Where in the world is Erin?

I know I've been really bad and not posted in exactly one month today. So what the heck happened?

I got swamped with students who were worried about failing my class in the last few weeks (note to any college students reading this, your professor can do very little to help you improve your grade in the last two weeks of a semester!!!!!!) and then we went house hunting in Utah.

And we even found a house. In fact, we found it almost immediately.

Did we buy this house?

Of course not!

Instead I have spent the past two weeks more often in Utah than in California trying to negotiate this deal with "motivated" sellers who thought our initial offer was way too low (despite the fact that the asking prices of other homes in the same subdivision -8 out of 10 of them to be precise- were even lower than our offer) and then wouldn't pay for a new front door that wouldn't warp when the home inspection showed that it was warped to the point of not closing unless you threw the dead bolt.

Needless to say there wasn't any middle ground in spite of our agent's valiant efforts.

So this weekend she will be figuring out an appropriate initial offer on the next house on our list.

Ah, the joys of buying a home...


Fortunately I did get to do more than deal with contracts during those two weeks. We were invited to join a group on The Subway hike in Zion. You probably haven't heard of it as it is accessed from a side street in a neighborhood that borders the park and you have to apply for a permit several months in advance during the slow season just to get in. The bright side of losing our first choice house is that I will have time tomorrow to start posting all of the photos I've been collecting over the past several weeks.

For my local knitting group, it also probably means that I'll be around for a few more weeks and we can finish up that sock class after all.