O the things you will do!

In terms of things that need doing, life has reached a maximum. With all the events that come with the end of a school year anyway, add all the things that come with senior year. With all the family events that normally come around this time of year, add in a couple more special events. Work has been insanely busy, and then there’s the small matter of buying a house, picking up stakes and moving.

If you’ve never experienced a “hot” real estate market (and if you’ve only lived in the Capital District, you have not), let me explain what it’s like. A house that you might like comes on the market. Five minutes later, you get a note from your realtor asking if you want to see it that day; if you see it and like it and decide to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars based on a 10-minute review and some shaky iPhone pictures, then you’d better be prepared to make an offer that night, because the sellers are reviewing the offers first thing in the morning. If you need some extra time, well, you can just look elsewhere. If you want to make the sale contingent on selling your own house, well, perhaps something along the lines of a garden shed would suit you better. And those 27 perfectly acceptable houses taunting you on Zillow? They’re all under contract. You need to wait for something else to be listed, and don’t get far from your phone.

So that’s what it is, just a whirlwind. Found a place that I desperately loved (and could afford) on Monday, scrambled to put in an offer (while also paying attention to an important meeting, mind you) on Tuesday, got beat out by a cash offer on Wednesday. (By the way, anyone with cash is suspect, in my mind, and should be thoroughly investigated.) Had all day Wednesday to experience the mixture of let-down and relief, got the same call on Thursday, checked out a place that didn’t quite work but that we loved anyway, and had to put in a bid Friday night for a Saturday decision.

And while we’re doing all that, we have to fit in the final (final!) dance recital, prom, a string of honors events, the graduation itself, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Oh, yeah: work. Lots and lots of work.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that we’ll be giving up a lot, in terms of both space and personal history (not to mention the fact we largely rebuilt this house ourselves), we’re both very excited about the chance to move on. If we’re going to be empty nesters, why not be empty nesters in a gorgeous little community that people seem to love living in, within steps of a nicely vibrant downtown?

And as a special snub to the Capital District, I’ll note that no matter what house we end up with in our new town, the Wegman’s will be about four miles away.