We sold our Camry

Goodbye, first jointly owned car!

We sold the Camry in anticipation of our upcoming cross-country move; the Prius gets such good gas mileage, that it's become our primary vehicle. The Camry was handy when we were both commuting to work, but with one of us unemployed, it's sat largely untouched in our driveway for six months. Rather than have to deal with getting two cars cross-country, we decided to sell it. If we need a second car in Seattle, we can purchase one there.

We took the easy way out: we simply returned it to the dealership. No, it wasn't a lease. Dealerships will buy a car directly off you, without it being a trade-in. We made an appointment at the nearest Toyota dealership, and brought it in. They looked it over, and offered to buy it back for what we still owed on the loan. Some minimal paperwork later, and we walked off the lot sans one car and one car payment. The whole process, from start to finish, took about an hour.

Now, if the dealership had not offered us what we still owed, I would have then taken the car to Carmax, to see what they would offer, and then listed it on Craigslist to see what the private market would bear.

It's easier than you think to sell a car you don't technically own, especially if it's not to a private buyer. The blue book value was about $2,000 more than what we owed; it's possible I could have made a profit, especially if I'd shopped it around a little, but I have enough to worry about with this move. I don't have to make a car payment on it anymore, which is all I really cared about.

That same day, I returned the plates to my nearest AAA office (they can do simple things like cancelling plates, saving me most of a day waiting in line at the DMV), got them cancelled and got a refund on the registration, removed the car from our insurance policy (did that online, took 5 minutes, saved $60 a month), and returned the EZ-Pass box.

I think I spent more time and energy selling the sofa.

It's official: we're moving

Seattle, here we come!

Send beer and raincoats.

I have officially informed our landlord and my work. We've reserved a cube from UPack for the dirty business of getting our stuff from here to there (bonus: no one has to drive a moving truck across the Rockies in January, AND IT'S CHEAPER. Let's just hope we can keep everything to one cube), we've started culling and packing, and we'll sell off the rest of the furniture and one car.

We sold the sofa yesterday. Our living room is a little bare.

We're also drinking up the last of the random weird things in the liquor cabinet, eating up all the random oils and vinegars and spices in the pantry, and setting aside some things to live in my parents' garage for a bit. Until we move back to the East Coast again, anyway, which based on recent history, will probably be next year.

I think I'm excited. Right now my brain is full of everything that has to happen between now and then, and of course I'm worried about money and how quickly at least one of us will be able to find a job out there. But I really liked Seattle when I went through on the road trip, and Hubs is very much looking forward to getting out of here.

Everyone, keep your fingers crossed.

Seattle: discuss.

We're considering a cold restart in Seattle. Discuss.

DH is still unemployed, and there isn't anything exciting on the horizon. He's been flirting with a major depression for weeks, and I've been throwing out ideas in the hopes that he would latch onto one. (What if you started a business? What if we moved to LA, to be closer to your son? What if we moved in with your sister? Etc.) But nothing stuck, and so we found ourselves in this infuriating limbo; in a city that neither of us ever wanted to be in, just waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Finally I sat him down and said, "Look. Let's start from the worst case scenario, which is that you could be unemployed for another year. Or two. Hopefully not, but given that, where do you want to be? We can't sit here for the next year; you're miserable, I'm miserable commuting an hour each way to work, I'm snappy and stressed out, if we stay here we'll kill each other. So let's put some ideas on the table, debate the pros and cons, and see what floats to the top."

So we did. The logical starting point was to move to Boston, so I could be closer to my job. But neither of us particularly like New England, and while I like my job, it's not enough to hold two people here. Besides, if we're going to move, it might as well be to a place where we both could get work.

Eventually, Seattle floated to the top.

Pros: We could both get excellent jobs there. It's a great city. DH has lived there before and loved it, and still has friends in the area that could help us get settled. There's no income tax. There are great restaurants, nightlife, culture, wine, and it's within driving distance of many awesome national parks.

Cons: It's all the way across the country. I would miss the sun. Neither one of us has a job there yet.

Biggest pro: This is the first time I've seen a spark in his eyes since he became unemployed.

At this point, if the idea of yak farming in Mongolia put a spark in his eyes, I'd go be a yak farmer in Mongolia.

We're still working out the details. Most likely he'll drive our stuff partway across the country and spend a few weeks with his family in Missouri, while I stay behind and work through the holidays and sleep on friends' sofas. (Working through the holidays is always extremely lucrative in the service industry.) After the New Year, I'll visit my own family, we'll spend a few days together in Missouri, then leave our stuff in storage while we take one car load of stuff to Seattle. We'll stay with his friends while I find a job and an apartment; then, once we're settled, we'll make arrangements to get our stuff the rest of the way across the country.

If you can find any flaws in my logic, please, let me know. (I've already thought about: money, driving across the Rockies in January, driving a moving van across the Rockies in January, selling everything vs. a moving van, and how long it might take to find a job once we get there.) If you have any words of advice about Seattle in particular, please, let me know.

This is all still conjecture at this point, but given DH's level of enthusiasm, it's becoming more and more likely.

The weary travelers return

Well, we're back. We return from a place that was 85 degrees and sunny all week, to a place that's 47 degrees and rainy. The windows are shut tight, the trees outside are half-bare, I ripped up all my tomato plants and most of the herbs (dead), and I'm trying to resist turning the heat on. It's a little disconcerting to have a peeling sunburn when it's 47 degrees and rainy.

New Orleans was awesome, as always. I got to spend some quality time with my sister and her family. My new nephew is cute as a bug (he only pooped on me once). We saw Kermit Ruffins live at Vaughan's, ate turtle soup and bread pudding souffle at Commander's Palace, ate hot sausage and cheese po' boys at Gene's, and caught some live jazz at Three Muses. I drank my weight in Abita beer, and DH managed to have at least a little fun. Seeing Kermit was the highlight of the trip. I want to spend every night dancing in smoky bars to live jazz/soul.

I'd loooooovvve to move down there for a couple of months, until DH does find a job, but I fear I'd get down there and then not be able to find a job right away (or find one that's as lucrative as the one I have now). I'm going to start looking for a sublet/month-to-month in Boston; hopefully we can find something cheaper, and we can move there and I can be closer to work. Maybe a change of scenery will shake DH out of his funk a little. In the meantime, I'm thinking about shifting all operations to the downstairs half of the apartment, so that we can heat only one half and keep the upstairs closed off.

It's back to the grey, dreary, normal routine, and I'm not very happy about it.

Basil juleps, baby drool, and sunburn

That pretty much sums up my vacation so far.

The plane ride down was fairly uneventful, though I am reminded of why I hate flying so much. (Not the flying part; the airport part is what pisses me off.) The weather here is gorgeous, 85 degrees and sunny. We went to the beach yesterday--a completely deserted white-sand beach--and got sunburned for our trouble. I'm spending quality time with my sister, my two-year-old niece, and my new six-month-old nephew. He's cute as a button, though I've already gotten spit up on, drooled on, and pooped on.

Hubs received a test for a position with a company in Poland. Talks continue as to whether we might move down to NOLA temporarily, or simply move closer to my job in Boston. We haven't come to any consensus yet--I'm torn, myself--obviously my sister is lobbying heavily for moving to her neck of the woods.

For now, though, we're relaxing, sleeping a lot, drinking a lot of basil juleps and Abita beer, and enjoying being with family. DH's birthday was yesterday, and it was a good one for him.