictured here, was great inside.  Lots of great features inside, nice interior, high wood beam ceilings, a kitchen island with an induction cooktop, granite counters, large rooms, 2 car garage (in my case that would be 1 car and 1 boat), dual fireplaces (right in the center of the house), etc.  The basement was chopped into small rooms ( I want a workshop).  But mostly, the back 2 acres fell right into a ravine practically straight out the back door.  No chance for gardening there.  The house is basically like a Monopoly Hotel sitting on a baseball cap (good front visor, nothing behind).

So we went to the other house.  An acre wide and 5 acres deep.  The backyard was sunny ("gardeny").  And it was flat further back, so I could get for open space cutting down some trees.  Nice toolshed.  The upper interior was cramped but more space than I have now.  The basement was large; plenty of room for woodworking equipment.  

But it stank of mildew and showed water damage.  The reason was obvious when I looked under the deck.  The foundation is crumbling from long-term rain exposure.  The backyard drains TOWARD the house.  Whoever leveled the terrain originally should be drawn and quartered!  There were chunks of foundation spalled off from water damage.  Looking back into the basement, it became obvious the basement had been routinely flooded and the owners had tried a cheap paint job to cover it up.

Both properties were being sold for $350,000 in a rural area with well water and septic fields.

The realtor pair with me had never shown the properties previously and were dismayed by the problems I pointed out.  They seemed genuinely upset.  To the point were they took pictures of the problem areas and even noted some they found themselves ( a water-stained ceiling tile, for example). 

I'm sure that won't stop them from selling either place to anyone who wants them; that IS their job.  But they WERE surprised at what they saw.  I'll bet both places drop below $300,000 very soon. 

For someone who never bought a used house (and only my current one new-built) I sem to have a knack for discovering evidence of problems.  I noticed some other tricks the homeowners tried.  One front door rubbed hard on the carpet, yet there was no wear showing.   That meant the carpet was new.  So when I rapped on the carpet, the subfloor didn't sound solid.  That meant rain-damage through the roof.  Sure enough, there was discoloration in the ceiling above.  It had been re-painted and poorly, so you could see the spot if you knew to look. 

So my search continues.  A rambler on a basement on an open yard.  That's all I ask.  Looks like I will be staying here another year, though I will continue to check the listing "just in case".

Bad as my sunlight is, I refuse to move in the middle of Winter or in the middle of gardening season.

My plan is to buy a house, move, then clean/repaint/renovate the existing house.  I can have 2 for a few months because the current one is paid off so there is no expense holding it for sales prep.

But I'm sure not going to move unless I like the house better and I can garden better!!!

I'm Not Moving Anytime Soon, Part 3

I know I seem to be complaining about my house.  It does have features I like. The ease of movement in the circle is really very good!

There is the computer/library room, the cat room, and the master bedroom, but I spend most of my time in the house in the circle I drew.  It is very efficient!

I took an architecture class and the professor said "tell me something useful about designing a house".  Most all the students talked about the pleasure of large rooms.  *I* said don't waste space on hallways".  There were other tests of course, but I did get an "A".  And I have a pretty minimal hallway today! 

I'm Not Moving Anytime Soon, Part 2

The House I Want:

I have always desired a particular floorplan.  All one level (no basement, no attic), and all interior rooms except bedrooms and bathrooms being divided by 30"/1 meter high walls.  So I could have a sensation of space.  Kitchen cabinets at the floor and above, but with the space between them open.


I want a 2 bay garage; one bay for the car, a second bay for a decent small boat.

I want a workshop about 20'x30' so I don't have to push equipment around on wheeled bases to get at them; with a garage door for easy access.

I want a TV room positioned where I can watch the TV while I prepare food in the kitchen (as I can now), because I spend a lot of time doing both.

I want a fireplace where I can see it burning from anywhere in the house.

I want high ceilings for a feeling of space.

I want geothermal HVAC (Heating And Ventilation Air Conditioning) and solar panels covering a unobstructed south-facing roof.

I emailed many "custom-builders" asking about such a floorplan.  Only one replied, saying the layout needed "rearrangement for utility efficiency".    That's OK, its the basic open structure that matters.

My basic idea is this:

I sent the diagram to a dozen custom builders asking if they could build something like that.  I had no idea what to expect, but I figured that if anyone HAD built custom-designed houses, they might already have something like that.  Only one replied and said the design was flawed for efficient utility design and they couldn't tell the scale, but they could come up with "something more buildable" in a couple days.

I waited 3 days and emailed to ask if they had anything and were still interested.  I even said that I understood my amateur diagram probably had some flaws and looked forward to just a paper sketch suggesting a new arrangement of rooms so that I could imagine "walking around through the house" before we discussed details of actual architectural plans and costs.

Now, keep in mind that there are thousands of free basic floorplans on the internet.  None of those will enable you to build a house.  The real work is in the details and a basic floorplan doesn't provide those!

But the custom home builder apparently wanted (and I didn't realize THAT being new to custom-built houses) payments up front.  OK, I might have considered it in $100's, had he mentioned that.  My conclusion is that this particular builder wants to know how much I CAN spend, and get me for some few $1,000 starting fees  of the process without MY having the slightest idea of the final fees or design.  Well, maybe he is used to building houses for really rich people who have too much money...

So I replied that the overall dimensions were about 30'x80' and it was otherwise to scale.  I took 2 classes in mechanical drawing, and an architect's ruler (a weird triangular ruler) adjusts to all scaling would have told them everything.

I emailed a note of apology for wasting his time...

I don't know why my basic design is so hard for builders around here to consider.  It seems they just don't LIKE the idea.  I had an Uncle and Aunt with that basic house in New England, and it was easy to build.

I still want that house.  I just might have to approach getting it another way.

But then there is the property.  I wanted a lot large enough to guarantee sunny space for gardening and sun on the roof for solar panels regardless of neighbors' trees..  And I wanted geothermal HVAC.   I thought that meant at least 2-3 acres.

So I had a Real Estate Agent looking.  She found several properties close to my fishing locations,  open and level, 2-3 acres.  I visited them.  They certainly were open and level.  I took lots of pictures.

When I got home and loaded the pictures, I realized things I had missed...

The lots were end parts of working farms.  I hadn't considered the smell of commercial fertilizers and the sound of agricultural equipment working from dawn to dusk.  If the entire farm was being sold for residential lots, that would be one thing.  But they were not.  The one soybean field being sold as residential was fine in THAT regard, but the slope of the property from the owners house shows severe erosion.  Not good.

The Real Estate Agent suggested some other properties.  But those were all on well water and septic tank sewage.  I'm not ready for that.  Wells dry out sometimes, and both wells and septic tanks need some routine maintenance.  I'm not that great on routine maintenance.

And they only have satellite TV service.

So she suggested that I consider places closer to me that were on city water and sewage and cable/Fios.  And she mentioned that places with city water and sewage were generally 1/2 acre lots and already built on with standard houses.

Um, I'm there NOW...  So I would be going through the trouble of moving to be in a house and lot about what I have now.

DAMN!

No point in moving, is there?

I'm going to keep looking, I might find just the right space.  But I won't find it today or tomorrow.

I'm Not Moving Anytime Soon, Part 1

Looking for a new house and property was really frustrating, and there is a lot to explain.  I may have to divide it into several posts.

I am in a split-foyer house, which is basically a ranch house on an above-ground basement with a front door in-between the basement and ranch.  I can't even get into the house without going up or down stairs and I'm tired of stairs.  And as I get older, I will get tireder of them.  The house is about 20'x40', which means that all the rooms are on the small side (by US standards at least).  Well, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, living room, dining room, hallway and stairs doesn't leave much per room.  It was a "starter home", but after 29 years, when do I get beyond "start"?

The basement would be fine if I didn't have some serious wood-working floor equipment and gardening shelves and tables.  I can hardly move around in it.  Indeed, if I didn't have all the floor equipment on mobile bases so I could push them around to make room, I wouldn't be able to move around in the basement at all.  And upstairs, I have 7 bookcases, 3 large cat trees, a large aquarium, stereo equipment, secretary desk, 60" flat TV, no attic storage space, etc.

I'm not in any way complaining about what I have, but I've run out of space.  I gave away my sofa and loveseat set years ago.  Yeah, I might have "too much stuff".  But right or wrong, I feel cramped.

The yard is also a problem.  A half acre sounds big.  That's about average for semi-rural property here.  But with the property surrounded by the 100' tall trees in the edges of the neighbors' yards, I don't get much sunlight.  I can't get any of the neighbors to let me have the ones blocking most of my sunlight cut down (professionally and at my expense).

And I like to go fishing.  But the nearest decent places are almost an hour away and 1.5 hours away.  I don't like driving.  Some people do, but it bores me to death.  My brain stands to shut down after about 30 minutes...  I wanted to be closer to those places, which are in more rural Maryland.

And my town is a traffic bottleneck.  It can take 15 minutes to drive 5 miles, and everything useful is on the other side of town.  I'm really tired of that.

So I'm feeling cramped inside and lacking good gardening sunlight outside and feeling to far away from good fishing.  And been here 29 years; I can walk through this house in pitch-black.  So I felt the only decision was to move.

The problem is that what I want in house and property and location doesn't seem to be easy to get.  But this is getting long, so I'll post about that tomorrow...

To Move Or Not To Move

Every couple of years, I get an urge to move.  I've lived here since 1986.  I go through the same procedure.  Contact some random real estate agent in possible areas in Maryland, ask about available houses that might meet my desires, then give up and stay here.

I'm not doing it for the fun of it.  I analyze things reasonably well.  The equation is that the problems I want to leave behind are just about equal the the time, cost, and trouble of moving.  Staying in place just seems easier.

I keep coming up with lists and evaluating the lists is all subjective.  If they were numbers, the additions and subtractions would come out about "zero".  For example:

1.  I'm getting older so I'd like not to have stairs.  But spread-out 1 floor houses are more expensive.
2.  I'd like a open style house with 3' walls.  But that means everything has to stay clean.
3.  An open style house give more appearance of space.  But then there are few walls to put tall things up against.
4.  My gardening here is shaded too much by neighbors' trees, but a larger open yard costs more.
5.  My D-I-Y home improvement work over the years has not exactly been terrible, but not admirable either.  I can live with it a lot better than I could sell it to someone else.
6.  The things I dislike about the yard would be nice to escape.  But most of them also fixable.
7.  I know this house so intimately.  I can walk around here in the dark.  In a new house, it would take a year of turning on all the lights at night just to find the bathroom.
8.  Speaking of knowing the house, I knew last year that there was a problem with the A/C just by a slight change in the pitch of the sound.
9.  After 27 years, I have found about the best place for EVERYTHING! I can't imagine how long that would take in a new house.
10.  The cats know how not to get lost here.  That stands by itself as seriously important.  On the other hand, I kept Tinkerbelle inside for a month before I let her out on a harness/leash every day for a few weeks and she didn't get lost.
11.  I'm used to this place and the structures.  Like the 2 sheds.  They fit everything perfectly.  But there isn't anything here I can't replicate on a new property.  And a new larger one would be nicer than 2 old ones.
12.  My garage is so tight that I have only 6" on each side as I pull in.  That seems like a lot more than it is.  Naturally, I don't do that fast.  And I've managed to get some white garage paint on every car I've ever owned.  I could live with a larger garage.
13.  Living here 27 years also means I have long-standing relationships with a Dr, a Dentist, a Barber, etc.  I know where every store is.  The butchers and wineshops know me.  One special orders my favorite wine jusy for me.  Giving that up is hard.

But almost all of those statements could be reversed.  A new house means new possibilities for better arrangements.  No stairs would be easier in the coming years.  An open lot would let me apply the things I've learned about gardening to a new space.  I might find that a new house arrangement is much easier to move around in.   There is some excitement in designing new flowerbeds.  The cats might love the extra yard space and new places to explore.  Unlike when moving here, dead broke with my bank account flat-lined, I have money now (not much D-I-Y work needed).  And unlike when I moved here in my first house and didn't recognize the cheap, cheating ways of my builder, I have some experience in evaluating an existing house or especially one being built new. 

There are other issues.  I could have a solar energy roof and a geothermal heating/cooling system.  I could start with extreme energy-efficient appliances.  In short, I could go from 27 years ago to up-to-date all at once, and probably good enough for the rest of my independent life.  At some cost and a lot of effort...

So it's "familiarity" versus "excitement",  "no effort to stay here" versus "much work in moving".

So I'm asking of those of you who have moved and liked the decision, and those of you who have chosen not to moved and liked the decision, what do you think?  What did you like about your decision to move or not move.  Both decisions are valid, and I'm stuck between them.

I don't often ask for help in making my decisions, but I'm really on the bubble and could use some thoughts.

Planning To Move

I would like to move.  For many reasons.  As I mentioned last time, it is getting hard to garden here, and that is a major hobby these days.  But the neighborhood is going downhill (crazy drunk neighbors and gang fights becoming more common). 

Parts of the yard have always been a problem.  I live at the bottom of a long sloping neighborhood, the front yard has standing water for days after heavy rains.  I'm across the street from a swamp (something no one pointed out when I bought the property) and the mosquitos are fierce.  When the Asian Tiger mosquitoes moved into the area, it got worse.  I get bitten just going out to get my mail!  Some of the very old huge trees near the house are looking weaker, and I don't want to be here when one finally falls on it (and it would cost a fortune to have them removed).  The house is 25 years old and will need serious maintenance in the next 10 years (roof, driveway, fence, deck).

I'm 61 years old and need to plan for my older years and I am getting tired of stairs.  I want a flat house!  Nothing big.  Basically, a ranch house with an attached garage and a workshop.  I have been finding some decent houseplans.

And, I have to admit, I did a lot of DIY stuff when I moved in here that I wasn't experienced at (and before I had decent equipment).  I want to just escape all that and start fresh (I'll limit my future DIY to furniture and birdfeeders)!  I chose this place because it HAD mature trees.  I'll choose the next place because it DOESN'T.  I'll hope to cover a new open roof with solar panels and put in a geothermal heat pump.  A system that just blows in 50 degree air from the cool underground all Summer sounds very good to me.

I would LOVE to start landscaping again from scratch.  I did everything piecemeal, and it never did quite come together.  Its not UGLY, but a fresh start would be nice.  I could stay and try to fix everything the way I want it, but some parts (like the shady neighbor trees) can't be fixed.

But the idea of moving is daunting!  I have SO MUCH stuff accumulated.  And the idea of moving all my heavy woodworking equipment seems difficult and expensive.  Cabinet saw, floor drill press, joiner, planer, radial arm saw.  Same with the yard equipment:  Riding mower, push mower, chipper, tiller, snowblower, large slow-smoker; stuff a yard person accumulates in 25 years...

Then there is all the inside stuff.  The major furniture is simple to move, and I don't have that much of it.  No sofas, big chairs, beds, etc.  A waterbed folds up into small parts.  Its all the small stuff...  I guess I could have several yard sales.  But I have so many small things difficult to pack up.

The last time I moved, I was renting.  I had to pack up a dozen boxes of books, kitchen plates and cookware, a few standard pieces of furniture, a few boxes of hand tools, and a simple bedroom.  I have 10 times as much stuff now, at least!  And I want to keep most of it.  It's scary, but I am making plans...