In Case You Were Wondering

It's been on the evening news the last 2 nights so perhaps you have heard that Atlanta has had historic flooding after days and days of relentless rain.

In my 22 years here in Atlanta, I've never seen anything like it. Typically we are in drought alert and on water rationing, year after year. So for g'son Nicholas to have had 2 school days off for flooding in the county, that's saying something. Thus far, 10 have lost their lives in Georgia and Alabama due to the rain. Countless others have lost their homes/possessions. Back in 1993 I lost my condo to fire and have been wondering what would be worse, fire or flood!

Personally, I've been fine! The yard was becoming a jungle as the rain started several days ago, but because it wouldn't stop raining, I could never mow it. Yesterday, however, we had a day of sun, so I decided to cut the grass. The grass was dry BUT the ground was so soggy, the mower wheels left muddy ruts:

Now I ponder which was worse...the jungle or the ruts!

Switch gears now and let me update you on something else you may have been wondering about: the house selling and my upcoming move to the Netherlands.

After 7+ months of no bites of consequence on our For Sale house, the decision was made to refinance it back to a 30-year mortgage and Quit-Claim me off the deed, buying me out. It was a win-win situation, lowering the monthly mortgage and allowing me the freedom to move on with my life.

God willing and the creek don't rise, I expect to be out of the house and moved to the Netherlands by the end of November. The estate sale, getting rid of the last of my earthly possessions that won't go with me, is scheduled for the first weekend in November. After that, my car will be sold and...that's all she wrote!

In the meantime, I'm checking off the list all those things that came to mind the last weeks/months when I couldn't get to sleep. It's one thing to move to another city but to move to another country?! That's something else.

For example, did you know that when you apply for emigration to another country and have to get certified copies of your important papers (birth certificate, divorce decree, name change, etc.), there has to be an apostille (pronounced ah-pa-STEEL) added to authenticate the certified copy? And it's not in the same courthouse where you get the certified copies!

So I took 3 hours today to go get certified copies that I already had (they can't be older than 6 months by the time you start the emigration application and mine were a year old) AND to get them apostillized (if that's a word). You can imagine my sheer delight in finding out what this mystery was all about...and talk about getting my education! Attached (with a brass-plated rivet!) as a cover letter to the certified document is this apostille, specific to the Netherlands, that tells them they can trust the certified document to be valid. And at the very bottom it states "THIS APOSTILLE IS NOT VALID WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." How's that for jumping up and down and backwards and forwards to get something validated!

So now you know...in case you were wondering. I have NOT drowned or lost any possessions still remaining. And while the house still has no bites for selling (in fact, it's off the market while the refi is in process), it looks like I have an end in sight, at which point I can move on with the rest of my life.

Thanks for wondering...in case you were!