Old Dominion Whirlwind Tour

Yesterday, in the wee hours of the morning, I drove down, in foggy and rainy conditions, to Northern Virginia to visit my mom. Mom has decided to sell the house she has been living in for the past eighteen years and to buy a townhouse. She's at a point where she doesn't want to be burdened with yardwork and keeping up a house that is too big for her. Better that the house goes to a family which could utilize the house and yard well. Mom had a good run in the place, and has hosted countless family and friends, but she'd like the luxury to be able to travel without worrying about the condition of the yard, and she'd rather heat a smaller place.

I got two hours of sleep before mom and I left to check out a nice place about two miles down the road- our inspection coincided with a realtor bringing a prospective purchaser over to mom's place. She put the house on the market not quite two weeks ago and already she's had nineteen interested parties. Things should be moving pretty quickly now- she decided that she'd put an offer on the place we saw, it was the nicest place she'd looked at, an end unit with a perfect utilization of space (the second floor is one continuous room, a kitchen/living room combo that is perfect for our 'hearth-centric' family lifestyle).

It's been a whirlwind tour- not a lot of sleep, a lot of busywork, but it's been fun. Mom and I even get along famously with her real estate agent. Mom's neighbors are pretty upset that she'll be leaving the house, but I spoke with one very close friend of hers (one of her many unofficial 'adopted' sons) and told him that mom would most likely only be moving down the street... she won't even do her shopping in a different store.

We'll see how things go, everything is contingent on the current house being sold, but I'm confident that things will go pretty smoothly. It's been a hectic couple of days, but I feel that we got a lot accomplished, and we even had fun doing it.