I am doing a little tweaking to my website since I know I am not able update it as frequently as I’d like to. I have set up a temporary redirect on varresa.org to go to my site on Tumblr. Once I am sure about it, I’ll migrate completely off Wordpress and move the tumblr site. Tumblr is a site to post text, photos, videos, quotes, etc very quickly and easily. I think it fits much better with the types of posts I wish to do. It will automatically import my Flickr, YouTube and AllConsuming feeds, as well as the feed for any news posts on our Strawbale site. So there is nothing you have to do on your part, except that if you have set up an RSS feed, then please go to the new site and grab the new feed URL. Otherwise, just keep reading! Right now Tumblr doesn’t have the ability to leave comments on posts, but that feature is coming soon. If you want to contact me, just use the contact form or send me an email! Thanks!

Chris and I put an offer in on a home in Stockton Springs and it was accepted! We had a back-up offer in on a cottage there, but we retracted it after we had my parents look at some more homes for us. We decided to go with a small ranch that is move-in ready on 1.75 acres, a bike-ride from the ocean! Of all the places available in our price range in Stockton Springs right now, this house is the only one that doesn’t seem to need any work and will allow us to just relax for a while! After selling our home here and starting a new job, I will be looking forward to the break! The house seems perfect for us right now - 900 square feet on the main living level with an open floor plan, then another 600 in a finished basement that will be Chris’ office. There is a great big backyard for dogs, plenty of room for a big garden, several stone walls and woods for walking! I think this will be a great place to settle in to for a couple years while we decide what and where we want to build. The couple moving out are actually building a new home, so they are going to try their best to accommodate our fast closing date. Right now we’re shooting for August 10th, which would be while I am home for the summer pledge drive. Keep your fingers crossed for us that the inspection goes okay and that we can stay on schedule!

Here is a link to Town & Country’s “Virtual Tour.”

Our house has been on the market for four days and we had our first (and hopefully last) Open House today. In the last 2 days, twenty fliers were taken from our flier box outside, which gave us hopes of alot of interest. The two other houses on the street also scheduled open houses today, so that gave us hopes of alot of foot traffic. We were right on both accounts! We had about 25 groups of people come though the house today - which is incredible for an open house anywhere really. I was worried that this weekend we were competing with the start of the Three Rivers Festival, but that didn’t seem to matter. I took the dogs out to the park and for a drive from 1-4pm while Chris stayed at the house playing Salesman! He said there were non-stop people almost the whole time and he got great reactions from everyone, especially about the colors, which we weren’t sure how they would go over. Busy open houses really help to sell and I think we can look forward to some offers this week. There were a few really interested people and almost everyone told Chris, “You won’t have any trouble selling this house!” Just what we like to hear! One guy even said, “I hope you don’t sell too quickly because I want this house!” He’s coming back tomorrow with his wife. So needless to say we had a great open house and we feel really good this evening! Below is a video Chris made of the house right before the open house, as I was still cleaning! I posted a bunch of photos on Flickr too - enjoy!

Our Baxter turns 2 today!!!  Only 1 more year of lab-puppyhood!

It’s official - I got the Development Director position at WERU and our house is FOR SALE! The house finally got listed on MLS today! It should be up on Realtor.com soon, but here’s a link to the Fort Wayne local listing #2710283. We’re going to get our yard sign today and the flyers I designed are ready to be picked up at Staples this morning! Our first open house is scheduled for Sunday, 1-4pm, so stop by if you’re in Fort Wayne! We need all the foot traffic we can get to SELL!

It’s crazy busy these days, but oh so exciting and promising! We don’t have a home lined up in Maine yet, but we’re focusing on Stockton Springs. My wonderful parents are meeting our wonderful realtor, Julee, tomorrow to look at 3 more places. We have a back-up offer in on the Stockton Springs cottage we want, but we’ve got to keep looking just in case we don’t get it.

My start date at WERU was going to be Aug 13th, but we’ve bumped it up to the 6th in order for me to help during the pledge drive that starts on the 11th. So our timeline got a little off, but I’ll be in Maine for a couple weeks, then fly back here with my dad to move to Maine with the UHaul, Chris & pups! Other than the need for a car in Maine and possibly some place to stay close to the station, the extra time is nice for us to sell the house and line up something in Maine. So we’re just going with the flow at this point!

Yippee!

It’s been over a month since my real last post, but I have just been uninspired to write lately…that, and I’ve  been busy as well.  Days at work had been busy with AIDS Walk, and now it’s on to the Dinner Dance.  Evenings are filled by enjoying the warm weather and longer daylight hours.  We’ve been going to the ‘farm,’ taking walks, reading on the deck.  The list of things to get done on our house is much shorter, which I love!  During this long weekend, we painted the trim & doors in upstairs hallway. The wood, though natural, was very oppressive and it made the hallway seem small.  Also, previous owners had gotten paint on the doors so they never seemed clean.  The white really brightens it and makes it seem much nicer.  We also finished up a lot of little things, like patching a couple holes in the kitchen, touching up trim & moulding, opening 2 windows that were painted shut, and covering an old, unused light socket.  It feels good to have all this done.  We also purchased a new refrigerator today, Memorial Day sale at hhgregg!  It will be delivered tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see how much our electricity bill is going to decrease with the new one.  Our old one is from 1980 and was spray painted black by me when we moved in.  Now we will have a nice matching set of new black appliances in the kitchen…finally!

We had our eye on one particular building site in Blue Hill, but it turns out not to be such a good fit.  My parents checked it out for us last week and sent pics.  It is 2.5 acres high on a hill, which is great for solar, but it is all ledge.  Not great for new construction or gardening!  There is another, 10 acres, that we are researching now.  It’s got a well, septic, electricity and a finished foundation on site.  Also there is a cabin that could be lived in while building - huge bonus.  I am taking a solo trip Maine at the end of June, so very excited to check it out…more on that when I return!

Chris and I feed our beloved pups a really high quality pet food (Canidae) and we’ve been fortunate to have not been affected by the recent pet-food recalls. But this scare should be a wake up to the reality of how drastically our centralized food system could be compromised. I’ve always wondered why the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t put more focus on decentralizing our food industry. When bacteria on a California farm can take spinach off grocery shelves nationwide, you know that we’re leaving ourselves open for a possible bio-terrorism plot. Unfortunately today’s Boston Globe article shows that it doesn’t take a bio-terrorist to harm our food supply. The same chemical that has been killing pets via their food has now been identified on a hog farm that raises hogs for human consumption.

Just in case you need yet another reason to refrain from eating meat, head on over to Suicide Food. What is Suicide Food you ask? From the site:

Suicide Food is any depiction of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed. Suicide Food actively participates in or celebrates its own demise. Suicide Food identifies with the oppressor. Suicide Food is a bellwether of our decadent society.

**Update**  Bruce told us about a related story on the CBS evening news tonight.   Watch the video, read the article, then watch what you eat!

I am going to be up-front about this: I am well aware today is Earth Day, yet Chris and I ripped three growing bushes out of our backyard. Ouch. But we did some earth-friendly things too, which should mitigate the effect of that sin. We took a hike at a local park, I planted three lily’s in the front yard, and we are about to ride our bikes to the community garden (aka “farm”) to flag our garlic so it doesn’t get tilled this week. In return, the earth has been very happy and is granting us with sun and 78 degrees!

As Mélaine recently noted, events seem to come in threes. In the next two months, friend Carolyn and her husband are moving from Fort Wayne to South Carolina, co-worker & friend Bob and his partner are moving from Fort Wayne to Kentucky, and friend Charlie & his wife are moving from Fort Wayne to South Carolina. I am just hoping proximity to all this moving will propel Chris and I as well!