Quite a Week

It seems hard to believe that it was only a week ago that I arrived in Winona, hobbled into Amanda's apartment with cat carrier and collapsed from a four-day cross-country drive. The week that followed was somewhat disjointed, since it was a combination of recuperation and orientation to the layout of Winona. It's a small town, so once I got the major arteries (read highways) and the cross-town streets down in my head, I was able to find pretty much what I needed.

One of those things was a charger for my iPhone, which I scored at Radio Shack. I had wanted to get it from the local computer store, but they were moving locations and were closed all last week. So I got lost in town last Wednesday looking for that. Wednesday afternoon I contacted Michael Peterson, my Realtor in La Crosse, and arranged to look at houses on Friday afternoon.

We focused on midcentury modern, single-story bungalow/ranch house styles, but most of them had small bedrooms and even smaller baths. We checked out the storefront home, which was huge. I told Michael I would have to become a communist and live in it with two others families to use all that space. And there was two-story home, a 1938 Tudor on West St., in a neighborhood of swanky restored mansions from the turn of the last century. The street it's on is a busy one, but the house is close to downtown, and even though it didn't click off my boxes, it did have a really nice feel to it.

After an afternoon of looking at houses, I drove out to Ettrick, to Pam and Steve's, for pizza night. Amanda was there, but headed out to bartend at Beaches (a local watering spot in Ettrick). Emily stopped by for a time with her significant other, Jim, and we chatted about the places I'd seen and the process of remodeling after a home purchase. The pizza was very good, but I've already forgotten if we watched anything at all on the TV.

The afternoon had been cloudy, and by the time I left Ettrick, it was pitch black and rain had arrived in earnest. I had not driven the road from Ettrick back to Winona, and it was a real challenge to find the lines painted on the highway, but I made it home just fine.

Saturday was great weather (and we've had the same ever since), and Amanda took me driving around Winona, pointing out places of interest. We stopped into Betty Jo's, a downtown eatery, and I had the taco salad. We also visited Winona's award-winning donut bakery, the name of which I still can't pronounce, but all they had left was two rather sad-looking plain cake donuts. So it goes on the list of stuff I have still to do. Another first for Saturday was Patty's appearance in the kitchen while Amanda was present.

Sunday was a day of vegetation, and Amanda and I just sat around and visited and caught up. Natalie was spending the weekend with her dad, and after Amanda picked her up, the three of us went out for Sunday dinner. Another feline breakthrough: Patty and Natalie came face to face. Now Natalie thinks the cat is playing hide and seek, and I have to keep reminding her that she shouldn't go looking for the cat or it will never show itself to her. I'm not sure the message is getting through.

On Monday Michael and I continued house hunting. We saw a couple houses that would have been nice places, except they had full basements that had what I refer to as the Silence-of-the-Lambs syndrome: dark, dank spaces with dark dank cubbyholes of rooms, each branching off from the previous one, and each one creepier by exponential increments than the last.

The Tudor we had seen on Friday had stuck in my mind, and it was also the only property of the dozen or so that we looked at that had a "vibe" for me; it felt like a home and not a house for sale. After our Monday afternoon tour, I told Michael I wanted to put an offer in on the Tudor. And so we did.

The offer I made was on the low side, but still 90% of the asking price, so I didn't think it was insultingly low. Now the only thing to do was sit back and wait for acceptance or a counter; that made Tuesday the perfect day to go back out and visit with Steve, who was at home grading papers. My current cell provider has no service at all in Ettrick, so I couldn't obsess on whether or not something had come through from the seller. Pam got home from work, we visited a bit, then I left to return to Winona.

This evening, at about 9:30 our time, I got an e-mail from Michael with an attachment: the counter. The amount of the counter with within a few grand of a price I thought all could settle on, and I replied to Michael, saying we should accept the counter and get this process going.

So tomorrow I go into La Crosse and set up my local bank accounts, put down whatever monies are required to get the ball rolling and sign whatever papers needed to make this thing real.

If all goes well, escrow should be close between May 18-22 (it's flexible since the house is not currently occupied). The only contingency is the home inspection, which I think should go well, since I looked the place over fairly carefully and I saw almost nothing of concern to me. Then to get the movers in gear, bringing my stuff from California. Also, I have to purchase all-new appliances (budgeted already), so I'm going to have lots of fun shopping over the next couple weeks.

I figure it's about three weeks until normal living begins again, and there are still innumerable adjustments to be made. But this is the downhill side of this process, so I'm going to have fun with it.

The next move is figuring out what to do with the horrible-horrible carpet: a Victorian pink-rose motif on a black background. (I'm hoping there will be lovely 1938 hand-laid hardwood floors underneath. We shall find out.)

Pics to come once I actually take a few.