For the casual observer our activities of the last month might appear to be impulsive or manic. I am not going to list the activities, you can see that on my Facebook page so instead, I am sharing the sequence of events. AND we may appear to be excited and happy on our Facebook posts. We are also very very sad to be leaving our town and faith community of 23 years! Believe me, this move is bittersweet! It is very hard to think of leaving the house and town where we raised our two children. There is a lot of love in this house, and we have the memories as we pack up the moving boxes. Here is what Bethany said on Facebook:
In case anyone ever questioned where I get my Do All The BIG Things At Once attitude from, my parents have decided to put their house on the market 8 days before their daughter gets married. Oh, and family is coming to stay for two weeks starting tomorrow. Go Big or Go Home just became Go Big And Sell Your Home.
On a related note, know anyone looking to buy in Lexington, MA? Perfect house for a family with live-in in-laws. The MLS will tell you all about that.
But the MLS ttotally missed the real perks: It's on a lot that's perfect for running off the legs of Labrador Retrievers. On a quiet street with a roller coaster hill. 10 minute walk to The Center, which means that during Nor'easters, you can walk to town in your snow suit and be the only family in the restaurant or coffee shop. And, it's been blessed over and over with a whole lot of love (the inside, not the "gardens").
BONUS: Rainbow bedroom that happened when certain parents told a certain 8 year old she could paint it whatever color(s) she wanted, complete with GIRL POWER light switch cover (inspired by the Spice Girls, of course).
— with Rodney Lowe and Sally Russell.
For 8-10 years, since Bethany graduated from high school, I have felt that this house is about double the space that we need in terms of rooms. That and some heavy heavy winters have caused us to look at townhouses and condos in the Boston area. We made an offer on one downtown Lexington right before Christmas 2 years ago. Thankfully we did not get that one, although we were disappointed at the time. We looked in Woburn, Burlington, Waltham, Arlington, Cambridge, etc. We always came back to, we love the location of our house, it is one level, and close to downtown and our faith community, First Parish in Lexington.
Things changed this July when we decided to resign our membership from First Parish Lexington and go on a pilgrimage to find a church. If anyone wants to talk about that decision please contact me and we can have coffee.
We both said, let's look for a UU church in the Boston area and if we don't find what we are looking for, we can come back to First Parish. In the meantime, we started looking again actively with
Bill Scott, who is fabulous by the way! He showed us some in Cambridge and Somerville about 6 months ago, and he started to get a good sense of what we liked.
The beginning of August we received a letter in the mail from what ended up being our realtor, Joan Skomurski, who is also terrific, asking AGAIN, if we are interested in selling our house. I really did not want it to be a tear down, and after viewing our house, she did not feel it would be. So that day we decided to list it and try to catch the last wave of parents looking for an excellent school system. People move from India and China for our school system!
Incidentally that was 3 days before our daughter's wedding, and 5 of Rod's English family were visiting. Our intent was to be vagabonds for a year, and we could always live in Vermont at Coniston. We looked at a 2200 square foot warehouse in Cambridge, which would have been very complicated. Our offer was rejected on that one, thankfully.
Right after Bryan and Bethany's wedding and right before we travelled to Colorado for another wedding Bill called and said "I know you are going to Colorado later today, but you have to come see this condo. It is in final offer stage, and we will have to make an offer today!" I looked
online and knew it was one we would fall in love with.
Needless to say it is just what we have been looking for in terms of openness, loftiness, balcony and close to Boston. Bethany has gotten us comfortable with the Union Square section of Somerville by living there for almost 2 years with Bryan and their two cats.
So the unit is a 2 minute walk from the extension to the Green Line due to open in 2017, the Washington St station, and from our patio we can see the Boston skyline. We hope to stay in touch with our Lexington and First Parish friends, after all we are only a 30 minute drive away, there is a great view of Boston, and the loft will be great for entertaining.
I am an open book and make the offer again, to anyone who wants to talk about this, to have coffee. Be wary of a too caffeinated Sally though!
