After 7 offers on 6 homes, I finally found one. I get the key tomorrow morning and can begin trudging my trash across town immediately after.

There is no U-Haul involved, only my car making 99 trips back and forth and boyfriend’s truck making a couple. There is no sense of urgency for me to leave his house so most of it will be piled in my back seat until I get enough of it inside the new place to make me feel like I can spend the night. The majority of our furniture is staying here. My books and dishes are going with me, along with all my rocking chairs.

I will also be leaving a large part of my heart here.  My boyfriend and I along with four kids still in school ended up here after Katrina. It was a shell of a house and there was nothing for us to do but make it a home.

We have worked so, so hard here transforming the house and the yard into something we could be proud of. We have an outdoor shower that is wonderful in the hottest days of summer. We poured a patio and then began to landscape.

I have planted Live Oaks,  Indian Hawthornes,  Elephant Ears,  Crepe Myrtles, a Rose of Sharon,  Bottle-brush bushes,  Sweet Olives,  Banana Shrub, non-clumping Bamboo, Wisteria,  Roses,  Redtips,  Four-O-Clocks,  Mint,  Camellias,  Lemon Trees, a Kumquat Tree, and a Satsuma.

I have stolen a Sago Palm and Three Banana Trees which are thriving as only stolen plants will. I have bordered flower beds with Liriope and dotted them with Daffodils. I have filled pot after pot with Vinca and Purslane and Zinnias.

I am proud of what we have done together. I have so many mixed emotions about this move but I think I may miss my plants most of all.