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I’ve always felt a strong to connection to the writing of Henry David Thoreau. Even as a young teen I can remember quoting lines from “Walden” and getting strange looks from my classmates. I suppose it was a bit strange to hear a fourteen year old saying, “I want to suck the marrow out of life.” But even in my teens the words resonated with me and felt like such a great reminder to how life is short and we need to live it to the fullest.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
Now as my husband, Randy and I prepare to move to Portland, OR, and are currently living in a small apartment with a tiny portion of our belongings, I feel a draw to start reading Thoreau again. The simplicity of our living and the pursuit of our dreams trigger memories of Thoreau’s words and why I love them.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Dreams Do Come True and the words of Thoreau align with this idea in a very active fashion. Here is another of my favorite quotes:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods
It is with this quote in mind that I’m pleased to announce the evolution of my blog, now renamed: Artful Dreamer. The new website will continue to document the journey and adventure to the Pacific Northwest, but I believe it more aptly describes how this dream is being pursued.
 A dream is an idea and only and idea, unless you take action and start planning how to make it a reality. One specific story comes to mind that motivates me to make my dreams reality. The story is from my trip to China in 2002. I was on a tour bus making its way to the Great Wall of China and talking to a woman on the same tour. She was in her eighties and it had been her dream for over sixty years to walk the Great Wall of China. I could hear the excitement in her voice as she shared this dream with me. I could also hear a bit of sadness in her voice, since she had waited so long to make her dream a reality. She was now in failing health and unsure if she would have the strength to physically walk on the wall. As we arrived and unloaded the bus, I watched her start the trek up the stairs. She only made it a few short steps and needed to go back to the bus to wait. She was grateful to see the wall, but her sadness was evident as she sat on the bus and watched others start the climb onto the Great Wall.
It reminds me of how important it is to keep making my dreams reality. Life is short and I want to experience all I can before it’s too late. Like Thoreau, I am an Artful Dreamer and you can become one too.
What are your dreams? Are you taking action to make them realities? Start today. Share some of your own dreams in the comments below. Another easy first step is to write your dreams down in a notebook or save them on your computer. Who knows? You may guide your own dreams to an ingenious end.
 Many have asked me how I planned for my successful move. They are thinking about trying to sell their home and overwhelmed with where they should start their preparations. I thought I would use this post to share how I prepared our home for its sale.
I believe it takes three things to successfully sell your home: 1) Pricing it appropriately 2) Connecting with the right buyers 3) Presentation of your home. You have the ability to control two of the items listed above: price and the presentation. Price will be determined by market, the urgency you feel to move and through the guidance of your realtor. I’d like to focus on number three: Presentation. Unless you hire a professional staging company to help you, the presentation of your home rests on your shoulders. If you have the time and skill and don’t want invest the money in a professional, you can start the process yourself. Here is the process I used during the prep for our home sale.
To give a little context on our situation, we had lived in our four bedroom, 2 bathroom, home for almost 10 years. Because of all of our hobbies and love of antiques and decorating, we had a lot of collections, furniture and miscellaneous items to stage before listing—we also had some necessary small repairs and updates to freshen the look of the home and yard.
Step One: Making a List
As a family, start a list of all of the things that will need to be fixed, repaired, cleaned, replaced, painted, moved or packed. There are a number of things to think about as you start this step.
- Where is the clutter?
- What is broken?
- When is the last time the furniture, rugs/carpets were cleaned?
- When is the last time you cleaned all the windows in your home?
- What is the condition of the blinds or drapes?
- How easy is it to move around in the rooms?
- Is there too much furniture or not enough furniture?
- Are there family photos or other personal items that should be stored?
One activity that helps is to grab a pen and notebook and walk around the inside of your home and write down every item you see that should be improved. Then, take your notebook and do the same thing around the outside of your home.
You must have a critical eye during this process. I use the expression “blind to the ugly” to describe how after you live in a space for awhile, you stop noticing “ugly” things in your home like cracks on the wall, chairs that need new upholstery, rooms that need to be repainted, scale that has accumulated on faucets, trees that are overgrown or cluttered areas. When you decide to sell your house, you have to start looking at your indoor and outdoor space like a stranger would—find all of the perceived and real faults, no matter how small and make a determination of what you will or will not be improving or changing.
You also need to think about the current trends in home decorating. If you don’t know these, it’s as easy as going to the library and looking at a magazine that has decorating in it. Maybe it’s neutral wall colors, stainless steel appliances or hardwood floors. It doesn’t mean you have to change everything, but this will help you determine how much you want to change, which may ultimately influence the price at which you list your home. If you are planning on asking for the highest price you can for your home, the buyers will expect that everything is updated and move-in ready. These are a few of the ways that you have a critical eye throughout this process.
If you don’t feel that you can objectively look at your home this way, you must have a friend or professional help you with this step. This is essential for creating your list of things you need to ensure the best presentation of your home.
Some of the things that made the list for our house in step one were: painting the outside of house and garage, having the windows and carpets professionally cleaned, replacing the cement floor in the garage, boxing up a couple hundred books and storing them and their bookshelves in the attic, and de-cluttering every closet within the house.
 Example list from Reminders App for iPhone/iPad Step Two: Get Organized
Take your list and sort it. At this point you can designate a notebook to keep your lists, use Excel or some other list application. We used the Reminders App on the iPhone and created multiple shared lists for the family. Start with broad categories like Outdoors and House and then get more specific like Master Bedroom, Family Room, Garage and Garden. Once you have your rooms or areas listed, you can put all of the specific tasks, improvements or projects needing completion. Make sure your lists of projects are accessible to anyone in the family that will be adding or completing activities from the lists. Encourage everyone involved to add items as they think of them or as they see things walking through the house or outside.
Step Three: Determine Scope
Now that you’ve got your initial lists you will need to decide if you are going to complete all of the items you listed. If there are major improvements that you do not want to complete, then you will take them off the list, but be aware that these may become a negotiating item during the sale of your home. These might include things like: painting indoors or outdoors, landscaping, concrete repairs, plumbing or electrical repairs. If you decide to invest in the completion of these types of items, you need to determine if you have the time and expertise to complete these projects yourself, or if you will be hiring outside help. You should also try and determine how much time you will be able to invest in all of the items needing completion.
Once you have completed the first three steps, you should be able to determine approximately how long it will take you to finish the tasks and be ready to list your house for sale. Now you have a goal for completing all of the work that needs to get done.
Step Four: Contact an Agent
Once you have set your goal, you should connect with a realtor to get advice and/or confirm the work you are planning to complete. If you have any questions about the changes or improvements you plan to make, you should plan to have your realtor visit and view the property with you. We reached out to our realtor, John Lynden of Lynden Realty to share with him our decision to list the house and some of the work we needed to complete before we were ready. He confirmed our plans and timeline.
Step Five: Get To Work
Begin working on the completion of your projects.
If you follow the steps above it will guarantee you are on the right path to successfully preparing your home for sale. Good luck!
 For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to live somewhere else and more specifically another state. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Minnesota and have been proud to live here, but there was some internal draw to live somewhere else.
I was born in San Diego, California and when I was just three years old, my parents moved back to Minnesota which had been home for them. My exposure to the greater U.S. was limited as a child and I can count on one hand how many of my immediate family members have ever moved from Minnesota. As I grew up and heard stories and saw pictures of San Diego, I had an incredible desire to move there. It seemed like another world with the ocean and all of the sunshine. We also had family that lived in Virginia and when we would visit, we would go to Washington, D.C. and tour the White House and the Smithsonian and I fell in love with the history of that great area. As a child there is really nothing you can to do change where you live, so I found my escape at the library, reading books about places around the world and dreaming of what it would be like to visit or live there.
When I graduated from college I immediately started looking for jobs in San Diego and Washington, D.C.–the two other places with which I felt a connection. I had no professional network in either of them and didn’t really know how to find a job in another state, but I knew how to use a library for research, so I would go to the library and spend hours looking through newspapers from these two respective areas looking for jobs. Well, as you might imagine, this didn’t quite work out the way that I had hoped. I mailed my very, very short resume out to a number of entry level jobs and was fortunate enough to get a few rejection letters. Those letters helped bring some reality to the situation for me and I decided the timing wasn’t right and put my dream on hold.
As I continued to live and work in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota, my dream of moving remained, but it tended to be a sporadic visitor versus a constant friend. I got married in 2000 to a man who was born in Burnsville, Minnesota and had no interest or desire to ever move. So be it, I was more than OK with that plan! I had married my best friend and we had plans to travel the world and maybe own a second home somewhere warmer when we retired. Not my exact dream, but absolutely nothing to complain about. I was happy with my life and able to again purposefully
push aside my dream.
Randy and I started our lives together and as planned, it included travels to all kinds of different places in the U.S. and outside of the country. Every time we would travel, my dream of moving would surface again. I would find myself on vacation looking at real estate and job listings. Dreaming of potentially living in whatever location we were visiting, we started a regular practice of saying, “Could you live here someday?” to each other. The intention behind that question was supposed to be addressing our future retirement, but then we visited Portland, OR. On our first trip to Portland it was almost like we were afraid to ask “the question” of each other. After a couple of days, I asked “Could you live here someday?” to which Randy responded, “Yes.” This time it felt different. We both felt it and I wasn’t sure that waiting for retirement was the right choice. So in the midst of the worst economic state in history, a horrible real estate market and me with a stable, successful career in Minneapolis, we decided to put our house on the market and see what would happen.
Which brings us to today. It took 1.5 years to sell the house, the economy is still shaky, I left my career and we are MOVING! I now understand why it’s so hard to move and the older you get, just adds to the challenge. But in spite of the challenge or the length of time or the economy, my personal dream is coming true and I get to share the experience with my partner and best friend. It’s almost breathtaking for me to write that down.
So don’t give up on your dreams.
I heard Natasha Bedingfield on the radio today singing Unwritten and felt like these lyrics explain where I am at now.
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
Thank you all for sharing my journey and my dream with me.
Managing your pantry, fridge/freezer and liquor cabinet is one part of planning and executing on your move. I managed mine in a few steps.
Step One: Determine how much time you have to before your move. Can you consume all of the items during that timeline? Is the timeline very quick? Are you moving locally and will have the same type of space for food storage in your new home? This step is critical, because it will help guide you through the following steps.
Step Two: Go through all pantries, refrigerator and freezers and dispose of all items that are beyond their recommended use by date or that you haven’t used in the last six months to year. The freezer can be a bit tricky so use your judgment and if you see freezer burn or haven’t used a vacuum sealer, you may want to dispose. I also found a lot of condiments that were still usable, but I had bought them for a recipe I made once and never would recreate. I also threw those items away.
Step Three: Start planning your menus around the use of the food already in your possession. Meal time got very creative and I found myself on a mission to only purchase fresh food and dairy items when at the grocery store. Like most people I know, we had a lot of unused canned, frozen and boxed foods in our pantry and freezer. Be realistic about how much you can actually consume before the move. As packing begins and you are busy with this process, you may not want to be cooking. My husband and I have a joke right now that “we will never eat pizza again”. We ended up ordering in a number of times and pizza was the easiest choice–maybe not the best choice, as we are both a bit burned out on pizza now. One thing that I did was keep my crockpot handy and not packed so I could make some home cooked meals in the midst of the chaos of moving.
Step Four: Determine what you will do with the excess food, etc. After a bit of research I found that there are a number of charities out there that will not only accept the traditional canned and boxed goods for donation, they will also accept frozen items. This type of donation requires you to set up a time for delivery, versus just showing up. One example of this is, Second Harvest Heartland who have locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Another option for dealing with excess food is to share with family members or friends. This might be as simple as giving the food away, or if you have enough time, you may choose to have parties with friends/family to have help using your food and liquor.
Finally, you may want to physically move some of your food etc. with you to your new location.
I did all of the things listed above to varying degrees. We only had about thirty days before our move, so not a lot of time to use the massive amount of food we had accumulated with our Costco membership. In the end, I did move some canned goods, frozen food and dried pastas with us to the duplex. Additionally, because my husband writes a cocktail blog (Summit Sips), we have an extraordinary amount of alcohol products in our possession and that collection was also moved to the duplex.
Now we are living in a much smaller space, with a less workable kitchen and fewer kitchen tools. I have decided to continue my quest to use all of the food and alcohol items that we moved to the duplex before our bigger move to Portland, OR. Last week I created a goulash using only items that had been moved–my husband and I agree it was a success. Here is that recipe.
 Not Your Mother’s Goulash (Makes 6-8 servings)
1 lb. of ground beef
½ of an onion chopped
1 large garlic clove chopped or through a garlic press
2 -14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1-2 beef bouillon cubes
1 can of Guinness Beer
3 stalks of celery
7 oz of macaroni
2 tsp. ground pepper
½ tsp of cayenne
Salt to taste
- Fry the ground beef in a cast iron pot or large skillet on medium high heat and season with salt and pepper
- When ground beef is cooked, push to side and add your onions and celery
- When your onions become translucent, turn your heat down to medium and add your garlic and cook for about 2 minutes more
- Next, add your 2 cans of diced tomatoes and make sure to scrap up all of the browned bits from the bottom of your pan
- Then add the can of beer, beef bouillon cubes and cayanne
- Now add your macaroni and bring to a boil and then turn down and let simmer
- Let simmer for about 20 minutes
After 20 minutes check to see if your pasta is cooked. Add additional pepper, salt or cayenne to taste and serve!
 Boxes waiting for the movers. Our first move was a success. I say “first move” because in order for my husband to fulfill his work contract we are renting a duplex (for six months) in West St. Paul as an interim step. The cross country move to Portland will come later this summer.
I attribute the success of our move to excellent planning, some difficult decisions and tons of hard work. More details on this in future posts. We took our 11+ years of life together and packed it into boxes. Almost all of our belongings will be in storage until we find a house in Portland. We have pretty realistic expectations that this could be anywhere from 12-18 months.
It was strange to watch a house filled with things and memories become an empty shell filled with boxes. I expected to feel a lot more sadness or bittersweet emotion than I did. In the end, I was ready to move forward. Ready to build new memories and DREAM big as we move into our future.
The journey really has started. At my last post (over 6 months ago) I had just left my job of over ten years. Turns out that my decision to leave corporate America was just the first step in a much larger, exciting adventure.
We have sold our house and decided to move to Portland, OR. Big move for us, as we have both lived in MN for most of our lives. The first thing people say when I tell them we are moving is, “Oh, so you’re moving for a job opportunity?” Nope. We are moving for the love of the place! CRAZY!? Maybe. At this point in our lives/careers we probably should stay put, not move. Oh well, let the new life begin.
I thought it might be interesting to document this journey. Not only is it packing up and making a cross country move, it’s also creating new friendships, building a professional network, finding jobs and exploring a new state, city and community.
Join me if you want to come along for the “ride”. It promises to be an interesting one.
My first walk as an unemployed woman. It’s a hot, humid day and as I walk the sun is heating my skin. I start down Summit Avenue and see others that are walking, running, biking- everything seems brighter. I have my earbuds in, listening to music and feel energized.
I start experiencing memories from the last ten years of my corporate America journey. Memories of laughter, crying, friendship, pride, disbelief and adoration. All of these memories spanning years came rushing through my mind in only moments.
Suddenly Florence + the Machine are in my ears and the “Drumming Song” is playing. “Louder than sirens. Louder than bells. Sweeter than heaven. And hotter than hell.”
I release myself from all of the memories and emotions and feel euphoria. Pure, unadulterated EUPHORIA.
Today I begin my journey.
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