i can readily foresee that moving, even across town, is going to be, if not a long painful process, then certainly one in which every detail is going to be experienced with jolting clarity. and the fact that i sincerely, seriously do not want to move isn’t helping any.

we did find a cool house on Thursday, so if we can get all our ducks in a row and get this house on the market and somehow manage to sell it in the middle of the winter, we’ll be good to go. i wouldn’t expect that house to be available much into the spring, that’s for sure. the property value there is questionable, and thus a bit of a concern, but other than that, it really does look like i place we’d be happy in, and the mortgage would be considerably less. it’s even on a half-acre, so we’d only lose around 2.8 acres of our current space. {sigh} but the current owners tricked it out pretty well downstairs, and built into the underside of the core-floor garage. so, with that addition, the house is actually about as big is this one. and since part of that addition is still unfinished (electrical, air and wall/ceiling treatments), the space of the addition doesn’t show in the price of the house. all we have to do is finish it, and the price of the house goes up as much as it can given the location (there are lease homes starting next door, and the whole neighborhood is interspersed with them).

oh. as the three of us (#1 Daughter was still with her grandparents on Thursday) rolled out of the car, i believe i spied one of our youth referees shoveling snow out of her front driveway. so there’d at least be someone in the neighborhood that #1 Son and i know. on the other hand, she’s a high school senior next year, and that means two things. 1. i better damn well be shooting her senior portraits, and 2. there will be parties at her house next year. neat. and i would not doubt at all that her parents will ask us at some point to ‘keep an eye’ on her while they’re away. at least they’re good people!

anyway, Friday was spent largely in contemplation of the imminent change coming our way. the Spouse Unit also had some work to get done, and a meeting that wound up being almost four hours long. so, i really thought about the move and tried to come up with ways to make it an enjoyable experience for all of us, and then, of course, i started thinking about all the things we’ll have to get done around here to get this house on the market. to be honest, after a full day’s consideration, as well as some time on the same subject spent yesterday, i haven’t quite figured out the best way to get all that going, especially since i really don’t want to move.

i think i’ve probably mentioned that before. i find it rather telling that i have friends dating back to the early 1990′s, largely met solely on the computer, whose friendship has shown more constancy than we have managed to show for settling down in one place, despite our expressed desires to do exactly that.

bah. i don’t want to move. that means very little, though, when part of the reason why we need to move is the massive amounts of money i’m not making in my own business. at this point, it’s either move or be in debt forever. i recognize the need to move, but the doing of it, i’m not so interested in. it’s exciting in its own way, but it’s not really the type of excitement i want to keep experiencing every few years.

all of which ultimately matters very little, and i have to set it aside. now i have to be Mr. Helpful and Mr. GoodExample (and don’t forget Mr. JuggleTheClientsWithTheCleaningAndTheFixing), and i will soon get to be Mr. QuitWorkingAndDisappearWheneverSomeoneWantsToLookAtTheHouseSoPleaseCallAheadYouDumbassRealtor. and then i’ll get to be Mr. JuggleTheClientsWithThePackingAndTheMoving. eventually ending in Mr. JuggleTheClientsWithTheTilingAndTheFinishing. because if we get that house, there is a large room downstairs that will definitely need tile because it has a full sauna in it already and it’s wired for a hottub, which the Spouse Unit very much wants (and we can get pretty decent ones for list price through out brother-in-law). but the absolute last thing that’s going to work in that kind of room is carpet, which is how the current owners left it probably because they realized how much it would cost and/or how much of a hassle it is to tile a room that size (roughly 18×22 with irregular walls). and we all know who bought a big-ass tile saw last time he had to do this stuff, and who moved the big-ass tile saw all the way out here from California, and who has been quietly pleased the whole time he’s lived here to have avoided tiling the entire downstairs of this house.

karma sucks. but i digress. as previously noted, this is something i do well.

we started yesterday going through clothes that should have been given to Goodwill ages ago. #1 son took most of my old referee t-shirts and polos from AYSO soccer out in California, though, as if he needed more crap in his room to work around. after we go through some other stuff today though (old kids games and things like that), we’ll have a van-load of items for Goodwill that never should have made the trip from California with us. the Spouse Unit and i were just so tired during that move that it became easier to throw everything on the moving truck than separate it out. we’re not making that mistake again. there’s really not that much to fix up around here: some minor things, is all. i get to figure out how to touch up the paint on the front of the garage when it’s only 15 degrees outside, though. that should be fun!

doing all this is going to be a challenge. luckily, i like challenges. i’m exceptionally afraid that we’re going to get moved, and the Spouse Unit will land a job that would have seen us sitting pretty in this house, though. maybe someday we can move back out here or someplace like it. i’m certainly glad i shot up the back of here quite a bit already, and in all seasons. i will be pulling photos out of those collections for fine art work for a very long time to come. when it comes time for that, that’s probably what i’ll do if/when a realtor calls wanting to show the house, too. i’ll just put on the snow boots and head out back with a camera or two and do some last shoots.