Holy Moly! February!

We just met with the realtor who will sell our home.  No big surprises.  Some work to start arranging - painting, repairing some linoleum and getting a bathtub resurfaced.

The market now has him proposing a price that's $25K less than I was expecting - but we're still months away from listing it so fingers crossed the market will improve.  It's winter and interest rates went up the last quarter of 2018.  We have a lot of new homes being built in our area but he said lots of people look at new homes and then end up coming to existing homes - where the landscaping is already done and many houses (like ours) have pools.

We've got an awful lot to do between now and May/June - and we're going to have to start putting together some timelines of activities to get things moving.

From the timeline re: my replacement standpoint, it's looking like I will be building the district budget for the next school year solo - which frankly has me depressed, moody and grumpy.  I know I can do it - I was just really mentally prepared for NOT being the person solely responsible.  But I am.  So...it's going to be a super crazy April, May and early June for me like it's been every year for the past 12+.

J. finally started to consider that maybe we could postpone the Panama Canal cruise we've booked for the first two weeks of April - but it's too late.  We'd pay a very hefty penalty and lose 75% of what we've paid - so we're going.  It will be a good 'practice run' of what retirement will be like - lazy days, no alarm clocks and sleeping in.  Well, some days of those things.  We have excursions planned in most ports so we'll be getting up early to get to where we're headed - but we always enjoy those days.

H. is staying with us at the moment - he's going to (hopefully) speak to the person at WileyX this coming week who said he would be hired on as a regular employee to confirm that is still in the works.  If it's not, he's got to start looking for a job here in Tracy - he's sometimes having to pay for an Uber to/from work - mostly from 'cuz J. has been trekking to Livermore at 11:15 five nights a week to get H. there nightly.  When we're gone - which is more often than not this month - two long weekends up to Carson City planned so far - he'll have to get there and back on his own.  He's doing work as a temp that he would be paid more for as a regular employee...and he's paying $50 out of pocket to get to/from.  The numbers are very quickly becoming not do-able.  He knows this.  It's a great place to work, he loves it and they seem to appreciate him - but...he has to have a real job with benefits because as of May 25th, he no longer is covered on my health insurance - he has to find his own.

We have a confirmed floor plan for the new house, including elevations - so we see what it will look like - and the footprint.  It's super hard visualizing a house when all we've seen are drawings.  No model homes and designing it ourselves from the ground up is a new experience for us.  We head to Reno/Carson City next Thursday via Southwest - to ensure we can get there.  Time to start picking cabinetry, flooring, lighting, etc. - sinks, tubs, counter tops....such a very long list of decisions still to be made.  We're excited to get started.

That's all the news.  It's crazy.  Really.