The Rest of the Story

I had two questions from commenters regarding this new house scenario (did you see I had five? Five comments! Which thrills my not-blogging-lately-equals-zero-comments soul- thank you Mighty Commenters!) and answering these questions seemed smart if I wanted to maintain anyone out there asking questions.

One from Brooke (who's back! It's so exciting! Check out her blog for all her latest happenings- there's a lot) who wanted to know "did you tell me you were moving?" The answer to that would be No. We didn't tell anyone we were moving at first, because of lots of reasons, the top one being: we weren't exactly sure it was going to happen and didn't want to get everyone worked up until we were sure- I was sure around Morning Two of waking up in said new house. The Hubba and I have had three different homes in less than four years and "You guys sure move a lot" doesn't sound any sweeter the fourth time around. So we agreed to hold our tongues and let things go and see how it went and cross our fingers and blahblahblah and it went great.

Which was the great, weird thing: it was so easy. In previous moves, it's been a bit of a mess, usually with The Hubba getting transferred away within a few weeks (a plane ride away) and me staying behind to move house and dogs (with the help of the packing and moving company his job provides, I must admit). I've had one trip (paid for by said company) to fly to new town, and find a house. And with four dogs, it's always a house- you're not cramming the six of us into an apartment or condo and even if you could, there MUST be a yard. So our typical house-hunting occurs over a three to five day period and in that time we see between thirty to forty-five homes (seriously) and then we pick. Honestly. The Hubba can't stay in a hotel on his own indefinitely and even if he could, our home sells and then the dogs stay in a kennel indefinitely while we house-hunt, and his company puts a time limit on how long they're willing to provide goodies like movers, storage, realtors to sell your home, etc., so finding a home in about weekend is how it worked out. It's a bit like having a Drill Sergeant from an Oliver Stone film standing over your shoulder screaming "Find a home! Find a home! FIND A HOME!" And so we have.

Rumblings of The Hubba's job moving to Greensboro happened in May and by mid-June we were linked up with a realtor and went on our first house-hunting excursion. This time, we had all summer. That was our timeline- we wanted to be settled in Greensboro by September. Differences I noticed immediately: 1) The Hubba and I were already together (he wasn't bundling me into a car after I staggered off a plane, half-asleep, having been up since five that morning in order to get ready, rush dogs to the kennel and then get myself to the airport, and then both of us rushing to meet a realtor so we could use the precious hours between four and eight to see fourteen homes) and 2) we were only seeing five houses. I actually laughed when our realtor only handed us five MLS sheets.

And, as you would expect with all the time in the world and only five houses to see on this, our first house-hunting expedition, we both fell in love with the Second House We Saw. But wouldn't admit it. We had so much time! The second house- that was crazy talk. So we looked at the last three homes and went home and didn't talk about it again until Sunday, when we discovered the Second House We Saw was having an Open House. And so we went. We were coy, mind you. We went to two other Open Houses first. The Second House We Saw, though, this was where we spent from three to four of our Open House window of time. We were both quiet on the drive back to Burlington and ended up stopping at Best Buy on the way home so The Hubba could clear his head.

It took several more days for us to make an offer, and at that point, The Hubba was out of town for the weekend for a bachelor party. Negotiations fell to me entirely. And, shockingly, after a little back and forth, the owners accepted.

And it stayed easy. We even closed on the date that we had initially set to close one. This has NEVER EVER happened for us before.

I think, now we've moved for the third time in four years, we'll be here for a while. The Hubba doesn't plan to change positions with his company again unless a) it's within ten to fifteen miles of the house and worth it or b) they make him President (hint: and this is nothing about The Hubba who is fantastic at his job, it's a huge, international company and this will never happen). Of course there isn't any reason to take my word for it, because, well, We, the People, site Moves 1 and 2 as evidence to the contrary. Except, and hear me out, both those times we had feelings of "this could be temporary," for lots of reasons not worth going into. This house doesn't feel temporary. And I really hope I'm not eating my words on this in eighteen months.

And that's the whole, crazy story on the house move. Far more detail than Brooke could have ever expected, but I think this is to explain the lack of blogging and overall lack of communication on my part for the last month. We were so busy with move stuff, but I wasn't telling anyone about move stuff, but I wasn't doing much else, besides working (not interesting) and so how could I write, without something to talk about, on and on. You see what happens when you don't go ahead and spill it all on your blog. Super long, super wordy, without any knitting or dog pictures, posts, that's what.

Anna- actually let me introduce Anna first. This is my Secret 10 Pal! The pal who I was gifting to, the one I sent these socks to, who was so patient and fun to chat with and is (how cool is this?) Australian! Cool, eh?

Anna asked "What's it like inside?" And this answer is so much simple. At the moment, it's big and pretty much empty and fantastic and the parts that aren't empty look like war-torn Russia, if war-torn Russia had a big-screen TV and lots of dog fur and half-unpacked liquor boxes (actually, I'm betting war-torn Russia did have a lot of half-unpacked liquor boxes, except ours, sadly, don't have liqour) all over the place.

And a parting thought- the last post I labeled under "House" thinking, cool, I already have a House file! This is how long it's been since I've seen Hugh Laurie's scowling face and crusty demeanor. Anyone else ready for the fall line-up? Or, at the very least, Season Six of 24 on DVD? Hmm?