Road trip!

I'm on the road again, this time going to Minnesota -- what an odd feeling, going FROM Iowa TO Minnesota. This is my first trip back since we moved, and it will be interesting. I'll be staying in a hotel, and it will be a very fast visit: in on Thursday, back on Saturday.

Mixed feelings, for sure. I wanted to drop by our old house and gather seeds from one of the plants in my old garden. I brought those seeds with me from Pittsburgh when we moved, 20 years ago, and the plant should be seeding now. But the buyer of our house has sent a nasty-gram to her realtor, describing how we "deceived" her about the condition of the house.

I don't want to get into details in a public forum. Suffice it to say, there was a house inspection done and we corrected any issues that were brought to our attention. The issues being raised are ones we were unaware of at the time of sale.This whole thing has been very hurtful for us, because we really bent over backward, trying to fix the house up and leave it in great shape for the buyer. We put together lists of info about the house (maintenance things, when we bought what, who to contact about what, how to manage the garden)... very detailed info. My husband spent hours (really, days) of time spackling and painting and cleaning and organizing and checking a million little details. We really felt we were turning over an excellent home -- only to be told ... well, I won't go into details.

Our new home has not been without pitfalls. We've done some repairs we didn't plan on but these things weren't found during the inspection, so that's how it goes. We had an excellent inspector go through the house, but he can't find everything. We expected to spend a bit of cash, and yes, we're spending more than we planned. But it's an older home and that just comes with the territory.

So I won't be able to go to the old neighborhood when I'm in Minn. To be honest, I don't want the chance of a confrontation. That's sad, because I have friends there I'd like to see. I'm hoping, in time the buyer will realize that this is all a part of home ownership. Maybe she's never owned a home before; maybe she got bad advice. Maybe she'll realize that it really is a great little home. Because it is, a nice home on a nice piece of land in a nice neighborhood.

That's why this will be a very odd trip -- a mixture of pleasure and worry. I'm looking forward to being there and also looking forward to coming back here -- because now 'here' is home and, as you know, there's no place like home!