Our current house feels less and less like it’s ours as the days go on. For one thing, with all the work done on it, it no longer looks like it did even just one month ago.

There are railings on the front porch, we moved the porch swing, and all the dragons are packed up and hiding in the garage.

There are railings on the back porch (notice the inclusion of the lovely patio set we found a few weeks ago, plus all the brand new plants and landscaping around the porch itself. Until we decided to put this house on the market, that was still all bare, ugly dirt.

The tree on the wall of the breakfast nook is finally complete. Considering that my friend came over to do the trunk and get the whole thing started about three years ago, it’s more than past time I finally got it finished. In answer to the obvious question, no, we will not be painting a tree on a wall in the new house. As gorgeous as this thing is, once was enough. The thought of having to duplicate all of those little leaves makes me a little weepy.

Of course, on the plus side, even as the current house feels as if it is starting to slip away, the new house feels as if it is coming more and more into focus. Thursday morning we met our realtor and several inspectors at the house in Sacramento and while Richard and the realtor and I sat in the dining room and went over a whole stack of paperwork, the inspectors walked around the house and poked and prodded and peered and took copious notes so that we will know exactly what we are getting into in the new place. Thankfully, the verdict is – nothing we didn’t already expect (with the possible exception of the carpenter bees munching on the back deck – and holy crap but those suckers are big and ugly – but since the deck’s going to undergo some serious renovation, the bees aren’t a problem anyway).

Yesterday afternoon Richard and I headed off to Sacramento for the East Sacramento garden tour, which was a self-guided walking tour of nine gardens in the Fabulous Forties, a neighborhood just across the freeway from where we’ll be, full of huge, gorgeous old houses, tree-lined streets, and soe rather nicely decorated back yards. We could not have asked for better weather for an afternoon spent wandering around looking at gorgeous houses.

Afterwards, Richard asked if I wanted to go swing by the new house and I made some comment to the effect of ‘duh!’ so we headed over in that direction in a circular route, tracking down the location of several more stores, coffee shops, and interesting places to go explore once we move in. Then we stopped at the new house and got out to ponder additional possibilities for the driveway we’re going to be putting in, and while we were doing that, someone came out from the house next door, and before we knew it, we were introducing ourselves to our soon-to-be new neighbors. So what was meant to be a quick little stop quickly turned into a much longer visit, involving a nice long chat with our neighbors, who are delightful people who are maybe just the slightest bit excited about our proposal to take out the inappropriately placed pine tree that stands between our property and theirs. We stood out in the front and talked about the neighborhood and they told us about some of the other neighbors, and then they showed us what they’ve done to their backyard (it’s absolutely lovely and I am hoping we can pick their brains for ideas for our own backyard) and it was the perfect way to end a day in what will soon be our home town.

And as we headed home, away from the place that will soon be ours, back to the place that won’t be ours much longer, it was just one more reminder of how this decision of ours to pick up and move and make such a drastic change in our lives is good and right and meant to be.