We. are. moving.

! ! ! !

Long story short: The other week Robert and I were talking and we came to the decision that buying our current house just might not have been the best decision for us. Directly on the heels of that realization came the news that the financing deal was dead, anyhow. We took it as a sign. A lovely house had recently been offered for rental after its owners were unable to sell it in a timely manner. We jumped on the opportunity and, within a matter of a few days, it was settled: we're moving. We gave our thirty days' notice of intent to vacate this place and we already have the keys to the new place. The moving will be an ongoing project over the entire month of September. We don't have an exact date for when we'll actually be sleeping in the other place but I think we're going to shoot for mid-month to get all the utilities (plus the cable and satellite) turned on/transferred over. Once that happens we'll shift our base of operations to there, even if we haven't gotten everything out of this house.

As for the new place, it's just wonderful. It's across town from where we are now, near(ish) the big city park. It's five years old, a two-story red brick affair with a great, fenced back yard (something we don't have here, which curtails the kids' playing outside). Downstairs is the master suite with Australian closet, half-bath, living room, kitchen with breakfast nook, dining room, and finished basement. Upstairs each kid has his/her own bedroom, plus there's a family room, a play room and another bathroom. Closet space abounds. Seriously, I think we own a LOT of stuff but it will probably only fill half of the storage space there. There are minor cosmetic issues I'd fix, if given the chance, but I could see us being happy there for as long as we can stay. We hope to rent for about a year while we iron some things out and then we'll definitely be interested in buying the place, providing Robert's job situation doesn't take us away from the area. (Incidentally, this move won't affect the kids' schooling at all, as the schools here are divided by grade, not by location of residence.)

More info to follow later, as well as photos, as I start getting the rooms fixed up the way I want them. For now: Crap! I need to start packing!