Permanent Address

I've never understood the term 'permanent address'. Maybe that's because I've never lived in the same place for more than 5 years straight. When we bought our current permanent address, I honestly thought I'd break that record. The house was nice enough. The area was nice enough. Billy's job seemed like it would last. But it's got two big strikes against it now:

1. It's really inconvenient to leave behind when we travel.
2. I'm getting antsy.

When I decide to make a big change, it's like flicking a light switch. Sure there was lots of thought and worry and mulling over the options that went into to it, but once my mind is made up, that's it. Time to move forward full speed ahead.
In that vein, we finally made up our mind to sell the house and move this past Sunday. Ironically, that's my mom's birthday - one of the few people I know who's moved more than I have. Billy had off from work (power was out at the mill, I think). We went to a big corporate party thing, then spent the afternoon talking. I've been getting more and more annoyed with having to deal with leaving our house behind when we're away. So I finally started to entertain what is really the most logical option - moving to Huntsville so Billy's parents can keep an eye on the property and take care of the mail. I'd rather move in with my parents (in an apartment over the garage or something), but to pretend that they're really not going to move AGAIN in the next few years is just silly. I stopped believing that claim when I was in first grade. They've moved about 10 times since then. Changing my address is something I'm very familiar with - but it'd be even more of a pain when I'm not actually home most of the year.

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not that hot on the idea of moving to Huntsville. The thought of having so many relatives within a couple hour's drive totally creeps me out. I grew up seeing mom's side of the family twice a year, and dad's side of the family twice a year. The idea of having to do 'family time' on a regular basis makes my skin crawl. The fact that most of the family events are centered around children, or break down into talking about children just makes it about a zillion times worse. It's not you, it's me. Of all the possible conversation topics on earth, I would probably rank children last. For people with kids, however, it tends to rate #1. Sorry, but if that's what you're talking about, I'm really not interested in being around.On the plus side, Huntsville is a growing city with a fairly large population of young professionals. Which means at least we'd stand a decent chance of meeting some new people - people without kids who'd be willing to use some of their disposable income to participate in interesting activities with us on the rare occasions we are 'home'.

The main issue with moving though is that we can't do it so long as there's 2 trucks spread out over our basement, lawn, and garages. Which had meant that we'd stick where we were until Billy could turn it all into one truck and get rid of the extra pieces. Then we could look for a condo, and maybe buy an old mechanic's shop for Billy's toys to live in. I suppose it's only fair that if I'm compromising to move to Huntsville, Billy should to. On his end, he's actually agreed to get rid of the trucks! I agreed to let him buy a Harley to assuage the affront on his manhood that giving up this project apparently entails. But he has to buy a cheap starter bike first. After all, he doesn't have his license yet, and he doesn't really know how to ride. Better to learn on something smaller and cheaper. And on the off chance he turns out not to like motorcycles as much as he thought, we'll only be out 2 instead of 15 grand. At this point, I think I'd move anywhere Billy wanted if it meant we didn't have to bring the trucks along. I know he'll have toy cars again some day. And I'm fine with that. When that day comes, we'll have a big barn of a workshop decked out with everything he needs to make his vision come to life. I'm not fine with having projects sitting around for years that he doesn't have the time or tools to complete.

For now, we're still in Brazil - crossing our fingers that tomorrow will bring positive news about his work permit. If he doesn't get it tomorrow, I strongly suspect we'll be going home. If he does, we're here another month or two. At that point we can go home and get the house on the market as fast as possible. Most home sales in NY are in June-August. In the mean time, we're browsing the condo/townhouse/patio home market of Huntsville. Billy's parents are so excited we might move home they immediately contacted a agent to help us get info on the development we liked the looks of - townhomes for 120-150k, with 2 car garages! It sure would be handy to have a garage so we can just lock up and leave without putting the car in storage. But most places that have them are the much larger, much fancier developments. I'm not spending an extra $80k and buying a place twice the size just to have a garage. But there are a few places that meet our criteria. The question is whether any will be available when we're ready to make the move!