Home sweet mudhole part 2

We took the two hour drive to see the site of our future condo on Friday. As I had assumed, the builders are saying mid October before we could think about moving in. The foundation was there, so we could at least better imagine the floorplan. With August 28th as the starting date for Marci's graduate program, this would put us in a bit of a housing squeeze. As luck would have it, the realtor working for the building has promised us living space in an empty unit until our place is finished. If it takes, say, six weeks, we'll just pay rent and about 80% of that would go into our downpayment. Not bad.

We also toured the local YMCA and found that they have a brand new fitness area (machines, free weights, cardio, etc.), a great lap pool, a good looking steam room (essential for any civilized human) and--the real perk--free childcare for kids as young as 6 weeks. They'll watch the kid two hours a day, seven days a week. With that kind of schedule, Marci's going to look like The Hulk. However, they don't change diapers, and if your kid screams for too long they come and find you (and throw you out, I assume).

By a scheduling coincidence, it worked out that Marci and I, her brother and wife (they live near the future condo), and Marci's parents were all in town by her university, so we hung out a bit, toured a cool theatre from the 1920s, and all had dinner together at an Irish pub. Everyone gets along really well and it doesn't just seem because of the alcohol, though that probably never hurts.

On this homefront, I had to politely request of my neighbor that he not keep his big, ugly, inflatable child's swimming pool in his front (yes, the front) yard. He politely obliged. I lied and blamed the request on our realtor.