©+Laurie Pace Graphics One Design 2016
Size: 5 x 7 Mixed Media on Canvas.
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“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” ― Albert Einstein
SIGH... DEEPER SIGH.
Do not know where the week went. This is already SATURDAY. I haven't really blogged all week, except for Stacey's birthday. We made the decision to downsize and literally have been hitting the house each day, packing up extra stuff, fixing small things and mourning.
Yep, Mourning. I hate to even admit how many times Terry and I have moved. For a while we were redoing homes and selling them and buying the next. The goal was to pay for our retirement home in cash. Sadly, it did not happen that way when he retired in early 2010. The real estate market sucked. We did not lose money on the "Frank Lloyd" type house we redid, but we did not make anything. As a result, we had a mortgage when we moved to the lake.
We loved the lake. I know you have seen pictures of our home on a 5 acre catfish pond and the property on the lake... high up on a cliff. It was peaceful. It was beautiful. It was breath-taking in more ways than one... there were snakes, bob cats, lots of spiders and too much loneliness and time from our grandchildren. We lasted three years and my allergies to mold were off the chart causing daily migraines. Once we moved back to the DFW area, those disappeared.
So. in 2013, we bought a home across the street from our daughter. We knew when we bought this home it was way too large for us. We had about 1900 sq feet at the lake on two acres. Here we have 3100 sq feet on a tiny piece of postage size land in a neighborhood. Definitely not our first choice but the beauty of these babies outshines the sunrise on the lake and the fiery sunset at night. One smile and you are hooked.
Life has been blessing after blessing for the past three years but the nightmare balance of it were the taxes on the house. The values have skyrocketed and taxes along with them as the year after we bought they were allowed to lift the ceiling on raising the taxes on this house and guess what... that along with the next two years saw close to a 48% increase in property taxes.
You know the next part of the story. Our daughter sold her home to our youngest son and she and her family moved in upstairs in our house. We made it 8 months. They found the perfect home they wanted in the neighborhood and moved about five blocks away. We made the decision to downsize and are in the process of listing the house this week and hopefully beginning our search for a new place in the next month.
Love is what brings the joy to the heart and soul. Family is everything to us and our grands fill us with smiles and laughter. So Einstein is right... you have to keep moving to keep your balance in life, just like riding a bicycle! Terry and I need a bicycle built for two!
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24
Laurie
#horsepainting #lauriepaceart #equineart
Laurie Pace
A Texas Artist
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