New House!Hello Everyone, A bit of news from here in Springfield. We've been busy, and not just a little bit busy. We've been really busy. I'm working about 60 hours a week at work, Sarah's doing lesson plans and grading, we're trying to figure out everything for the new house (arranging with the builder, the bank, coming up with design ideas, etc.), and we're trying to get our current house ready to sell ASAP. For those of you who aren't up to speed, Sarah and I had planned on doing a pretty big remodel of our current house to fix some things, like a hole in the parlor ceiling, remodel both bathrooms, etc., when we realized what a hassle it would be to try to have the workers remodel while we were living here. That's when we happened upon a house for sale just a block away from ours. It had just been repossessed by the bank, and it needed to be COMPLETELY redone. It was just what we wanted because we could pick out all the details, since most everything needs to be replaced, while not having to live in a construction zone. The house is actually a pretty big improvement over our current house. Here's what we like about it: It has 300 or so more square feet, so there will be room to grow. The lot is bigger--almost half an acre. It's on a much quieter street (Grant is the main path for all emergency vehicles in our part of town) Our next door neighbor is a police officer and his wife, who is a nurse. He is part of the worship team at a very good local church. They are both about our age and super nice. Anyone who knows about our current neighbors will know how nice that will be. The woodwork in the house has never been painted, and is in amazingly good shape. Almost the whole house has wood floors that can be refinished pretty easily. We will get to pick out cabinets and counters and floors that we actually like. There will be room to park since Main Street (where the house is) has very little traffic and a wide street perfect for parking. There is a large attic just waiting to be finished. There is a carriage house covered with vinyl siding. We will eventually remove that siding, put something on to protect the old wood, and make that into an entertaining space. The parlor is big enough to hold the upright piano we were given by one of Sarah's teacher friends. There is a wonderful old holly tree. We will have insulated walls (because we're removing all the outside ones), new windows, nice duct work, zone heating and cooling, new plumbing, new electric wiring (meaning we also get lots of outlets, phone jacks, ethernet plugs, etc.). Anyway, that's probably at least enough information for now. In summary: we are very excited to have found a house that we think will be home for us for a very long time. We close April 6, and sometime after that, we will have an open house so everyone can see what the house looks like now (it's pretty trashed) and we'll have another open house so everyone can see our new house when it's done. Other tidbits of news: The Wailin' Jenny's are playing in Springfield in about a month. I'm not sure that we'll be going, but if anyone's interested.... Has everone heard Over The Rhine playing Orphan Girl? You can hear it on their website now. We haven't been to Joplin as much as we would like, and I'm not sure we'll be coming back at least until tax season is over and we have our house listed (middle of April for both of those), but we'll be looking forward to seeing everyone after things settle down a bit. Oh, and my very nice brother has now come up two weekends to help do hard labor clearing the rest of the branches, brush, and logs from our lawn. Thanks Nathan! | 
