So Many Changes! By Susan Sands

Let me start by wishing everyone a very happy new year!! My life mirrors the old adage of "out with

Our Boudreaux

 the old and in with the new" like never before. I've complained incessantly on this blog as we've had three contracts on my house fall through over the last two years. We had so much hope and then excitement turned into bitter disappointment as the sales fell apart.

But, just before Christmas, we finally sold the old unique property we'd lived in for the past eighteen years. Hurray!! After two-and-a-half years on the market and a new realtor, the sale went the distance to closing. We lost our shirts as expected but the home is now a lovely memory as the place where our kids grew up. It was their childhood home and the place of many Christmases past, along with birthdays and other important milestones in our lives.  But we are thrilled to wave goodbye and move forward and embrace the next chapter.

Unfortunately, our sweet love, our family dog of eight years, Boudreaux, had been declining all the while we were packing and moving. We lost him the day after the move three days before Christmas. He was suffering from a neurological condition and a spinal tumor that affected his hind legs. I can hardly type this without tears.

Boudreaux's counterpart pup, Watson, has rolled with so much change in losing his sidekick and moving to a new place with amazing grace. I can tell he wonders and looks for Boudreaux and I wish I could explain it all to him puppy style.

There are still a few boxes left to unpack and moving from a giant house to a townhome has been a massive feat. I've donated so many things even after having an estate sale last year where I unloaded most of my furniture, rugs and art. I sold the baby grand piano just before I moved. So, I thought I was ready for the sizing down. Ha. Not so much.

Change has come to us in ways we've hoped and some we feared, but time moves forward and now we're embracing this new year in new surroundings with one less family member.

Again, Happy New Year to you and yours!! May it bring all the good and none of the bad.

Susan