Apr
14
Well, that was an unholy bitch of a decision, but I think we’ve settled on me and the boys staying here in Seattle during May. I think, like many of you pointed out, it will be less of a pain than moving our stuff twice and staying in someone else’s house for weeks on end.
Still, it’s going to be rough. I keep thinking about how I feel whenever JB leaves town—lonely, for sure, but also sort of mentally unhinged? Solo parenting isn’t nearly as difficult as it used to be, but days on end of having no one to talk to who’s over 6 years old can make a person a little . . . well, you know. *twirls finger next to temple in meaningful manner*
I’m sure it will be FINE, though. I’ll be busy with working and packing and taking two kids to and from school and strategizing who will drive where for weekend visits and it’ll just fly by, right? It’ll be fine! Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
(Oh god.)
Speaking of CrazyTown, Population: Me, I don’t know if I’ve properly expressed the immense relief we feel over how quickly we got an offer on the house. We were a lot more serious about things this time around—unlike our sale attempt in 2010, we actually partnered with a real estate agency that didn’t suck, and we dropped the price by $30K. We also put a huge amount of effort into getting it ready to show, but I had no idea what to expect. Would it be like last time? Would the weeks drag by while I tried to keep things clean enough to accommodate a spur-of-the-moment, utterly uninterested showing?
As it turned out, as soon as our house was posted on the MLS my phone started ringing and didn’t stop for three solid days. We had showing after showing, and in the brief moments we were actually home, a near-parade of looky-loos drove slowly by, scoping from the street.
The house was posted on a Thursday, and by Sunday we had three (!) offers to consider. We also had quite the collection of realtor cards:
We haven’t closed the sale yet, but everything is going as well as we could have possibly hoped. We passed the (FOUR HOUR) inspection last week and the appraiser is coming next Monday. The buyers are so solid, we don’t anticipate any problems—but, of course, I’m sort of holding my breath until we sign on the dotted line.
It feels like everything has happened so fast, like one day JB was driving down for an interview and the next we had a lockbox on the front door and now we have a ever-complicated Tetris game of boxes accumulated in the living room. I’m sure May will pass just as quickly and moving day will be here before I know it.
It’ll all be fine! It’ll be fiiiiiiiiiiiine. (Right?)
Apr
11
Oh my god what a relief to finally be able to talk about what’s going on, and thank you so, so, SO much for all your lovely comments. Now it really seems real, you know? It was so weird to have all this major upheaval happening, but having to stay quiet until the final details with JB separating from his current job were ironed out. I mean, the only non-vodka-based coping mechanism I’ve ever developed for dealing with stress—aside from troweling enormous portions of high-calorie food into my carb-hole, that is—is writing about it online. THIS HAS BEEN VERY HARD IS ALL I’M SAYING.
Anyway! JB starts his new gig on May 7, which is . . . yeah, that’s coming right up, isn’t it? Without potentially wading into murky water by calling out the company by name, this job seems custom-designed for him. He’ll be working for a business that designs and manufactures specialized hunting equipment, and I think that in addition to the job itself sounding challenging and awesome, the environment and people will be right up his alley.
It’s a big change from Microsoft, for many reasons. I am so incredibly proud of JB not only for finding this new opportunity, but for being brave and true enough to his own self to take it.
We’re a little up in the air on our immediate next steps, because we do have a rental house squared away, but it won’t be available until the first week of June. JB will for sure be in Eugene on his start date (his new company will cover 2 weeks at a hotel, and his brother will let him stay at his place the rest of the time), but I’m not 100% certain what I’m going to do. His parents offered to let me and the boys stay with them in Coos Bay, and that would actually be totally fine—the kids would love it, and I’d probably find it easier to get my work done with more people around to help—but I’m not sure about bringing our cat to someone else’s house for 3 weeks (especially since they already have a cat). We could stay in a hotel with JB in Eugene, but again: CAT.
So maybe we’ll end up renting our own house from the buyers for a few weeks (they’ve already indicated they’d be open to this) and I’ll stay here with the kids through May? I don’t know. CATS, MAN.
What do you think sounds less insane:
• Moving all of our stuff into a storage place, then everyone, including the frigging cat, staying somewhere temporary in Oregon until we can get in the rental, then moving PART of our stuff back into the rental while leaving things like shop equipment etc in storage, the benefits here being that at least we wouldn’t be 300 miles apart during May
OR
• Me staying here by myself with the boys until June, at which point we move everything straight to the rental and store the extra stuff
OR
• Some better situation I haven’t managed to think of yet?
I’ve already talked to Riley’s teacher about the possibility of him leaving school early, and there’s no problem there. It was funny how tentatively I brought it up—like, will he need some sort of graduation document? And she was sort of like, um, it’s kindergarten. You’re cool.
Our general plan is to rent for the summer while we look for a place to buy, and I’m all kinds of nervous about that upcoming process, but I’m telling myself it’s one step at a time, one step at a time. First: close the house sale here. Next: figure out when the boys and I are leaving, and where we’re going. Also: pack. Rent a truck find a storage facility talk to schools set up short term COBRA call the—
Aaaaaaaaaaaaand breathe. It’s all going to be good, I know it.
(Lovely Eugene-area images courtesy of Don Hankins.)
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