snowdeal.org > ex machina: the eric update

ex machina

the eric update - day 257: this sold house.

some might be surprised to discover that today we sold the the snowdeal show ® house that we purchased less than a year ago. some might be even more surprised when they discover that we don't actually have a concrete plan for where we are going to live after the end of april when the new owner takes possession. it certainly cannot be said that we have never lived in interesting times.

a little over a month ago, kris and i decided that if we looked out over the next 6 months to a year that it was looking increasingly unlikely that we'd still be calling grand rapids home. it's not that it was an impossibility, but given my continued status as underemployed and the abysmal job market in west michigan, we wanted to make sure that if we needed to move so i could take a new job in walla walla that we'd be able to do that without having to worry about selling the house in the real estate "offseason" ( here in the "states" new home buyers start looking for houses in march/april and it's generally considered to be a savvy move to put your house on the market at the beginning of the selling "season" ).

it's not unusual for big, victorian homes to sit on the market for 6 months to a year, so you can imagine our, er, surprise when a mere two weeks later - after only being on the market for one full day - we accepted an offer on the house. so much for taking 6 months to come up with a plan for what we'd do when we sold the house!

i should probably mention that diane, our sister-in-law with whom we co-own the house, deserves much of the credit ( or blame, depending on how you're looking at it :-) ) for selling the house so quickly. she's recently received her real estate license and has quickly proven why she's going to be the grand rapids real estate baroness.

and yes, we really did paint our house orange, which is much better than the haunted house gray it was painted when we moved in.

while it's mostly true that we sold the house to give us flexibility in the future . it's a little disingenuous to imply that our decision was solely based on wanting the flexibility to take a new job in walla walla.

any parent will tell you that having a child changes your life in ways that you can't fully appreciate before you have the child; you can imagine how children might affect your life, but until it happens, i'd argue that you can't really appreciate how having a child changes everything. and i think this is all the more true when you spend 96 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. the experience has certainly changed kris and i in ways that we don't even fully comprehend yet. so, who knows, maybe instead of taking that job in walla walla ( or wherever ), we'll buy an airstream and travel the country visiting postcard project destinations. or who knows what. i'm sure while we take time to figure out what we do next, we'll continue to live in interesting times.

stay tuned.

[ oh and in case you didn't figure it out, in the picture odin is carefully inspecting the packet of documents that we needed to sign to transfer ownership of the house to the buyer. ]

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3/18/2005 08:41:00 PM 4 comments

4 Comments:

Congratulations on the progress of your mini baby! My mini baby Mia was born on a warm Christmas morning in 1982. Kind of unusual for NYC it was more like spring that day than winter I was 24 weeks along in my pregnancy and had just began showing.
Mia was so small that they had to use surgical masks lined with cotton pads as diapers for her. She was 2 lbs and 17 inches and initially spent 60 days in the NICU only to be released and come back 2 weeks later for a return engagement that would last for an additional 120 days. During the first week she was so sick the doctors sat down with us and told us she wouldn’t live much longer. They told us at most she’d be with us for a few more days. They even called a priest to comfort us and she was given her last rites. While she was being given her last rites she had her little hand curled around one of the priest’s fingers and looked up at him and gave him a smile. Needless to say he fell in love with her and visited her several times a day over the next 2 months. During her first 2 weeks revisting NICU her heart stopped several times and she was declared dead once but this fantastic young intern refused to give up on her and she came back to us. Then I was told that because she had been deprived of oxygen that she’d be brain damaged and most likely blind.

I’m happy to say that Mia is now 22 years old and about to get her BA in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice next year. Much of the staff that attended her during that time are still in touch with her, over the years they became her mentors. All those health problems that they said she would have never materialized. Instead I have this fantastic kid full of empathy and idealism who wants to go out and save the world. I wish you all the joy and happiness with Odin that my mini baby has given our family and wish you luck with your future.

Maggie

By Mia, at 9:34 AM

Hello

I would like to send a postcard to your new house :-)

Can you send me by email the address?

Thanks!

www.metalhen.com

By MetalHen, at 3:38 PM

mia: "My mini baby Mia was born on a warm Christmas morning in 1982."

thanks for sharing that wonderful story! as you know, surviving and thriving as a 24 weeker in 1982 is astoundingly rare. she sounds like she's grown into a fantastic woman.

i was born a 26 weeker waaaaaaay back in 1972 and weighed two poinds 13 ounces. odin's nicu nurses could not believe i survived. of course, back then, they claimed i'd have severe developmental delays etc. my wife claims they were right :-)

By e3, at 4:07 PM

metalhen: "I would like to send a postcard to your new house :-)

Can you send me by email the address?"

thanks! we don't have a new home address yet, but you can always check the original postcards from budapest" for the current address for sending postcards ( the cards are not sent to our home ). that address will "work" for at least the next month and probably longer. just check there before you send anything and make sure you're sending it to the right address.

By e3, at 4:16 PM

ex machina

the eric update - day 257: this sold house.

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