En route to graduation

Leigh had this bagel breakfast for graduates and their partners. That's millie Anne, Leigh and Leigh's boyfriend Mike.

Mike had to make a pit stop on the way to the Lawn exercises.


Then time for putting on the hats...

And finally, here we are at Graduation Day. Mike's waiting for me to find my helmet. We were running late for the bagel breakfast and toast at Leigh's.

Mike and his parents

Mike and his parents after commencement

Mike and I after his commencement

That's Mike getting his diploma from Dean vanLegen

Charlottesville friends

some of the gang...at graduation

there we are leaving graduation

Here are all the people hanging at the rotunda watchng/listening to Graduation

there goes Mike, walking away

Partying on the Vespa

That's us getting ready to go to Matt Robbie's Graduation party.

last bonfire photo

That's Millie Anne, Mike, Tom and Melissa at the bonfire. then my camera ran out of batteries.

another bonfire photo

okay, I was a bit blurry towards the end of the night... but that's Summer's head, then Emily, nicky, leigh and Kirt hanging by the bonfire.

Friday night bonfire

On Friday night, we had a bonfire in the backyard. this is Melissa and Tom wnjoying the warm fireside seats!

Cross Country Trip planning

Speaking of the cross country trip (weren't we?), its starting to take shape.

We have a few family and college reunion-type obligations the weekend of June 10th, but we plan to leave almost immediately after those, so I think we will be leaving Philadelphia on June 12th and driving through Ohio where hopefully we wills top and see some of my college friends (Ohio State) and their kids. From there we will propbably head straight to Minneapolis, MN for the Walt Mink rock show on June 17th at the Triple Rock Social Club. Luckily, we are on the guest list for this sold out show, and are looking forward to seeing our friend Chris Butler do his final taping for Walt Mink the Movie ...which we are excited to see him complete. He and what he has done with this movie, is actually pretty inspiring all around when you think about it, and if you know him, you know how hard he is working on this.

After we leave Minneapolis we will be well on our way to taking "the Northern Route", so next we will probably hit Yellowstone and try to camp there for a few days. We'll take our time getting to Seattle, then we will drive down the coast stopping in Portland to see some folks, and then making our way down to the Bay Area where we hope to visit with lots of friends and family, and also attend the wedding of my cousin Scott McGrath and his awesome fiance, Lisa McDonnell.

Another quick photo of Maggie

Week before Graduation

Well I have just posted a lot of photos of what we've been up to so scroll down to view them.

What I haven't taken photos of, is the disaster zone of our house. We're moving out on june 3rd, and so we're trying to do five boxes a day, so that we don't kill ourselves and can have a little fun over memorial day weekend. But the truth is, we arent so motivated, plus we have a million loose ends to tie up with the old house and new house before we go on our cross country trip.

So other than the beginning of the week, which was a little rocky due to some family stuff, we're doing pretty good and plugging away at our lists. This weekend should be a lot of fun. We are having a bonfire at our house on Friday night (so we are hoping the rain holds off). So far, we have the usual suspects coming as well as some neighbors, some friends of Mike's from Designing Matter (the course he student taught) , the Engineering school and GreenBlue (where he worked during much of Grad school).

on Saturday Mike wants to take some time to hang out with one another before the madness begins so we may just do a visit to the farmer's market or a nice hike on Saturday. on Saturday afternoon, we will be attending Matt Robbie's barbeque. On Sunday, its graduation day and so we are going to try to make it as fun as possible...we'll be zipping off on the Vespa to check Mike in and then meeting some friends for Mimosa's before the ceremony begins. The graduation exercises are basically ALL DAY LONG, so after all of that, we are fortunate enough to be hitting a good party with our good friend and neighbor (who lives across the street) Summer. We know it will be great because Summer is busy cookin up a storm. So that will be a fun way to end our day, with friends and good cheer. And it will probably be the last time we see everyone from the Planning program in one place.

More Maggie

Maggie wasn't real happy about her carseat.

Maggie and the boys

That's Mike and Bryan calming Maggie down in front of our house before we went to Sunday brunch. I guess she was hungry!

Maggie's first party

Mike's brother Bryan and his family showed up on Saturday and came to the final planning party. Maggie (in the sack) was a total hit.

Wine Tasting 1

That's Magnum PI (I mean Brent) staking out the wine tasting room for us.

Wine Tasting 2

Okay we are starting to have some fun!!!

Wine tasting 4

Some of the kids (matt, Lauren, Summer, Leigh)

Wine Tasting 3

That's Jess getting a fill-up by our schoolmarm tasting room lady. Mike is trying to trick her by going to the end of the line for another refill.

Wine tasting 5

The Planning Association put on this great wine tasting day for us all -- so here we are about to start the marathon wine tasting at Oakencroft.

Charlottesville Friends on the roof

Those are some of our Charlottesville pals. from Left to right top row, that's Reid, Chris, Kirt, Matt, Mike. bottom Row, Melissa, Summer, Jen, Karin.

Charlottesville Fridays

Fridays After Five in Charlottesville. At this particular one, we saw a lot of friends and neighbors. We were a little woozy from the Meters of Beer though. (Well I was...)

One last college try...

Look at Matt go!!!

There's Matt and Matt. Looking Happy to be done school!!!

That's us drinking a METER of Beer on Mike's last day of school. wow, that was a lot of beer.

the Planners chatting it up at the party

Final day of school work!!!

I am not making much headway here with packing, and I need to clean up the house as well as make some more calls to line up the movers and storage unit and stuff. We have an electrician going to the new house to estimate the cost of remediation to the electrical stuff on Friday and so by Saturday morning we will know how much its likely to cost and then we'll ask for the current owners to give us a credit towards that work and the chimney stuff.

Mike is still working on his last (30 page) paper, which is due tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. I haven't seen him much this week, so we probably will just goof off on Saturday and then start packing and cleaning in earnest next Monday. I am so excited for him to be done! its been 3 weeks of nonstop work for him, and I know he is really ready to move on!

The Trekkers returned from Bhutan last week. That's my mom saying hello to one of the kids who lived along the Trek!

Inspection negotiations

So we received the inspection report and just talked to our realtor, Greg about it all. Seems that the biggest and most concerning issues are getting the chimney cleared out of debris, and getting a liner; which is estimated to cost about $2000.00! Yikes!!! The other thing we have to do is repair the circuit breaker box and wiring and then figure out where the tube and knob is connected, as well as repair some of the outlets. So now Greg is getting an electrician to go over there on Friday and give us an estimate on the electrical repairs, and then we will go back to the sellers to ask for some remediation.

There are some other things we’ll need to repair eventually -- coating the roof with some kind of aluminum oxide paint to help preserve the life of the roof and removing three asbestos pipe wrappers in the basement as well as repairing one of the radiators on the third floor, but we aren’t asking for remediation on those items. We’re most concerned about the air quality and safety issues and we’d rather put all of our attention into getting those items remediated immediately.

So, now, before we do anything else in the house, we will be having the chimney cleaned, the liner installed and the electrical work done. Hopefully we can schedule the work for the first week that we move in, and at the same time, we can work on ripping up the rugs and tearing down wallpaper, and then we’ll have the movers (mambo movers) come to deliver our furniture and boxes in the 2^nd or 3^rd week of August.

Happy Photos

Emma and Maya McCain. Christy sent me these adorable photos last week. I miss them!!!!

Mike's approval

Mike is excited about the house! But he cant believe how big it is. (Me niether) and how much wallpaper there is to take down.

House Inspection Day

So the house inspection went pretty well. Mike loved the layout of the house and the flow and the high ceilings but he was floored by the amount of wallpaper. Its almost everywhere, especially in the master bedroom – its this very thick striped paper. He said “I don’t think I can sleep in there even one night, its so busy in there!”. There are some other funky kinds of things in the house besides the wallpaper – the bathrooms will need a little help to look their best and the third floor – well we aren’t going to do anything to it for a while, but it will need some major cosmetic work since its all paneling up there.

The only things that we found that are “of real note” are:

• Some tube & knob wiring (third floor but rest of house appears to be newer wiring)
• Some rearranging needs to be done to the circuit box
• The chimney needs a liner, and needs to be cleared of debris
• The basement stairs need some sure-ing up.

Now we talk to the realtor after we get the actual report and we’ll then negotiate those items. The tube and knob wiring and electrical stuff, we will ask for a credit towards changing it out, since it’s a “have to” item based on modern day needs (like computers) and since it’s a fire hazard. I have no idea how much it would cost if we had an electrician do it. And I’d like the liner and cleaning of fireplace done before we move in, but I would also be happy if they provided credit towards it and then we could do it after we’re in. The roof isn’t new – its about ten years old, so it may have to be maintained, but otherwise it looked okay. The second floor roof has a great view, and Mike was excited about the prospect of a roof deck. But I felt pretty good that there wasn’t much else. The inspector was very helpful and full of good information.

Here is a link to some photos that we took of the house!!

Millie Anne's Birthday

Mille Anne's 29th birthday. She looks excited for Sushi!!! And look at that boat of food they polished off!!! YUM!!!!

More Maggie. Boy she's slippery!!

Little Maggie at 4 weeks

Mike's mom, Bernadette, decided to come for a visit to Virginia to see us and Bryan's family and their new baby. So after we got the house, Bernadette and I drove down together and then she stayed the night. The next day we went and had lunch with Meredith and Maggie in Richmond. She looks a bit nervous about having me hold her...geez, as if I was thinking about eating her for lunch or something!



We took Maggie on her first shopping trip. She hasnt changed all that much yet but she is still very very cute. She still has these very big hands, which makes me happy...I wont be the only big footed, big handed girl in the family anymore!! Here is Maggie looking a bit weary with Bernadette after a long day of shopping. I think we wore her out (even though she slept almost the whole time).

Found a House!!

So after what felt like days of searching, Greg took me down to South Philly to look around. And when I walked on to this block on 13th Street, I felt really really good about it. I really felt like it was a place where I felt comfortable and like I would be able to get involved with neighbors. It reminded me of Brooklyn a bit. The hosue was a bit crazy inside with wallpaper but it had good bones.The owner had obviously taken very good care of it. Later, I met the neighbor across the street who is bringing trees back to the streets down there. I just like that people sit on their stoops and know everyone. So maybe that says it right there. The other thing that helped me is that David, Mike's brother, and his partner Robin, live RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. They moved in to their apartment in March and they seem to really like the nieghborhood.

A few days later, after I had looked at a million other places, my dad I rode around the city and went back past the 13^th street house. He noticed how well kept it looked, and how the brick had just been repointed. He really liked the block and then asked “So why haven’t you made an offer on it?”. We talked through the issues, and he told me he thought it met our criteria even though it looked like a grandmother’s house inside (good amount of space, well kept, has potential, good block, walking distance…13 blocks to 11^th and spruce, etc…etc…) and that the grandmother-like cosmetics like venetian blinds, wallpaper and carpet were all lot easier than making structural repairs or putting on a new roof. He was right...so I made an offer....and negotiated...and now we have a house!

Its on a beautiful block, but in South Philly of all places!!! 1416 S. 13^th street. We’ll call it mummer’s headquarters for 2006. I will have to hurry and order the plastic slipcovers for my sofa. Inspection is next Monday. It is obviously not exactly my decorating taste inside, so we will be doing some wallpaper removal and carpet replacing ASAP (Clear the week of July 29 would you? ha ha), I also hate the country-time look of the kitchen cabinets, but don’t know that I can change those for a while….we’ll see - my Dad seems to think he can help me work some magic to make it more modern looking. But it has an awesome roof for a roofdeck, a little backyard and, best of all, it is literally located right across the street from Mike’s brother David and Robin’s house, so the Dunn’s will be taking over the block! The block is really cute and full of trees and stuff. I have my own stoop. And the victor café is right around the corner. It’s a bit bigger than we had wanted and not as close-in town, but the subway is right there and the price was competitive, and so I think we are just going to rent a room out for a while so I have some company while Mike is away.

We settle July 28 and move in early August pending all things going well with inspection.

Prom Queen part 2

Katie and her prom date in front of their house. She looked amazing in this gorgeous green dress that she and my mom bought in Philadelphia.

Senior Prom

So that's my cousin Katie, going to her Senior Prom. I stopped over there to see her off after a day of househunting.

Meeting new babies

While I was home I got to see my friend Denise and her adorable new baby, Camille. We had lunch in Glenside where Denise and Danny just bought a totally adorable house.

Househunting Days 2 and 3

That's Greg, my realtor. More househunting. We saw all kinds of crazy houses that day. This particular house was pretty much a wreck and was going to be rehabbed. But the price was 369,000.

After looking in Graduate Hospital, Art Museum, South Philly, Bella Vista and West philadelphia I started to narrow it down to the places I would feel most comfortable in the short term. I decided that I didnt want to be in another "gentrifying" neighborhood because I don't like the idea of being in a "have" and "have not" situation. Its too uncomfortable for me. So that pretty much knocked out Gray's Ferry area altogether as well as fishtown, which is frankly, too far and too racist for my taste.

Poor Mike - all this time he was at home, burning up the phone lines with me and doing research from afar. Every night I sent him photos and debriefed what I had seen. The hardest part was trying to explain what I had seen each night.

more househunting blues...

Last night I had a family dinner in South Philly where I met my cousin's new baby Lucy. She is so adorable. And Yum! I am going to be 50 pounds heavier after this week! I have been running around and eating so much!!!

So I think the thing that got me after looking at places in West Philly yesterday was a mixture of the disapointment over the one house I had thought I would really like on Osage Avenue and being so tired from thinking about it all. And then I clocked it from the house on 45th to the South Street Bridge and it was longer than I had thought, so then I started doubting everything. I still like and consider the university mews place my top choice. I just need to satisfy my "what-ifs" (Actually more Mike's what ifs) about Bella Vista and Graduate Hospital I guess, before I am ready to commit myself.

So then today I went to look at a bunch of things -but today was kind of disappointing again. Here is the summary that I sent to Mike. Two places, the one at 2322 Bainbridge, and the one across the street from David and Robin’s house (13th Street) were the only two contenders...

• 2322 Bainbridge (I think that’s the address) is small, and feels small. The bedrooms upstairs are teeny, and there looks to be some deferred maintenance.Its overpriced in my opinion but it is on a nice block which I am sure will become much nicer over time. Would I feel comfortable living there, yes I think so. But I don’t know how much walking I would do by myself into town at night. There is a deck but it is in rickety shape, and there are tons of cracks in the ceiling everywhere. For a place to grow into, its not. We’d fit in now, and be cramped later. The neighborhood right there is okay, but it is clearly block-by-block right now and there is hardly anything right there in terms of cleaners, cafes,etc…you would have to walk into the south street and Rittenhouse area for that stuff.
• S. 13^th street was HUGE in comparison to the one on Bainbridge. This is right at 13^th & Reed. The old mafia club (Club noche) at the corner is apparently being taken down and that site is being turned into houses that are listed at 699,000. there are coffee shops and new restaurants and its close to Passyunk. Its three large floors and the basement. Modest sized cement patio in the back. These people had 5 kids, so its like as big as Mike's mom and dad’s house. The block is everything we would ever want. There are cafes, a ball park, trees, it’s a really really good block. The house itself is South Philly/ South Jersey. Wallpaper everywhere. Hollow core doors. But nothing gross, it has all been meticulously cared for. The kitchen is amazing, really nice, really open on the first floor, all new stainless steel appliances, wood floors. Its big big big. The place is carpeted for the most part with this horrible teal green (teal) colored carpet, which is new but there are wood floors underneath, although I don’t know what kind of shape they are in. The guy showed us around, he has obviously been vigilant and taken really good care of the place. It would be a house for us to live in and fix up for the next 20 years. We would love that neighborhood, because it feels like where we grew up. The downsides: Wallpaper, distance from CC, the enormous size. This would be a fixer upper for us, because just getting the wallpaper off the walls would be a huge job, then you would want to remove paneling, rip out carpets, refinish floors. The carpets would have to go right away. Another downside, there are two bathrooms, both next to eachother on the same floor (2^nd floor), which is kind of weird. The third floor could be made into a mother-in-law apartment or something. There are water and gas lines that run up there so you could put in a bathroom up there eventually. The whole third floor is paneling – the guy said, we hate this paneling, but we started at the ground floor, and we never got up this high.” There’s a roof deck potential, which would have an amazing view – you could put in a door in at the window at the bottom of floor 3 stairs up and walk out to the top of the 2^nd floor roof. It would be an amazing skyline. Greg thinks we should offer less than asking price if we want it b/c the 3^rd floor isn’t finished. The current asking price is 329,000. This is a block that people at the hair solon were oohing over the location and saying, “everyone from society hill is moving down there, it’s a GREAT block”. In my opinion its like being in brooklyn in terms of distance. I would probably never walk to center city, but I would never have trouble getting a cab there either. I have no doubt that it would be a very good long term investment. I just don’t know if I want that large a house, that large a project.

Everything else was gross. So at the moment, I am feeling like we could do any of the following or nothing, and I would be fine with it:

• Make an offer on the higher priced Osage house #4425 (like offer 365,000 and see if they will bite at all) since it is the nicest one of all of them and I think the resale could be better.
• Make an offer on the #1 University Mews property that has the better kitchen (offer 329,500 or full price)
• Make an offer on #24 University Mews (maybe offer 319,000 since we would have to redo kitchen, bathroom and some flooring and because it is only 2 bedrooms instead of 3), but has a nicer backyard, more private space…
• Make an offer on the 13^th street house and then pay someone to rip out the carpets and take off all the wallpaper before we move in.

Overall I feel like the 4425 house on Osage (the one that was just reduced to 395,000) and the house on 13^th street are the same distance, and would both be the best investments for the long run.

Going househunting in Philadelphia...

So I decided to head up to Philadelphia to go househunting while Mike worked on his final papers. My dad came along for some of the touring and I saw so many houses that week. Some really cool, but structurally not-so-sound modernist homes in West Philadelphia were at the top of my list, but Mike encouraged me to branch out to other parts of the city and so I went-a-hunting....

Househunting Day 1

Dad checking out a modernist home in West Philadelphia. These were very cool but in bad condition and highly priced for the amount of work we would have had to do. But very cool layouts inside.

Our latest scheme

Well, I sent my parents out in Philadelphia to take a look at some properties on Saturday just to get a feel for the real estate market in philadelphia.

Then we did quite an analysis of “the state of things” after hearing from them about the properties they saw. We ran the numbers and basically decided to store our stuff for the summer, take the trip across country trying to live very cheaply and then Mike will start his job in August. I will probably go with him for the first 6 months -- We are going to do his first 6 months in the job together in DC, and then we will both move to Philly in Jan/Feb and Mike will commute the four days a week for the rest of that year. That will give me an opportunity to work for PRD and whoever else as a consultant for six months or so while I am in DC and then possibly either cultivate a place for myself at PRD or find a job somewhere else for the 2006 year when I will be back in Philadelphia.

So given that, I would like to buy a home in Philadelphia soon so we are going to start looking in earnest.

So today, Mike still hasn't decided, but he has it ranked like this

1. EPA job

2. Federal transit Administration job with the DOT (hydrogen fuel cells and bus rapid transit project)

3. Dept of Transportation office of the Undersecretary (policy job)

And now he just got two more offers from NOAA. I mean it must feel great to get all of these offers, but I am going nuts. I hate indecision!

Selling the house in Charlottesville

So we sold our little house here in Charlottesville to our friends Jill & Jeff. I was very sad on the day we signed the papers, I guess because I am kind of sad to see this part of our lives end, but also because I just love this house, and I poured my heart into it to get it to be so great. But I am also excited to move on into the next part of our lives - Mike's fellowship is going to be a fantastic adventure for him and the opportunity to be back in Philadelphia is making me smile.

Closing on the old house

We signed our closing papers today -- they go to settlement tomorrow -- so its almost official that we've sold it. It feels weird especially with not knowing what comes next, but I am at least glad we were able to do something constructive to make a little extra cash while we were here.

Okay I have got to get cleaning. Walk through is tomorrow and this house is a disaster zone.

Tough Decisions...

So after days and weeks of angst, last night I told Mike he had to make a decision (about the PMF options) by 9 p.m. and since I knew he would instantly regret it, he could change it again at 9 in the morning if he wanted, but then he was stuck with the decision. He chose EPA, and he seems to be sticking with it. So now we just wait for the offer letter, which could take up to 45 days. So we'll see what happens.

As for the move, we have been talking more and more about commuting so that we can be back in Philadelphia sooner versus later. I think I was excited about moving to DC and out of Charlottesville when I just wanted to get out of the “country” and into the urban environment. But after looking for places and talking to people, DC is more and more obviously not somewhere I want to be or settle. Plus, I am really sad about leaving the house – I feel like I am in mourning about it. I cried all afternoon yesterday. Partly because this house was what I got out of the whole move to Charlottesville – it was my thing. Now its gone and things are completely up in the air and I feel like I am standing on a pile of loose rocks.

I hate the idea of being apart 4 days a week but we would have done it anyway if I was still working at UVA Hospital, and it would be much harder from Charlottesville given that there is no regular train service (it comes through once a day only and its inconsistent). I still don’t like it, but I do like the idea that we could rent something in Philadelphia until we find a house to buy and I can get back to having my own life and career a bit sooner. Plus if we do that it will only be for about a year and then he can rotate into the Philadelphia EPA office for the last 6 months of his fellowship and then look for work in the area. So we'll see. That's this week's idea. Molly inspired me to think creatively and I realized that we could spend the same amount of money on renting a place in Philly and a room in DC (300/month) and I would be a lot happier because I could "get started" on my life again. Of course, I have no idea what I want to do but I could figure it out better if I were somewhere I knew I was staying for a while.

Karin

The House is almost sold...and we have no idea what we are goign to do!

Mike is having a tough time sorting out his options right now. I don’t know what he is going to do. He has had several offers from the Department of Transportation and the EPA, and the NOAA. He is still waiting to hear from the SBA.
He is at school all day today which is good because having home while he is doing this is preventing me from getting anything done. He has been talking my ear off about these decisions, which I'm not used to at all, so Last night we took some big poster paper and put it on the wall and categorized some things:

• Present vision of self,
• Future vision of self,
• values/needs for a workplace and
• skills he hopes to acquire to get to the future vision.

I think it helped for him to see his brain dumped out and put on the wall and in some ways he was able to put it all on pause and get a good night's sleep because he didn’t have to try to remember all the difference factors and thoughts and concerns.

Okay I have to get off the computer and get some stuff done. The house is a mess and final walk through is on Friday morning. We sign the papers tomorrow afternoon. I cant believe the house wont be ours after Friday.

Neighborhood Clean Up Day

I organized this big neighborhood clean up day today, so that had me running around like crazy but the good news is, lots of people took advantage of the free mulch I got from the city, and the collection spot for old sticks and tree trimmings, and we were able to clean up our major road in our section of town. It was a lot of work, but it was a gorgeous day here, and it was fun to see our friends and neighbors pitching in. It made us sad that we are leaving. Tonight Jen and Matt are coming over to do a bonfire and grill some vegetables in the yard. Its just too nice a day not to be outside!

Mike meets his niece!

We got a call on April 2, 2005 that Maggie, our new niece, had finally been born. We rushed to WIlliamsburg, Va to see her and her parents (who frankly seemed to be in a bit of shock!). Maggie is adorable. We can't wait to teach her wonderful things and take her on fun adventures!

welcome!

welcome to our family blog.
we'll be using this as a sort of online journal over the next year as we embark on several adventures and learn all kinds of new things!

Easter weekend

Mom, Dad and Patrick came down for a rainy Easter Weekend in Charlottesville. So we went to the Jefferson Soaks for the day and relaxed in the warm springs.

Mike is off to DC for a few days to try and secure his appointment for next year, although he is also looking for “real jobs” because if he doesn’t get the placement that he wants within this two year fellowship, he doesn’t see the point of doing it (I agree). So we still don’t really know if we are going to DC or somewhere else (Cambridge Mass, Seattle, Maryland, Philadelphia are other options) should know something by the time graduation rolls around, so I am trying to just go with the flow. Good news is we don’t have to worry about the house (we go to settlement April 15) so all I really have to work on figuring out what we will be doing this summer (probably taking a cross country trip) and then decluttering, packing and finding a mover who will come pack and store our stuff for a few months or until we are settled in our new place.

Presidential Management Fellow

Mike's made the cut and now he is getting ready for his Presidential Management Fellow Job Fair. He looks so handsome in that nice new suit! And it fits him like a glove!

So t it looks like Mike and I may be moving to DC in the next few months and staying for about two years we think…. We were thinking about either renting or buying, but once we started lookign at the market, we realized that there was no way that we could buy in DC. The rental market sucks too. We would definitely want to be in the city and not dependent on a car and I don’t mind “kind of sketchy” or up-and-coming neighborhoods, but I would like to stay away from “totally sketchy” – basically, I want to feel comfortable walking by myself at night if I had to.

We have to be out of the house on June 1^st, so we either have to get an apartment in DC in the next two months, or do something else. We are thinking about just packing up our stuff, getting a storage until for June/ July and taking a cross-country trip. With rents in DC, we figure we will save $4000-5000 doing that, which leaves plenty of $$ for traveling.

Selling it ourselves....

Job fair is around the 27th. My guess is that Mike will have something tied up by early May, but wont have to start working until early September, so we'll have the summer off and will probably take a cross country trip or something to celebrate.

I talked to my Uncle Mike this morning (he's a real estate attorney) and he helped me understand the ins and outs of selling ourselves. Its going to cost us about 1500 I think all said and done. We called our attorney here this morning, and we are ready to go as soon as they hand us an offer. He also said that we should make sure that any offer we get has some inspection specific things in it (like the inspection has to happen within 10 days, etc...) and that we should continue to show the house until we have earnest money and a signed contract. He also said not to offer to repair anything until the inspection report comes back, - and then, the only thing you should agree to repair are "Defects" - which basically include roof, electrical, plumbing, structural issues. In fact, he said, make sure there is a clause in the contract that lets you out of the contract if the inspection reveals a defect that will be very costly to repair (like if the electrical system needs to be replaced but we don’t want to do that). He also said, the inspection report will inevitably find a laundry list of cosmetic and maintenance issues (Cracked window panes, lack of GFI outlets, stains on carpet, etc...) but that because those are cosmetic, you are under no obligation to do anything about those - that's the price of buying an old house and that the only things you should worry about are major defects. I thought that was good to know.

Sold the house and Got the PMF!

We just found out tonight (After months of waiting) that Mike has been accepted as a Presidential Management Fellow. So now that he made the final cut, he has to go to a job fair and actually secure a position for the first 8 months – so the final process is not actually over until he has signed a contract with a government agency. Now he has to find someone willing to hire him. He is looking in both DC and Philadelphia. My only consolation with DC is that DC is way way closer than Charlottesville, and I know DC isn’t forever, that we would probably go back to Philly after the fellowship ended. I of course am hoping he gets something in Philly, because I would much rather be back in Philly. But if we go to DC, no big deal – 2 years goes fast.

And so then our friends Jill and Jeff called about three hours after we found out about the PMF selection and offered us a godo price for our house. They had been looking for months, and when we told them that we were selling, they took us seriously. There's another family interested, but I definitely would prefer Jill to be the buyer for so many reasons. The other family is coming on Saturday but Jill and Jeff are going to draw up a formal offer and bring it over. - then we’ll look it over and accept it (I hope) and then I Can put an end to the other people. Then we will start the whole inspection and contracting process. This is really good news, saves us a lot of time, money and hassle and we are thrilled with the price.

Guess its been a banner day!