Tonight was our final, final visit to what was our house for the last several years. We had a few last things to pick up after the weekend...specifically our grandfather clock we wanted to be sure was handled with care and we had to drain Brian's beloved fish tank. In order to drain it the fish had to go and we didn't have the heart to just "get rid of them" so we called around and decided to donate them to a local aquatics store. We went to Aqualand Pets in the Hiland Park area of Des Moines...if you have never had the extreme pleasure of visiting Hiland Park, I recommend that you never go there. Kind of sketchy! Lucky for us it was still daylight so I snapped this pic of Brian in front of the store as his last moments with goldie, Bob and Hawkeye.
As you can see, he was not happy about letting his fish go...or maybe he was not happy that I was making him take a photo in front of this sketchy pet store. Probably the latter. Pretty sure something illegal might be going on in this place. I'm just sayin'.
I truly believe in karma and what goes around comes around...so we left the house spotless and a few helpful tips for the buyer's new home. Hopefully someday, somewhere down the road this will pay off...even if it doesn't we feel good about how we left things. We even left them some toilet paper! My mama always told me to treat others as you want to be treated and I would love a bottle of champagne in my fridge to celebrate my new house!
We also left some extra keys, the garbage collection day and the mailbox number as a simple curtesy.
As we packed everything up, Brian and I did one final walk through, hand in hand, reminiscing of all of the good times we had in that house. Lately the song "It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday" by Boyz to Men has been popping into my head. Random, I know! I probably haven't heard that song for 10 years but could still probably sing every word to it. I think it's about someone dying or a break up but nonetheless, it still seems to apply to what we are going through. We are saying goodbye to Brian's first house and starting a new adventure and building "OUR" house together. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a tiny bit sad about leaving and maybe shed a few tears as we drove away. It was the memories that made that house a home for us and the good thing is we get to take the memories with us. We are so excited for the next couple of months and can't wait to get into our new house and start to make new memories on the Westside. Eastside chapter closed. No matter what it is in life...when it's over, it is hard to say goodbye...to yesterday. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." XOXO - j
