Moving, moving
Jan. 7th, 2023 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parody_bitOur offer on a house was accepted. Now there's a ton of inspections (you bet we're getting everything inspected, if we're buying without ever stepping foot in the place), an assessment, and the actual business of moving. Our planned closing date is 2/17, because ... I guess the assessments and title search take most of a month? Everything we can do is happening over the next two weeks, and then there's a bunch of waiting. And packing, obviously.
The house itself is large enough for us both to work at home, to have semi-incompatible pets (there's no real problem with having birds and a chinchilla; they just can't all live in the same room, due to schedule variations and noise levels), to have hobbies, and to cook. The kitchen is big enough and well-designed, with a number of surface-level imperfections, like missing cabinet knobs and scuffing and linoleum flooring that should really be replaced (the kind of things that put a house into our budget), but it will be the most usable kitchen we've had since Alaska. I've never lived with Corian countertops, so that'll be a thing I learn about. (Early research makes it seem ... fine?)
The cooktop is gas, but the oven is electric, which makes me think converting to an electric stove won't require any additional wiring, hopefully? The stove is at least vented, so we can use it as-is for a little while.
This isn't the house with the in-law apartment included--there was too much to be done, there, to close on time--but I'm going to do some research into zoning laws and see if that's a thing we can create, eventually.
This will also be one of the most in-town places we've ever lived, with houses on both sides and behind, which I think is very funny, given that we're moving to a state that's known for its low population density. I'm not sure we will own a single tree, upon move-in. I'm going to do a little research and pick a couple of fruit trees to plant in the back yard, before too long.
...
I just got distracted, going to fallingfruit.org (no data on this town) and then Maine's open data portals. I'll just have to walk around to see what fruit trees are nearby, for pollination purposes. Right now I'm downloading QGIS, because I prefer it to Google Earth, and it can apparently also read KMZ files, which are what the town uses for its own "open data." Heh. I might be going back into web development, but I'm not going to stop being interested in open and civic data, clearly.
Anyway, I do like the town. A lot. There are several shops I'll be interested in, if we ever have a cure for covid. The library's within walking distance of the house, same caveat. There's a really cool art thing, same caveat. And we should be able to bike down to the river, or walk if we're feeling motivated. I'm pretty excited about that!
Anyway, fingers crossed that all the paperwork stuff happens on schedule, because if it does, I'm set to start my job on March 1, as I have agreed in writing to do. None of our backup plans are as attractive, or as cost-effective, as "move into a very pleasant house that we own the mortgage on."
I wasn't able to give notice at my old job until yesterday, because my boss was out for the first part of the week, and her first day back (Thursday) was too hectic for me to meet with her. She was actually going to put off our scheduled Friday 1-on-1 until next week, but I managed to get her to meet with me briefly. So, yes, I'm working through the busiest house-buying time, because of course I am. I did insist on still taking my already-approved leave on my birthday, because I will have accrued the time, and this company does not pay out for accrued PTO when you leave. Also, as I kept telling my boss, "I've documented as I went along, and [the person who trained me] knows everything I do about [our Python code base], so there isn't two weeks' worth of work left for me to do." I've got some documentation clean-up to do, and I need to hand off our project management tool (which I've been in charge of implementing, even though I am not in any way in charge of project management) to my boss and hopefully train the rest of the team, but there's nothing on my plate that's likely to take more than a few hours. So there's a 4-day weekend in there (we get Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, then my birthday), and week two is only three days. Not too bad.
Then I'll pack as hard as I can until it's time to drive to Maine. Anything left over, we'll pay movers to handle, because Dale doesn't have the extra mental bandwidth to be in charge of that--and I genuinely don't blame him. The exact time frame for all of it is a little up in the air, but I am really hoping he'll join me up there in early March. He thinks it'll be closer to May. In which case, I think we're going to have to hire an accountant to do our 2023 taxes. ðŸ˜
Anyway, there's still a lot up in the air, but it's nice to feel like we're moving in a direction!
The house itself is large enough for us both to work at home, to have semi-incompatible pets (there's no real problem with having birds and a chinchilla; they just can't all live in the same room, due to schedule variations and noise levels), to have hobbies, and to cook. The kitchen is big enough and well-designed, with a number of surface-level imperfections, like missing cabinet knobs and scuffing and linoleum flooring that should really be replaced (the kind of things that put a house into our budget), but it will be the most usable kitchen we've had since Alaska. I've never lived with Corian countertops, so that'll be a thing I learn about. (Early research makes it seem ... fine?)
The cooktop is gas, but the oven is electric, which makes me think converting to an electric stove won't require any additional wiring, hopefully? The stove is at least vented, so we can use it as-is for a little while.
This isn't the house with the in-law apartment included--there was too much to be done, there, to close on time--but I'm going to do some research into zoning laws and see if that's a thing we can create, eventually.
This will also be one of the most in-town places we've ever lived, with houses on both sides and behind, which I think is very funny, given that we're moving to a state that's known for its low population density. I'm not sure we will own a single tree, upon move-in. I'm going to do a little research and pick a couple of fruit trees to plant in the back yard, before too long.
...
I just got distracted, going to fallingfruit.org (no data on this town) and then Maine's open data portals. I'll just have to walk around to see what fruit trees are nearby, for pollination purposes. Right now I'm downloading QGIS, because I prefer it to Google Earth, and it can apparently also read KMZ files, which are what the town uses for its own "open data." Heh. I might be going back into web development, but I'm not going to stop being interested in open and civic data, clearly.
Anyway, I do like the town. A lot. There are several shops I'll be interested in, if we ever have a cure for covid. The library's within walking distance of the house, same caveat. There's a really cool art thing, same caveat. And we should be able to bike down to the river, or walk if we're feeling motivated. I'm pretty excited about that!
Anyway, fingers crossed that all the paperwork stuff happens on schedule, because if it does, I'm set to start my job on March 1, as I have agreed in writing to do. None of our backup plans are as attractive, or as cost-effective, as "move into a very pleasant house that we own the mortgage on."
I wasn't able to give notice at my old job until yesterday, because my boss was out for the first part of the week, and her first day back (Thursday) was too hectic for me to meet with her. She was actually going to put off our scheduled Friday 1-on-1 until next week, but I managed to get her to meet with me briefly. So, yes, I'm working through the busiest house-buying time, because of course I am. I did insist on still taking my already-approved leave on my birthday, because I will have accrued the time, and this company does not pay out for accrued PTO when you leave. Also, as I kept telling my boss, "I've documented as I went along, and [the person who trained me] knows everything I do about [our Python code base], so there isn't two weeks' worth of work left for me to do." I've got some documentation clean-up to do, and I need to hand off our project management tool (which I've been in charge of implementing, even though I am not in any way in charge of project management) to my boss and hopefully train the rest of the team, but there's nothing on my plate that's likely to take more than a few hours. So there's a 4-day weekend in there (we get Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, then my birthday), and week two is only three days. Not too bad.
Then I'll pack as hard as I can until it's time to drive to Maine. Anything left over, we'll pay movers to handle, because Dale doesn't have the extra mental bandwidth to be in charge of that--and I genuinely don't blame him. The exact time frame for all of it is a little up in the air, but I am really hoping he'll join me up there in early March. He thinks it'll be closer to May. In which case, I think we're going to have to hire an accountant to do our 2023 taxes. ðŸ˜
Anyway, there's still a lot up in the air, but it's nice to feel like we're moving in a direction!
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Date: 2023-01-07 10:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-08 12:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-08 03:50 pm (UTC)