August, 2007:

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

– Robert Burns, “To A Mouse“, 1785

It isn’t well known, but Steinbeck’s famous book title was taken from an 18th century Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The same poet responsible for “Auld Lang Syne” who also happens to be my Father-In-Law’s favorite. We call and wish him a happy Bobby Burns Day every January 25th. But I digress.

First of all, we’re no longer putting in hardwood floors. Thank you all for your offers to help. However, thanks to my mom, we discovered that carpet, even when installed for you, is cheaper than installing cheap hardwood myself. Go figure. So, we’re getting carpet installed next week.

Also, the going away party on the 15th isn’t happening. There’s another party that night that at least half of our friends will be attending (including us). The party’s name sake, Laura, offered to share the occasion, however, Jess and I were planning on inviting quite a few people outside of that circle of friends and wouldn’t want to impose to many additional guests on Laura’s event or Johnny and Rachelle’s place.

So we have three options:

1. Reschedule the party for this Sunday, 9/2 (since the 3rd is a Holiday for most). This, however, would probably be too short of notice.
2. Reschedule the party for Saturday, 9/22. However, our house will likely be completely empty, so everyone will either have to bring their own chairs or we’d have to talk someone else into hosting the event for us.
3. Don’t have one at all.

What do you think?

Jess (and I, though my say didn’t mean much) picked out a Hospital and a Doctor yesterday. Hospitals are set up differently than they are in Texas. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, exactly; just different. That took some getting used to. But we found one. I was slightly disappointed with the first hospital we saw a few weeks ago. This one really makes me happy though. Jess is happy too. The mind set in seemingly all of the hospitals out this way are more in tune with Jess’ beliefs (and mine). It’s refreshing to know that many of the things Jess was fighting for in Texas are assumed to be the case here in New York.

Jess and I worked out a budget yesterday. Quite honestly, I don’t know how we managed to not go absolutely broke when living in Texas. Even though our house costs more here, and we have to pay state Taxes, my raise was enough to cover all of that and still leave quite a bit left over. Since our utilities and gas and such will all be cheaper than they were before, all in all, we should have more disposable income than we had before. However, according to the budget, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. So, like I said, I don’t know how we managed before and I don’t know how we’ll manage now except that we’ve done quite well on less without incurring any credit card debt so I have no reason to believe we won’t do the same now. Go figure.

Tonight, Jess and I are going to the New York State Fair. It’s held in Syracuse (and only Syracuse) every year. I’ll take pictures, of course.

Speaking of pictures, there haven’t been any put up by me in a long time. I have tons, but the Internet access in this hotel, and the state of my failing laptop are such that it is simply impossible to get much more done than simple browsing. But, I’ll do my best to get something up for you to see when we get back to Texas.

Speaking of Texas, we fly back in late Friday night arriving at 11:55pm. My mom is picking us up and we’re probably spending the night at her place. The next morning we’ll get up, stop by the carpet place to order carpet, and then finally go home to our things and our kitties who surely miss us very, very much by now.

5 weeks is a LONG time to be away from home.

Good news! We found a WONDERFUL house and, after only one counter, our offer has been accepted. The seller is in as much of a hurry as we are, so it looks like we’re going to close at the end of September. Financing has been secured and the only thing that may be a deal breaker is the home inspection which happens today at 3:30pm.

We got an incredible price on this house; like I said, the seller is in a hurry. However, that means that he’s unwilling to make any repairs on the house if the home inspection should uncover a need for such. So, Jess and I will have to decide then if we’re willing to foot the bill for whatever repairs are needed. At first glance, three windows need to be replaced and the exterior could use a fresh coat of paint. Let’s hope there’s not much more or we may be back at square one.

It’s just perfect for us. It’s in a GREAT location. We’ve got walking trails right across the street, a creek right behind us and nothing but trees on one side of the house. The lot is a great size too on a nice slow street with a huge side yard. The house itself is beautiful, too: Hardwoods throughout; A nice clean, dry, basement; Good flow; FOUR big bedrooms; barn wood walls and beams in the family room; laundry on the first floor. There are some things I’d change, of course, but, this house is laid out in a way that such renovations will certainly be possible in the future. I’m very excited about it. You can see some photos my mother-in-law took the day we looked at it.

I don’t think I’ve slept soundly in over a week. I thought having the home secured would help me rest easier, but it seems there is still just too much on our plate. Last night I fell asleep at 8:15pm and woke up at 2am. Oh well, at least I was able to get a head start at cleaning out my work Inbox.

My company is providing packing, moving, unpacking, and storage services, so we don’t have to worry about any of that. What’s left, however, is consuming me quite a bit.

First, we have to sell our house in Texas. I can afford to float two mortgages for a few months, but not much longer. I’d LOVE to rent it so I can still cash in on the investment later, but we’d need $1625/mo to really break even and I just don’t know if a house our size can fetch that much in Savannah right now. Is it worth it to take a small loss monthly now in order to keep the investment? Maybe it’s okay to take a loss equal to the Principal portion of our mortgage payment?

If we don’t rent it, then we need to sell it. After everything is said and done, if we can find a buyer, we’ll lose a couple thousand selling it. This is sad considering it’s worth $30k more than we owe on it. But, that’s life. It’s a buyer’s market in a new subdivision. However, if we don’t sell it quick, I’ll be the less-than-proud owner of two homes.

Next, the cats. How to do you move two skittish cats 2000 miles? Drugged under a plane? Drugged as a carry on? Wide awake as a carry on? In the back of a car? Or maybe it’s better to find them a nice home in Texas and leave them behind. But, if so, who? Where?

Also, a wedding in Canada the first weekend in October. Since we’ll have only been in the house for a week, at most, by then, I’m reluctant to leave the cats there alone. And we don’t know anyone up here in Syracuse who would watch them for us. I could drive Jess to Toronto on Thursday and then pick her up again on Monday but that’s two wasted vacation days just to drive her there and back. I could put her on a train, but I worry about her traveling alone when she’s that far along. So, I’m just not sure. If we leave the cats in Texas, this is mostly a moot point, of course.

Keep us in your thoughts. We’ll be back in town on Friday and are planning a birthday party, a baby shower, and a going away party in the few weekends we have left.

Ya lick your finger
then you stick in the bag
then you stick it down your throat
but not too far or you’ll gag

I have a bright red finger from eating kool-aid straight out of the bag. You’re jealous, I know you are.

Yeah. I know I’ve been quiet. No posts. No pictures. No nothing.

We’ve been busy. Very, very busy. I’m lucky I can even keep up with email. But, for the most part, I have been managing that.

A few things:

We took the offer. We’ll be moving to Syracuse, NY just as fast as we can find a house here and sell a house there.

We’ve been house hunting a lot. Our second day out we thought we found the prefect house. Now, many, many houses later, it’s still on the list, but it’s not as perfect as it once seemed. At this point, I don’t think we’ll ever find a house. There are a few really, REALLY nice houses that we really, REALLY love down near the University. But, apparently the city schools here are really, REALLY bad. Can you believe I have to actually think about SCHOOLS now?! So, we’re not sure if those are in or out. How do you tell how bad a school is?

We’re leaving for Canada today. Just less than 9 hours and we’ll be sitting on the lake drinking beer and, if you’re, even more panicked than you are now because you still have a house to buy, you’re 9 hours away from where you should be buying one, and you have no access to the internet or a telephone to at least be hunting that way. But, I’m going to do my best to enjoy myself.

We’ll be there for two weeks. Then, we’ll come back to one more week of pure, non-stop house hunting. And then, whatever we have, we’ll have no choice but to make an offer. Neither of us wants to live in an apartment and neither of us wants to have to keep doing the back and forth thing as we look at more and more houses.

Kristy and Stacey are the most awesomest people in the whole world. Thank you both SOOOOOO much for taking care of our kitties. It means so much to us.

Finally, since this particular topic has raised without my even the slightest bit of instigation from me and then brought to my attention for comment I feel compelled to make my comment public. With the evidence I have currently, I’d have to say that Melissa’s boobs are more aesthetically pleasing than Cheryl’s, however, to be certain, I’d need a few more photographs of each in various states of undress. I would also like to point out how proud I am to be considered somewhat of an authority on such matters.

Email me. Text me. Love me. I’ll be back to posting photos and witty rants here for your awe and amusement in no time.

I got officially offered the job in Syracuse yesterday.

Jess and I carved a big path in the middle of the financial aspects of it. We said if it fell below that wide path, I’d reject it right then and there. If it fell above it, I’d accept the offer (though there’d be no need to do it right then). If it fell inside the path, we’d have to crunch some numbers in order to figure out what was best.

Both lines (the raise, and the relocation package) fell very high above the path we cut. I asked my Dad (who works for the same company) to guess what I got and he just through out the highest number he could imagine anyone getting in the company we work for today. He was right on the nose.

The relocation package is awesome. If needed, Jess and I could easily afford to have our house in Dallas and a house in Syracuse at the same time for 8 months or so before finances even started to break even and cause concern. And that’s not even considering how much the raise could pay for (since I haven’t quite figured out how much I’m going to owe in New York state taxes if I take it).

Jess and I both feel we’d be stupid not to take it. Even then, it’s the hardest decision I’ve had to make in a long time and the hardest decision Jess has had to make in at least 5 years, if not longer. There are so many facets to consider.

Of course the people we’d be leaving in Dallas is really the only thing holding us back at this point. Our lists of pros and cons are filled with people that we love and care about and hate to even consider life away from. It wasn’t until less than a week ago that I realized that most of the people on our list wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this because of Jess and I. I don’t fault them for that at all, it’s just an observation. Jess and I are great friends. I know this. We’re loyal, fun, trustworthy, have an expendable income, are relatable, willing to drive, and always doing something, among many other things. But that doesn’t mean we’re worth passing up raises, promotions, and hundreds of other tiny and big things that all add up to a greater potential for happiness. Especially since, in this day and age, friendships don’t have to fade because of distance. Plane tickets, telephones, communes, webcams, email, text messaging, and instant messaging all make the world a whole lot smaller in day-to-day life.

In fact, I spend more time at work than I do outside of it these days. And, there are more people at this work place that I enjoy spending time with than I have ever had in the past 10 years at my old work place. And because I’m fairly quick to make new friends though very slow at making long lasting relationships, I’ve even met a few people worth hanging around outside of work.

But there are a few people in our lives today that we have relationships with that losing that aspect of physical presence does feel like a hardship and a very large sacrifice and, maybe, perhaps, not worth it. There’s no point in naming names as most of you know who you are. Many of them in Dallas, others are spread all over the world.

We have friends that we see at least every other weekend. Sometimes twice in one weekend. Sometimes even on weekdays. And they live farther away from me now than an overwhelming majority of our other friends.

We have friends that just thinking about the time we will get to spend with them in the coming weekend can make a very bad week more bearable.

Friends that would follow us to New York or have us stay in Dallas for now and drag us with them in the near future when they move away if they could afford to do so both financially and in their current situations. Friends that intend to alter their own future moving plans to be within 30 minutes of us even though this is drastically different than their original plans.

Friends that I called from the airport and told that I forgot to give them a code and a key for the house in case there was an emergency who responded with ”if there’s an emergency, we’ll just bust the door down if we have to and clean up the mess later”.

Friends that would stay up to ungodly hours of the night entertaining me because I just couldn’t stop thinking, or fidgeting, or just couldn’t get to sleep.

Friends that would help calm me down by walking figure 8s in the parking lot of a gas station for what seemed like an eternity.

Friends that would go out of their way to clean up ants and the cat puke that attracted them while sitting our cats while we’re away.

Friends that, every time I say “I’m hungry” an almost immediate response in almost every case is “Where are we going?”.

Friends that would show up very early on a Saturday morning just to help us move knowing that they aren’t moving anytime soon and therefore would never be repaid the favor in that specific way.

Friends that would go out of their way to tip me for a photo session that I would have gladly done for free simply because they know that time and equipment isn’t free or even cheap.

Friends that would drive all the way up to the middle of nowhere where we live just to comfort Jess when I was out of town.

Friends that call me when they know I’m sitting in an airport on a long layover just to chat and help me pass the time.

Friends that go out of their way to find out what’s wrong every time they realize that I’m not in the best of moods.

Friends that call for no reason at all just to tell me a funny joke they heard.

Friends that think of us even when there isn’t something immediate they hope to get in return for doing so.

And even with all that, more than likely, we’re going to do it. We’re giving ourselves the weekend to think it over. If we decide to go for it, it’s going to happen fast. We want to get settled here as soon as possible so Jess can make herself comfortable before the baby gets here.

We both agree that this is probably the very best thing for us. If you feel like we’re wronging you some how by doing so, put yourself in our shoes and tell me what you’d do. I’d honestly love to hear it.