Lcome! Sunday Sampler

A little more progress on Tulip Welcome this week:

I didn't try to load a new sampler photo though, as we're still working on dial-up at home since the move. Oddly, even though we moved from an older neighborhood just two miles away, you can't get Verizon DSL here. So disappointing (and by the way, if you haven't received a comment from me, that's why--I surf at work when I can since I don't have the patience to surf from home, but don't have the time at work to formulate replies--I'll be back soon though, especially since I've seen so many nice things on your sites, and have discovered some wonderful new sites as well.) We'll remedy that with satellite service, but that takes time to set up, since they actually have to come to the house and it involves an initial outlay of Big Cash. Looks like we'll have the cash though, because:
Sold, in 48 Hours!!!!

We were so worried, buying a large house and moving into it, and then putting our little house on the market. Common wisdom says that a house will sit on the market for six months or more these days, and it's certainly no fun paying a pair of mortgages. But it would have been so hard to show our little house while we still lived in it; it was pretty stuffed full, even after moving things into a storage unit (12 years in a place will do that), and with six cats and the bunny, we figured we were virtually guaranteed that a cat box would contain an eyewateringly smelly load to meet a prospective househunter. So we took a deep breath and a leap of faith and aided by a team of painters, carpet layers, a handyman or two, a realtor, a whole lot of elbow grease and a statue of St. Joseph buried in the garden just behind the "for sale" sign, we had a contract within 48 hours--a good contract with no contingency and accompanied by a qualification letter from a mortgage company. Phewwww--fingers crossed that it works out all right--the subprime loan thing may bite us in the rear, since it means mortgages are being tightened up, and folks without sturdy credit or a nice down payment may have more trouble getting a loan than previously, so a lot of contracts have been falling through.

The job front is not so pleasant these days, and I have an appointment to talk with another law firm about doing structured finance instead of the horrible antitrust litigation I've found myself involved in since my beloved corporate team picked up their marbles and moved to Baltimore. If I get the structured finance job, I'll be going back to a fairly regular commute to Manhattan, since that's the heart of the finance world, but that's ok. I remember from my last Manhattan stint that living in a hotel room during the week, despite massive homesickness, allows plenty of evening stitching time (if not necessarily enough light in the hotel room to see). And there's the consolation of really good Chinese food (something we lack in the Virginia suburbs) on nearly every corner.

And it's finally spring in the DC area: a whole lot of these were blooming Friday around the Mall reflecting pool. I'm not sure if it's a type of magnolia (although it doesn't have leaves, and they're evergreens generally) or if it's a tulip tree, or something else. The cherry blossoms are beginning to come out, and the willows along the Potomac are greening up. Yay!