The Brrrgh Toon
 Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Ahh, I'm another Massachusetts resident west of Baaaaston. But I'm a transplant from Ohio originally. My hubby is a native of these parts.
We were very lucky back in 1998 when the housing market was hot and stayed hot until just recently actually, we found a fixer-upper that the original buyer backed out of (too much work.) We were able to make an uncontested offer (the only way we were going to be able to get a house) and got this tiny dilapidated cape style house for $115,000. (We payed $15,000 under their asking price.) Well now the house (after getting it most of the way fixed up) is worth well over double that in this market. It's 1000 sqft, originally only had 1 bathroom on the upper floor. The land is a postage stamp .1 acre. The foot print of the house is 23x26feet. So we've got 2 upstairs bedrooms, a living room and eat in kitched on the main floor and a finished room in the basement. Pack into that 2 adults, 3 kids and 2 cats! Because we're a single income family, I'm comfortable with this set up and really don't need a McMansion. But I would like something closer to 2000 sqft, but man I feel it would be financially too much of a stretch. I do miss Sonic, Long John Silvers, and any restaurant serving Biscuits and Gravy for breakfast. *sigh* Oh and I miss polite drivers! But our school ROCKS! My two older boys are candidates for the gifted and talented program at the school. They have a retired engineer coming in to give extra instruction to the kids who are advanced in math. My oldest is one of 5 in the school doing this. They're in the top rated two-way bilingual program in the entire country! They get half their instruction in english, half in spanish in a half and half class of native english and native spanish speakers. The kids help each other! My two older sons sound like native spanish speakers when they speak spanish! (And they use it too, the grandparents of the family behind us only speak spanish, and the kids can talk to them!! It's soooo cool!) And all their teachers have gone the extra mile to meet their education needs. For my 1st grader at his conference, the teacher was showing me how she would paste over his math problems in his workbook with harder problems because the regular workbook problems were too easy for him! Ooh Rah! They get books to stretch their reading skills, and they can also help other kids in the class if they finish their work or just pick up extra sheets of problems to do from a box tuned to their skill level. All this in grade school! So it might be a little more expensive to live and work up here, but it's all relative. I figure if I save for retirement up here, once I'm done I can retire very comfortably to some more rural location in the midwest somewhere and live near a Sonic for the rest of my life. 
Now just to convince my very New England husband that this is a good idea! Trips to Missouri to visit my parents have gotten him hooked on Sonic, so we're part way there! Lady Googlebrains _________________ Lady Googlebrains & Smartypants - 113 laff Lady Calculus & Newton - 55 laff Weirdo Wolfie & Woof Woof - 106 laff Dark Matter & Electron - 96 laff No Brainer & Einstein - 34 laff Sell Uber Fat Supernerd & Zaftig- 105 laff (Test) Big Winky Dandydoodle & Kielbasa- 79 laff (Test) And now hubby! Sir Googlebrains - 18 laff "It's most often the small things, done consistently in strategic places, that make the most difference." -- David Allen |
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