The Details, Part 1

So, if you are young, and looking for a house, there is one question you should be prepared to answer repeatedly. Your real estate agent will ask you. ("Are you thinking of starting a family?") Your inspector will ask you. ("Going to start a family next?") Your mortgage broker will, too. ("And are there children in your future?") Coworkers. Friends. The woman who cuts your hair. There is no one who won't ask you this. "Well, we'll see!" has been our standard response - consider this a public service announcement so that you can all be prepared with a politely vague answer of your own. (Unless, of course, you have a politely specific answer you would prefer to use.)

Now that we've found a house, though, everything has been happening so quickly that there's really not much time for idle questions anymore. I don't think I realized quite how speedily everything was going to happen - we got the listing for the house on Monday morning, drove by and liked it during lunch, and saw it after work Monday evening. Tuesday, we went back for a second look during lunch and made an offer, and we had a verbal agreement before we went to bed that night. By dinnertime Wednesday, we had a signed contract. Since then, we've also applied (and been approved) for a mortgage, had a home inspection ("solid as a rock," according to our inspector), a radon test (well within normal levels), and requested that the sellers fix a few things from the inspection report. It's felt like more, honestly. From now until closing (four weeks from today), though, apparently we pretty much just wait. And presumably pack.

But wait! There's more! Since we last managed to update:

- We've ridden the train down to Chicago to see Austin, who was in town for a law journal conference. We had a really nice time eating dinner and hanging out, and it was great to get to visit with him.

- I've managed to read most of The Count of Monte Cristo - I'm somewhere around the 950-page mark (which leaves a mere 300 or so to go), and the Count really is remarkably Batman-esque. I'm enjoying it.

- I am now a trained weather spotter! The National Weather Service held training at my college last night, and since I was working anyway, I sat in. Randy came, too - they will be mailing us official weather spotter certificates.

- We have been witnesses to a dognapping! I think Randy is writing about this in greater detail, but let me just mention that the missing dog is a small, white fluffy dog. The people whose house we are buying have a small, white fluffy dog. Can this be coincidence, or are they moving because they need to get out of town, quick? (Actually, I'm pretty sure that it can be a coincidence, and I'm very sorry for the people whose dog is missing.)

- Spring has, so to speak, sprung. Or it has at least begun to - this is a later spring than I'm used to, but the days are finally beginning to noticeably lengthen and it was warm enough yesterday to open the windows for a while.

I can hear Randy writing the rough equivalent of a novel for his post, so maybe I'll just stop here. I expect that between the two of us, you will be more than sufficiently filled in on everything!