It’s been a pretty hectic week. I’m up in Chicago again (until 12/2) working and generally hating the early Chicago winter. It always reminds me why I live about 1000 miles to the south. Give me the 100′s any day. Gloom and cold and biting wind ain’t my cup of tea.

As some of you know, we’ve been on a short-term apartment lease. The original intention was to purchase a home, but with the imploding job market, and the disaster that is our financial system, we’ve decided to hold off and wait for the dust to settle.

However, the apartment we are in is just way too small and annoying, and we know we have to get out of there soon. This week Evelyn has been working hard looking for a house to rent. (If we are going to rent, it will be a house. I’m sick of apartments.) She drove around a lot last weekend and earlier this week found a place about 1.5 miles north of us.

After much back and forth and whatnot, we got the place. It’s a small (~1000 square foot) three bedroom house in a residential area. It gives us enough room for Evelyn’s workshop / guest bedroom and a dedicated office for my telecommute job. Has a decent back yard with a covered patio area and some extra storage. 

I think I’m most looking forward to not hearing my neighbors on the other side of a wall. And I’m sure Evelyn will like the fact that we can grill again. (You can’t have a grill in Texas apartments. There was a community one, but people are pigs.) It’s also a good opportunity for us to figure out how much it costs to run a house in Austin (electricity, gas, garbage, water, sewage, etc). A trial run, as it were.

We sign the lease on 12/02 when I get back. There is an overlap between the two places since (a) I need to have the workspace step up for a quick switchover and (b) I don’t want to play weekend warrior trying to move too quickly. This gives us a couple of weeks to get things moved over and in order. (Much easier to do since we’ve so close.)

Looks like December is shaping up to be a very busy month.