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I've been sitting on Big News for weeks now, but I couldn't say anything before now...
My sister Jenna and niece "T" are moving to Indiana to live with me while T goes to high school! How cool is this going to be?
T spent the last year in Florida with her dad, and she's ready to live with her mom again. But they've outgrown their cool-but-tiny Manhattan apartment, and trying to find a new place in an area of the city with good public schools is just crazy expensive, plus Jenna's about ready for a break for awhile from the noise and craziness (and expense) of living in the big city. All of this kinda coincided with my house hunt, so as I looked at houses (not sure if Jenna was even really serious about leaving the city), I kept running listings past her and we talked about which ones would work and which ones wouldn't. I wasn't going to make my decision based solely on that, but it caused me to look at houses differently, looking at how they would work for two women and a teenage girl instead of just me.
Factor in cat allergies and the need for all of us to have "escape space" so we can stay sane, and the range of suitable houses narrowed dramatically. Then the house in TinyLittleTown just kinda clubbed us over the head. It was in my price range, came on the market as negotiations for the Highland Springs house were falling apart, came with two completely separate living spaces, three bedrooms, 2.5 baths (one of which could be expanded to a full bath), 2+ acres for the dogs to run around on (oh, did I mention that two Shiba Inus will be moving in too? Drummer and Thunder will have Snickers and Secret as running buddies!), and it's a house that I could easily see living happily in by myself or living happily in with family. All within commuting distance of Indy and with a small but strong school system.
Wow. Yes, deity, we're listening. No... really... we are... you can stop beating us over the head with it now! Ow... stop!!
Where was I? Oh yeah... so the plan is that I'm moving into the downstairs with the cats (if any of you have wondered why I was converting a half-bath to a full in a house where I was going to be the only resident... well, now you know!) and my dogs. I'll have the big den, my bedroom and bathroom, and walk-out access to the huge screened porch. Jenna and T will take the two upstairs bedrooms and the upstairs will be a cat-free zone (I may have to put doors at both ends of the stairs... LOL!). Now that I have actual dining room furniture, we'll be able to have meals together, and hang out in the upstairs living room when we want all-together time, or I can hang out downstairs watching TV with the cats so they'll still get plenty of Mom Time.
Jenna has set up a transition plan for the NYC Shiba Inu Rescue that she founded and that announcement went out today. She also gave three weeks' notice at her job today, and those were the last two things that had to happen before I could say anything, since some of her friends are also on my friends list here.
So change is afoot at Reddog HQ. I'll not only have a roommate again, but Jenna and I will be living together for the first time since she was fresh out of high school, and I'll have a teenager in the house, which is alternately exciting and terrifying. :-)
Timeline is that I've got 11 days to be out of the current house (*gulp* ... the new house has no paint on the walls... and the downstairs bathroom construction hasn't started... and I'm only about 25% packed!!!), so I'll be sleeping in the new house by the 18th. Then Jenna comes out from NYC the weekend of the 27th and has a little time to get settled in before T, who's spending the summer with her grandparents, arrives around the beginning of the second week of August.
Fun fun fun! :-)
My sister Jenna and niece "T" are moving to Indiana to live with me while T goes to high school! How cool is this going to be?
T spent the last year in Florida with her dad, and she's ready to live with her mom again. But they've outgrown their cool-but-tiny Manhattan apartment, and trying to find a new place in an area of the city with good public schools is just crazy expensive, plus Jenna's about ready for a break for awhile from the noise and craziness (and expense) of living in the big city. All of this kinda coincided with my house hunt, so as I looked at houses (not sure if Jenna was even really serious about leaving the city), I kept running listings past her and we talked about which ones would work and which ones wouldn't. I wasn't going to make my decision based solely on that, but it caused me to look at houses differently, looking at how they would work for two women and a teenage girl instead of just me.
Factor in cat allergies and the need for all of us to have "escape space" so we can stay sane, and the range of suitable houses narrowed dramatically. Then the house in TinyLittleTown just kinda clubbed us over the head. It was in my price range, came on the market as negotiations for the Highland Springs house were falling apart, came with two completely separate living spaces, three bedrooms, 2.5 baths (one of which could be expanded to a full bath), 2+ acres for the dogs to run around on (oh, did I mention that two Shiba Inus will be moving in too? Drummer and Thunder will have Snickers and Secret as running buddies!), and it's a house that I could easily see living happily in by myself or living happily in with family. All within commuting distance of Indy and with a small but strong school system.
Wow. Yes, deity, we're listening. No... really... we are... you can stop beating us over the head with it now! Ow... stop!!
Where was I? Oh yeah... so the plan is that I'm moving into the downstairs with the cats (if any of you have wondered why I was converting a half-bath to a full in a house where I was going to be the only resident... well, now you know!) and my dogs. I'll have the big den, my bedroom and bathroom, and walk-out access to the huge screened porch. Jenna and T will take the two upstairs bedrooms and the upstairs will be a cat-free zone (I may have to put doors at both ends of the stairs... LOL!). Now that I have actual dining room furniture, we'll be able to have meals together, and hang out in the upstairs living room when we want all-together time, or I can hang out downstairs watching TV with the cats so they'll still get plenty of Mom Time.
Jenna has set up a transition plan for the NYC Shiba Inu Rescue that she founded and that announcement went out today. She also gave three weeks' notice at her job today, and those were the last two things that had to happen before I could say anything, since some of her friends are also on my friends list here.
So change is afoot at Reddog HQ. I'll not only have a roommate again, but Jenna and I will be living together for the first time since she was fresh out of high school, and I'll have a teenager in the house, which is alternately exciting and terrifying. :-)
Timeline is that I've got 11 days to be out of the current house (*gulp* ... the new house has no paint on the walls... and the downstairs bathroom construction hasn't started... and I'm only about 25% packed!!!), so I'll be sleeping in the new house by the 18th. Then Jenna comes out from NYC the weekend of the 27th and has a little time to get settled in before T, who's spending the summer with her grandparents, arrives around the beginning of the second week of August.
Fun fun fun! :-)
