end of year update

About a month ago, I alluded to some news and then promptly fell off the face of the earth, or so I thought. Turns out the earth is round, who knew? So here is the news: we're buying a house!

We've been hesitant to commit to living in Mass; well, it's mostly been me lately who's been heel-dragging. Sean was ready to commit at least six months ago. Who knew I had such an issue with commitment? (Everyone, please lower your hands.) Since I left home, I've moved at least once every few years; first to Vermont, then Philadelphia, then New Jersey, New York, Florida, California, Washington, and now Mass. Since this is officially the snobbiest place we've ever lived, I was pretty sure we were on our way out in another few months. But it (slowly) started becoming clear that our life works here. We both have good jobs, Maple is in a good public school, we love our little townie life where we can walk to the town common, the ATM, the barber, the knitting store, a couple of restaurants. So we got our finances in some semblance of order and started wondering why we were paying someone elses mortgage and living above a chain smoker. (She's the nicest chain smoker in the world, but the smoke still stinks.) After looking around at a few condos in town, we settled on one that's less than a quarter mile from our current residence. We found great financing (the owner of the building is a bank and they are super motivated to sell the rest of the condos in the [new] building) and started thinking that it all just made sense.

For the past month or so we've been haggling over prices and fixes and dates and such. At every opportunity we considered backing out, but I think we're actually going to buy the place. It's really a great condo. There are so many things to love: underground heated parking and storage, elevators, a gym in the building, amazing south-facing windows along the whole condo, a beautiful new kitchen, hardwood and bamboo floors, an enormous walk-in closet, a custom mahogany built-in unit along one wall of the place (you can see the fireplace in this great photo Maple took), custom cement counters in the living room and bathroom, a bathroom that looks like something out of a luxury hotel. I know I'm bragging, but there are some small downsides too - it's right on the commuter rail, so we'll hear the train a lot, and it's also right across from the fire station, so there will be no shortage of noise from there too. Oh and the windows let in a ton of amazing light but you don't really want to look out of them because there's just a big parking lot there. But it's perfect for us, and we can't wait to move in. Maple is even going to have her own room that she doesn't have to share with her dad. (Right now her bedroom is upstairs and she shares it with Sean's office.)

I haven't wanted to post this news yet because technically it could still fall apart. It's like telling everyone you're pregnant during your first trimester. But I think the chances are pretty good that in 2 months we'll have a new address. And a reduced risk of lung cancer.

And as for Seanhog day? The Seanhog unfortunately predicted another few months of winter. Fortunately our den just got really badass.