Our house is a jumble of boxes, papers are everywhere, artwork has come down and rests against walls, laundry is piled high. The fridge and pantry are empty mainly, and shall stay that way at this point. I’ve spent hours on the phone and online doing the things one does, cancelling accounts and setting up new ones, transferring services, forwarding mail. Out in the drive the big ABF trailer sits propped on front stilts and rear tires, and tomorrow a crew of friends and family arrives in the morning to help with some heavy lifting. Then we’ll have a couple of days to finish packing and button up everything before we close on the house on Wednesday and head south to North Carolina on Thursday.

Only a few weeks ago Chef David and Scout-the-Goldapeake-Retriever and I sat outside on our front porch on a delicious Vermont summer afternoon watching the Bennington Monument Day Parade queueing up on our street. In years gone by we found it a tad irksome to be tied up for hours because of the traffic. This year was different. Even Scout seemed caught up in the fun, bagpipes notwithstanding.

This chapter opened nine years ago, almost to the day. I was emotionally raw and desperately worried about the future. How things have changed.

I won’t have time to post for a bit, and my plan is to roll this blog over to a new one when we’re settled down south. The new one will be less of an almanac- or journal-style blog and more about writing, I think, bits of fiction and non-fiction essays. Sweet and savory, if you like. But I’ll link to it from this one, and hope you’ll follow me there. Maybe I’ll add something to Sycamore Stories from time to time, who knows.

Thanks for coming along with me on my Grand Vermont Adventure. This is most definitely not how the story ends, but it is a beautiful new beginning. I leave you with the happy sounds of a parade. ‘Til soon. ~Deb