Becoming attached

We bought this house in 1991 and yes, I'm attached to it. Not really the house so much as the property and the plants and stuff that I've put a lot of work into. I've got a little vineyard of 80 vines that I planted and I'd have to cry a little to see that in the rearview mirror.

We lived in our house before this for 10 years and I didn't mind leaving it at all. It was a little tract house with a busy street behind it and a weird next-door neighbor.

I had a couple grape vines, they died out one year. Were producing and doing good. All of a sudden, dead.

Had Apple tree's also. A big storm uprooted one and knocked the others down. I was amazed at the uprooted apple tree. It was like the wind grabbed it and plucked it from the ground. Only a hole was left where it once stood.

My Black Walnut is still doing good but an ice storm in 2003 broke the top part of it in half. I didn't think it would make it but it recovered nicely. My brother wanted to cut it down. But I told him no way. If it dies completely then we will cut it down. Though nobody thought it would recover, including me, I wanted to give it a chance. It was ugly as sin for several years but looks almost as good as it did before the ice broke it in half.

I also had two plum and three cherry tree. I now have one plum tree and two cherry trees. One cherry has edible fruit while the other is ornamental. The edible cherry and plum have both slowly fallen over. I guess it's the soil and the fact they are on a hillside. They are still alive but growing kinda sideways.

I have a huge Maple tree, a twin Maple, each side is about 20" diameter. Love that tree. I have deck built under it. Countless cookouts and family get togethers under that tree.

I used to play the lottery when I was younger, even then I wouldn't play until the jackpot was about 50-100 million or more as it didn't seem worth my dollar for anything less.

I always figured if I won I would build a huge house and transplant this little house inside it. Large murals around it of the landscape with the house inside my house as a place to retreat to when my millions got the better of me. 🙂

As my wife just said to me. It's just a house. She is right. I can take the memories with me. I just can't bring the house.

pay not attention to me. I write to reason. A reason to write.

Where are you moving to?

John, it is not only an attachment, it is a home...you can use it as a base for anything....another thing to think of is if I go to my basement, attic, or barn, I can't imagine moving all the "STUFF", to anywhere. I plan to leave it all where it is and take everything else as it comes!!!! And I have looked at places where the cave would work, just plan to line it with all the knotty pine I have installed over the years!!!

I was attached to my first house. I had been in it for almost 14 years and done tons of improvements. The hardest thing to leave behind was the 55 gal. fish tank I spent so time in mounting in the wall between the kitchen and living room. The pecan tree I had planted some 10 years ealiers had just started putting out that year.

However, it was easy to leave the area - Stone Mountian, GA. The neighborhood had gone to hell in a hand-basket. Gang bangers were becoming common. All my neighbor friends had moved away. I had nothing left to keep me there. The corporate and city life had all but burned me out. I took a job at a small software company up in the remote NC mountians. The house sold REALLY quick thank God. However it took about 5 months to get it closed. Lesson learned: don't sell to a buyer going through an FHA loan - they are super anal. The inspector was a joke. He claimed faulty wall sockets in 2 rooms. The idiot didn't realize they were wired to the wall switch.

I was visiting a friend over there about 3 years ago. He took me over to the "old hood". Wow!!! It went WAY down hill big time. What a dive!! My place was still in good shape. I was glad to see that. The pecan tree is easily 50' tall now and a great shade tree.

John, I think you are doing the right thing to rent especially given today's market.
E.

For now Kentucky. Just because I don't have the funds to move any farther.

Ultimately hope to end up back in Montana. That's where I grew up for the most part. I know the wife and kids will love it there. We are 'this close' [fingers with only a sliver of light breaking through between them] to getting back together. Once I get a couple other things going, I hope I will be ready to let them come back.

I just want to move somewhere that I am unknown. I am so well known here because of my surveying, people are always wanting to interact with me and it wears me out. I need to be alone for a while.

People actually hunt you down when they need a survey. I do not advertise and they still find me. They know my family too and will stop them in the store to have me to call them. I know it all sounds great for business but I just have to get away for a while. If I return down the road I'm sure they will still be looking for me anyway.

I posted some time ago I've only done 14 jobs this year. Thats true. But it's not because of lack of potential work.

I just need to be alone for a while. You can't do that in a place you have been surveying in for the last 19 years. I need to get out of here and not survey before I ruin my very good reputation. I am doing a great job at that.

I have to throw this out there. Instead of Montana I agreed to take them to Florida at some point and it would be a family decision as to where we make the final move to. I keep telling them I lived in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and a few other places down south. I do not like it that far south. Nice places to visit just not my style. I like mountains and snow.

We've been in this house since 1979, really like everything about it, but I could leave in a minute with no regrets. I have a lot in this place including improvements and additions that I have done, landscaping, good memories, etc etc. But I could move on with no problem.

The only regret about a house was not mine, but my grand parents. It had been the one constant in my entire life and when I had to sell it because I had power of attorney and my grand mother was in a nursing home - that was tough and I aggonized over that decision even though I knew it was the right thing to do.

Funny how trees mean a LOT!!! My ground was a corn field when I moved here from Alaska...62 acres and now it is mostly wooded. Had trees for each of my kids and Christmas live trees that we planted. Grandson and I planted a nice Concolor Fir that is doing great after having it for X-mas. Last year we were on the back porch when lightning hit my giant Tulip tree my daughter and I planted, totaly toast...haven't ever burned Tulip in the wood stove but this year we will try it.

I know what you mean. I have been 'cleaning house' for the last many months preparing for this ultimate journey. Though over that time I have 'flipflopped' about moving many times. One final straw has set me on moving for sure. I might explode if I don't get out of this state.

I have thrown away an amazing amount of stuff. The last room to tackle was my bedroom. 7 contractor bags of what I determined to be 'garbage'

I put everything in labelled storage bins that I really don't use or need but couldn't part with. so I am basically packed.

When I was looking for a house, this was the second house I looked at. I knew when I saw it that this was 'the house'. I could have looked at more but I didn't want to.

Funny how we get so attached to things but what attaches us is the memories that we build more than anything. Not the structure.

Funny how the kids migrate!!! One daughter is a paid ski patrol, not many of them in the country...she has a masters degree, pays about 15 bucks an hour!!! The other daughter just got out of the Marines after 10 years, didn't want to leave the grandson again...she has a job in AZ. So I have one in Idaho and one in Arizona, and "WE" are in NY, with no work, talk about de-tached...might walk that direction next week, might make it before too much snow flies!!!

I'm a very rooted person. I moved to this town in 1972 when I was 19. We've lived in our current house for 14 years, and I lived in the one before that -- the first house I owned -- for 17 years. I'd probably find another way to earn a living before I'd leave.

It's not about the house, it's about the whole community. The individuals, the shared perspectives, and the physical environment all contribute to a sense of place. The mobile lifestyle, which has become pretty common since WWII, just isn't for me. I hope they cart me out of here on a stretcher (but not for a good many years yet).

Trees are awesome. It is so peaceful to just sit under one or watch one grow for a while.

My Black Walnut is my favorite. It was before it was torn apart, but even more so after it recovered so well.

I look at my Black Walnut most every day. Love it's contrasting colors. The dark black bark of if and the green colored leaves. Also it's the first to lose it's leaves in the fall and the last to get them in the spring.

You have to be quick in the fall to get a good look at it's fall colors. It is already changing. Just slightly with a few leaves on the ground.

Wow, I moved to Davis in 1971 when I was 18. Ahh, college, the best 7 years of my life. Not really, my wife got me a coffee mug that says that, though. Actually, it was only 6. I never put down roots in Davis though. I moved on to San Francisco, Santa Cruz, chasing the dream, then reality set in and I went back to Sacramento and started surveying full-time in 1976. I wasn't going to do the cap&gown thing but a friend talked me into it in Spring 1977.

I used to love my town. I moved all over the USA growing up. Ended up here just by chance I guess.

Tried to leave once or twice but have determined Spencer is a black hole and draws you back in for some reason. I hope to make it out this time.

I don't guess the community has changed, it's me that has changed.

I don't have a place that I can say 'thats where I'm from'. I guess Montana is the closest I could come to saying that, with West Virginia a close second. Though I've lived in West Virginia longer than I lived in Montana. Montana has always been and will most likely always be my favorite state. though there are a few states I've never been to.

At 61 years old I see myself off on an adventure to an area that I have not been to before, hopefully to assist someone with a surveying adventure....maybe with your contacts and past expierience another surveyor on this board could see an advantage to hooking up, I know that there are a bunch of guys on here that I would love to just carry their gear to see where they work, let alone get paid!!

There is another surveyor here that lives in the southern part of this county.

He will be pleased when I leave. I mean that in a good way.

I plan on opening up my files to him and he can store them at his location if he chooses to, must keep my files intact and not mix his files in with mine. I haven't worked out all the details, but I figure on making up a 'lease agreement'. Something like a dollar a year and after ten years if I don't return they are his. I have stuff back to the 1970's from a company I bought several years ago, and would hate to see it sit unused in some storage building.

Still working out the details.

I was also attached to my home. I had my office in the converted garage. It was my childhood home. I bought it from my mother. Of course she came with the home and I took care of her until things took a dump. The economy went down and could no longer make the payments. My mother had lived there 46 years. The mortgage company foreclosed and it was sold 3 weeks ago she was forced to find a new place to live. I had quite a few memories in that house.

Yeah...I guess you could say I had become attached. Becoming attached is an emotional no no.

It's life. Toughen up an do not for any reason become attached to anything. Tomorrow it could be gone!

Dang that is terrible. I don't want to get political but the billions could have helped you and your mom instead of where ever the heck they went.

I have bought myself to the middle of September. But already recieved notice of intent to foreclose. They gave me two extra weeks with one phone call from my wife. Was supposed to start on the 5th of next month. But this has nothing to do with my decision to leave. It's just something going on and has been going on. I've come within days of losing my house. I always seem to keep it somehow. An 'intent to foreclose' doesn't even phase me anymore.

I hate it. not that I might get foreclosed on, because I earned that myself I did it to myself because I'm a piece of (pick an unsightly item), it's my own doing.

If I can get things rolling I have secured a renter. If not I'll just walk away. You are right, it's just a house. I'm turning to that page the more and more I read.

I sincerely hope things pick up for you. How did your mom take everything. I hope she didn't take it too hard. Moms are the best.