The end of despair

We've been in talks for the past week with a potential buyer for our old house. Today we finally signed the contract to sell the house to the buyer. FINALLY!! This home switching idea has been over a year in the making and today we can see the end in site!

I have to say it's been way harder than I ever expected. You watch the home improvement shows on TV: A nice couple buys a run down place, puts some paint on the walls and some new curtains and wallah! The couple sells the house the next week and makes loads of money doing it.

Our story reads a little more like: A nice couple buys a dump from some hillbillies and then works their butts off cleaning, fixing, upgrading and pretty much go broke doing it. After the work is finished the house is put up for sale and then sits on the market for 5 months because it is in the not-so-elite part of town.

Alas this chonicle is finally ending. And I'm glad to say that we are never going to sell or move ever again.

Some good news: I recieved my yearly review today and I was promoted to the next level of engineer servitude. I am now a Technical Specialist I, rather than an Engineer II (never thought of it before, but Engineer #II sounds like a technical purveyor of feces). I got the raise and a big pat on the back from my boss. Now we just need to celebrate. Steph is finishing up the exit exam for her Master's this evening so maybe we will wait until this weekend to party it up.

Did I mention that the little old lady moved out of our new house? Tomorrow we are going to stop by the house just to enjoy having the place to ourselves. We probably should start cleaning, but I will likely spend most of the time playing with sprinkler system. New toys!!