Won't you be my neighbor?

Yesterday I came out the front door and was stunned to find a "For Sale" sign at the house of our neighbors across the street. And I quickly understood why they had been planting new grass in their front lawn and taking care of the landscaping. I mostly felt sad, though.

We haven't interacted too much, but they have two sons, 7 and 4, and their older son and my 8 year old (one year older, but two inches shorter than the neighbor boy! ;) are the best of friends. In addition, they took care of our cats when we traveled (for several trips and several weeks) which was so great. Now I have to figure out someone else to help us and I'll probably pay this other person too. :( My neighbor didn't want to be paid for her help and she loved my cats so much that she actually adopted two kitties last Winter!

And I'm wondering who will buy the house. Or rent -- the house next door to ours didn't sell, went off the market and was rented to this couple with a 3 year old girl.

Do you want to be our neighbor?

P.S. There's a new third grade teacher moving from Oregon to teach at our sons' school. She has a boy in my 8 year old son's class (so cute! red hair, freckles, blue eyes, reminded me a bit of Laura's son). It would be perfect if they bought the house! Sigh... If they are visiting the school again tomorrow (they were today), I will definitely mention the house to them! ;)

They have a pretty tree in the front yard that has two-phased blooming. :)

Homeowners.4 in 25 Minutes!

That's how long our closing took, definitely a record time! We were out of there by 9:30 and I'm going to have some time to prepare for class. Too bad I'd rather be preparing walls for painting right now... :(

Take a look at this wall color:

It's a nice color, but very bright and it's not "us" at all! So we'll be painting the dining room a dark brown color (from this zero VOC brand) called "Cloak & Dagger" -- I really like this quirky "literary" name. ;) We're starting tonight. Photos forthcoming.

Well, I'm sure glad this will be my last "House Hunting" labeled post for a long time! Phew! Now on to moving (I'm not excited about the moving part, only about the painting and decorating! ;)

Back to the 20th Century! or Déjà Vu

First, let me tell you this story.

Back in 2001 we bought our first house in a small town in MA. In the days before the closing, when I was calling the utilities to have them started in our names in the new house I was appalled to find out that I could not have a regular phone company phone line and internet provider in that town because they had their own phone company! A local friend of ours explained that sometimes they referred to our new town as "old people town." :)

I had to drive down to the house where the phone company was located to start our account and I couldn't believe my eyes when the receptionist pulled out a form, inserted it into a typewriter and typed down our information! Then, she pulled out a print out with a list of four numbers and asked me to pick the last four digits of our number! So quaint! At least we had cable there which was not through the phone company and their internet wasn't that bad.

Fast forward to 2011, ten years later, and to our fourth house.

Well, well, well... last Friday I found out two very disappointing things when I was talking to the nice lady in the electric company:

1) In our new town there's no cable, only sattelite TV. This is very bad for our family because it completely rules out us having just a small number of channels for a small monthly fee, which is what we've been doing for over 10 years now. We don't watch TV, only very rarely, but that doesn't mean we don't want to have ANY access to it, particularly to PBS and the broadcasting channels. This was not the worse, though.

2) We cannot have cable (or, for that matter, fiber optics) internet either, only DSL, and there's only ONE ISP that monopolizes service in that area (we thought it was just our county, but it's actually several counties and going into the neighboring state). The problem is... we haven't had a landline for nearly five years now, only a "VOIP" phone line which allows us to make unlimited calls for over 35 countries & within the U.S. (including cell phones here) -- I highly recommend it! So it's in fact a double problem:  we need to have high speed internet (and of course we live online) and we don't need a phone line, but for DSL internet, we will have to pay to have a phone line (about 20 per month, in addition to the 60 dollars that they charge for their highest speed - 10 mb per second -- if we have a one year contract). This is all so incredibly annoying! BIG SIGH!

Seriously, had we known about this, we might have reconsidered buying a house in that town. Because as much as we love the neighborhood and the house itself, for the same money we could have bought a spanking brand new house 300 sq ft. larger than the one we're buying (but of course 10-15 minutes farther from the boys' school -- not a really big deal). Sigh again. We've decided we're going to fight this local phone company and try to bring some competition to the area, but we have no idea how exactly we can do this. K has already called the state communications department or commission, whatever it is, and they said that there isn't a real "monopoly," but we'll see! I don't mind collecting signatures, doing whatever it takes to get better internet service! After all... I live online, don't I?

Wish us luck!

We close at 9 tomorrow, then, I have to go teach, then K has to host an academic colleague and see his talk, which completely ruins our plans to get started on painting and other stuff at the new place. and next week will be CRAZY, with field trips for one of the boys, soccer games, lots of work events for K & I. I don't even want to think about it! :( But I know we'll survive. We always do. And... I KNOW -- nothing that I wrote here constitutes real problems. These are ridiculously preposterious first world troubles. That's one of the reasons why I hadn't blogged about this yet. Not with the latest events as well, but it was tonight or never, so I went for it. My apologies for being whiny, but even K -- who hates whining -- is upset with this situation.

What's been going on/ Afraid of moving

There's too much that I want/need to blog about and, paradoxically, that is keeping me from blogging. (very old problem)

Right now, I'm trying to get read to buy a house and move, but I keep thinking of the mother just who lost a 19 year old son and of his classmates who are heartbroken only a month before they were to graduate from high-school together. I missed the funeral this morning because I had to teach, but I went to the viewing yesterday so I could give my hairdresser a hug. So, so sad. I also talked to a few of the academy students and they are devastated, asking "why?" "why him? why now?"  I tried to talk to them, but it's hard to find what to say to them.

I'm also frustrated with the fact that I didn't do several things I'd been planning to do this semester (mostly to schedule a film or 2 for my students & the general student population). I NEED to make my language more visible and the one thing that I can still do is design a flyer to be put around campus. The new class I'm offering, on the other hand, is already full, because it's a general ed class.

Speaking of teaching, Anastasia has written a brilliant and provocative series of posts (yes, there are 7 of them so far, some short, but still pertinent) that has, as always, made me think and made me evn more upset than I already am about the whole system that keeps adjuncts in place. :( It sure is hard to keep at it with all this perspective.

I have to go now... on to a fitness class before I get to teach my own class.

Have a nice day! (and I began this last night, so I decided to keep the "time stamp")

My Parents Are Coming! (& the In-Laws Too)

Well... we already knew that my in-laws were coming to the U.S. in May -- they generally come a few times a year ever since they moved back to Brazil back in 2009 after living here for three years-- but yesterday my mother-in-law* found incredibly cheap tickets on AA (U$ 350 round trip per person, all taxes/fees included) and she convinced my parents to come visit us this Spring as well!

So they arrive in April, together with my brother's parents-in-law (who are coming to visit their son who just moved to Michigan -- he's the one who came to visit us on Xmas time with his family) and they'll be here to help us move into the new house. I'm so excited! Last year it was a nightmare to move doing most of the packing by ourselves, K and I. And K kept repeating as we worked non-stop, into the night(s): "If only we had two more people to help we'd spend just half the time working!" Very true! So now we have double the help! And since we're moving only 6 miles, it won't be too much trouble anyway... I'm thinking we'll try to do it slowly, and only do the big furniture at once, with a rental truck and the help of local friends.

I still haven't decided whether the boys and I are going to Brazil this year or not. I really wanted to, particularly to spend my birthday there, but we'll see... Right now we need to concentrate on buying the house. So, it's just perfect that my parents are coming! If in the end we don't go, they got to come and spend time with us and the boys.

The only downside? The boys will still be in school most of the time they'll be here, except in the last five days. We're planning on really enjoying those last days, though -- since my parents will fly back to Brazil from NYC, we plan on staying there for five days before they travel. I've wanted to do that with our family for a long time now, so I'm glad it looks like it'll finally happen! Big Apple, here we come!

*Who owns and manages a small travel agency -- they're going to South Africa next month with a group from Brazil and maybe next year K & I will get to go too!

Second Wind

I thought I'd never be in the mood to get this post written...

You see, when our nicely configured trajectory "derailed" a little bit earlier this year when K decided to pursue the position in Georgia, I didn't suspect how hard it would be to go through this strange detour trip. I will blog about that later, but today I want to concentrate on the positive aspects of staying here, not on the detour.

Amidst the sadness of letting go, I told K that we'd now been given a "second wind" and that this was our chance to finally be able to enjoy life here. Easier said than done (oh boy, maybe I should have written the negative post before this one! Sigh), but yesterday I finally began to feel a nice "breeze" coming back to me.

This place is growing on me as new places usually do. It's just that some take way longer than others, like Pennsylvania ;-) and other places just seem "right" from the very beginning. Well, back in July I thought that this place here was perfect and I was literally "grieving" and lamenting the possibility of moving away from here instead of enjoying the beauty, the calm, the newness of it all. I'm a defensive pessimist, remember?

But then... I began to earnestly try to convince myself of how nice there would be, so it wouldn't be too hard to change gears if we decided to move. Things went downhill from there (subject of the other post! back to the subject at hand!).

Yesterday, however, when I was driving, I thought about the place growing on me, about how right it feels -- in spite of some struggles for me professionally (yet another post -- how many posts have I got in me? I'm crazy my friends and I still have to pack to travel) and then...

... then for whatever reason K and I began to look at houses for sale and that felt great!

So, yeah... second wind. I want to fly again, to soar above the clouds. Life was pretty miserable at times in the past three years, but now, I trust, has come the time to be at peace and, hopefully start to get comfortably settled.

How many years again have I been waiting for this?

P.S. this is a scheduled post so I don't miss posting on the day of our trip.

PS.2 I wish I could post photos of here. Maybe in facebook. ;-)

And the final answer is...

... I won't know until later today when K receives a phone call with their "final point" in the offer process.

I can hardly breathe right now and I'm shivering, so I had to share the suspense with the internets. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Today may be the day in which the rest of our lives will be decided. Well, at least where we'll live in the next 6.5 years or... for a long time.

Maybe we'll get to stay (which is good -- we go see and can put an offer on the house we liked! we get to live in a nice peaceful place), maybe we'll get to go (which is better -- challenging intellectual, more academic work and other things).

So, yeah... I'm on pins and needles. Sigh.

Unanimously

The department unanimously decided to offer K the job. They're working on the details (he has a phone conversation scheduled for tomorrow) before they put it in writing.

I have a feeling K is not going to refuse this offer & I'm already thinking about moving (I'm excited about it, actually), but, we could change our minds, so, let's see.

I don't feel so torn anymore. And, you know, the whole thing is NOT about a "right" and a "wrong" decision (there's no right or wrong, I think), it's just about what would be best for him and for our family.

I'll keep you posted.

And the hard part will be telling folks at the university here & dealing with that. But, as the saying goes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Remembering the "Good Engine Noise"...

Our two "crumbling Hondas" (no comments on that long post, I thought it was fun, but probably too wordy, as most of what I write) have been to the shop a few times and we've spent over a thousand dollars in them. We had budgeted that expense and our plan is to keep those cars until they "die" and only then replace them. Today my dad was stressed out about the Odyssey and K took it to the mechanic for a few minutes in the morning so he could listen to this rattling noise, so I drove the boys to school in the (even older) Civic.

As I was pulling out of our driveway/parking lot, Kelvin said, in a wistful voice:

"I miss the good engine noise of the Mazda* when daddy pulled out of our old house's driveway every morning..."

"Yeah," said Linton. "I can hear it now" (in his head, he meant).

Because we were home all of last year, they did hear it every morning, sometimes when they were still in bed. This simple statement made me marvel at the perceptive, sensitive memory of children. Not only that, but also at how one small memory can bring so many things to the forefront...

... the long driveway and our old house.

... the "good" car and its nice leathery smell.

Parts of our "old life."

"But I didn't like that school" (the small school Kelvin went for 2 years back in PA), "I like our new school better," Kelvin said cheerily.

"Me too!" Responded Linton.

See? The "new life" has many advantages too! It's not all old cars and cramped (but nice) rental house. ;-) It's also lovely new school, quiet rural neighborhood, new friends and brand new job for mom and dad!

* The post linked to above has some photos of the Mazda.

Edited to add: If you read the old post, you'll be interested in knowing that both cars still have the engine lights on, but both passed inspection. Phew!

Dismissed!!

K was late to pick up my parents from the airport on Friday because I had a court hearing at 9 am on the summons that I received as a "welcome to our town" gift the day we moved here (speeding, going 41 in a 25 miles an hour zone -- I mentioned it here). Our Civic hadn't passed inspection and had to be fixed that very morning, so I had to drive the minivan to court.*

Thankfully all went well and my explanation that I was driving for the first time on this road on the very day I was moving here so I couldn't have possibly been aware that the speed limit was 25 convinced the judge.

He dismissed it. And I didn't even have to pay anything like it happened when I got my first and only (until last June) speeding ticket.

What a relief!

* This whole thing happened because of our first big blunder after moving to a new state: we had registered the minivan in VA & gotten new plates the week before, but didn't know that it had to be inspected right away! (I think in MA we had a week). We found out about it on Thursday evening after we got the Civic's plates and so we got the Odyssey inspected that afternoon, in the last time slot, so the Civic had to be inspected first thing on Friday.

Send in The Clowns

I've been a little sad lately. More disgruntled than sad. K is away (left this afternoon, will return Friday night). And while I hope everything goes well, the fact that a decision may have to be made and that we might go as early as January just adds to the stress of just having moved.

Just having gone and come back through Philly -- "the city who ate my cat" -- before and after our trip did not feel good. I'm reminded every time that even though everything is going well for us, we're starting over once and that I miss my cat, my garden, the backyard, so many things. We're supposed to go again visit friends next week and I'm not looking forward to that. Particularly being so close to my old house (can't blog about that yet, not that I'm terribly sad or anything, it's just that it kind of "died" for me and I've forced myself to "forget" about it for the time being).

By now I'm used to being alone, unsettled. I've left my country after all and all my dearest friends behind. New friends were made, but those are away too (we moved multiple times, remember?). Thanks to you, my dear, but elusive friends in the computer, I have survived and been pretty happy these past 5+ years.

So after a pretty useless day in which I spent way too much time online watching stuff (I usually don't do that, I just read blogs), I have to take my friend's Dawn's cue and turn to music... write about my love of Stephen Sondheim and his songs, particularly one.

I "met" Sondheim through the friend that I just went to visit in Canada. She was the one to who introduced me to a performer I'm now a little embarrassed to admit I used to love, and whose cds (these two) I still listen to once in a long while: Barbra Streisand. Through Barbra I "met" Broadway. Previously I had only been familiar with The Sound of Music and other things by Rogers and Hammerstein, but now I learned of other musicals and their "standards." And I became particularly interested in Sondheim because the best songs in Streisand's two Broadway albums were his: "Putting It Together," "Being Alive" (thanks for this link, Dawn, he's truly handsome too! And all those people playing and walking, awesome), and "Not While I'm Around." "Send in the Clowns" captured my heart immediately. It is still my most favorite piece of music of all time. I love really sad music and this one is particularly heartbreaking, at least for me and I didn't really know why.

Because it was not until today, after reading Dawn's post (and discovering the lovely "I Remember Sky" -- a song by Sondheim I didn't know) that I went to read more about my favorite song. I know, silly me, right, to like it so much for 20 years and never even try to see or listen to a full recording/video of the musical. (I'm into musicals but have never really been to any, save for Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera in London -- I haven't cared for Webber in a long time, I totally agree with Dawn that you care for his stuff at first and then get sick of it and that doesn't happen with Sondheim). I loved what Sondheim had to say about this song reading his quotes here. That it is a song of regret and anger, "not a soaring ballad" (which is how it has been interpreted by those who made it most famous -- Judy Collins and Frank Sinatra). And the whole thing about them being the fools in the end.

I went to look for the song on YouTube and although I don't know if Streisand's interpretation would be considered good (angry and regretful) versus "bad" (ballad), but I guess Sondheim liked it enough that he wrote a new verse for her to record it (!) (that always surprised me, having carefully read the album's notes), all I know is that after I saw Judi Dench interpreting it (singing here is not the point), I don't think I will ever be able again to see Streisand do it. I think that the theatrical effect of the man (Fredrik) being there gives the interpretation its context and much more feeling:

I listened to Judy Collins's interpretation (OK, definitely "soaring ballad"), but could only get through a few seconds of the Frank Sinatra. I think Catharine Zeta-Jones did a good enough job. If anyone is curious, here's the original 1975 rendition of Glynis Johns. I think Dame Judi Dench's is even better.

OK, I'll embed Streisand too... just because it was how I first encountered this song.

And though I love it so much, I hope this song has nothing to do with our life situation right now. I hope that we're not the clowns (fools) that are here. Neither now, nor next year.

Ultra Efficient DMV

One of the things that I was slightly concerned about when moving to another state was getting a new driver's license. This proved to be a NIGHTMARE in Pennsylvania. Their DMVs are simply the most bureaucratic thing we've ever dealt with and the old ugly buildings don't help too much.

We delayed getting new licenses in PA for three years since it was easier and much more efficient to renew the MA ones (they didn't ask for proof of address! I don't know if they do now), but we had to get them before we bought our second house in PA (the one we just sold). K had to go back six times to the Penn Dot place because one day they were closed, another day he didn't have a document, another time he didn't have a checkbook, and so on...

I only went once, but stood in line for over an hour. Then when I renewed a year later there was a loong line again. (Because of my visa my first license was only valid fora year -- that's why I had renewed the MA one).

So last week, after a nearly useless day we'd spent in the house, making calls, paying bills online, we left home 25 minutes before the DMV was supposed to close. We got there with 10 minutes to spare and there was NO LINE! The lady complained that the receptionist assigned both K and I to her ("I want to go home!" She whined), but she was courteous and efficient and in about 15 minutes we were done!

What a relief!! The license is valid for eight years. Too bad we might live here for much less than that. Sigh.

Questions Without Answers

How many things won't I have time to unpack or find before it's time to pack again if we move a year from now?

When will I find the things that are missing and we need?

Will I ever finish unpacking? (probably not, see first question)

How in the world will I be able to unpack without letting the boys spend countless hours watching tv or playing computer games (or Wii, which in the end they hardly ever play)?

Why oh why are toys so useless? (this has meant to be a whole post for years now, but I haven't been able to write it. Once in a while their toys do get played with, it's a never-ending cycle)

Why does my precocious "pre-teen" eight year old have to keep saying that he's bored and there's nothing to do?

Maybe unpacking the books (and some of the toys) would help, but how will I find the time without first brain-killing these boys ;-). See, I made a pile of books that weren't supposed to be packed so Kelvin could read them, but obviously that in the end they were packed and are as good as gone! HELP!

Why do I still feel so sad about the cat? (ok, that one has obvious answers, I don't want to ask the unanswerable ones here)

well... the list of questions that I could keep on asking today is endless, so I'll just stop for now.

Stuff is in, Strength is out

On Saturday night dear friends came (having driven down from PA earlier that day), accompanied by his brother and brother's son and their teenage son and in two hours flat we emptied the truck. Now the hard part will be unpacking everything. The living room already looks WAY better than above, as does the kitchen (which is almost done):I'll post "after" photos when we're done, OK? Now I have to go get some sleep so I can continue the unpacking in the morning. Sigh.

Below the Mason-Dixon Line

Perhaps you'd think that, as an expatriate, what should I care about the "North" & "South" divide in this country, right? However, I've lived here long enough now to wonder, and almost to worry, about what is life going to be like for someone who's been up North for fourteen years to come live in the South.

Well, I guess I've had a gradual "descent" with 8 years in Massachusetts then 6 years in Pennsylvania before moving to Virginia and that should help. I suppose that were we to move further South (Atlanta), one year here would probably be helpful too. ;-)

I guess that in a way, moving this time means "reliving" (in a much smaller degree), "the mother of all moves" -- when we left Brazil to come to the U.S. (I've got to try to post about that, I'll try to make it on or around our "expatriate anniversary" on June 20).

This country really is the United States of America -- when you cross state lines you can feel the difference already on the highway, the signs, existence or absence of billboards, etc. Things look and feel different. This is still fascinating to me all these years after moving to this country.

I didn't arrive here until 5:30 p.m. (K left PA at 6 am so he could be here for the cable guy at 11) and I had a most disastrous welcome! There was a cop on our new street, just one block from our townhome and I wasn't thinking about my speed -- I got distracted when I saw the truck trailer parked in front of the house (I was so glad to be finally "home" again, after 24h+ of homelessness) -- but she caught me.

It turns out the limit on this street is 25 and I was going 41 (I truly didn't know the limit and wasn't paying attention to the signs). Now I have a court date and I'm guessing that won't get points, but I'll still have to pay (that's what happened when I got my one and only speeding ticket back in PA years ago -- the cop literally told me to go to court for that 'cause they were there doing a "drive" or something to make some money).

I was so upset when I was prevented from getting to my new house and had to wait for a long time for the cop to fill the huge form! I called K and he came to get the boys. By the time the lady came, I had calmed down and wasn't so angry. Sigh. She was nicer too. So, yeah... I'm glad the street has such a low limit b/c it'll be good for the boys (riding their bikes on the parking lot, etc) and I'll be careful from now on.

We had no idea, but we live only a few hundred yards from the elementary school (our kids are going to go to a private school 10 minutes away). It's just around the corner, across the street, and it has a really nice playground. I'm so thrilled we found this house and aren't going to live in the other neighborhood!!

I don't know yet how the radical downsizing (2500 sq. ft. to around 1100) is going to go, but I think we'll live ;-).

More later because I really, really need to sleep. I'm glad to be home, though. With our stuff waiting on the parking lot to be unloaded (friends are coming from PA tomorrow to help). Thinks are falling into place... what a relief!

No More, 2007-2010

I don't know exactly how I feel about it now. I didn't allow myself to cry, although I felt like crying on and off all day and night yesterday. One thing is for sure: I'm beyond exhausted. We went to bed either 3 or 4 am from Saturday to Tuesday night and then last night we dropped off the boys at a friends' house and went back to the house at 11:30 pm and only left at 5:20 am this morning when we finally managed to finish loading the two cars and cleaning the house (particularly the kitchen which was a mess!). We slept from 6-11 am, but we're still tired.

Now we still have tons of things to do and we wanted/needed to drive down to VA tonight. We don't know whether everything went well with the closing just yet, I hope everything was fine. K is on the phone -- oh, OK, things are fine, it's just that the routing number we provided for the wiring of the money doesn't work and we had to find out the right one. Phew!

No more homeownership for now, but I hope that in one or, at most, two years we have a house again. More later.

The Birthday Boy & The "Moving" Party

A chaotic moving day (OK, the first of several "moving days" we're having here) prevented me from posting on my son's birthday, May 30th, when he turned 6 years old.

It doesn't feel quite right to celebrate the life of a beloved son when another mother (Katie Allison Granju) has just lost hers, but I think he deserves it.

He was born on a hot Sunday and his birthday fell on a Sunday this year too, hotter than that one back in 2004. I was unable to throw a party for him, but in the end, I think his day was funner than any party he could have had.

It definitely felt like a party. The two cousins had been here since the night before when the boys went to bed really late (and their parents, with the exception of BIL, who had driven for 7 hours that day, almost didn't go to bed -- K, D & I worked until 4 am) and on Sunday they went to "work" early, riding their bikes, playing on the swings, playing the Wii. Then the friends who were helping us load the truck started coming bringing along three boys and a teenage girl. They played lots (see above), but the day's highlight was this "train" or "roller-coaster" with the three office chairs going down the sloping driveway (BIL's idea). Check it out:

I ordered pizza for everyone (only the second time in my whole life I ordered pizza for a group of people at home -- the first was when we unloaded our things with church friends back in 2007) and after we ate (with lemonade), I went to the store and got a Carvel cake so we could sing happy birthday:

Later on, when most friends had left and one more family had come to help, we turned the sprinkler on for the boys to play (the plan was to fill up a plastic pool BIL had brought, but it was too late for that) and that's when the first photo of the post was taken. One more view of the birthday boy happily squinting in the late afternoon sun:I love you so much, baby, you're so precious (and you know it too!). I can't believe you're already six, my big boy, going to first grade! I hope you enjoyed your birthday!

Weird -- SS Administration Says I'm Underage

This is one of the weirdest things that has ever happened in my life as an expatriate in this country. I've been dealing with various service providers (electric, cable, etc) in six addresses for fourteen years and this has never happened before.

We're moving to Virginia, right, so I'm calling the electric company to have service switched to my name in our rental house and they asked me for my social security number. After a while, the young woman on the other end came and told me: "This social security number indicates an underage person" WHAT?

OK, I did get my social back in 1996 when we moved here (as a matter of fact, it's really cute that K and I have almost matching SS #s, just like our cell phone numbers and, coincidentally, the last number on his cell and his SS is 2 and mine is 3 for both!), so if they think that this number belongs to a person born in 1996, then it would be an underage kid, yes. However, I was born 25 years before that! I explained this to her and she's checking.

And now I'm just thinking the same thing will happen if I get the account to be opened in K's name, so I hope it gets sorted out (I'm on hold on the phone still). I'll let you know what happens.

Life Repeating Itself

I've been thinking a lot about the past three years, the period we've lived in this house. I want to blog some about it and I really want to find the time to post some photos. I was thinking about when we moved here in 2007 and while taking a look at the archives I found an interesting post.

Journaling is important for me primarily because I can take a peek at the past and see how things turned out, how they changed (or not), so I can then look forward to the future and wonder what will take place then. I haven't used the blog for this purpose as much as I should (I regularly re-read old journals), but I guess that moving is making me feel like doing that.

When I read the title of this old post and thought about one of my recent posts, I had to laugh out loud. Well, and also lament our "fate" or "bad luck" for a bit and think "how life repeats itself, no?" And posts on my blog too -- sorry!

Let's keep our fingers crossed that maybe the next time there will be movers! ;-)

We've got a new address

After a last-minute trip to Virginia we finally have a new address. We'll be moving in on the 4th.

Downsizing is an understatement for what we're doing, but I guess we'll survive. We're moving from 2500 square feet + half basement + double garage + two sheds + storage on top of main floor and garage to around 1000 sq ft & no basement. At least there's a garage. That's where we plan to store whatever needs to be stored.

I'm happy with the place, but it's only because we're not renting from the rental company. After K had already signed the lease with them (he didn't want to come home without having decided and secured a place for us to move to), we drove to look at some "For Rent" signs and we saw one for a townhome that looked exactly the same as the one we were going to rent, but in a much better location. We called and left a message, but the owner only got back to us after we'd driven 1h15 minutes North.

We drove back and although we got home only at 2 am as a result, it was the best decision. Not only is this house in a better location, it's meticulously taken care of. It has much better (stainless steel) appliances, great choice of paint colors and we can use our own washer and drier! (at the other rental they had a pair of old ones). The owner is getting married on the 5th, so she's happy the house will be rented even before that (too bad we added a bit of stress to the week before her wedding since she's going to have to empty the house).

K had to call the rental company this morning to dissolve the lease (he'd given them a check for a thousand dollars too) and it worked out, we only have to pay a penalty of 100 dollars. So... we have a place to live for a year and that's a relief. I wish we were buying, but maybe renting really is the best option.

I'll post screenshots of the two prospective neighborhoods later, OK?