This year MJ and I embarked on a secret mission: Buy a vacation home in Pennsylvania.
It was a decision we’d mulled over for a couple years, and the state of the real estate market along with our place in lives, careers and frequent visits back to the Philadelphia area finally made the stars align to make it happen. With the help of family local to the area, including one who is a real estate agent, we spent the past few trips taking time to look at houses and make some decisions. In August we started signing the paperwork to take possession of a new home in November.
With the timing of our selection, we were able to pick out cabinets, counter tops and some of the other non-architectural options in the home. Admittedly none of that is my thing, but it’s still nice that we were able to put our touch on the end result. As we prepared for the purchase, MJ spent a lot of time making plans for taking care of the house and handling things like installations, deliveries and the move of our items from storage into the house.
In October we also bought a car that we’d be keeping at the house in Philadelphia, though we did enjoy it in California for a few weeks.
On November 15th we met at the title company office and signed the final paperwork.
The house was ours!
The next day I flew to Germany for a conference and MJ headed back to San Francisco. I enjoyed the conference and a few days in Germany, but I was eager to get back to the house.
Upon my return we had our first installation. Internet! And backup internet.
MJ came back into town for Thanksgiving which we enjoyed with family. The day after was the big move from storage into the house. Our storage units not only had our own things that we’d left in Pennsylvania, but everything from MJ’s grandparents, which included key contents of their own former vacation home which I never saw. We moved his grandmother into assisted care several years ago and had been keeping their things until we got a larger home in California. With the house here in Pennsylvania we decided to use some of the pieces to furnish the house here. It also meant I have a lot of boxes to go through.
Before MJ left to head back to work in San Francisco we did get a few things unpacked, including Champagne glasses, which meant on Saturday night following the move day we were able to pick up a proper bottle of Champagne and spend the evening together in front of the fireplace to celebrate.
I’d been planning on taking some time off following the layoff from my job as I consider new opportunities in the coming year. It ended up working well since I’ve been able to do that, plus spend the past week here in the Philadelphia house unpacking and getting the house set up. Several of the days I’ve also had to be here at the house to receive deliveries and be present for installs of all kinds to make sure the house is ready and secure (cameras!) for us to properly enjoy as soon as possible. Today is window blinds day. I am getting to enjoy it some too, between all these tasks I’ve spent time with local friends and family, had some time reading in front of the fireplace, have enjoyed a beautiful new Bluetooth speaker playing music all day. The house doesn’t have a television yet, but I have also curled up to watch a few episodes on my tablet here and there in the evenings as well.
There have also been some great sunsets in the neighborhood. I sure missed the Pennsylvania autumn sights and smells.
And not all the unpacking has been laborious. I found MJ’s telescope from years ago in storage and I was able to set that up the other night. Looking forward a clear night to try it out.
Tomorrow I’m flying off yet again for a conference and then to spend at least a week at home back in San Francisco. We’ll be back very soon though, planning on spending at least the eight days of Hanukkah here, and possibly flying in earlier if we can line up some of the other work we need to get done.