Month: January 2023

Several changes to our life and lifestyle are on the horizon. Effective on Monday, January 30th, Charlotte starts a new position with a consulting firm back up in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County to be exact. She left her previous firm on October 17 and did a bit of independent consulting for a couple of months. We were still ensconced here in our home within the Kiln Creek neighborhood of Newport News, VA.

As a result of her being offered and accepting this position with this new firm, the decision was made to relocate ourselves back to the Northern Virginia area. Sort of like coming home, considering that the area was our home for well over 30 years.

So now comes the “fun” times, oh sure! We are in the process of prepping our current house for sale and are searching the Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria area for a new home in a condo building. Winter is not supposed to be a terrific time for selling a property, but we are hopeful that Kristie, our real estate agent down here in Hampton Roads area, the terrific and professional person who helped us last year in finding and buying this house will be very successful on our behalf again.

We also engaged Alanda, the same real estate agent in Northern Virginia who helped us sell the condo we had in Alexandria. She also was a terrific professional who worked wonders for our condo sale. She is on the job again to find us another great condo home. We do see a few listings up there that are attractive to us, are in the optimum locations for the times she will need to go into her offices and are within the price range we are looking for. But the biggest problem for me/us is that by the time we are ready to start seriously working on a new home, the ones we really like will be gone most likely.

So now it begins, we created a pair of to do lists. One for the contractor/handyman will be perform the fix up/repair and image tasks, and the other for us to enable us to address all of the myriad things that it will take to sell one house, buy a new home, engage movers, prepare for the double trips from Newport News to whatever section of Northern Virginia we actually buy a new home.

Another major concern is for our aged, senior fur baby cats. Both are in their teens and as we all understand that age range is positively ancient for kitties. Our Penny appears to be in decent shape, but we will have a vet check her out prior to the move. Our sweetheart Duchess however is in not such good condition. She has been suffering for quite some time with various ailments and of course the problems that are part of becoming a senior citizen of the feline world.

So, we will have a veterinarian coming in a few days who will give her a good physical evaluation, assess her quality of life, whether she is in intractable pain (we know she has pains, simply because of her movements and vocalizations.) and what, if anything, can be done to improve her wellbeing. You see, like a lot of people who are owned by their animal children, our two fur baby kids are family, not pets. So, we care about their life quality as other people care about their human kiddos.

But all will be addressed as we progress toward our departure from the Hampton Roads/Newport News Virginia area and return to the DMV (District Maryland Virgina area).

As we begin our journey into the year 2023, let us all hope and pray for a good outcome. Our newly installed Congress has shown a differential that speaks to a two-year span of probably nothing burgers but a lot of show time. Having lost the House to a very small, but loud Republican majority, the Democrats in the House can only make efforts to attempt the mitigation of the actions that will be forthcoming out of this interesting NEW Republican group. Luckily, the Senate remaining in the Democratic Party majority, and in fact, they gained seats, will be a seawall against the potential damaging activity from the Republicans in the House. We still have our democracy, at least some components of it still are operable. So, let us all hope for a Congressional 2-year term that does not do too much damage, and perhaps even makes a modicum of progress toward ensuring the American rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. That is what the founders were hoping for, so we can do no less, at least in this old man’s humble opinion. So, fasten your safety harnesses folks, things will be bumpy from here on out.

But hey, it is a new year, and this old man has survived longer than he anticipated, in being able to witness the advent of 2023 still upright and breathing. So, let us be off, dear friends, into the breach of this new year.

As many of you know, at least any of you who have actually read this blog, the Bride and I moved from Alexandria, VA in June of last year to a nice home in the Kiln Creek Golf Community of Newport News, VA. The Bride’s company had established a new set of employment status’, including 100% office, 50/50 office and remote, and 100 percent remote. Charlotte was selected to the status of 100 percent remote. So, since we could live anywhere and she only needed an internet connection to do her job, we decided to leave the DC Metro area for life in the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia. After selling our Alexandria condo, we searched, found and purchased a new house in this new area. I had lived here before, first as a teenager in the mid 50’s attending Hampton High School (dad was in the Air Force at Langley AFB), then again, several years early 70’s later with my own family while employed at NASA Langley and also at Dow-Badische in Williamsburg.

So, now we have been residents of Newport News, and the Kiln Creek neighborhood since June of last year. Our neighborhood is truly wonderful, friendly folks, nice environment, close to any desired shopping and medical facilities. What more could one want in a lifestyle? Well, employment for one.

In October, Charlotte’s tenure with her company ended after 12 years. She was offered and accepted a short-term contract to do payroll consulting, while we decided the next steps. Thinking we might like to let her be self-employed in her own consulting firm, we took steps to make that happen. Things were okay, but certainly not what was expected at the outset. But the fates were smiling, and in December she was approached by an executive recruiter about a company with an executive management opening. Her credentials were submitted to this firm and shortly after she was asked to participate in an interview with one of the company’s executives. This was followed by a second interview with a group of the company executives/managers. And the end result was that she was offered the position with a very nice salary, annual bonus, and very good benefits. Her start date will commence on January 30. The position was remote with some office presence for meetings and such. We had considered employment potential for her in this area, but the salary structures down here were very minimal comparatively.

So, what to do, we could remain in this house, in this city and she would need to drive up to the DC area as needed. But, that is a 200 mile one way trip, and would require that she spend at least one night in a hotel. So, what to do, what to do. Simply put, the decision was relatively easy, sell our house here, buy a condo there and relocate BACK to the DC Metro area.

Advantage, DC Metro Area, close to the kids and grandkids! SCORE!

So, we have contacted real estate agents, both here and in Northern Virginia. We have worked with both of these ladies, during our previous move from there to here and they were simply fantastic people. Our plan is to start the marketing of our home here in February, seek and purchase a condo home there in that same timeframe and move ourselves and the two senior cats back to the area where we had lived for more than 30 years previously.

Major concern with transporting the older of our two senior feline ladies. Our Duchess is not in the best of health, and we hope against hope that she will continue to be with us for quite a while longer. Yet we also realize that she is getting very old and kitties do not live usually much longer than she is already. Still, hope springs eternal! We will take it one day at a time and hope that she is physically able to make the transition again to a new home.

In some ways, I really look forward to returning to the northern Virginia area. It is really home to us having lived there for such a long time (well over 30 years) and having my family members in that area as well makes it even more like home. So, NOW, we have to figure out the process of closing out the little consulting company we started, making the necessary payment/tax/settlements as required and then letting the State and Federal folks know that it will be no longer a chartered company entity. We have an appointment with an accounting firm on Monday the 23rd and they will assist us in closing out this company and paying Charlotte as well as any state/federal obligations.

Now, what about the old man and his stuff? Well, just had a malignant tumor removed from my bladder, so can you say, “Bladder Cancer”? The follow-on stuff, after the actual surgery was a real pain but necessary and now is hopefully completed.

At least the surgeon/urologist appears to be confident that the entire malignancy was effectively removed during the surgery so, perhaps this old guy dodged a bullet? One can certainly hope so. However, not going to get overly confident, because from all I can read, it would appear that this type of malignancy has a 70% change or reoccurrence. So, the plan is to be very cognizant of the potential and to continue to closely monitor. I am to meet with the surgeon on January 30th to discuss the entire situation and figure out a plan for going forward.

See, the gotcha is, that I will not be around this surgeon or this medical center in a few weeks. But the upside is that I am very familiar with the medical facilities and personnel in the Northern Virginia area so I am pretty confident that we can safely implement that monitoring plan with the medical folks up in the new home area.

Now comes the fun part, preparing this house for market. Lucky for us, our real estate agent here has indicated that she will provide a service to stage our home for best viewing by prospective buyers. I will try to make the ensuring days and activities worth your time.

Stay Tuned! Interesting times ahead!