I’m Back, After Lots of Changes!

This blog was on hiatus for a little longer than I expected. Followers of my blog will immediately notice one reason—my website was completely redesigned during my weeks away from posting.

I’ve thought for a while now that my website needed an update. It’s looked the same since 2017—a lifetime in website design. The malware that some readers experienced made the problem a higher priority. The bad guys who hacked into my site kept coming back, so WPBeginner.com decided the best solution was to redesign the site. Let’s hope their work takes care of the misdirected links many readers saw.

Please let me know if you experience problems on the site in the future. It always helps to have a screenshot of the error message you receive, whether you’re accessing my site through your browser, from my newsletter, or via Facebook or LinkedIn. If you see anything strange, please send me a message on the Contact page on this site or through Facebook or LinkedIn.

Also, if you can think of any improvements to the site, please let me know that as well.

But over these weeks of hiatus, not only did the website get an update, but my husband and I also moved halfway across the continent to Seattle! We lived in Kansas City for 45 years, so this move represents a huge upheaval for us.

Our impending move was actually the original reason for putting the blog on hiatus. The timing of the website redesign was coincidental.

I’ve been planning our move for over a year—in fact, ever since our granddaughter was born—but we had to wait for the right apartment to open up. We decided to move to a retirement community, and we went on the wait list in September 2023. We finally got the offer of a suitable apartment at the end of August, everything jelled by mid-September, and since then life has been a whirlwind.

I began downsizing a year ago, knowing we would move from our large house in Kansas City into a much smaller apartment. Our new apartment is two bedrooms, and I now realize I should have been much more aggressive in my downsizing. The combination of last-minute decisions on what to keep, hiring packers and movers, and getting my car transported across the country (while we flew) made September and October some of the most stressful months of my life.

After not quite a month, we are beginning to feel settled. The apartment is still full of boxes, but we have made a lot of progress in organizing our new home. It took us six months to hang pictures in our last house—we’ll see if we can get them up sooner this time around.

Although I am sad to leave our community of 45 years and the house we built five years ago, there are many benefits to being in Seattle. The greatest benefit is that we are closer to most of our family members, and that has already proven to be a blessing. We also have medical backup in the retirement community, which relieves much of my anxiety.

Plus, we can see Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains from our apartment—we had a lovely view from our home, but this view is a wonderful substitute. Soon, I hope, all the turmoil of moving will pass, and the stress of the last two months will be a thing of the past.

When have you had huge upheaval in your life? How did you cope?