Category: House and home Page 11 of 14

We got a package in the mail the other day. It was a new skirt from Kelly for Lorena’s birthday. She wore it on Sunday to church. It is beautiful and we were thankful for both a beautiful skirt and a thoughtful daughter. Lorena has been running like crazy, but now has our apartment under control. We can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now and hope to be settled into a long term home within the next few months. We have had a wrench thrown into our plans at this stage, several times, so we are not holding our breath. Still we have hope.

No sooner had I put this up than these flowers arrived from Kelly and Christian as an “apartment” warming gift for Lorena. Wow. Maybe I am doing something wrong. Why aren’t they for me?

11.1 of 60

We are have had all kinds of challenges with our house negotiations in Washington state. It turns out the current owner of the house is a trial lawyer. If you REALLY want to know how the negotiations are going, look up the reference in the title to this post*. We still have hope that we will make it through, but boy howdy, we will have earned our stripes if we negotiate this successfully. If we can get past one or two more hurdles I will keep my appointment to do the final inspection in Centralia in the middle of the month. I have the ticket and the day off from work, so I really want to this to work out. So does Lorena.

*Please note we do not mean this literally. We are more in accord with what Luke 11:46 than with Shakespeare on the topic of lawyers.

I am not sure how much I wrote about the struggle we were having getting to a close on the house we wanted to buy in Washington state, but just a few days before the funeral the whole deal fell through. What happened was that a lot of stuff showed up on the inspection that needed to be fixed. That was OK with us; there was nothing on the list that was not fixable for a very reasonable price. The house owner, a lawyer, decided he wanted to give us about a third of the money required to fix the problems, add a bunch of legalese to the contract and have us take it “as is” so we were saddled with all the issues. We decided to bail out.

So, three weeks later, our real estate guy calls us and tells us the owner is having everything fixed at his expense. I told him we were still interested. He recommended we make the same offer contingent on an inspection after all the repairs are complete. So we are still in the game to head back to the great Pacific Northwest and are truly excited about it. Who knows what will happen, but were are hopeful it will all work out.

9.8 of 60

We change apartments tomorrow. We wanted to extend our lease in the old apartment, but had already given notice when we thought we had a house bought so we are having to make a move because they had already rented the apartment. The new apartment is nice, but we are really tired of apartment living and want to get into a house. We are back to looking everywhere for our next house.

Down 10.7 of 60

Just when I thought stuff would slow down again, everything seems to be speeding–in a good way. We have to figure out where we want to live. To give ourselves time to do the figuring and to accomplish some much need work at my day job, Lorena and I got a six month lease on an apartment closer to work. The really good news is that I will have the walks (one mile to/from work and one mile to/from restaurants from work for a total of four miles per day).

The problem is we are not sure where we want to buy a house, but we are sure we want to buy a house. We know we need to be close to a major airport. We also know we love the west and we love Mexico. Oregon and California are probably too liberal for comfort and have a lousy tax situation for the likes of us. Washington is borderline, but maybe OK. That is about all we know. So we have decided to look in as many places as possible. Even heading back to the deep South is not out of question, but probably a little bit of a stretch. The older I get though, the more confidence I have that something appropriate will open up–not necessarily even what we would pick for ourselves. So we are working on figuring it out and waiting until something becomes a little more apparent.

After a few rather typical posturings and gyrations, our offer for this house was accepted by the seller. Now, if we can navigate our way to a close, we will be moving into this thing sometime in late January or early February. It is just what we wanted. There is a beautiful view from the deck (see here), we are a short distance to a decent grocery store and an Anytime Fitness, we can get to Portland to take Grandpa Milo to church maybe a couple of times per month and I can get to my work up in Canada once every six weeks or so or to catch an airplane from Portland or Seattle to see customers. The only down side is that we broke Lorena’s “I can be happy if I am within twenty minutes of a Costco and a Trader Joe’s” rule. We are just a smidgen over thirty minutes to both of them.

There are a good number of other things we like about the location. We are only a few minutes drive from an Amtrak station where we can catch a single train to anywhere from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, CA. There is a McMenamin’s in town where Lorena, Gladys and I have been known to have supper on a Friday night. There is a big outlet mall–good for Lorena and Glad, not so good for me. There are still lots of things to navigate. The main thing but certainly not the only thing being the close date. We really do not want to have to move twice even thought it might be unavoidable. And, we are just off I-5, so people can easily stop in for a visit!

Lorena finished her house search yesterday and found one she liked so we made an offer. We are not sure yet whether we will be able to get it, but we have our fingers crossed. This is the view of Mt. Rainier from the balcony. The view is only slightly different from the daylight basement looking out the same side of the house.

Lorena took the train from SeaTac Airport up to downtown Seattle and hang around window and coffee shopping until Kelly got off work. They went out for dinner and took this excellent Christmas in Seattle picture with the Space Needle in the background. Lorena heads down to areas between Portland and Seattle to look for a house tomorrow. It is supposed to snow on Wednesday night so she only has one day to get it done. Fortunately, our real estate agent is prepared with some specific places to visit.

Lorena flew out to Seattle this morning to spend a couple of days looking for a house. This is a shot she took from the train between SeaTac Airport and Kelly’s house. We have decided to get something we can fix up and live in for a year or three while we decide what/where we want to be when we grow up. It is actually very exciting. We have done new house remodels (How does that work? Isn’t that why you buy it new so you don’t have to remodel?), but we have never done an old house remodel, so this will be a new experience. Lorena has a line on several houses in the right price range and location that she will visit. We hope she can find one she likes and then we can actually buy the thing in time to move in before we have to get a rental so I can start my new job. If we can find the house and work through the contract issues in time, it will be a miracle.

I have always said I would like to work until I am at least 80 if I am healthy and can find gainful employment. The thought of going fishing, golfing or recreating full time, while I see nothing wrong with it, does not sound particularly appealing. I love my work. At the same time, it would be kind of nice to live exactly where Lorena wants to live, hopefully not too far from wherever our kids land. It would also be pretty nice to work from home at least half of the time after I pass 65 or so. I am not a spring chicken anymore and the kids are gone, so Lorena and I are looking at home plans and trying to figure out where we want to land in retirement. It is a hard thing when you have few facts and no certainty about the future. Still, we have identified a few places and are looking at house plans (we think we might want to build, but are not sure). It is going to fun but stressful.