Dwelling In The Present

 When I see the same message in several things I am reading, it gets my attention. Lately, several blogs and the book Safe All Along by Katie Davis Majors have emphasized dwelling in the present rather than thinking about the past or planning/worrying about the future.

 Mrs. Majors uses Psalm 91 to impress upon us that we dwell day by day in the shelter of the Most High. It is my turn to give the devotional talk at choir on Monday. I just finished writing it up a few days ago and was ending with Psalm 91:1, 4a. I was tying the imagery of God as a "Mother Hen" tucking her chicks under her wings with a lament poem by Ann Weems in her book Psalms of Lament. Weems poem is in the voice of a wounded bird calling out to God to pick her up and bring her inside His house where she can heal. 

While sorting through stuff to donate to the Grace Village swap shop, I was motivated by my husband's recent comment that we might move from our condo to an apartment in the next 3-4 years. We are thinking more like 4-5 years now, but still a future down-sizing has been on my mind recently.

This week we met with the marketing/advancement employee to find out what would be involved in a move. It will be 12 years ago in July when we became residents of Grace Village. The process, the financing, the steps involved in transitioning from the condo to an apartment were revamped about 7-8 years ago. Getting better informed of the details has led us to think of using our RMD withdrawals from our retirement accounts differently.

 It also helped me to see the square footage difference between the two types of 2-bedroom apartments. I had actually been inside the two different types without knowing how they are labeled, and I had come away with the impression that the D+ (plus) had a rather small living dining area. Too small in my picturing of how we would integrate our furnishings and lifestyle into an apartment. We were given actual floor plans with the room dimensions of the two types. Though the D+ has slightly more square footage and a walk-in pantry which some people have converted into a laundry, a D which is what my sister-in-law lived in and what I am most familiar with will suit us best I think. I also like the larger closets in the D bedrooms. Still, it will depend on what is available if we find we need to move rather than want to move.

 There are 29 2-bedroom apartments currently. I now have a "map" with the 2-bedroom units colored in. Some I would most likely not prefer because of location (in the pet hall, facing the front of Grace Village where lots of cars travel and some park). They have been combining some small apartments to make larger ones, but the GV marketing employee said they have about run out of options to do that. 

Having the information pertinent to our future, I can now file it away and get back to enjoying my condo and each day here.