The Adventures of T&A

Our house sold without any problems.  Andrew gave his notice of resignation the day after closing.  We’ve moved all of our furniture that we’re keeping into the attic of good friends Anita and Phil Castle.  They have a beautiful old Victorian home in Birmingham, Al and the attic was once three bedrooms.  They are letting us keep our things there while we are traveling, saving us the cost and trouble of a storage unit or replacing everything after resettling.

Well, we are officially “homeless”. We moved all our things out of the house last weekend and Wednesday we went through the closing on our house. We celebrated our homelessness by going to a wine tasting. We’re now staying in the basement of Andrew’s parent’s house here in Atlanta for the next few weeks. It’s kinda embarrassing, and not very glamorous, but the price is right, it is temporary, and it beats the extended stay hotels where all the drug deals go down.

Andrew gives his notice of resignation at his company tomorrow, Friday Nov 17th. He’ll give a four week notice and Mid-December, we’re on the road!!!

Thanks to all the people who helped us pack an enormous (12’ high, 26’ long) U-haul truck in Atlanta; Jim Owens, Ethan Zweigel, Shannon Price, Matt & Grace Garland, and Todd Koransky. And a great big “THANKS” to Anita and Phil Castle who are storing our stuff in the attic of their beautiful 1890 Victoria home in Birmingham. A special “thanks” to Matt & Grace who followed us to all the way to Birmingham and helped us unload it up the narrow stairs into the attic. And, of course, a “thank you” goes to Jack and Ellen Koransky for supporting our adventure and allowing us to be underfoot for a month. This has been a very stressful time, and we are so fortunate to have wonderful friends and family. We couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help.

A caution to all those people who pulled out in front of me while I was driving the ENORMOUS truck…rental trucks are usually no-frill trucks driven by amateurs!! Think about that when you cut them off in traffic!

After 9 days straight of intense home building school (right through two weekends, pictures here), I went right back to work. Basically, it was like 19 days of work straight. So the weekend of Halloween, Teresa and I headed out for a spoooky wedding in San Francisco for a much needed break. I stayed with my good friend/roommate from college, Chris Dunphy. We also hooked up with Debbie “Wanda” Goldstein, another good friend from college, whom, to my surprise, had moved to San Fran. We had a great time exploring San Francisco with Chris and Wanda. Highlights included a nice long walk from the ferry building to the top of telegraph hill, an excursion to Muir Woods, and a fun evening in a Haight-Ashbury brewpub… oh yeah, and the wedding! Our trip photos are here. Here’s some funny pictures of “Wanda”, Chris, and T&A:

Right now, we are packing like mad. It is very stressful. It is unlike any packing we’ve done before. We have some stuff going to Birmingham into storage, some stuff going to my parents home in Atlanta (where we’ll be living for a month), some stuff going to my parent’s home in Colorado (where we might spend a good bit of time on the trip), and a heap of stuff going on the trip. It’s just a mess, and requires meticulous thought as to what goes where.

A couple of things I’ve learned throughout all of the house prep and moving. I’d recommend this to anyone who lives in a home:

• Don’t wait to get rid of clutter. We de-cluttered our home on instructions from our realtor. A home without clutter is a wonderful thing to come home to. You just feel more relaxed and in control. It’s great, expecially after a day of chaos at work. I wish we had done it years ago. It will also make it much easier to sell your home when the time comes.
• Don’t put off necessary home projects, especially those that will affect the sale of your home. Teresa had three months of work handed to her by our realtor! And once again, you will feel so much better in your home.
• For the couples out there, don’t put off pending merges. Teresa and I merged our CD collection a few years ago. Just the other night, while packing and purging, we merged our tools. And it felt great! We found tons of old rusty screwdrivers to give away.
• If you know you are going to move within a year, start now getting rid of unnecessary stuff. Check out craigslist.org and freecycle.org. They are GREAT!

Anyhow, that’s it for now. We close on the house Nov 16 and move this weekend. Yikes! Back to packing!

Good news! Our home appraised! So long as the buyer doesn’t get cold feet or loose her job (she works for Delta), we should be all set to close Nov 16. We pack boxes Nov 5 and move Nov 12. I approach all of this with a bit of trepidation. I’ve never been so comfortable in my career. On the other hand, I won’t miss the daily grind and stress. I’m really comfortable with our home now that we’ve removed all the clutter. On the other hand, I am looking forward to spending some time a bit closer to our mother earth (and my wife). I am NOT looking forward to spending 4 weeks in my parents house, but I am looking forward to putting the move behind us.

So we’ll be leaving this so called “security” behind for adventure on the open road and an uncertain future. It’s really scarry, but exciting at the same time.

Just a brief update… Teresa and I are “on vacation” now. We ain’t on no sunny beach or some beautiful mountain though. We are in our own “backyard” so to speak, at sites around Atlanta. And Teresa and I are up at 6:30 am every day to meet up with our Southface homebuilding school class. It’s 9 days in a row, so I don’t even get a weekend off before I head back to work.

Thus far, it has been a GREAT experience and I would recommend it to anyone. We’ve had lectures from general contractors, mechanical engineers (home system efficiency), builders, EarthCraft house inspectors, and plumbers. We still have lectures from expert electricians, designers, and HVAC (heating/AC) experts on the docket. Southface takes a very pragmatic approach to homebuilding; they include energy efficiency techniques and techniques to improve occupant health. Some might say we are missing out on some of the more radical approaches (like straw bale, cordwood, etc…), but this is still a GREAT start for us. (Once we decide what part of the country we like, then we can choose our style, including some of the more “radical” techniques.) Anyhow, our brains are overflowing, and it is anything but a “vacation,” but we are learning tons.

On the home front, things are still rolling along towards sale. We have signed off on the inspection todo’s with our buyer. We basically need to bring in an electrician and plumber to correct a few things, but nothing major was requested. Tomorrow, the appraiser is coming out. If the home appraises, we will have done everything we could have done to guarantee closing on time… all we should have to do is sign on the dotted line. I am not giving my notice till that pen hits the paper though! This means a takeoff date just after December 16th (which should be my last day at Nexidia). We plan to start with Florida for family obligations and some fun in the sun. Then we’ll spend some time a friend in Valdosta, GA (just north of Florida border), then heading West to Colorado and SW desert. I hope to finish my blog software during this time.

Finally, you’ll notice that I have installed the WordPress e-mail notification plugin. This is especially for those of you without RSS aggregator software. Now you can be notified when I make a blog update.

Simon is finally starting to settle in at Dianne’s in Florida. But unfortunately, there was a bit of bloodshed in the process. Dianne has two dogs, Chipper and Lexi, both larger than Simon. Chipper is a go-lucky, happy male golden who could care less about being the alpha dog in the pack. Lexi, on the other hand, is a female golden and she is quite determined to be the alpha. Unfortunately, so is Simon. Simon is younger, faster, and has significant “street fighting” experience (he was abandoned when he was about a year old).

Anyhow, Teresa and Dianne left Lexi and Simon alone in the house a few times, and apparently, they had it out. In the first “incident,” Lexi ended up had her face scratched up pretty good, and Simon had a little nick on his forehead. However, in the second incident, Simon tore a hole (only skin deep) in Lexi’s leg… enough to require some stitches.

Teresa was quite distraught at all of this, and I wasn’t too thrilled either. I was over at Gautam’s house while all of this was happening and I really appreciated Gautam and Donna’s support. It was tough.

I figured we had three choices: 1) keep Simon separate from Lexi while Dianne is gone, 2) find Simon another home, or 3) cancel our trip plans and take Simon back home. Some good news came in over the past two days though. Lexi appears to have chilled a little bit and is no longer challenging Simon. Also, Simon appears to prefer staying in a separate room while everyone is gone. So while Simon would prefer option #3, we are choosing option #1… this will allow all of us to reach our goals. There are good signs now that option #1 will succeed.

In other news, we had someone look at our house over last weekend… twice! And today, we have an offer on our house! It’s far lower than we really expected, but we plan to counter and see how that goes. We also have someone else looking at our house today. Maybe we can get them into a bidding war?

We have come to terms with the potential buyer and I’m off to sign a contract in an hour or so. The only drawbacks:

1) target date for takeoff is a whole lot sooner than expected.

2) The closing schedule is really tight. The buyer is closing on a condo. If that closing goes bad for any reason, we could be living in an empty house (because we have already moved).

3) Appraisal is also a concern, since our price is pretty high compared to other homes in the neighborhood that sold recently.

We have to be moved and out of the house Nov 16!

After years of preparing, our plans to take the trip of a lifetime are becoming real.  In September 2005, we finally got our house on the market and within a couple of weeks we had someone seriously looking at it.  I’ve taken our dog, Simon, down to my sister Dianne’s in Ft Myers, FL to stay while we are traveling.  Dianne has two other big dogs (Golden Retrievers) and Simon (a Golden/Border Collie mixed breed) will be staying with the “cousin” dogs while we are traveling.  I stayed several days to help the dogs get adjusted.  At first her dog Lexie, kept challenging Simon about who the alpha dog will be.  After a couple of doggie discussions and a late night visit to a very expensive ER Vet requiring a few stitches, the dogs have worked out their issues. 

Today is a bit of a sad day for me.

Teresa and Simon the dog are heading off for Florida. She’ll be gone for a week, which is bad enough, but Simon will be settling into a new life in Florida with the cousin dogs (Teresa’s sister has graciously offered to take care of Simon). He’s been such a good dog recently too. This morning I gave him lots of hugs. He seemed to sense that this meant something. Usually, I take him out before leaving and he runs back upstairs to his bed next to where Teresa is still sleeping, but today, he came down and saw me off.

Simon’s goofy smile

Simon on the trail

Simon waiting for daddy to come home

So long Simon. Hopefully, we’ll see you soon on a visit to Florida. And drive safe sweetie. I miss you already.

On the sales front, we’ve had ONE person view our house thus far. Feedback was generally very positive, but the potential buyers (from New Orleans!) have decided to look in a higher price range.

HOME FOR SALE!

Here is our MLS listing as displayed at coldwellbankeratlanta.com and realtor.com. The pictures should be up by the time most of you read this. Here is a temporary link with pictures.