It's Official - the Range has sold.

We closed at 4 today. There will be a Range II, but smaller, further out. Thanks to North for a most creative way for all to celebrate.

It was a day of change, happiness for the sale in these economic times. But a day also of sadness, some tears. Change is never easy. I loved the time at the Range when I first spotted it. It had everything I wanted house wise; a huge kitchen with an island/breakfast bar that was part of a huge open family room where I could chop and knead or sip wine with friends, all while viewing the outdoors or the big fireplace, cathedral ceilings, built in bookshelves, lots of windows, and a snug garage where I could have a reloading bench. Built in book shelves, a bedroom big enough for the humongous king size bed you almost needed a step to get into. . . .and a jacuzzi tub. The land was a lot smaller than I wanted, a little closer to the city than I wanted. It wasn't perfect but it had everything I wanted, and with only one months notice that I was being transferred here, not a lot of time to "shop" for the perfect home.

So I moved in, painted and polished and planted, using up a huge hunk of my savings, and most of my vacation time. At what point, I wonder, did the Range became a home, as much a part of me as my family? Maybe it started that first summer day I sat on the deck looking out on the pond, the Adirondack chair imprinting vertical lines onto my bare legs while a cool breeze blew in off the water. Perhaps the shift occurred when during a furious blizzard that first winter, when the power went out and my friends, already living in IND came by with warm coats, firewood, wine and food and we stayed up most of the night playing Dominoes while we waited for the heat to come back on.

But it's way too much house for just one person, and the city got closer and closer with new subdivisions popping up all around what was just corn when I moved in. It was time to downsize and move on to the cozy place that is more "me". So I spent the last two weeks packing what I could, selling or giving away what I didn't need. There's firearms. There's old family photos, a banged up RC airplane and a couple of incredibly raggedy stuffed animals, one missing an eye, their stuffing falling out, their limbs in need of some serious liposuction but loved, nonetheless, and for always. Barkley settled in surprisingly well to the new place, promptly staking a claim to the little bed in the guest room the sun started to set. He's happy to be around me, that's all that matters to him.

Now that I am gone, the deed signed over, my home will just return to being just a house. Like ex-lovers, I hope we can move on, remembering only the good times. And I hope its new owners will fall for its charms as much as I did. So it can be a home once more.