This day, Saturday, February 4, we find ourselves with another hurdle addressed in the relocation from our Newport News home to a new home in Northern Virginia. We had a person come to measure several windows in our home here to replacement of the window blinds. The ones that are currently installed are very old and the slats are drooping from the sun’s heat and look pretty bad. We had originally planned to replace these blinds but over a period of weeks or months. Now that we are putting this house on the market, we need to replace them blinds now, before our local Tidewater area Real Estate Agent, Kristie moves forward with the listing of our home for sale.

So, now a major hurdle in the prep process has been initiated. The designer person will compute the costs for the replacement blinds and labor for the installation of the new units. If the blind styles we want to have in the house are in stock for the company, we can accomplish this task in the next couple of days (weekday) and that hurdle will be checked off as completed. Then YEA US.

Expectations are that Dave, our esteemed handyman expert will begin addressing the 20+ tasks we have identified as necessary pre-market. He has the list, or at least the list as it was. We keep finding little things that if left, might detract, but if addressed with hopefully increase the likeability of our house for prospective buyers. So on this Sunday, February 5th, we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel of home prep for sale. Got it, moving on.

Updates to the house for the market preparation are well underway. Dave will be here again this morning to tackle more of the items on the preparation punch list. We will need to ensure that no time is wasted and perhaps accelerate the preparation. Because……..

We traveled up to NOVA on Sunday, February 12th. Looked at four condo units and made an offer to purchase the fourth condo we viewed which is located in Alexandria, VA. The same neighborhood that we left earlier in 2022. We’re BAAAAAACK!!!!

The seller has accepted our offer, our agent is negotiating the final nits for the agreement to be totally in place. However, from all indications, the seller is very motivated so I have no fear that the nits we discovered will not be addressed. YEA US.

Contract documents sent to us last night (02/12/2023) and we electronically signed and returned them to Alanda. Expect to see the Seller’s signatures as full acceptance of our offer and required items today. Seller has asked for a March 10 closing and our financial institution has agreed that the date for closing is reasonable and acceptable to them.

We also have our selling real estate agent, Kristie who is preparing to conduct a discussion visit for the actual placing our Newport News house on the market. Things are a ‘happening.

Contract for the Alexandria Condo has been accepted and signed by all parties. We have a firm, signed, ratified contract. Our agent will do the home inspection with the contracted Home Inspection Service rep. The contract will be uploaded to the mortgage lender officer and the process for closing will officially begin!

We got notification last night (2/14/2023) that we had a fully ratified contract in hand. Alanda, our buying real estate agent, uploaded the ratified contract to the Credit Union’s Loan Officer and we will now move forward on that track for the mortgage loan processing.

We were contacted by email this morning with the title agency for the entry of document tasks necessary for their efforts in conducting our closing process. At this point, we have performed all of their required tasks, except for the actual transmission of the Earnest Money transfer process.

Now we have to finish up the prep tasks and get our selling Real Estate Agent Kristie the access she needs to stage, photograph and put the house on the market! High hopes that we can get a solid buyer in place within a few days or a couple of weeks. That would be the perfect solution. However, perfect is not something that the Hodges Clan is known for having for themselves with their actions. But one can always hope.

I will keep this post open for a couple of days for update entries. The actual mortgage process and closing process are now in process!! We will transmit the “Earnest Fund” monies either today -2/14 or tomorrow at the latest. Got to have that money in the hands of the Title Company shortly (process deadline) so we will move quickly to get that task done.

Fingers Crossed again folks. Next steps are doozies.

The time is getting closer, our efforts are still not frantic. This move will be one of the smoothest we have, in over 42 years, encountered. Since there is no urgency to make the physical move, we can take things as they come, address them with the level of importance and not become all stressed out. Yay Us!

Where to live! Yep, that is the primary question. Our focus at this point is with the following areas, Fairfax County, primarily in Tyson/McLean, Merrifield, Vienna, etc. Or Arlington, mainly in Crystal City, Ballston, etc. Perhaps in Alexandria most areas but Western Alexandria mainly. Would love to find a place in Old Town Alexandria, but don’t like the idea of paying that much for a home and still have to park on the street, IF you can find a spot. So, not thinking of that area.

Wednesday, February 1 – Today we take a pause in our preparations for the move. About an hour ago, we had to say goodbye to our precious Duchess, our little four-legged feline family member of almost 16 years. She was in such pain and illness and to keep her with us was not the right thing. So, our girl has gone and will not be travelling back up to Northern Virginia with us. Her adopted sister Penny will also miss her just as much as we do I am sure. Penny will have to make that trip with us and not have her big adopted sister with her for aid and comfort. But, we will continue on toward a new beginning, just one that is missing a family member. Farewell, Duchess, our precious girl. We will miss you every single day.

Thursday, February 2, – Well we had a moving company come by this morning and prepare a quote for moving our household good back up to Northern Virginia. Good quote, well within my anticipated cost and our overall budget for this entire relocation. Home designer person will be scheduled shortly to come to our house, measure for the window blinds in the master bedroom and then obtain those items and do the install. This is one of our major hurdles and from all indicators, it appears like a hurdle that can be overcome. Yay US!

Friday, February 3 – Things are moving forward in our relocation activity to return to the Northern Virginia area. We will be going up to the area next Saturday and hopefully view a good collection of potential homes. It would be just fantastic to find the perfect spot, location, facilities, amenities nearby and a quality apartment condo unit. Yeah, hope springs eternal!

Regardless, we will continue our search and continue our preparations to put our current house on the market. We hope it will sell in a timely manner so we can transition to the new lifestyle without a ton of stress.

Fingers Crossed folks, the crew (Charlotte, Harvey & Penny) are on the move. Going to Git er Done!

Several changes to our life and lifestyle are on the horizon. Effective on Monday, January 30th, Charlotte starts a new position with a consulting firm back up in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County to be exact. She left her previous firm on October 17 and did a bit of independent consulting for a couple of months. We were still ensconced here in our home within the Kiln Creek neighborhood of Newport News, VA.

As a result of her being offered and accepting this position with this new firm, the decision was made to relocate ourselves back to the Northern Virginia area. Sort of like coming home, considering that the area was our home for well over 30 years.

So now comes the “fun” times, oh sure! We are in the process of prepping our current house for sale and are searching the Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria area for a new home in a condo building. Winter is not supposed to be a terrific time for selling a property, but we are hopeful that Kristie, our real estate agent down here in Hampton Roads area, the terrific and professional person who helped us last year in finding and buying this house will be very successful on our behalf again.

We also engaged Alanda, the same real estate agent in Northern Virginia who helped us sell the condo we had in Alexandria. She also was a terrific professional who worked wonders for our condo sale. She is on the job again to find us another great condo home. We do see a few listings up there that are attractive to us, are in the optimum locations for the times she will need to go into her offices and are within the price range we are looking for. But the biggest problem for me/us is that by the time we are ready to start seriously working on a new home, the ones we really like will be gone most likely.

So now it begins, we created a pair of to do lists. One for the contractor/handyman will be perform the fix up/repair and image tasks, and the other for us to enable us to address all of the myriad things that it will take to sell one house, buy a new home, engage movers, prepare for the double trips from Newport News to whatever section of Northern Virginia we actually buy a new home.

Another major concern is for our aged, senior fur baby cats. Both are in their teens and as we all understand that age range is positively ancient for kitties. Our Penny appears to be in decent shape, but we will have a vet check her out prior to the move. Our sweetheart Duchess however is in not such good condition. She has been suffering for quite some time with various ailments and of course the problems that are part of becoming a senior citizen of the feline world.

So, we will have a veterinarian coming in a few days who will give her a good physical evaluation, assess her quality of life, whether she is in intractable pain (we know she has pains, simply because of her movements and vocalizations.) and what, if anything, can be done to improve her wellbeing. You see, like a lot of people who are owned by their animal children, our two fur baby kids are family, not pets. So, we care about their life quality as other people care about their human kiddos.

But all will be addressed as we progress toward our departure from the Hampton Roads/Newport News Virginia area and return to the DMV (District Maryland Virgina area).

As we begin our journey into the year 2023, let us all hope and pray for a good outcome. Our newly installed Congress has shown a differential that speaks to a two-year span of probably nothing burgers but a lot of show time. Having lost the House to a very small, but loud Republican majority, the Democrats in the House can only make efforts to attempt the mitigation of the actions that will be forthcoming out of this interesting NEW Republican group. Luckily, the Senate remaining in the Democratic Party majority, and in fact, they gained seats, will be a seawall against the potential damaging activity from the Republicans in the House. We still have our democracy, at least some components of it still are operable. So, let us all hope for a Congressional 2-year term that does not do too much damage, and perhaps even makes a modicum of progress toward ensuring the American rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That is what the founders were hoping for, so we can do no less, at least in this old man’s humble opinion. So, fasten your safety harnesses folks, things will be bumpy from here on out.

But hey, it is a new year, and this old man has survived longer than he anticipated, in being able to witness the advent of 2023 still upright and breathing. So, let us be off, dear friends, into the breach of this new year.

As many of you know, at least any of you who have actually read this blog, the Bride and I moved from Alexandria, VA in June of last year to a nice home in the Kiln Creek Golf Community of Newport News, VA. The Bride’s company had established a new set of employment status’, including 100% office, 50/50 office and remote, and 100 percent remote. Charlotte was selected to the status of 100 percent remote. So, since we could live anywhere and she only needed an internet connection to do her job, we decided to leave the DC Metro area for life in the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia. After selling our Alexandria condo, we searched, found and purchased a new house in this new area. I had lived here before, first as a teenager in the mid 50’s attending Hampton High School (dad was in the Air Force at Langley AFB), then again, several years early 70’s later with my own family while employed at NASA Langley and also at Dow-Badische in Williamsburg.

So, now we have been residents of Newport News, and the Kiln Creek neighborhood since June of last year. Our neighborhood is truly wonderful, friendly folks, nice environment, close to any desired shopping and medical facilities. What more could one want in a lifestyle? Well, employment for one.

In October, Charlotte’s tenure with her company ended after 12 years. She was offered and accepted a short-term contract to do payroll consulting, while we decided the next steps. Thinking we might like to let her be self-employed in her own consulting firm, we took steps to make that happen. Things were okay, but certainly not what was expected at the outset. But the fates were smiling, and in December she was approached by an executive recruiter about a company with an executive management opening. Her credentials were submitted to this firm and shortly after she was asked to participate in an interview with one of the company’s executives. This was followed by a second interview with a group of the company executives/managers. And the end result was that she was offered the position with a very nice salary, annual bonus, and very good benefits. Her start date will commence on January 30. The position was remote with some office presence for meetings and such. We had considered employment potential for her in this area, but the salary structures down here were very minimal comparatively.

So, what to do, we could remain in this house, in this city and she would need to drive up to the DC area as needed. But, that is a 200 mile one way trip, and would require that she spend at least one night in a hotel. So, what to do, what to do. Simply put, the decision was relatively easy, sell our house here, buy a condo there and relocate BACK to the DC Metro area.

Advantage, DC Metro Area, close to the kids and grandkids! SCORE!

So, we have contacted real estate agents, both here and in Northern Virginia. We have worked with both of these ladies, during our previous move from there to here and they were simply fantastic people. Our plan is to start the marketing of our home here in February, seek and purchase a condo home there in that same timeframe and move ourselves and the two senior cats back to the area where we had lived for more than 30 years previously.

Major concern with transporting the older of our two senior feline ladies. Our Duchess is not in the best of health, and we hope against hope that she will continue to be with us for quite a while longer. Yet we also realize that she is getting very old and kitties do not live usually much longer than she is already. Still, hope springs eternal! We will take it one day at a time and hope that she is physically able to make the transition again to a new home.

In some ways, I really look forward to returning to the northern Virginia area. It is really home to us having lived there for such a long time (well over 30 years) and having my family members in that area as well makes it even more like home. So, NOW, we have to figure out the process of closing out the little consulting company we started, making the necessary payment/tax/settlements as required and then letting the State and Federal folks know that it will be no longer a chartered company entity. We have an appointment with an accounting firm on Monday the 23rd and they will assist us in closing out this company and paying Charlotte as well as any state/federal obligations.

Now, what about the old man and his stuff? Well, just had a malignant tumor removed from my bladder, so can you say, “Bladder Cancer”? The follow-on stuff, after the actual surgery was a real pain but necessary and now is hopefully completed.

At least the surgeon/urologist appears to be confident that the entire malignancy was effectively removed during the surgery so, perhaps this old guy dodged a bullet? One can certainly hope so. However, not going to get overly confident, because from all I can read, it would appear that this type of malignancy has a 70% change or reoccurrence. So, the plan is to be very cognizant of the potential and to continue to closely monitor. I am to meet with the surgeon on January 30th to discuss the entire situation and figure out a plan for going forward.

See, the gotcha is, that I will not be around this surgeon or this medical center in a few weeks. But the upside is that I am very familiar with the medical facilities and personnel in the Northern Virginia area so I am pretty confident that we can safely implement that monitoring plan with the medical folks up in the new home area.

Now comes the fun part, preparing this house for market. Lucky for us, our real estate agent here has indicated that she will provide a service to stage our home for best viewing by prospective buyers. I will try to make the ensuring days and activities worth your time.

Stay Tuned! Interesting times ahead!

This morning we awoke to a changing weather environ. Yesterday was very cold, temps in the low 30s and high 20s. Windy and damp! Today’s weather forecast was indicative of a fairly heavy rain, with some thunderheads booming in the afternoon. Not sure we will get that weather, but not a problem for me.

On this 22nd day of December in the year 2022, we are finalizing our plans for travel up to Northern Virginia, the township of Ashburn and a Christmas eve day spent with our children and grandchildren. Perhaps even a friend or two might drop by my daughter’s home which is where we will have our holiday gathering as we have for several years, the pandemic exception noted.

Our major concern at this point is the forecasted drop in temps for Saturday, our day of travel to and from my daughter’s home in Northern Virginia. If the rains continue and the ground is wet, the drop in temps to the mid 20’s and 30’s might cause problems. The drive to visit with family and enjoy the Christmas spirit with great times is almost 200 miles each way. If the roads are icy, we may have to stay home, but indicators are that we will have a decent environment for the trip up and back, so fingers crossed.

Well we got some rain, and tomorrow is calling for high winds. If things go well for us, the wind will dry out all the wetness on the streets and highways so our Christmas trip to our kids and grand kids will go well.

Keep good thoughts for our voyage.

Wishing you all a very happy season, love and family.

Well, forgot to send this to the blogosphere. So, a bit of an update.

Today is December 23, the temps have dropped considerably and as that old standard Christmas/Winter song said, Baby it’s cold outside. Things brightened up though. We had a fast moving rainstorm come through about noon or slightly earlier. Didn’t last long and the skies brightened up to a beautiful clear blue skies. Oh but there’s more, the temps dropped from the 40s down into the 20s.

Charlotte drove the car over to the local Target to pick up a grinder and some espresso coffee beans to make espresso powder for her cake baking. The crowds and traffic were horrendous, but she persevered and brought home the products. Now comes a great Chocolate Cake for the old man’s Christmas feast.

We will spend the day tomorrow on the road to the Christmas gathering of our family and then returning to our home in Newport News. About 5 hours of driving, plus several hours of family, good food and warm familial love. So looking forward to that!

Okay, time to stop, get this blog entry published and then have a bite to eat before bedtime. Hope for a great holiday season for all of you, regardless of your faith or celebratory activity. Take care and have a great new year.

Old Harv

Today brings us ever closer to the Christmas holiday and my thoughts turn to family, friends, and life in general. My fervent wish for this season would be a return to the Christmas seasons of my youth, back in the olden days. It was truly a magical season back then, and all those days seem to be but a very precious memory.

The Christmas holiday for some time now has seemed more commercial than a holiday of faith, religious observance, and love of family & friends. The stores start their Christmas sales and advertisements the day after Thanksgiving and in some years this marketing begins just after the Halloween holiday.

Why?

How did things turn so commercial for a season that was identified for so many years as a reflective and faithful celebration? At my advanced age, I can still remember when the gift giving aspects of the Christmas season was focused on the kiddos receiving presents from Santa and mom and dad, and the big deal for us kids was the appearance of the Christmas TREE! Lots of decorations to place on that tree, faith items to display around the house and then the first lighting of the tree’s decoration lights. And also, the big deal for the season was that we all went to Christmas service at whatever church of whatever faith we all subscribed to. Of course, for my siblings and myself, getting all “gussied up” in dressy clothes was not a thrill because we had to be extra careful not to get them dirty, so we had to be quiet and still.

But, between the gifts, the great meal, and lots of family members around, this was a time of joy and comfort for all of us. I can still remember my mom, dad and other family members gathering at our house, my grandparents’ house or some other family member’s house for renewal, lots of great food, and happy times. Almost all of those folks are gone now, and out of five brothers and three sisters, there are only two sisters and me remaining. And since those two siblings live all the way on the other side of our great country, there is no chance to “gather together” with them anymore.

BUT we now have our own family unit with my son, Cliff, his wife Becky. our four granddaughters, Abby, Becca, Hattie and Cammie, along with my daughter, Kurby and their mother Phyllis, to have a gathering of family with myself and my wonderful wife, Charlotte.

So, come the 24th day of this month of December, (my son, my daughter in law and their kids spend Christmas Day with the Becky’s family), my wife and I will arise at a very early hour, while still very dark outside and feed our two senior kitties, we will then load some simple gifts, a batch of freshly baked cookies and ourselves into our car and make the drive up to Kurby’s home in Ashburn, Northern Virginia from our home in the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia to spend this special time with our family. Believe me, I am really looking forward to this holiday visit.

Come on folks, we are quickly approaching the season of faith, from the observance of Christmas, of Hannukah, of Now Ruz, and of Kwanza. Let us all remember what these holiday observances truly mean, renewal of our faith, and a rededication to a love of mankind. If we cannot recapture the “good will toward man” to some viable degree, then we may truly be lost as a species. I frankly refuse to believe that is our situation.

Time for us all to remember those halcyon days of yore. When we all gathered around the house, shared gifts, some of monetary worth, but most of love and compassion.

It is the season of faith renewal, whether one is a religious person, a person of faith, a person of agnostic belief, or a person who is atheistic. Time to set aside our hate, our disdain, and our division; let’s remember that this time of year is all about hope, love and renewal.

Sadly, one observance by this old man regarding the religions in our nation and most likely in many nations around the world, is that people are moving away from religion as currently practiced in many of our organized churches. Sadly, the once large church congregations are shrinking year by year. In many, many cases one only needs to look at two aspects of modern religious practices, at least in this nation, to understand the apparent departure of so many people from organized religion.

First, of course, is the obscene display of exceptional wealth by some religion practitioners. The huge houses, the expensive cars and in many cases the private airplanes while their membership rely on much less in possessions and money are a real turn off by people of modest means who are exhorted by these wealthy preachers to give more and more of their hard-earned incomes.

The second apparent cause for the departure of people from the organized religious church facilities is the growing influences of these so-called preachers of some religions injecting themselves and their congregational membership into the political aspects of our nation. There is a good reason why religion and politics/governance should remain clearly separate and the actions over the past few years are perfect examples of this reason.

There are other countries in our world, that are ruled by a religion dominated government and all of them, without exception are bound by religious strictures imposed by the religious leaders, against the individual rights of their citizens. One simply has to look to the countries in the Middle East, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, among others in this part of the world. Simply consider the recent instance in Iran where a young girl was beaten to death by the Iranian Government’s Religious/Morality Police! Her horrible crime? She allowed some of her hair to be seen outside of her chador or head and body scarf in a violation of that theocratic society moral stricture about the cover of a female’s hair. As one who has lived in these middle eastern countries as an expatriate consultant, I observed this situation firsthand and hope mightily to NEVER see this aspect in our United States of America society.

Frankly, I believe very strongly that religion and religious practices should remain within the church community and far, far away from any involvement with government and politics, and the same thing with government from religion! However, one can take heart in the fact that there are still many religious faith groups that do not presume to be the end all for societal mores, political influence, and individual rights. This is my thankful attitude, we still have some religious groups that believe their charge is to help guide in faith, to guide not demand.

So in this coming holiday season, try to renew your faith, renew your love of all mankind, and renew your gratefulness for family, friends, and home.

As one who is still a faithful person, I wish you all a very happy holiday season, for my Christian friends and family, a Merry Christmas, for my diverse friends a happy Hannukah, Now Ruz, Kwanza, and Good Tidings to those of no religious faith. May your holiday be pleasing, and your new year be better than before.

And from Harvey, Charlotte, Duchess the elderly cat and Penny the senior cat;

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas, and oh by golly have a Hap Hap Happy New Year!

Today, Friday November 25, we awoke to the realization that we had spent our first holiday in our new home and far from our close loved ones. This Thanksgiving was both good and a tad bit sad. First time in over a decade and a half that we were not within close proximity to the kids and grandkids and able to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday in their company. Oh, there were several years when we were unable to gather all together, things like the Coronavirus Pandemic that kept us all within our own household circle and no large gathering. Just this past year, when we still lived in Alexandria, Char and I spent Thanksgiving in our condo, but did spend Christmas eve day with the kids and grandkids. A couple of years, when we lived aboard the Misty Lady we spent a holiday just the two of us. We did manage to gather together with the family for Christmas Eve day. My son and his family usually spend Christmas Day with Becky’s mom and dad and we have sort of made it a tradition to spend Christmas Eve with them and my daughter. But yesterday was the first where distance precluded a family dinner and a chance to catch up in person, with the grands, my son and his family and my daughter.

However, the Bride (Charlotte) and I had a pretty darn good day within the confines of our new home, and our new city! We had a great meal, the Bride outdid herself, with a terrific homemade quiche for our start of the holiday day. It was really great and the fact that she made it from scratch (not store bought) made it all the more wonderful. The breakfast quiche was followed a short while later with an appetizer of warm Brie and a nut/maple syrup topping along with crackers for spreading. We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and simply enjoyed the day, in our new home.

We did make plans to travel up to Northern Virginia for the Christmas Holiday to spend the day with the family and enjoy a Christmas celebratory meal. That visit will require our leaving our house early in the morning and driving the almost 200 miles north. We will spend the day, exchanging gifts having a Christmas meal and then in the midafternoon, point the nose of our little Buick SUV southward and return home to Newport News to the fur babies, Duchess and Penny.

So, to any of you who might still be reading the maunderings of this old senior citizen, here’s hoping your Thanksgiving was great, with good food, friends and family and lots of love all around. It is a day for reflection and renewing hope for a better future for all of us, the world over.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

We are now celebrating our fifth month in our new home. Our original goal for a new location was to be in Hampton, but we found THE HOUSE in Newport News, and if there were no city limit signs, one would never know when they left one and entered the other. Actually we are truly starting to feel comfortable. We did get hit with a shafting by the individual who did the home appraisal for the mortgage company since she did the comps in the area outside of Kiln Creek and the housing in this area is worth a lot more, but we wound up coughing up another 6 grand to get the process to close. We also encountered some pretty hefty fix-up costs at the start, replacing the first level floors and sealing the slab for water intrusion, then staining the fence a nice color to eliminate the old bleached out look around our back property, but that is now behind us and we are truly settling in to this neighborhood and our home. Our community, Kiln Creek, is an Award Winning Golf Community, with the home neighborhoods intersected by a very nice 18 hole golf course, complete with a Resort Facility including a small hotel and a nice restaurant.

October is finally in the bag, expecting a small group of kiddies for the trick or treat thing, but hoping for a lot more, since we sort of went crazy with the candy buying.

Halloween done and done.

Well, there it went, October 31, and we did have had a nice Halloween in our new home/neighborhood. Many little kids and some not so little, appeared at our door for treats. We were very happy to see them, since we had a ton of candy to give out. Had not been involved with Trick or Treaters for over a decade, since we lived in condos and four years on our motor yacht for all that time. This night was a fun time for us, these kiddos were so cute in their costumes and we handed out candy by the handfuls. We had sort of over bought on the candy side, we couldn’t remember from our time many years ago and of course being in a brand new neighborhood and a brand new section of our state, we had no concept of what sort of traffic for the trick or treaters. Turned out we did get a good number of trick or treaters, so our huge candy supply was sufficiently reduced. Perhaps we can find a good locale to donate a few pounds of small candy bars and protect us from the sweets. But we made it and we don’t have that huge bag full anymore. Still have a lot, but far less than we started with or thought we would wind up with.

The Year is winding down

Wow, November is already here and the holidays are fast approaching. Next Tuesday is Elections Day, and hope springs eternal regarding the winning candidates. Both myself and the Bride know exactly how we will vote, and it will be as we have for the past several years.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and this will be the first time that we have been so very far from our kids and grand kids. Just going to be me, Charlotte and the two fur babies. Those two probably will not be joining us for our Thanksgiving dinner. But the Bride and I will have a meal and give thanks for all our blessings. Still, will miss having all the kids and grands around a table.

Major Changes oh my!

Well, as some of you may know, on October 17th Charlotte spent her last day at her large company employer. Rather than retire, we both felt that she had so much expertise and experience in her career field to share, so just stopping simply wasn’t in the cards.

She has now become an owner of a Small Woman Owned Small Business. Yep, we formed a company to have a facility for her to share her extensive experience in all things payroll. From Process to Regulatory, from Data Analytics to Seminars and Formal Classroom Training, She will be marketing her skills for those who need the kind of experience and expertise that she has become quite well known for. Of course I will help out, someone has to be the driver, and work on the computer thingys, and look cute around the workspace.

So she landed her first small contract with a major consultant company and will be billable for at least two months, perhaps three. We are hopeful that additional work will be following and she will stay busy. The plan is to hopefully grow the company, especially along certain paths, and try to keep the staff ranks as lean as possible to ensure that everyone has work and that the company continues to exist.

Of course if the worst thing happens and no follow-on appears she would also be able to simply retire.

Some time has expired since last I took keyboard in hand to try and communicate. As those who read my posts, comments, opinions, or what ever, know I have a tendency to allow some time to drag by between posts. I shall attempt to do better with this new approach.

Things have changed quite a lot since we last wrote on this blog space. We sold the Misty Lady sadly, and I see where she was sold again a few months ago, so a brand new owner possess that graceful old motor yacht. Hope they will do what we could not, restore her to her former glory.

We also moved into a condo in Alexandria, Virginia and spent slightly over two years there. Though we were of the impression that this condo neighborhood was relatively safe, (it was a limited access with coded locks and gate key fobs) we were to discover after a short while that this was not totally true. We joined the condo neighborhood Facebook page and joined our condo neighbors in discussions about life at the Pointe, in Alexandria. We soon discovered through posts by various residents that all was not totally safe from theft, vandalism or other criminal acts. One neighbor, an Army Sergeant, who was also a member of the Tomb of the Unknown Sentinels, had his new motorcycle stolen from our secure community and the underground garage. We then witnessed posts regarding the theft of air bags, tires and rims and packages from our lobby mail area.

We were both home usually all day, with the Bride Charlotte working remote for her company and the old former Captain was into his 9th and 10th year of retirement. We did quite often go down into the garage to visually check on our car. Finally, Charlotte’s company developed a set of employment status’ which included 1. Full time office, 2. hybrid office and remote, and 3. full time remote. Charlotte was offered and accepted the full time remote.

We then decided that it was time for us to consider a new area for living. It was decided that we would look for, purchase, and move down to the Hampton/Newport News area to a single-family home. Since we had lived in condo apartments almost all of our 30+ years in Northern Virginia, the idea of a stand-alone house with yards all around, a garage and lots of room was exciting. In addition, that area was chock a block with water, water everywhere. The James River, the York River, Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Several other rivers, smaller and now so well known, were feeding the Hampton Roads, one of which was the Hampton River. Wow, what former mariners would not want to be in such an area. One could almost see us settling in, and eventually purchasing a small weekender for sailing around the Peninsula, the Eastern Shore, and even into the Intercoastal Waterway. As yes, to dream, perhaps not the impossible dream however.

So, we placed the sale of our condo in the capable hands of a young woman Real Estate agent named Alanda. She was enthusiastic, professional, and provided us with a developed brochure of our condo, the area, and other attractions. She ran a set of comps to show us what we could reasonably ask and receive for our condo apartment.

I had already started a search of potential homes for sale in the Hampton, Newport News, Yorktown and Williamsburg area. My preference was for Hampton, considering that I had lived there as a teenager (a Hampton High School “Crabber”, the original Hampton High School), as my dad was stationed at Langley AFB. Also lived there later in life working at the NASA Langley Research Facility. So Hampton was “home”, or perhaps not. Neighborhoods that I had always felt were really nice, when I last lived there (in the early 70s) were no longer the really nice, upscale areas. Time had not been kind to these locales. Our Credit Union had a real estate program that provided recommendations for Real Estate Agents and we were pleased with the person they recommended. Kristie was a diligent, professional and enthusiastic agent and worked with us to identify the type of home we were really looking for.

With Kristie’s help, we looked at many places that I had found during my online searches, using Zillow and our local Real Estate Agency’s database linkage, and found disappointment in each place. Either the house was not well kept, or the neighborhood had gone downhill. As senior citizens, we were hoping to find a home in a nice, well kept, and community-styled area.

We did finally, when we were looking at a particular house, (nice house, minimal neighborhood), Charlotte said to the Agent, that she didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but we really didn’t need to look at the house, because she was not going to live in that neighborhood. Kristie said that she had a listing that just came on her lists, and mentioned it’s location. While it was not Hampton it was a really great neighborhood in Newport News. Hopefully any of my former Hampton High fellow students would forgive me for moving into the Newport News. When Charlotte and I arrived at the location, we were amazed at the beauty of the entire development and the neighborhoods along the way. We walked up to the house and found it to be very nice looking, 1544 square feet, much larger than anything we had owned or even rented during our 40 plus years together. When we opened the front door, our mutual reaction was, THIS IS THE HOUSE.

We toured the house, the garage and the small courtyard style back yard, then spoke with the Agent about next steps. We drove over to a local Starbucks (you just knew there would be a Starbucks nearby), and decided what to offer, how to style our offer and then Kristie completed the work up on her tablet computer. We signed the formal offer then she emailed it to the selling agent. Fastest home purchase offer we ever made. We then finished our Starbucks drinks, Kristie left for her home in VA Beach and we left for our hotel, which by the way, was actually in the very development where we would wind up purchasing our new home. Kiln Creek is a large planned community, with 31 neighborhoods, over 3,000 houses, condos and apartment complexes. There are over 13,000 people who reside in Kiln and a major attraction is an 18 hole golf resort with a boutique hotel and a full service restaurant.

We had come home!

The owner accepted our offer as modified (another bidder cause us to invoke our automatic escalator clause another 1,200 dollars and the house was ours! Well as soon as we could get the formal closing functions completed. We finally closed on July 8th and began the process of moving out of the hotel where we had stayed for over 5 weeks. The movers had already delivered our furniture and other belongings from Alexandria (we made an amendment with the owner for special occupation to allow the movers to deliver and set up), so we only needed to bring out hotel gear and of course the new fur babies, Duchess and Penny. Now they had tons of room.

Two Years Later:

Sadly, almost two years have gone by since this post was written.  In our tasks to relocate ourselves from the Misty Lady to our land-based condo, posting this final blog entry as yacht owners and live aboard mariners simply fell through the cracks.  After reviewing my old blog entries, I found that one entry was still in the draft queue.  It was one that should have been posted before we left.  Alas the emotional feelings, the thought that we were leaving our water-based home of over 4 years, and that we would no longer have the ability to take our big girl out of her slip, motor into the Potomac and enjoy a scenic voyage down the Potomac River and into the Chesapeake Bay.

Alas, here we are almost two years later, missing our life aboard, but knowing that the dangers to my person due to the health situation created an untenable situation.  We moved into the condo on May 21, 2020 and now are preparing to sell this place and move out of Northern Virginia, relocating to the Tidewater area of Virginia, in the City of Hampton.  This is a location where my ancestors, both maternal as well as paternal first arrived in this country.  Both legs of my ancestry landed at Kecoughtan (now Hampton) around 1620.   We are searching now for a new home, no more condos, looking at single family dwellings only.

And now, to the much delayed posting:

A Fond Farewell

This will probably be the last entry for the Misty Lady Blog, most assuredly the last for the Misty Lady herself.  You see, we no longer own the Misty Lady, our 54 foot Bluewater Aft Cabin Motor Yacht.  We sold her to a couple who will completely restore the old girl and give her a new outlook on cruising the waters of the Eastern Seaboard and associated waterways.

See from our earlier blog posts, health issues created a situation where we were no longer safe to remain on a floating home and located in floating docks.  When we began the process of prepping the lady for sale, we discovered a leaking fuel tank.  Repair of this problem ranged from 10,000 dollars to over 50,000 dollars.  Not a lot of recreation boaters who were interested in taking on a purchase and immediate expensive repair of a major component of the yacht.  The Lady’s fuel tank is a centerline 500 gallon aluminum tank encased in a fiberglass cage for protection.  So, to repair this component or to replace it, would entail considerable labor to remove the fiberglas, the empty the tank (estimated to hold over 400 gallons at that point), then cut the tank into manageable pieces or remove the window frame in the galley (this was done in 2016 when we replaced the starboard engine), and lift the tank out that way.  Anyway, no takers, finally got one person who was interested in doing a restoration of the lady, but then decided the asking price (very very low) was too much for him to take so he passed.  Bear in mind we are at this point nearing the closing date on our new land based home.  Finally, we sold the old girl at a fire sale price to a couple who are members of the Yacht Club and also specialized in doing restoration and updating of older yachts.  So, on the date of our closing, May 21, 2020, we began removing all of our personal effects, clothes etc, including the two sea cats, Penny and Duchess, who were NOT pleased at this turn of events.  We finished the move off the yacht and then turned her over to the possession of her new owners.

They moved her from the regular slip over to the T-Head of the B dock to load some items they wanted to take down to the Colton’s Point Marina where the Misty Lady would be hauled out and placed on blocks (on the hard as mariners say), the fuel pumped out of her tank and the replacement of her fuel tank (project number 1), would begin.  Over the coming months, her interior will be restored with new wall coverings, new interior furnishings, some new appliances and perhaps new decking.  Then her exterior will be cleaned, the wood trim sanded and re-varnished to bring her teak components back to their former glory.  So she was going into a new world and coming out with a new look and refurbished from bow to stern.  We will miss our old girl, she gave us four years of comfortable and unique living.

On May 7th, 2020, Charlotte and I were totally surprised at the outpouring of affection from our Capitol Yacht Club (CYC) family to wish us well as we got closer to leaving our Misty Lady yacht; the Capital Yacht Club family, and move back on shore into a new condominium.

Charlotte received a message from our CYC friends, Jeff and Sharon Sheats saying they wanted to come by our boat at 6:30 pm to wish us a fond farewell.  When they got to our slip and knocked on the boat hull, we were encouraged to go up to our fore deck and they would stay on the dock so we could chat. Remember that our club really practices the social distancing and CoronaVirus safety practices so this wasn’t really a strange request.

The couple in the left photo/foreground on the dock is Jeff and Sharon.  Just behind Sharon is Cara and Dennis our neighbors and their sailing yacht across the main dock from us.  The photo on the right is Sharon holding one of the farewell signs they made for us.

Suddenly members started coming up to our slip from all over the yacht club marina.  Since our clubhouse is on COVID-19 lock-down this was their work around to give us a farewell gathering.  Since we were drawing pretty close to the actual settlement date for our new shore home, this was their opportunity to wish us well .

As folks began to gather from all three of our marina docks, they broke out a couple of signs showing their affection and farewell wishes.  The caring and affection of these folks were just overwhelming and it was truly difficult to speak and keep a dry eye.  It is truly amazing to us the warmth and affection that we have experienced while being members and residents of this yacht club marina these past four years.  We gained so much knowledge and experience from the members for yacht handling, boating courtesy, rules of the road, line handling, and a myriad of other important points for living aboard a yacht.  But most important, was the feeling of true family of

The number of folks coming out to wish us well continued to grow and each one that appeared just made our hearts swell with the outpouring of well wishes and expressions that they would truly miss us when we moved off the yacht, out of the club and into our new shore based home.  So many offers for us to come back to the club and take rides on their vessels.

Then River Sam (Sam McKay) came up to the starboard bow and handed up a bottle of red wine, and proceeded to read a poem she had written especially for us.  Charlotte and I had a tough time keeping it together as Sam read what she had written. Methinks that Sam had a bit of quaver in her voice on the last couple of words as well. A copy of it is below.

Another long time member, Richard Wellens also handed up a bottle of nice white wine as a parting gift.  We will save these until we are in the new home and use them to christen our land based abode.

It can truly be said that the women and men who make up the membership and staff of the Capitol Yacht Club on the Washington, DC Wharf waterfront are in actuality a family.  In all of the locations that Charlotte and I have lived in our life together, no where have we experienced the community, caring, close interactions and just simply expressions of friendship, as we had experienced here at the CYC.  Leaving it is very hard, and will be even harder when that final day comes and we remove the last of our belongings from the Misty Lady and turn her over to the new owners.

But we know that she will be restored to her former glory and will continue to ply the waterways of the Eastern Seaboard.

We also feel gratified that so many expressed strong wishes for us to return when we can to enjoy the friendship and love from these wonderful people.  A very fond farewell to our CYC family and we will miss you all very much.

Update: We now have a date and time for the closing/settlement on our new home.  We take formal possession of the condo on the 21st of May and will be moving in over the following several days.  Our plan is to be moving our personal belongings off the Misty Lady by next Sunday May 24th and doing a formal turn over of the Misty Lady to Laura and Tony.