Changing Plans

So it's finally the end of a long first week back to work, and how do I celebrate one of the last half-day Fridays of the summer? Making things up in the kitchen! I don't know what got in to me, but dudes, I started baking. I've had tarts on my mind lately. Tarts, of the fruit-filled, flaky, crusty variety.

So I looked up some tart recipes online, picked a few to pick and choose from, and got set to baking a pear, raspberry, and frangipane tart. It's in the oven now and the house smells yummy!

I also spent some time on the phone this afternoon.When I got home from the office, I sat down to start calling some of those property managers I looked up . When I started putting together some paperwork to figure out what our condo-related expenses are, it reminded Scoob to call his accountant. So instead, I spent a half hour or so talking an accountant and the tax advantages/disadvantages for renting or selling.

One long, math-filled, conversation later, and I'm not talking math-math, here—this was tax-math, a whole different beast—we've done a 180 and now we're looking to sell the condo when we move. Long story short, if we rent, we would most likely be paying $700 per month. If we sell, we run the risk of taking a loss, but we've paid enough into our mortgage principle, even if we sell for less that we purchased this place for, we'll get some money out of the transaction

So now we've ditched the list of potential property managers I came up with and we're looking for a real estate agent..

In other news, the kitchen appliances were installed at the house this morning and they started pouring the driveway this afternoon. It's hard to believe that the Parade of Homes starts in 6 weeks, and that means we'll be able to move in in 9 weeks! We're into single digits!

My excitement has officially become tinged with panic. I came back from vacation, after driving through all that stunningly-beautiful land in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, questioning all my reasons for deciding to move to North Carolina. It took me a couple days to remember, and I image this will happen again before we actually move.

It's just how I am. I'll get all excited about the prospect of doing something, make plans to do it, as it approaches I become ambivalent if not down right resistant, then I'll actually do it and I'll be happy with the whole thing. So I think the best thing for me to do is to just push through with the move, no matter how badly I start to question myself.

This move is a big, life-changing event, not scheduling dinner with a friend. So any amount of self-doubt I might feel toward normal events will probably be amplified by a factor of, oh, I don't know, a gazillion? GAH!

But the cats are helping. I get daily reminds that they, too, want this move.

"Don't you dare touch my square. I haven't a square to spare!"

If you look closely, you'll see that the carpet Tank is laying on is a slightly different color. That's a 9"x9" square sample of the carpet I chose to have installed upstairs in the house.

It seems like every time I walk through the living room, either Tank or Dozer is lounging on that square of carpet. If I move it to a different location, that then becomes their new lounging area. In fact, Tank has even moved the square himself, so that it was in a patch of sunshine. I think I made a good carpet choice.  :)