6 Houses in 16 years

Why do we move so often?

Oy. I could write a book. But the short version is, it's the Goldilocks syndrome.

This last time I had way different reasons. 

Longtime readers will know that Dave has been dealing with Parkinson's disease since the mid 90's. He retired in 2005 and we moved to beautiful vacation-land Tennessee in 2007, when I finally almost completely retired too. Our first house was his choice of 'dream house' and we stayed put for six whole years. 

Then I'd had it with being so isolated and surrounded by scroungers who wanted to take advantage of Dave.

So I found us a brand new house in Hixson (#2) in a nice development and we lived there for maybe 3 years. While we were there Dave developed some new symptoms, delusions and hallucinations and that led to building our own house in downtown Chattanooga (#3). 

It was a great house, but the neighborhood was just too close for comfort, hearing our neighbors discussions even with the windows closed. Plus sirens from Main street, and train whistles several times a night, discouraged us. I couldn't have the kind of garden I wanted, plus Dave had issues with imaginary men on the roof aiming lasers at him, and following him when he was riding his bike.

I decided to try a different house in East Ridge (#4). It was quiet, and had a big piece of land on a cul-de-sac so I could install a patio garden and raised beds. Unfortunately, the imaginary bad men came with us, and Dave had the cops out several times to no avail, of course. At that house he was certain homeless people were living in our crawl space or under our back deck. Geesh. 

Jumping ahead, my sister got married and moved to a really nice neighborhood which was too far away for our regular visits, so I started thinking I would like to move closer to her, and found a great house (#5) in Ooltewah, which was a big house on a bigger piece of land. What happened to downsizing? 

At that house, Dave's symtoms changed and we finally found a good solution for his painful all-over body cramping, which had been plaguing him for years. But then he developed balance issues, and fell several times even resulting in a trip to the ER. I coudn't catch him without going down with him. Add to that, dementia had kicked in big time and I knew I was facing some major care issues for him. The bad imaginary men were still with us, taking the form of our very nice neighbors, so his mental health was the real catalyst for change and with the encouragement of my sister and Dave's family, I began to look at assisted living facilities. The plan was for me to sell our big house and find a 'little old lady house' (#6) that I could maintain and be close to his new care home. I found this nice assisted living place, but they decided he would be better housed in the memory care unit. That's where everything went south. I should have listened to my gut, when I saw the other 'inmates' were way farther advanced than Dave and he would not be happy there. But we moved him in anyway and for three weeks I visited him everyday and saw just how miserable he was and it was clear that this was a big mistake. So I brought him back to my little house and now here we are. 

This house is small enough that I have no problems keeping it under control. There is no garden, and I am OK with that, as the garden became too much on top of all the other stuff I needed to be doing. Dave has a nice room with his tv, recliner and bed, and he feels pretty safe here, so far. We are close to all the amenities, and doctors we need, and while Dave is still delusional, it's not too bad, at the moment. One day at a time. 

After the kitchen remodel, the front and back doors are the ongoing project and in the Spring I think I want to do something with the front porch. We don't have a patio, or any real outdoor space other than the porch, and it is too skimpy. You know me, I gotta tinker with the place...