Homeless

As of last Friday, 9 February, we are officially without property.

We had listed our California house on the market on the 2nd of January, and despite the many warnings from friends and family that the housing market was rapidly approaching the chill of Goodwife Nurse's mammary glands, we had multiple offers by the 14th. A little bit of paperwork later, and we've now closed the deal on the sale of our house in California with remarkably little fuss or bother on our part, especially considering we managed all of this from about 5,000 miles away. I must say that this is due in very large part to the fact that our dear friend and godmother to the Critter acted with our power of attourney to sign documents which couldn't wait for faxing, and to the fact that we had the World's Best Real Estate Agent. Seriously. She should wear a cape. And carry a golden lariat. And fight Nazis. Considering some of the stuff we had to deal with, she made the whole process relatively painless, moving parts, paperwork and people into place where needed to ensure that there were no surprises and a minimum of money (well, relatively speaking) that had to be invested in preparation for sale.

Someone asked me if it felt different to no longer own the Bay Area home that we had put so much effort into over the past years. It was the first house we bought, and the home that we brought our first child back to from the hospital. And the answer is, yes, it feels different. It feels freaking great! Like a 54 year-old, two-story rock has been lifted from my back. Yeah, we put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that house. But that was because it had sharp pointy bits that made me cry, and were hellaciously difficult to remove.

And now that we're home-free (ha!), what are we going to do? Well, we're going to enjoy England for a while longer, and then we'll see. I can't exactly tell at this point what will happen. We've decided on very few requirements at this point: a) we'd prefer to move someplace besides California. b) although not a requirement, I'd really like to have my TiVo back.

Hmm.

Maybe we need to come up with some other requirements.