Winter 2015 February 16 2015 Monday (Snow/Ice, House Hunting, Holiday)

Winter 2015 February 16, 2015  Monday (Snow/ice, House Hunting, Holiday)

22 degrees this morning (8 degrees wind chill), no walk (snow/ice)

Holiday today.  Also freezing rain etc, snow (take your pick) so probably won’t get out much today, depending on what happens later.

Just thinking of odd facts, this is probably the longest I have slept in the same house for a continuous period since 1988.  We have not spent a night elsewhere since late August of 2014, which means we have been her a almost six months and are likely to be here until at least April and possibly June before we stay in a hotel etc.

Not complaining, the thought just went by me this morning.  It is rather an odd fact.  

I actually like hotels, but it is nice to not have to worry about packing and unpacking etc.  

Fortunately, Aliene is a super packer.  (She managed to pack two suitcases that weighed about 49.8 lobs apiece for our trip to China. If it had weighed over 50 pounds, we would have been charged like $75 or more.)  

There have been times when I went on a business trip and Aliene packed my bags into two suitcases (for example), and I’d come back completely unable to get the items back into two bags.  

Looked some more at houses yesterday and starting to at least narrow some decisions down.  We know some basics of what we want and don’t want.  

I had forgotten how much time looking at houses takes.  Actually, one of our favorites (as of today) we found purely by chance.  And this is based on a limited locational area, since we are only looking at a specific area.  

Actually, it is on the fringes of the city we currently live in and not in the city we would like to be in, but we will just need to factor that in also.  

One important factor is if it is close to a YMCA that we would realistically drive to the YMCA.  I would like to be close enough to  bicycle to it (off road) but so far there is only one house which  might be even close, so driving  will help.  

Again, a YMCA close isn’t a deal breaker, just something we would like.  I would like the chance to go swimming in the morning, at lease occasionally and Aliene would like ot participate in “silver sneakers” or similar activities. 

Of course, access to a main road for me to get to work is also a factor.

Anyway,  we are busy considering all he factors involved, and it is fun to discuss it and try to come to a decision. 

This decision is a completely different decision than any decision we have had to make before.  This is the first time we could live anywhere we wanted to regardless of where I worked. 

It is also the first time we hadn’t had to  to consider that we might have to suddenly sell the house if I changed jobs.  It could still happen, but that would be completely voluntarily on our part.  

Unless the weather changes, this probably will be a Holiday in the house!

That’s it for now, a cold and icy Monday, February 16, 2015