Well, maybe there’s no crow’s nest or water involved, but I thought it’d be fun to say that.
What do you see in this picture (besides a bird)?
Hmmm… let’s look closer.
Ok, ok. Enough stringing along. Danielle and I are officially proud owners of some dirt (and a couple cacti)!
We’re really excited to start the (long but rewarding) building journey. As reasonable progress occurs, I’ll post more updates.
Until next time,
Andrew
That’s my slight spin on the quote “When one door closes, another opens” by Alexander Graham Bell. 🙂
It sometimes feels like it was only yesterday that Danielle and I made the huge decision and commitment to jump off the deep end and move to Arizona from Georgia. But alas! It’s already been over 3 years! Wow! It’s crazy how time flies.
In the time that we’ve been here in AZ, we’ve settled our roots in reasonably well (got myself a job, a beautiful house we intended to be our “forever house”, had most all of our family move nearby, etc.). But as with a lot of things in life, we had a change of desires for what we wanted for the rest of our lives and in retirement; shifting our hearts and mindsets from being in our forever house to preparing for our forever house. With that came getting out house ready to list on the market. We started that process really last year doing upgrades to the house and stuff like that.
Fast forward to earlier this year, and we reached out to our realtor and got the serious ball rolling to list and as you read in my last post, we officially listed. Since then, we had a TON of showings — somewhere in the neighborhood of 50! — and then we accepted an offer and have been going through all the motions with that … paperwork, inspection, appraisal, and other rollercoaster nuances. Today marks the official date we wrapped up selling our house. We put a lot of work into making the “house a home”, just like our last one in Georgia, and I hope the next people will love it, take care of it, and make it their own “house a home”, too. We wish them (and the house) the best.
Now we start a new chapter in our lives. This one I think is more outside the comfort zone than even moving was. We are going to build our own house (well, not us, but you get it). Of our needs and wants for the long-term future, the housing and land we are seeking doesn’t exist in the masses like it would back home, or it is exceedingly outside of our humble budget, so actually building our dream house isn’t really far fetched and meets or goals right in the middle. It’s too early to say anything because we’re just getting the ball rolling with the right people, but I’m sure I’ll throw out a new post or two (or more) as we go along this journey. So stay tuned for that.
Oh, yeah, and I pretty much gave up counting what day it is in Corona Quarantine … it’s been a lot with no end in sight. -_-
Until next time,
Andrew
Today is officially day 1 of listing our house! It’s so fresh it’s not on all sites just yet. We’ve been working up to this point for the better part of a year, as I had mentioned in my last blog post, but nothing prepares you 110% for it until it arrives. Even up to the last minute last night we were tidying up this or that nitpick item before bed. Now we’re at center stage ready for a potential buyer to be enamored by this beautiful house that they can call home, too.
While this is not our first rodeo with buying or selling a home, it’s still a new journey nonetheless. We are excited to sell and then find our for real forever home (second time’s a charm, right?), even amidst the current pandemic and humanity crisis. You can tell by the timestamp of this post I’m up wayyyyy too early. I got a few hours of sleep in and then I was wide awake. Oh well.
Here’s a link to the initial MLS listing as we received it. I checked Zillow, Realtor, and a couple others and they show the house as when we bought it, so be sure to check in periodically with your favorite realty website to see when it hits there with the newer listing.
Until next time,
Andrew
I had high hopes to post something every few days during quarantine, but that didn’t pan out. Well, here’s a chocked-full update on day 80 … at least I think it’s been 80 days already. Wow, what day is it?! I don’t think I can post updates every few days for what feels like a year already…
Anywho, a lot has happened in 2020. Sure, a lot happens every year, duh, but humor my point for a moment, this is the first year for majority of humanity that a worldwide pandemic (Corona) has ever occurred, but also the first time in a long time that something so egregiously unacceptable on the scale of “human disgust” (the murder/death of George Floyd) that makes me and most others want to get a refund on 2020 and go back a few years or skip on to 2021. Yes, I acknowledge many other Black men and women have been wrongfully killed (the ones that come to mind are Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, and Breonna Taylor). I also acknowledge that not only Black men and women are killed; lots of people are killed of all races, colors, shapes, and sizes by not only guns, knifes, and hands, but also not by just police, psychos, and terrorists. What I’m getting at is that we cannot err on an excuse along the lines of “Well, the world is a complex web and people die all the time for different reasons.” Sure, that’s true, but dang don’t diminish nor take the situation out hand or context. Anyone who knows me knows I love and support our military and our law enforcement … but I do not, under any circumstances, support the pieces of trash humans masquerading as law enforcement killing and hurting innocent people for whatever the heck reason is going through their minds. I love my fellow Black man and woman just as I do any other race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever attribute you think of. We are ALL humans and should treat each other with the same love and respect. No….this is not a plug for “all lives matter”, rather just a simple universal fact of humanity. Black lives NEED to be heard so that then truly all lives can matter vs what we have now with “some lives matter but we’ll put up a front that all lives matter”. Man I could go on and on and on with the errancy of humanity but I’ll move on. Just love thine neighbor, truly without reproach and judgement.
My office is still work from home right now and for the foreseeable future (not terribly happy, but it has its perks). I’m both an introvert and extrovert (just depends on situation), so I thrive working alone, but the job I do necessitates that face-to-face interaction with colleagues. That’s what’s getting grueling typing 10 billion messages each workday. AARGH!
Also, dumb humans who can’t wait to get their hair cut, nails done, or go to the latest beach party or rave are the brainless individuals stirring up “round 2” of Corona. Yeah, I know it may not be them, but they are definitely playing a part in it. The wife and I did go out to the hardware store, grocery store, and dinner (finally!) recently, but we stayed away from folks as directed or the best we could … there honestly really is a difference in us vs the idiots. At least I understand there is a set of universal do’s and don’t’s to abide by for your fellow humans, but some people can’t put their narcissistic nature and urges aside for a few weeks (or months) to let the rest of the world solve this crisis and heal. Sometimes you just can’t fix stupid.
Lastly, I’ll end with a happier note. It seems only like yesterday that we were moving from GA to AZ, and now here we go again (just local this time lol). Some of you may know already that we’ve been setting the groundwork to move in 2020. No, there’s nothing wrong with the house we live in nor the neighborhood, it just no longer fits our needs where we’re at in life. We’d like to downsize to a single-story with more land than to have a 2-story with less land. Plus other obligations and such help urge this along. Well, all the non-essential info aside, today marks the first day of an official journey: we had the realtor photographer come to take pictures. We had just finished this week with what I’ll say is about 98% of evvvvvvvvvvverything we’ve been working on for the better part of a year, plus or minus, and it is finally list worthy and ready. We’re excited to see the photos when we get them from our realtor next week and then we’ll begin the next phase to start listing soon. I’m not putting a date in here in case there are any unknown-to-me conflicts that could arise from doing so (maybe there aren’t any, but it doesn’t matter), but just stay tuned. Hopefully this will be our last “forever home” search (again).
Until next time,
Andrew
My Life. My Story. My World. 
You must be logged in to post a comment.