We bought a house!! Well, not exactly yet, we’re under contract and the inspection is today. Barring anything major, we would close in March. WHOA. Oh, and it’s in the Atlanta-area. So, yeah, bye Texas. I can’t believe we’ve been here ten years.
I’m excited and scared at the same time. The house needs some aesthetic work and we’re hoping to get that done before we move, but it is well within (below) our budget so we will be able to do quite a bit up front. And what we can’t do now, we can do over time. I’m not worried about it too much.
It’s on a beautifully wooded lot with quite a bit more yard/land than we have now. The problem with that is it dramatically decreases the amount of natural light in the house. Right now, our house has SO MUCH natural light it’s crazy, which is why I have 50+ houseplants that thrive here. I love a wooded lot, but I also love natural light. Obviously those things are mostly incompatible LOL.
We also have master-on-main now, and the new house has all the bedrooms upstairs (we tried so hard for a ranch but they are selling minutes after being put on the market. We had an appointment to look at one early Sunday morning and couldn’t because it went under contract the night before. It’s a challenging market right now…). The thing that concerns me most about that is our dog. She has a partially torn ligament on her left side and we’ve been able to put off having surgery because we prevent her from going upstairs at all; she’s made a dramatic improvement since not having to climb stairs. In the new house, she’ll have to get up the stairs for bed at night, but hopefully that will be good enough for her and we can bar her from going up and down the rest of the day.
She literally follows me around the house now to a couch or bed closest to wherever I happen to be, and always sleeps in the closet in our bedroom. She would probably be okay during the day not being upstairs if I’m up there for a little while with Hawk, but I don’t think she’d be okay not sleeping near us.
(has anyone had experience with a dog with a partially torn ligament and not having surgery? my sister’s dog had surgery and he’s okay now, but has problems in his other side…and it was a long, arduous healing process. We were very close to getting surgery for Dagny, but it was at the time Hawk was born so we waited and tried to keep her from having to climb so much, and that has seemed to almost heal her…)
Anyway, it will all take some adjustment, and we have to actually MOVE, which I don’t even want to think about.
But I can’t believe we’re moving back closer to family – I’m so excited for Hawk to be around his cousins and grandparents regularly. And me too…I need help haha.
Congrats! I’m so happy for you! Once you’re in the house and see the light and live on the lot, you can decide if you want to thin out some of the trees. We live in a rural area (just under 7 acres) and half are wooded with a pond, rest is field/lawn & house. Hubs originally wanted to build in the woods but that was a battle I chose to fight – I won, and he’s thankful today because we don’t have many leaves in the gutters and we don’t have tree limbs falling on the house during ice storms. And in NC, we get ice storms….And heavy winds sometimes that just knock down the limbs. Much nicer having to remove a tree from the path to the pond instead of from the roof. But that’s a “in time” sort of change – you’d want to see how you use the rooms and the house and the lot and blah blah blah 😉
[I’m an “over time” person. Mostly because when we started 20+ years ago, we had no money and that’s how we had to do it. My sister & BIL just built new in WI and furnished everything new – I’ve never had matching anything 😉 Mostly that’s my style but I admit to being a little jealous!]
Yay, happy news! So glad you are moving back to be with family. You’ll be able to make so many more special memories with them when you’re nearby 🙂
Hawk checking his likes? So cute! By the way, my adult son likes to wear his hair the same way hahaha.
So glad to hear you are coming home! Bring your dog over here to Athens to UGA Vet Hospital. Its new and amazing. They will get your dog all fixed!!
Congratulations on the new house! But I hear you about moving – ugh! With Bill’s jobs, we’ve done a lot of moving. I told him I’ve got one move left in me, and that’s retirement. We always move ourselves, too. The hardest part for me is the toll it takes on my nice things – moving is HARD!
But you’ll be so happy to have family nearby. I’m really happy for you, Leo, and your adorable boy.
Hey Grechen, I hope all goes well with the house! My previous dog had intervertebral disk disease causing her pain for normal movement and we opted for surgery without hesitation. She was 6 at the time and the vet said that the surgery, while costly and with a months-long recovery period, would guarantee her another 6-7 years of freedom of movement and pain-free existence. That proved to be exactly correct and we never regretted it. She had a great life and we were really grateful for the excellent care she got. If you can do the surgery and the prognosis is good please do consider it. It made such a difference in our dog’s life and ours. Take care!