Moving Thoughts
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011Several weeks ago my wife and I decided to move to Phoenix.
“This will be simple,” I thought. “We’ll call our Realtor, sign some papers, have nice pictures taken, empty the house, and get ourselves to the Valley of the Sun.”
The process has been almost nothing like that. Yes, we called our Realtor and yes, we signed some papers. Then we started signing checks.
I know, I know—the people buying the house are supposed to sign checks, but at the moment that’s our job.
We’ve lived in the house almost exactly eighteen years, and we’ve loved it. It is in a great neighborhood, has beautiful landscaping (we’ve made three calendars using only pictures from our yard), is in one of the best towns in America, and it has served us faithfully and well. Our friends admire it, our relatives enjoy it, and we are thankful for it.
But several weeks ago, it wasn’t ready for new residents.
Frankly, I didn’t know that, but our Realtor did. She suggested work on the house that would cost us thousands of dollars! How was that possible? We were living happily in the house every day. It was fine.
In fact structurally, safety wise, and in all major ways, it was and is fine. Why couldn’t we just sell it “as is” and let someone else do what they wanted to it?
My attitude was one of resistance. I could see no reason (more…)

Last night my husband and I were blessed to see the Billy Joel/Elton John Face 2 Face concert in San Jose. It was awesome being in the same space as those two rock and roll legends sharing the same stage (and dueling pianos, no less!).








