It has been a heck of a year!  In the beginning of 2017 I freaked out when I got my property tax valuations for my home in Omaha, Nebraska.  The initial estimation would have almost quadrupled my property valuation and thus taxes.  I had been thinking for some time that it may be time to move anyway.  I had remarried 4 years ago and my wonderful husband agreed to move into my house so that my kids (college-age) could mentally and physically move out of their childhood home (that I kept after the divorce that was forced upon me over 10 years ago).  I felt that the old house had served its purpose and that it was time for Jerry and I to move on to a home of our own, together.  The property tax valuation was the ‘kick-in-the-butt’ to do this.  I went to Jerry and told him that I felt I could no longer afford to live in my/our old home.  He immediately went shopping for a house for us and within 5 days we had bought a small acreage in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska where I have lived for almost 35 years.  March was the start of my house moving hell and heaven.  The house I moved from was fairly big and had a lot of storage space (that I had crammed full of ‘stuff’).  I spent every waking hour from then on cleaning out every closet, drawer, storage area in my house.  I had 5 garbage cans of trash out for pickup every week, I took numerous carloads of stuff to the local mission for donation, had a church youth group take a half U-Haul full of my stuff, and still filled a big dumpster with junk!  After the cleaing out was done and I had most of the stuff I wanted to keep to the new house, I started the cleaning and painting of the old house.  All this while I was mowing and maintaining two large lawns (over a half acre each).  I spent a lot of time transplanting some of my beloved perennial plants to the new house too.  Husband was busy getting us settled into the new home with various projects.   I left the major furniture in the old home to ‘stage’ it for showing while I tried to sell it FSBO (For Sale By Owner) to no success.  It was a miserable summer working on all this matter.  I finally gave up the FSBO thing and turned it over to a realtor and it is still for sale.  My wonderful husband has been incredibly supportive of me financially to allow me to take the time to find a buyer for my home.  In October, I had all the furniture moved into my new home in time for a big party the 28th.  Since then we have been enjoying the peace and quiet of our new home in Iowa.

Jerry & I love our new home together and have enjoyed picking out a few new items for ‘our’ home.  The new house still has lots of storage (both a blessing and a bane).  I have a big room to use as my fiber art and enameling studio.  I just got back to enameling about a month ago and created about 20 new glass enameled tatting shuttles that are in my Etsy shop:  www.Etsy.com/shop/TheShuttleSmith.   The house is twice as far away from our work but takes us the same amount of time to travel…the Omaha traffic was getting worse.  Plus, we are just outside city limits and on the edge of the Loess Hills region which has loads of wonderful twisty, curvy roads for motorcycling (my other passion!).

So, I now no longer am “The ShuttleSmith from Omaha, NE”.  I am now an Iowegian.   I need to work on updating a lot of things with my new address:  my website, vehicle registrations, bank accounts, driver’s license, etc.

Karen Bovard Sayre,  TheShuttleSmith,  19001 Perry Road,  Council Bluffs, Iowa  51503,   Same phone number:  402-960-7370