Tomorrow Is Another Day...

So Cultured I Should Be in a Petrie Dish

Current count of Washington days remaining?  Forty-three.  And nine of those will be spent house hunting in South Carolina.  So, I've been a bit busy to say the least.  I've been working regularly.  We've been working to keep the house presentable on a regular basis should any prospective renters want to check it out.  And of course we've been doing all of those fun Washington things that we won't be able to do in a month and a half. 

Over the course of two weeks I went with friends to see Pink Martini in Tacoma, with my opera pal to see La Traviata at the Seattle Opera, and then on a double date to see A Streetcar Named Desire at the Theatre on the Square in Tacoma.  Pink Martini put on an incredible show and reminded me of a band that would have played at The Tropicana with Ricky Ricardo.  La Traviata was absolutely gorgeous and deliciously tragic, and Streetcar was thoroughly depressing but surprisingly well performed for a community theater presentation.

Aside from that we've just been continuously freaking out about the move.  We leave on Monday to spend a little over a week getting to know the Charleston area.  We're going armed with an army of worksheets, an extensive spreadsheet of houses we've been tracking, a preapproval letter, and the knowledge that the government is completely unsympathetic to our flight. 

When we bemoan the state of our mortgage situation, helpful folks tend to remind us of the house-buying program for mlitary members who are being made to move during the current housing crisis.  Bummer for us, we bought our house two months too early to qualify for that program.  Then when the internet made me aware of the fact that the home-buyers tax credit has been extended through 2010 and is now available to current home owners, I actually got my hopes up for a moment before finding the fine print specifiying that eligibility is restricted to people who have owned their homes for more than five years.  We're hovering right around three.  You know, it's not that I expect the government to bail me out, and I fully appreciate the fact that there are people who are in far worse situations than I, but it's still a little disheartening every time you realize that some people are eligible for handouts and you aren't.  But still, I'm a firm believer is smaller government anyway, so whatever, I DON'T WANT YOUR NONEXISTANT MONOPOLY MONEY ANYWAY, AMERICA!!

So, that's pretty much that.  I'm excited about Halloween this weekend and the chance to spend a whole day thinking about something OTHER than the jumble of debt to income ratio, neighborhood crime statistics, and the vast difference a 5.0% interest rate can make on your mortgage payment as opposed to 5.25%...  Sigh.  In the words of Alice, it would be so nice if something made sense for a change.

This Wasn't Supposed to Be a Shopping Post

It's a good thing I don't blog for my health...  The thing about having become so sporadic about my blog posting is that so many events build up between the times I take to write here that by the time I make an effort to sit down and type something out, it just seems too overwhelming and I don't know where to start.  Then, before I know what's happened, I'm simultaneously watching television, playing Shanghai Dynasty on Facebook, and perusing realtor.com.  And nary a blog is posted.  So, what say you we alleviate some of this boring wordy wordness with some PICTURES!  As Alice says, "What is the use of a book without pictures?"  Particularly if it's a picture book.

That rather neatly segues me into my first topic, which is Halloween.  I'm going to be mighty sad if I move to Charleston and don't manage to find a group of friends who will get dressed up and get a little crazy with me every October 31st.  However, for now I'll be enjoying my last Halloween with this group of friends dressed as Alice in Wonderland.  And how perfect is this Alice dress?
 

Now, the trick is convincing Colby to dress up as The Mad Hatter.  Come on, how cute would we be??  After purchasing this dress, I promised myself that I just needed one more thing to complete my fall/winter wardrobe before cutting myself off completely from shopping once more.  That thing?  The perfect brown boots.  Now, do I already have a fabulous pair of brown boots?  Well... yes.  But these brown boots are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!  Here's a visual.  Old brown boots:

(Fact that this is a terrible picture acknowledged, but it's the best I could do on short notice)

New brown boots:

They have it all.  Gorgeous color.  Feminine heel.  Interesting details.  And most importantly... comfort.  In my search for these elusive perfect boots, I entered the hallowed halls of Neiman Marcus.  Let me tell you, if you ever want to feel poor, inadequate, and slightly ashamed of your outfit, treat yourself to 15 minutes in Neiman Marcus.  Despite my temporary bout of insecurity, I did feel a little as though I had died and gone to fashion heaven.  I was literally surrounded by labels... Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Diane von Furstenburg, Manolo, Michael Kors, Catherine Malandrino... it was thrilling.  And heartbreaking.  I tried on this adorable Nanette Lepore dress and these gorgeous Louboutins, and I'm not kidding when I tell you that I teared up ever so slightly when I had a seriously think about our checking account.

And I've never been accused of having excessively high levels of self-confidence, but for reals y'all, that dress looks SO much cuter on me than it does on the model.  Anyway, the Neiman Marcus effect came into play with the boot purchase in that after having the strength of will to say no to $1500 worth of merchandise at Neiman's, dropping $250 measly bucks at that rat-hole Nordstrom suddenly seemed like a pittance.  I suddenly have a whole new sympathy for shopping addicts.

Um, and seriously, this blog post was supposed to be about so much more than shopping, and yet, that's what it has turned into.  I cannot be held responsible.  I'm sitting here looking at those heavenly purple shoes and my brain has completely turned to mush...  This must be how men feel when women with extraordinary breasts are within view.

Oh, Charleston? So Glad You Asked!

Somehow, the only possible explanation being some kind of rift in the space-time continuum, it is now October.  This is exciting for a few reasons but a little terrifying as well due to the fact that this means we now have just a few days over two months left in Washington.  Based on the alarming speed at which the past two months have flown by, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all there is that's left to do.

What this means is that if you're alone with me for any reason, or unwise enough to strike up a conversation with me in a fit of boredom, you will likely be subjected to an hours long litany of the ways that I am simultaneously excited, nervous, sad, thrilled and horrified by the prospect of moving to South Carolina.  I'm not even exaggerating.  I'm pretty sure I talked my parents' ears off about this subject for a minimum of two hours on Friday and then spent an entire baby shower on Saturday trying to staunch the inevitable flow of verbal diarrhea whenever anyone so much as glanced in my direction.

All that's left to do is document my current emotional state here.  Let us imagine that you've wandered over with one of my delicious lavender-lemon sugar cookies to pay me a compliment on the delicate balance of flavors, and then politely commented that I must be getting awfully excited about moving.

Well, I say to you with a smile, I certainly am excited.  Of course, I'm sad to leave my friends behind, but I'm very much looking forward to moving back to the South, and we're lucky enough to already have a few friends living there, so hopefully I won't have to spend as many months feeling like a social pariah as I did when I moved to Washington.  And of course, we'll be closer to family and I'm very much looking forward to being back in SEC country.

You nod, with a still slightly interested smile, and ask whether we're planning on buying?

I tilt my head ever so charmingly and give a self-deprecating smile.  We are indeed, but it's turning out to be a much more stressful situation than I had imagined.  You see, when we bought our house here, we were wide-eyed and full of hope, certain of our wise financial decision and proud of our ability to purchase our dream house.  Then, of course, months later the market came crashing down around our ears and we've spent the past two and a half years wincing at each property value assessment that arrives, biting our nails nervously as houses in our neighborhood sit on the market for months and then sell at a fraction of their purchase price, and more and more frequently "For Rent" signs are in yards instead of "For Sale".  Don't even talk to me about Zillow.

We've made the difficult, but at this point only feasible, decision to keep our house in Washington and rent it out, which makes getting a second mortgage quite challenging.  We're much more realistic now about the pitfalls of home-ownership, so while we're happy to be moving to an area with a slightly lower cost of living, the romantic associations we once had with house-hunting are more than a little tarnished after our acquaintance with the harsh realities of the real estate market.

At this point your eyes have glazed over, your cookie is digested and you're searching for a way to extricate yourself from the conversation, correctly judging the fact that I've really only just gotten started on my monologue.

Fortunately, I say, smiling through the tears, we have a friend whose father is a property manager, so he'll take care of finding our renters and doing the "landlord" business, and we are fairly certain with a rental contract and the probably use of a VA loan, we more than likely won't be homeless in Charleston.  We could rent there of course, but we prefer owning--even after our experience owning in Washington, believe it or not.  We know a lot more now about how to pick a house that we love, but that also has better potential for resale value, and have educated ourselves a bit more about the risks that we are taking.

We're hoping to have a rental agreement and preapproval letter in hand by the end of this month and will be visiting Charleston the first week in November to house hunt, armed with spreadsheets, checklists, lists of questions, and inexplicably, a St. Joseph medallion despite the fact that one of us is a lapsed Methodist and the other a lapsed Catholic.  I figure, in these trying times, one simply cannot be too superstitious... or religious... whatever.

Your head suddenly jerks upright and your face is suffused with a joyful glow as you suddenly realize that this conversation isn't real, you're simply reading a blog, and you know exactly where the exit button is.