About Face

Our friend Kate commented yesterday that this was a 180 turn from our current home.  She couldn't be more right.  At this moment, I am in the bedroom of our 1923 craftsman style home in the Leschi neighborhood of Seattle.  We moved here a little over a year ago as a compromise between Brett's Central District neighborhood and my previous home on Mercer Island.

I love this house.  Love it.  We walked in, saw only the living room, dining room and kitchen before Brett said, 'I don't care what the rest of the house looks like.  This is our house.'

Fortunately, the rest of the house was lovely and, more importantly, big enough for our family.  Not an easy feat.  Five bedrooms, three baths, a huge finished basement and man-cave for Brett and his bikes.  We painted.  We hung pictures.  We got married.  We settled in for the long haul and promised the kids this was our final home.  (Big mistake!  I learned then never to promise children anything permanent.  Cue George Harrison 'All Things Must Pass'.)

Sadly enough, there are many reasons why we are choosing to leave this house, some more complicated than others.  Suffice it to say that city living wasn't for me, the over two-hour each day back-and-forth commute wasn't for me, and we missed all our friends and life on the island.  When Brett suggested we move back, I didn't believe it.  And for a few months, I still didn't believe it.  I kept asking him, 'Are you sure?  Really?  Like really sure?'  And he just kept saying yes.

And this lovely house we are leaving?  Well, we still own it.  Yep, that's right.  We own it.  And now we have TWO house payments until we sell it.  Somebody do some kind of Seattle real estate rain dance, please!  Though we don't close on the new place until Halloween to give us time to sell this place (that's right...my 40th birthday), the owner who I now christen 'Awesome Abby', has agreed to let us take early occupancy and start working on the house now.  How truly awesome is that? 

Next post...priorities.