Texty

So, I scheduled my trip to Dragon*Con (my first) on a very thin rumor that there would be Primeval people there (including Andrew, of course.) As yet, this hasn't been confirmed, and I suspect it might not be until the last minute because they're filming right now. It's also, of course, possible that they won't be there (there will be a ton of other people I wanna see, though, so it's not a wasted trip at all.)

However, I just saw a note that there WILL be Primeval people at another con in February.

Said con, naturally, happens to be in England.

I get the feeling that if they don't go to D*C this year, I may well be SOL for ever getting to meet any of them unless I go do one of the UK cons (if not this one, mebbe another.) I suppose it's possible they may do something else to promo the show here in the US (since it'll be airing on BBCA), but I'm not hopeful on that.

There are a millions reasons why I shouldn't do this. Money and my lack of tolerance for long flights in particular.

But I still wanna. I've never been to Europe, and the chances of going anytime in the next decade are pretty slim since by this time next year, we'll likely be deep in the heart of buying a kid. February is low season, so it'd be cheaper, and I may have another contract between now and then to add funds for both kid-buying and crazy impulsive behavior like this, but...

Gah.

Penzey's, Powell's and Elephant's, oh, my!

No link because I don't want to jinx it (I'm silly that way. Sue me.) but...

With barely a moment of warning, we started drawing up an offer today. Our agent had a company meeting today, so we couldn't go over it to officially put it in, but we'll be hearing from her tomorrow.

GAH.

( There are several catches: )

The thing about this place, though, is that it's the only one of the realistic possibilities that's really evoked an emotional reaction from us. We have two other options we may offer on this week if this falls through somehow, but neither has really fired us up the way this one has. They're not terrible or anything--both are perfectly lovely, and one certainly has some "wow" features--but they lack some of the "holy crap!" factor this one has.

Any good thoughts or wishes you may have available would be appreciated. I'd love for this to go through and work out for us!

The good:
There seem to be a fair number of houses in our price range, and they're getting marked down regularly. There are bargains to be had! (Though a few of the ones we've looked at are also selling fairly quickly at those price points; looks like the upper end of our range is about what many folks are willing to pay right now.)

The bad:
Ehm. The same sort of thing is happening in our zip code. And there's no way we can cover this without at least $100k of equity profit on this place. It's also taking 100 days or more to sell up here. Bugger.

The frustrating:
A fair amount of the uncertainty on this would be solved if I got a job. I still wouldn't count my income toward what we can afford in payments (heck, we're not even going by the 28/35 rule), but it would be a nice cushion for the other stuff, like the upgrades and fixes we need to do here to sell the place.

( Am I out of my tree for considering this? )

Barring total disaster, the real worst-case scenario I can see happening is that prices drop even further, I can't find a job and we have to do some serious Vitus dancing to make the mortgage payment for a little while. But I really, really don't see that sort of thing lasting beyond another year, maybe two at the most.

And in the meantime, we're likely to be considerably happier on all other counts because we'll be in a nicer house in a better location, we'll be seeing our friends more, and M will have an extra half hour to an hour in every day thanks to the shorter commute. Heck, that bonus alone would be worth the move, IMHO.


Bah. I still just don't know. In the short term, this is probably crazy. But for medium-to-long term value, I think jumping on these bargains right now is probably justifiable.

What do y'all think? Am I throwing myself off a cliff or making a shrewd wager?