As I mentioned briefly in my last entry, it has been a busy time for us lately. Last weekend Carrie's parents visited and we did a lot of running around. We had a bbq at a nice state park and did some hiking, ate out more than usual, went to a water park, and did some house hunting.

Carrie had Monday off, so she went looking at houses closer to Chicago with her parents. They didn't really find much of interest, so Carrie and I continued looking when I got off from work. It didn't take long to realize that the price-range we were looking at wouldn't get us much in the northwest suburbs, so we got the real estate agent to show us some places that cost a little more.

We saw two places in the higher price range, and we were very impressed with the first one -- so much so that we made an offer on Thursday!

Apparently there was another offer similar to ours, so we had to make a higher counter offer which was still lower than the asking price (although not by much). It was a nail-biting time, even after our agent had talked to the seller's agent and was pretty sure our counter offer would be accepted.

It wasn't until yesterday morning that our agent called to confirm that our offer was accepted and the contract had been signed. Needless to say, we were very pleased :)

We've got an inspection coming up this week, and we'll need to give the bank the go-ahead for financing, too. Closing is in mid-September, so we should be well and truly moved-in by the end of September.

In addition to all the joys of home ownership (arrggghh!!! a mortgage!!!) I'll be a mere 23 minutes from work, according to Mapquest. That'll give me an extra 2 hours of spare time a day and an extra 10 hours per week, as well as minimal (if any) tollway expenses and less money spent at the petrol pumps :)

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This week Amazon surprised me with one-day delivery of some new Logitech Z-680 5.1 speakers I'd ordered for the computer (I chose free shipping, hence the surprise). These things seem to be even better than the Sony system we use in the living room, and they work especially well with Doom 3 >BD

Yesterday we decided to visit one of the last mini-golf places around these parts that we hadn't been to, and I was soundly thrashed. I swear the powerlines over the course were giving me a headache, which threw me off my game...

We also picked up some monster cable for the aforementioned speaker system, and did some research into fridges at several furniture and appliance stores.

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Not surprisingly I haven't done any writing lately, other than the usual critiques. I've also had zero time for reading, so I'll have to do a bit of juggling to fit that in, too. I'm sort of hoping that once we move into the new place, I'll have plenty of time for all this stuff because I won't be spending all my time commuting! (This is probably a misguided notion and house maintenance will chew up what spare time I have)

C'est la vie!

2004 Stats:

2004 Word count:	22,016
Stories written:	8
Total submissions:	22
Total acceptances:	0
Total rejections:	21
Waiting for response:	3
Books read:	9
Fiction Mags/Chapbooks read:	17

What I'm Reading
Science Fiction 101 by Robert Silverberg
Song of Susannah (Dark Tower VI), by Stephen King
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #14