Ripping Out Roots by Kathleen Buckley

FEARLESS FRIDAY

I love fearless stories of uprooting and going on an adventure. Enjoy Fearless Friday with Kathleen Buckley on Discover...

As my friends know, I am not a spontaneous person. Like most Capricorns, I tend to grow both roots and moss. But in December, 2007 I ripped out my roots. 

That month, a longtime friend and I visited Albuquerque, New Mexico. The vacation began  with bad news: my friend’s eighteen year job was ending. But on the second day of our trip, she found jobs in her field in the classified ads while I was reading one of those real estate magazines. I discovered Albuquerque had cheap real estate (by Seattle standards), and the cost of living was correspondingly low. She could rent out her Seattle house. She made the decision to move almost overnight. 

While we were figuring out how she could clear out her house, get a job, find a place to live in Albuquerque, and move herself and her cats, it occurred to me that I no longer loved Seattle: too big, too expensive, terrible traffic, and I had sinus infections and bronchitis more often than not. If I ever planned to retire, now was the time to get out. 

We’d been friends for thirty-five years. I hesitantly asked if she’d consider sharing a house. She would. We spent the time we weren’t in museums cruising neighborhoods. Back in Seattle, we house-shopped online and found about two dozen that looked promising. In mid-February, we flew down for four days to check them out. 

There was a house that looked great in the pictures online, like something in Spain or Italy. In person, it was…problematic. The scariest words I’ve ever heard in connection with real estate were, “…and the new addition is 100% up to code.” Bobby Unser’s first house was too far from shopping, hospitals and, well, everything else. There were two houses with casitas but they needed someone with major remodeling skills. 

We put in an offer on our first choice: two houses on a double lot, walking distance to the zoo and downtown, only to discover the owner had already accepted an offer. Our second choice was also gone. We got our third choice, actually the perfect fit for us: on a street that T-bones at both ends, with houses built in the mid-1950s in the pueblo style. My friend got a job within walking distance. 

Our casa needed some work, especially electrical, as houses in 1955 did not have microwaves, computers, printers, dishwashers, and phones that need to plug into an outlet. There were no kitchen appliances. My friend and her oldest stepdaughter came down to work on the house while I arranged to ship our houses’ furniture. They got by with a microwave, a Sunbeam electric skillet, a foam ice chest and a Mrs. Tea.   

All the linoleum tile in the original part of the house and the addition was toast. Her stepdaughter helped me put down ceramic tile over the slab in the old part of the house, and taught me to put down the rustic cherry tongue and groove flooring in the addition. The hardest part was loading and unloading the rented air compressor for the nail gun.

I never contemplated moving from Seattle until I heard myself saying, “If we both moved and shared a house…” 

How did I have the courage to tear up my roots? I have no idea, but I haven’t regretted it for a moment. My roots and my writing (stalled for years in Seattle) are flourishing in New Mexico’s arid but artistic soil. My eighth historical romance (lots of historical detail, no explicit sex scenes) was released in December, 2022. 

Here's the blurb for the eighth, A Peculiar Enchantment. Despite the cover it contains no fantasy or paranormal elements: Love is the most peculiar enchantment.

BLURB

What can you look forward to, when your only relatives call you ugly, unbalanced, and a scandal?  What would you do if your only friend was threatened? Adelaide, forced to live as her half brother’s dependent, knows. 

Replaced as a marquess’s heir presumptive, Gervase Ducane should have taken up some career or married well, or both. He has wasted his chances and now his time is running out. At the house party Ducane was meant to court a well-dowered young lady. Adelaide was ordered to stay away. Sometimes when you least expect it, magic happens. 

After a varied career which included bookkeeping, a few years as a security officer, and many years as a paralegal, Kathleen Buckley began her writing career after moving to New Mexico. Her ninth book, By Sword and Fan,  will be released on October 18, 2023. 

A Peculiar Enchantment buy link: https://books2read.com/u/bQAkNe

Website: Powder & Patch & Peril     

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