And so the inspection was mostly pretty good...

Except the weirdness in the basement, which is going to require us to get a structural engineer to evaluate it.

Ugh.

Inspection

So tomorrow is our house inspection. If everything goes well, I think we'll be moving in within a month.

That's about the time the new semester starts - where has the summer gone?

In process

**Update: we got for very close to our low offer. Yay!

We made an offer on #1 that, at the encouragement of our realtor, is pretty low (and thus not a stretch). Apparently, the sellers are pretty motivated (already left town, had a previous sale fall through late in the process), so maybe they'll take it.

Appreciate all the advice! If we can get #1, it would be among the fastest in terms of re-sale, so that was a factor.

Academia and home buying

So Spouse and I were talking about, what else?, houses last night and I told him #1, both in the style of the house and the neighborhood, gave me the vibe of "house a tenured professor would live in."

I find this both pleasing and terrifying.

Pleasing because despite the unpleasantness for me at PrettyGood and Spouse's less than fun time last year, we've both put a lot into our careers and, had we been at the right places, I think we would be doing pretty well career-wise. So, although that house is a stretch, it's not impossible, and I see that as a sort of validation that maybe I didn't do that badly after all.

It's terrifying because I still have to go through tenure again. I got a written notice of a review (in January!) that was sent to my home and just seeing a letter from the provost was pretty scary. To make this house work, we need both of our incomes, and even though I have more job security than the great majority of people in this economy, it's still frightening to me to think we could get into to this house and then have trouble, especially since I don't have the best track record.

Down to 5

So you can give some input:

#1: A stretch financially. Good spaces, house in great neighborhood and perfect attendance zones. House a little older (1986), but some newer renovations.

#2: A stretch financially. Newer house, good spaces, neighborhood a little less convenient, but nice lot. Attendance zones fine, but not the best of the best.

#3 A stretch financially (getting a theme here?) BEAUTIFUL house - lots of very recent and expensive updates. Maybe a little "designer" for a family with kids...lot not as good. Same neighborhood as #2

#4 Fantastic value - we can afford it without much trouble. Corner lot borders on busy street. Area of newer, upscale homes literally turns into street with houses built by Habitat for Humanity at the end. We kind of like this idea, but the realtor says it will make re-sale difficult. Very nice house on nice lot, very good attendance zones.

#5 House in a different city. Schools a worry, although contact I've had with them is encouraging. Helps my commute a lot, but makes Spouse's worse. Dream house, about $100,000 less than 1,2,3

Thoughts?

Big day

Tomorrow is a big day in the prof family. I have enough of a syllabus done for the faculty development to have something to learn, but also something to talk about. We are then traveling to the city where we need to live for our final round of looking at houses. It's decision time (and it's VERY expensive there).

Holy Frak!

So, I signed up for these two faculty development thingies this summer - one on active learning techniques in the classroom and one on this new courseware system we're doing a soft changeover (as in the old one will still be available for a year) to this fall.

I have a class of spankin' new freshies in the fall, so I figured they a) need to have some active learning to keep their attention (it's the aforementioned writing in the disciplines class) and b) won't have to re-tool, so they are a good group to try the coursework on.

I've been working on the class some this summer, but last week got an e-mail that I needed to bring a completed syllabus Tuesday for the workshop. Then yesterday, got an e-mail saying I needed to bring ALL MATERIALS for the class I am using to the courseware one.

Any comp teachers out there?

So I'm teaching our interdisciplinary freshman seminar this fall, which kind of replaces the first semester of freshman comp with a writing in the disciplines sort of deal. It's supposed to be writing-intensive, which my major classes are as well. All well and good. But I know how to develop assignments in my field - for general writing goodness, not so sure. Any suggestions for assignments OR IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES (HINT HINT) would be welcomed!

Disappointment

Offspring is very disappointed that she will very most likely be changing schools again this fall. I really feel badly for her, and have thought about ways to make it work so she can stay at her old school, but I just don't see how it can happen. The closest we could do is to keep the place we are in now as my official residence and she could commute in with me to catch the bus. But that would mean that the 2 hours and 15 minutes a day she was spending on transportation to and from school would become 3 hours and 45 minutes a day and that when I'm out of town on conferences, etc. (and I have several scheduled for next year), that would be a real (perhaps impossible) problem for Spouse, as Offspring's attendance at school is not optional.

But I moved schools in 7th grade as a kid, and I know how hard it is.

On the bright side, as long as I can convince Spouse to live in the ghastly expensive place, the new district will be really terrific, and I have great confidence in the schools there. There will be a lot of kids like Offspring, and she won't have the burden of transportation time each and every day, which should give her more time to enjoy life.

I just wish there were a way to do this that wouldn't make someone have to make the sacrifice and someone come out as the bad guy.

Where is time going

Super-smart person that I am, I left my work bag at our home in NewState before going away from a week. I was able to borrow a computer from Spouse, but didn't want to blog from it because of the whole anonymity thing.

So I'll catch you up via RBOC...

1. FINALLY made it camping. Need several more nights of this to decompress, I think.
2. House buying in new city with awful commute = super stressful.
3. Bun has now read 7 short chapter books. She has a year until kindergarten. I think this will be as much "fun" as Offspring's early years in school.
4. Third author failed to turn in or even communicate about the contribution to the paper that he volunteered to make. This does not make my life easier.
5. I had a nightmare that some of my students from my senior class came back and were in the same class in the fall. These were not students I liked.
6. It was a super-rainy fourth of July here and I will not see any fireworks. Except the amateur ones people were shooting off from the neighborhood near the drive-in we went to last night. There are things about summer that I just love.
7. I am taking the girls on a 12-hour journey tomorrow by myself, as Spouse is staying home to work on prepping our current home to sell. We need the money from it to buy the new house we need to get. Did I mention super-stressful?