What’s that saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same?

We had a real estate agent come out on Thursday afternoon to look around our house and discuss selling. Good news: The house is pretty much ready to sell as it is. The only advice the agent gave us was to “de-clutter the kitchen a bit”—at which point I had to hide a smile, because Lady, we have a newborn and a 3-year old, and we were up cleaning the house until 2am the night before—this IS de-cluttered. Bad news: The selling market in our area is (STILL) pretty crappy, especially for 3-bedroom houses (which came as a surprise to us—apparently more people look for 4-bedroom houses, even as “starter homes,” these days?). If we tried to sell right now, we would have to list the house for about $5-6K less than the price for which we bought it, and it would probably sell for another $4-5K under that. So we would be looking at a $10K loss right off the bat, with another $10K between various fees and the agent’s commission. Meaning we’d end up over $20K in the hole. And that is a BIG HOLE. Plus, we’d need all that money up front when closing. Uhhh.

The entire point of selling the house was to SAVE money, wasn’t it? And if we HAD over $20K just lying around, we wouldn’t be selling the house in the first place!

So. We’re staying for now. It’s disappointing and frustrating because we really have no choice. Hopefully the market will pick up in our area by next year so we can finally move.

I’m also going back to my old job tomorrow (*headdesk*). I called my supervisor last week; she said she’d check with the boss and call me back, and two minutes later, my phone rang. (What can I say? I’m loved! heh) It’s not ideal—my Mom is driving an hour here and an hour back to babysit two days a week, which I didn’t want her to do—but it’s a paycheck until I can find something else. Hopefully soon.

As for George, some of you may have seen my Tweets a while back about a new job role/opportunity we were hoping he would get. Somehow the idea came about that he could work with his current company’s outside consultant to do some work on the side that is related to health care laws and any potential changes that may affect the company’s clients. He was given a project in December as sort of a “trial run,” and apparently they liked his work and feel they can utilize both his law degree as well as his experience with health care data/programming, because he was just given two more projects! He is REALLY excited about this opportunity. It’s not a “lawyer job,” per se, but in the end (based on what he’s seen while job hunting) this may actually make him MORE marketable than having experience as an attorney alone.

Oh, and also? The consultant George is helping? Works out of BOSTON. They told George relocation was unnecessary, even as this part of his job becomes more involved, but we want to go there anyway… so I told him, “This is a sign!”

*sigh* It’s going to take a bit longer than we expected, but things are in progress. We printed out a picture of Boston to hang on our fridge as motivation, we’re planning a trip out there this year (slightly postponed—instead of May, now waiting until Aug or Sept), and in the meantime we’re doing what we can here. Each day is one day closer to getting where we want to go.