In September of 1994 I moved into the house I'd bought at 722 36 1/2 Ave. NE in Minneapolis. For 18 years it was my home, as well as the home of a number of my friends. Today... It is no longer mine. The closing was quick and painless, and the check is in the bank. All that's left is paying off the debts, which happens next week about Wednesday. I want to wait til the check is definitely cleared.

I'm going to miss it, and I already miss the people I'd lived with. Dave, Dan, Angela, George, Sean, Ed, Margaret, Mike (not me, the FAKE one), Joe, Anna, James, Chris (who's still here in the apartment with me) and Max. I think that was everyone. To you all, thank you for the times, good, bad and average. Time for a new start in the new apartment, debt free. :)

I'm about to head to bed. It's almost 4, and what's going to be pre-moved into the garage is moved. I don't think the move is going to be too bad, but I won't know 'til we get going. The plan is that my folks will get here around 9 or 9:30. We'll head to the apartment and pay the first months rent (half a month) and the second month, and get the keys. Then we'll come back and start moving stuff, starting with the furniture. I think that after that's all moved, I may just do the rest with the car, but I don't know. I think we'll get the furniture (beds and dressers at least) set up, then bring the cats over when they have places to hide.

After that, it'll be everything else. I'm betting with the van-and-trailer, it'll be 2 trips and some stuff in my car.

After we're done, I'll be steam-cleaning the rug downstairs and doing any remaining cleaning that's left, plus doing a walk through to find anything I might have forgotten. With luck we'll be all done with the phone/cable/internet online by 4 PM- I have to take the old set-top box back in, and get the new box from the cable store; Hennepin and Ramsey counties are using different gear, despite it being the same company. Silly, but what can you do. Wish us luck! I'll get the new phone number and stuff to people ASAP.

WE HAVE AN APARTMENT! It's at Hillside East Apartments, off of Old Highway 8 about 3/4 mile north of County Road D / 37th Avenue. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, second floor with 900 square feet and a small balcony. Its a REAL nice area, and we (Me and Chris) move in on July 18. Woohoo!

This is the layout: http://tinyurl.com/6o8kx9j

The work on the house approaches the finish line- the carpet will go in next week, probably Wednesday, and mostly what's left is little fiddly things. We'll be on the market the first week of June, I think.

I can't wait til all this is DONE.

I can't recall if I posted this at all here before, so I'll say it again just in case- Plague House is going to be sold, and I and all the people currently here will be moving on. There is a lot going on right now, some of which I'm not at liberty to discuss. But, of the stuff I CAN talk about, there is the progress on fixing the place up for sale.

Tomorrow, the bathroom will be done other than fiddly bits (cleaning, maybe new towel racks and such), as will the front room. We're just gonna remove the carpet there and clean the floor, as the wood is in good shape. The kitchen ceiling has been mudded, and will be sanded and likely primed tomorrow. So, there's a lot of progress!

Also, we talked to a realtor from ReMax yesterday. Looks like I should be able to get a decent price for the place, but unless I get the midrange to high amounts she provided as estimates I'll either have to short dad and my brother a bit on payback, or not pay off the whole credit card. However, no matter what things will be better than they are now.

The fix-up stuff that remains includes the new carpet in the back room and my bedroom, carpet in mirrdae's room, and removing the carpet from ataramos's room- that won't happen til people have moved out. Obviously, there'll still be a lot of cleaning to do, as well as disposing of all the crap I'm not taking with me. Oh- As suggested by the realtor, we're likely going to have to replace the furnace and central air- like as not it won't pass the city inspection, and replacing them will provide a better selling price. We'll be fixing the parking pad in back as well, but that's not nearly as much of an issue as the furnace and such.

Part of me is looking forward to all this being done, another part is terrified- this is a MAJOR change, and part of the price is effectively losing contact with several people I consider friends. Its also a terrible disruption to their lives as well, and I'm not happy about that, either- but it's really not much of a choice for me anymore.

In the end, I'll have the memories of the place, and a new home to call my own. here's hoping for relatively smooth sailing in the getting there.