House is Sold and God Rest Lindy's Soul, Amen!

Can you see that little sign hanging down from the bottom? This time it's not 'sale pending'. It's S.O.L.D. and can you hear us squealing all the way from here to where you are? You should be able to, because we are.

We've been envisioning this for two years, getting ready for it, painting for it, praying for it. We got two offers, chose the one that had the best terms for us, and now we're off to the races with the whole moving thing. Two places, 1200 miles apart, in 19 days. We'll be sleeping at this place for ten more nights, then moving into a condo nearby, and a truck will be pulling out with most of our stuff, taking it to the lake.

So, now that the house is sold and there are no more showings (oh, thank you God!), I figured I better go back and give one more good dig, trying to find our dearly departed 11 years ago golden retriever, Lindy. After she died we had her cremated and I kept her ashes in our bedroom closet for several years because everyone was so tender about losing her. Finally I decided there would never be a good time, and we had a funeral of one as I buried her beneath the squirrel feeder. I thought she would like it there. After I buried her, I stood there a minute thinking happy thoughts. I told her Elisabeth Elliott believes dogs go to heaven and that's good enough for me! Then I took a brick, painted it white, took a sharpie marker and wrote her name and dates on it, to mark the spot.

I tried. Really hard. This is what it looked like before I started. The brick was sitting there, marking the spot.

This is what it looked like when I was taking my first break, recovering from the humidity and feeling semi-sick from heat exhaustion.

Notice: there's no longer a squirrel / deer feeder there. I loaded it into the back of the car and took it to Jeremy and Leslie's place. He loves feeding deer in their yard, and they'll have a lot of fun with this in their yard, over the years. If I put it in our yard at the lake, we'll be fattening up skunks. No thank you!

This is a really big hole, and I'm thinking, 'what on earth was I thinking? Why did I think she needed to be buried more than two feet deep? It's not like we live in the wild with wolverines roaming about!'

This is what it looked like when I'd taken two more breaks, with sweat dripping down the sides of my face, running into my eyes and a broken blood vessel in my right foot from digging with the shovel in purdee clay for a solid two hours.

I tried, I tried really hard. Lindy, Rest in Peace. I'm pretty sure you're safely laid to rest, wherever you are. You're safe from little kids digging to China and wolverines too. We'll leave a little note for the next owners, just in case they decide to put a swimming pool in the backyard someday.

P.S. I promised my husband I would not complain a single time during this process of moving. We're feeling so blessed by God, in approximately 50 days on the market we showed our home about 25 times. That's just unheard of. We got three offers, and sold it in two months. So any noise coming from my mouth will be words of P.R.A.I.S.E. No complaining - nosiree! Just deep breaths, and as Elisabeth Elliott also says, "Do The Next Thing."