The holidays passed so fast! We had our two grandchildren here for four days. As you can see in the photo above, Birdie preferred serving her own cereal. I am still finding stray Froot Loops around the baseboards.

The apartment has, as you know, a great view. But my grandkids discovered another great perk, no pun intended: WE HAVE A STARBUCKS COFFEE MACHINE in the party room! Free coffee, lattes, espresso, cappuccino, and many other choices, including hot chocolate, which little Charlie and Birdie wanted every morning. And now that they are gone, I put a sweatshirt over my pjs every morning, shuffle in my slippers down to the elevators, and take the short ride to the second floor, where I fill my coffee mug with STARBUCKS. Unbelievably cool!

Birdie also decided to hit the emergency button beside the elevator one evening. This resulted in two hook and ladder trucks arriving at the building, along with eight firefighters. They were all very understanding, and the Bird enjoyed exchanging high fives with them before they departed.

I have my bird feeder installed, and I am getting lots of city sparrows and starlings. I am hoping for some sort of unusual bird sightings, but I am satisfied with the ones I have. I have instructed them to stop pooping on the deck.

Now that the holidays are over and we have a contract on our house, I can start focusing on my next book. Wish me luck with that. I wrote the first six chapters in the New York Public Library. That was when I went there for two weeks to write, broke two toes in my Airbnb apartment, and had to come home five days early. My toes are better now, and I hope I don’t do any more self damage while finishing the book.

This is the living room. There might be a Froot Loop in the corner…

I haven’t shared any book lists with you recently. I have read a lot of good ones this year. Here are my favorites.

• The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. A novel about two ministers, their wives,  their friendship, and what it means to “believe.” Wall is a tremendously gifted writer and brilliant thinker.
• Akin, by Emma Donoghue. A beautiful story about an old man and a young boy.
• The Confession Club, by Elizabeth Berg. Women. It’s about women. And it is a joy.
• Ask Again, Yes, by Mary Beth Keane. How much can a family forgive?
• Mrs. Everything, by Jennifer Weiner. Jo and Bethie. Sound familiar? Two sisters who lead very different lives. I loved it.
• The Adults, by Caroline Hulse. Exes. They decide to all have Christmas together. It is a mess. But then, there are Scarlet and Posey.
• The Gifted School, by Bruce Holsinger. What happens when a town decides to open a school for “gifted” children? Wow.
• The Grammarians, by Cathleen Schine. Just read it.
• Autopsy of a Boring Wife, by Marie-Renee Lavoie. This one is translated from the French but loses nothing in the translation.
• Stay, by Catherine Ryan-Hyde. One of my great thrills in life is to call Ryan-Hyde my friend. All of her books are absolutely soul-grabbing. This one is no different.
• The World Came to Us, by Molly D. Campbell. I wrote it.

Happy New Year!

This will be the first Christmas in our new apartment. It will be our first Christmas by ourselves as well. Our children from California are coming after Christmas, and so we are celebrating then.

A passage. This has been one of life’s doorways, and we walked through it. I didn’t anticipate the emotional salad that would accompany it. Deciding what to leave and what to take was hard. But I didn’t foresee the punch that the estate sale brought. I knew enough not to attend it personally, but I didn’t predict the constant sadness I felt when I thought about what I left behind, nor did I realize that I would label everything I brought with us as “rescued from the estate sale.” So far, I have not been able to go back into my old house. It is completely empty now. We took it off the market for a month.  Right after Christmas, it will be totally restaged and will go back on the market in January. It will look like somebody else’s house. I will be able to walk into it again, then. I sure hope it sells quickly, though, so that I won’t have to go back  into it more than once.

The technician installing our new television looked at both of us and asked, “So–this is going to be your final place?” Gosh. That hit me in the solar plexus. Yes, it will be, I hope. I won’t want to leave for another, less independent address. When the years ahead are so much shorter than the years behind, reality “bites.”

The happy part, aside from all of this philosophical fact-facing? This apartment is wonderful. I have always had a yen to live in a city, with all the tall buildings, the lights at night, the subtle hooting and swishing of traffic. I love living up high. Our building is full of young and diverse people, and everyone is so friendly. There is a Labradoodle on our floor. We can take the elevator down to the lobby and eat in the Mexican restaurant in our building. I am getting so much exercise walking to and from the elevator, and so far, I can go up the four flights of fire stairs twice for exercise every day. My goal is to do it three or four times. My legs are getting strong!

We put a little tree on our new deck, and you can see the lights on it from blocks away. When we drive around town at night, we both get a thrill from looking at our place, the twinkly lights, the lamps in the windows–from a distance, like spectators. So far, it hasn’t gotten old. We are trying to decide what we want to cook in our new, gourmet kitchen, for Christmas Eve dinner. On the grocery list is Champagne.

So here is to the holidays, the future, and all the years ahead. I wish you all happiness and joy. You deserve it.

It has been such a long time, I know. I have an excuse. We have not had internet at our new apartment since we moved in. I could not blog. This was not a tragedy for any of you, probably. But wait, there’s more!  It was very hard on me, because I haven’t been able to watch TV for nearly a month.

This means I have missed all the good shows that everyone is talking about, like The Crown, PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff (Judy is the person I wish lived next door), House Hunters International (I probably missed at least six Paris apartments), and on and on.

The evenings. I am busy all day, with the usual errands, housekeeping, microwaving, etc. But the evenings! I have read so many books, I can no longer stand the sight of my Kindle. All my Christmas shopping had to be done in a WiFi cafe, for pity’s sakes. Therefore, I have over-caffeinated for a month, and my nerves are jangling.

The guy set the whole shebang up yesterday. So last night, I binged on the Ellen Holiday Giveaway show, which I normally would not watch, but the Geek Squad haven’t come over yet to tell us how to get all the streaming things like Acorn TV, Netflix, and HBO. So I was stuck with network television last night. It was fine. Boy, Ellen has aged!

Anyway, I am back, and now that all the pictures are hung and the boxes unpacked, I will be blogging away again. I hope you missed me–all ten of you who subscribe to this blog.

Gotta go. Flip or Flop is on.

The last time I moved into a new house was 27 years ago. It was February, the sidewalks were icy, and one of the moving men slipped and dropped our sofa on his legs. I remember it as being both traumatic and exhausting. Charlie, who at that time was working full-time as an outstanding member of the educational community, had a meeting in Washington, DC two days after our move. He was to be gone an entire week.

As a result, I pushed him and our two daughters like some sort of slave driver. My goal was to have the entire house unpacked, all pictures hung, and boxes gone before Charlie left town. It nearly killed us, but we did it.

This time around, our children are grown and gone. So we were minus two able bodied workers. We began the move on a Friday, just as we did 27 years ago. Luckily, the weather was good. However, my goal was the same: the apartment had to be totally done by the following Thursday, Thanksgiving, because we were having the one local daughter and her husband over for the day. I wanted them to be wowed by the place. This time, we did have two additional days to accomplish this, but keep in mind that we are also 27 years older than we were that other time.

It is one hundred steps from the elevator to our front door. We both put in thousands of steps during that time, many of them lugging heavy boxes. At one point, I said to myself, “How on earth do farmers do this? The bending. The pulling. And what about athletes? All of the lifting weights, the lunging, and the hefting!” By the end of the second day of this, my back was on fire, my knees ached, and I had bruises on my thighs from banging lamp bases and picture frames against them.

But we did it! And it was a cordial and joyous process. However, we both agree that we will never move again voluntarily. The next move will involve wheelchairs and white coats.

Here are a couple of pictures of the apartment. Airy, bright, modern, and beautiful. I have a walk-in closet, for heaven’s sakes. An eight foot kitchen island! All new furniture! I pinch myself every day and wonder how long the novelty will last. I still feel as if I am visiting someone else’s house.

If you live in Dayton, come to our estate sale. The first day is December 12. Sofas, oriental rugs, lamps, dishes, silver, and all sorts of goodies. 625 Oakwood Avenue in Oakwood. You will find something you love, I am sure!

There is a set of directions for anyone who is moving, getting rid of things, and having the rest of their belongings featured in an estate sale. I have been to estate sales, but I have never had one.

The folks who are handling our sale are experts. They have been doing these sales for over thirty years, and their list of clients is impressive. Therefore, they have a whole lot of credibility. They handed me a list of “dos and don’ts,” which I am following to the letter.

The main rule, which I unwittingly violated before I hired the estate sale people, is NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY OR DONATE IT. Apparently, people will buy anything. I got rid of a whole bunch of things I shouldn’t have, such as the Le Creuset roaster that weighed ten pounds, a bundt pan, fifteen mismatched place mats, and a boatload of Tupperware. That was before I hired the estate sale people. Now I know better.

So, as you can see in the photo above, I am counting on one estate sale attendee who has a craving for Cream of Celery Soup. I also have a small dish full of paperclips, my collection of purloined hotel soaps, an unopened container of Metamucil, six plastic rulers, my collection of vintage lint rollers, and of course, guest towels for every occasion.

I will be selling things that will have more general appeal as well: antiques, oriental rugs, two sets of dishes, a dining table (antique) and eight chairs, sofas galore, my extensive collection of antique stoneware pottery, and much more.

Another rule for estate sales that has merit: DO NOT ATTEND YOUR OWN ESTATE SALE. This is to prevent the emotional trauma of watching complete strangers “pawing” through your things and perhaps making disparaging remarks. This is particularly pertinent for me, as I am certain that I would try to A: punch someone commenting that “Only old people would want any of this stuff,” or B: try to buy back my own things in a fit of remorse.

If you live in Dayton, come on over to the sale. It starts December 12 and ends December 15 at 625 Oakwood Avenue, Oakwood 45419. Get there on the first day, while the soup is still available…

In a perfect world:

• My house would be sold.
• I would be mistaken for Meryl Streep.
• I would hate dessert.
• My husband would be a harpist, not an accordionist.
• Pancakes would be good for you.
• I would fall asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
• Politics would be boring.
• The climate would insist on staying the same.
• Zantac would still be on the market.
• Donald would be a great first name.
• I would have fifteen best friends.
• Aspirin would cure cancer.
• We could all sing Baby Shark once and then stop.
• All dogs would be friendly.
• The day after Christmas would not be depressing.
• My roots would grow in black.
• We would all know how to operate our devices.
• No one would need deodorant.
• Eggnog would be outlawed.
• I would love hiking.
• Tums would come in chocolate flavor.
• Nobody would misunderstand how to correctly use the apostrophe.
• Grocery store tomatoes would be delicious.
• My house would be sold.