The Saga Continues

Hola!

A couple of weeks have slipped by…wonder where they might have gone? Could it be that I’ve lost track, along the roller coaster I ride almost daily? Ha. The days all seem to run together, it is true.

One aspect of life right now that adds to the chaos, is housing in general. Frank pointed out, if we were “just” selling a house and buying a house, it would be crazy enough. But we have actually been dealing with the thousands of details of:

1) Selling a house
2) (trying to) buy or rent in Massachusetts
3) Getting our renters OUT of our house here
4) Getting ourselves of the house WE are renting
5) Figuring out temporary housing in MA, since we are in limbo & don’t have a permanent house there, yet.

So. Not one or two, but FIVE major events going on.

We are closer to the magical “Closing Day” on the house…could be this Thursday or Friday, so I am very happy about that.

We have been trying to get a place to live on the other end. Complicated by the fact that the Boston area has not been effected by the otherwise national housing downturn, we are groaning that housing is outrageously expensive out there. Pickins are slim, one might say.


We had one bright possibility about 10 days ago, certainly not a “perfect” house, but it showed up Thursday on the MLS listing. It caught my attention because it met lots of our criteria (distance from work/church/school, number of bedrooms, etc.) , and it was only a little higher priced than the house we just sold! “Hey, Frank, go look at this one,” I email to him. He goes to see it that afternoon, calls me and says, “You know, it has some things we’d have to change and/or learn to live with, but you’d like this one.” He goes to one more appointment that afternoon, and calls me that night. We decide this would be a good one to put an offer on…he says, “in the morning I’ll call our Realtor and let’s make an offer.”

**Just to interject here, the market in MA is not frantic. Homes sell in 1 to 2 months, it’s not like you usually have to make snap decisions.**

So, he calls me at 7 a.m. the next morning (10 a.m. Boston time). “Well, this house went on the market YESTERDAY,” he reminds me, “and on that first day, TEN people went to see it, one made an offer, and they ACCEPTED it.” I couldn’t believe it.

Our options are not plentiful. But there are a few that could work, that would just take a bit of remodeling…or a LOT of remodeling, in 1 case…anyway if we go that route, we would like to rent for a time, so we don’t have to LIVE in it while all that mess is going on.

The kids have been instructed to pack first for the next 2 weeks, then for the next 6 months, and the rest of our stuff will be stored…?!?!? Ha. There are still so many “what ifs” in the equation, we can’t pin down much just yet! (I am sort of a planner—read: “control freak to the nth degree”, so this part is very nearly killing me.)

It will all be fine. We are prepping the kids for air mattresses! Maybe if we rent while we are remodeling something, we will want to save money by NOT renting a full set of furniture in the house. Maybe the kids will use air mattresses, and boxes to store clothes? They’re young. We’ll call it a 6-month-long sleepover.

The moving company packers come tomorrow, to destroy the house. We’ll always have the laptop with us while we are in transit, and Internet connections at different spots will let me check email. Our cell phones stay the same, of course!

Here is a photo of the kids on one of our hikes. TERESA has already decided on the house we should buy in Massachusetts. It should be quite obvious, because (and I quote) “it has a good climbing tree in the front yard.”



Have a glorious week! Love, Kari

Signing Parties & Swimming Pools

Hola!

Another brain-bouncing week! We had Frank home for the weekend again, so that was wonderful. Friday – Happy 4th of July!! – was a day of swimming, concert in the park, and BBQing with the Clears, a very fun family across the street from our “old” house. The fireworks display was later that evening.

The “Signing Party” refers to the reams of tedious paperwork Frank and I went through yesterday…most likely, we will not be here for the closing on our house, so the Realtor sent over the majority of the paperwork. (I HOPE it’s the majority…must have taken 2 hours to go through it all…)

I’m looking around and wondering to myself: are the movers REALLY coming in 2 weeks? The answer, of course, is yes they are! I am extremely happy it is “the movers,” and not me driving around to different grocery stores, asking daily for boxes, and packing everything, and moving it ourselves. For the first 3 moves of our marriage, we moved ourselves. Wow. I can’t begin to tell you how much better it is with a crew of movers!!! (This will be our 9th move in 16 years, we counted. Life is never boring, is it?)

I think I will post a couple of photos from swimming Friday. We went to the high school because they have diving boards—that is extra fun for the kids, and actually for Frank, too! He had some good dives off the high dive. Teresa and David have tried front flips off the HIGH dive, if you can believe THAT! (I didn’t, until I saw it…the fearlessness of youth?!?)

First, Frank "flying" off the high dive..."


Then, Teresa flips off the low board:


David dives:


And Kara is not to be outdone:


And since the Olympic trials are going on right now, I do have to show the sequence of Frank's competition diving material: jump, touch toes in air, then dive in:




(I'll let you know which day you can watch him in Beijing next month.) Have a glorious week! Love, Kari