Filling in the gaps!

There are some things that everyone in America seems to know but I don't. One of those gaps in my education was filled Wednesday when we attended "A Street Car Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams at the Guthrie Theater. I thought that the performance was stellar even though a local critic panned it in the paper. For sixty years I've heard about the movie/play and now at last I've seen it.
Oh, yes, and the Guthrie is just six blocks from our new condo!

Movement on moving!

It appears that we are set for a August 20, closing on the condo. Updating should be done in thirty days after that so we anticipate moving in mid-September. Tomorrow our contractor is bringing her suggestions and estimates for updating so we can keep the process moving.

We had a showing of our house today and another open house to which two parties came. I was about to return but saw a Jaguar parked in the driveway so kept going. I hoped that there was a person of substance who wants to buy our house. Turns out that they were just slumming.

I'll attach pictures of two views from the condo.

Purchase Agreement Accepted!

This morning we visited the condo we hope to buy. The son of the owners was there and he told me that our purchase agreement has been signed. :) The closing date is August 20. We'll do the updating after that so are hoping to move in on or around Sept. 20. :)
Our contractor who will do the updating was with us so she did measurements and heard what we want done. She will have her estimates to us soon and plans to begin work as soon as we have closed.
We are excited to know where we are going and that focus helps us emotionally while we wait for our house to sell.

Recommended reading.

After our book club discussion last night of THE LATEHOMECOMER: A HMONG FAMILY MEMOIR by Kao Kalia Yang I decided to give it another plug here. It's a powerful sotry very well told.

Open House

So...seven parties came to our open house today, where are the offers?

We made an offer!

We've been waiting to see a particular condo in the building downtown in which we want to live. A few months ago our friends, Carol and Hillary, bought one on the 12th floor. We were invited to their house warming and were very impressed with the building, location, floor plan and it's connection to the sky way.
Carol and Hillary, being the community building types they are, sponsored a "17 stack" party. All of the condos ending in 17...517, 617, all the way to the top at 1917,..have the same floor plan and they are called "17 stack". At the party they discovered that two would be coming up for sale...517 & 1517.
We've looked at 517 twice and really like it. However, we were hoping to see 1517 before we were forced to make an offer on 517. Today was the day we got to see 1517 (15th floor). It has views to the east, north and west.
It has been vacant 6 months since the owners moved to an assisted living facility. Today we met their two sons at the condo. We had a very positive conversation with them and learned that they now have power of attorney and are ready to sell. When we asked the price we were pleased to hear that it was significantly less than we'd anticipated. So we made an official offer to purchase and expect to have a response in a few days.
The condo needs a lot of work. It's not been updated in the 20 years they lived there. One of the owners used a motorized wheel chair and that took a toll on the walls, doors and woodwork. Possession date will be negotiated around the renovation work.
The condo building is called The Crossings and is not new...it was built in 1981. It is at Washington and 2nd Ave. S. so it's right downtown. It is three blocks to the river, one to the library and three blocks to the light rail stop and I don't care how far it is to Twins Stadium.
So that's our news for the day!

Life in Limboland!

"Where are the toothpicks, stamps, place mats, etc. etc.?" And so it goes living in a "staged" house. We always have to be ready for a showing but no one is coming to look. I could use some patience and I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!
We're looking forward to seeing a condo that we've heard about for weeks and finally can see Saturday morning. It helps to have that to look forward to while we wait for some movement on our house. Knowing where we are going would be a psychological boost!
Yes...we know, we are really fortunate that our problems are so minor and so we remain filled with gratitude for life's blessings.

Thistles as tall as the tractor!

The thistles are mowed. My friend, Don, told me about seeing a painting of wheat field at the Hermitage in Russia. In the middle of the painting was one thistle. What kind of thistle was it? Why, a Russian Thistle of course!
Mowing the thistles caused me some emotional dissonance. On the one hand, these thistles are a declared noxious weed and it is good riddance. On the other hand, their destruction (perhaps that's too strong a word because mowing only keeps them from going to seed but doesn't kill them) involves mowing habitat that I've created for wildlife. I hope I didn't mow over any birds nests.
At least I made the barn swallows happy. The mowing roused clouds of insects and a flock of barn swallows appeared swerving, darting and consuming their fill. All of this is further proof that a person can never do just one thing. Life is web and what touches any part has consequences for good or ill.

Horror Movie

My brother, the late Richard (Dick) Negstad, used to say "If Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make a REAL horror movie he should use thistles not birds!" He think he's right. The new generation of Musk Thistles are almost as big as a house and.....well anyway I'm off to SDak to mow them down. Someone asked me if mowing them killed them and I truthfully said "No, it only annoys them." But the County Weed Board will be after me if I don't do it.

A morning well spent!

Our friends, Carol and Hillary, who live in the building downtown we're considering. invited us down for the morning. We went to Spoonriver for brunch and then the Mill City Farmer's market all of which is five blocks from where they live. If we had any doubts about moving downtown the morning went a long way to assuaging them.
It was a beautiful sunny day with slight breeze. Sitting outside at Spoonriver made me thing that living in this often frozen tundra land is not always bad. Temperatures in the 80s allowed be outside with neither jacket nor sweater. It verged on being too hot for Joanne but kindly remained in the five degree mutual comfort zone we share.
Now there is some movement regarding the 15th floor condo in which we're interested. I'm feeling a bit like a child waiting for Christmas....won't it ever happen??

Waiting

The house is now listed with MLS and so we wait. That shouldn't be so hard except that it is for persons who like control. Waiting is the ultimate loss of control. I don't want to wait. I want it now...or at least to know when? how? etc. Waiting is an act of trust and trusting is hard.
But we wait and we try to trust and live as if our house was always spotless and lived in without looking like it is lived in.

I'm back!

Longing for the old days when plays were staged and houses were sold didn't help me a bit. But our house will be listed today and I don't know what to do with myself now that I don't have boxes to pack. I am an excellent packer even if I say so myself but the idea of living in a house as if we aren't is not my idea of a good time. Enough whining...now that we're at this point I intend to blog more regularly.

We has a great weekend in SDak. My niece, Susan, married Kirk on Friday night. It was a 20s themed wedding. Susan's stepfather, Judeen and I officiated. Joanne found the old fashioned clergy daisy collars at church archives so we dressed the part. Our garb went nicely with Joanne's flapper dress so I'll post a pic.

I also/preached presided at the combined church and 4th of July celebration in town. The church was filled with Negstads and Berghs. My friend, 95 year old Walter Olson, told me a I did "a pretty good job then."

On Sunday Wayne & Angie Negstad, who farm the Negstad homestead, invited the family to celebrate 125 years since my grandfather, Lars Negstad, began homesteading. They also invited my mother's side, Bergh, so there over 100 people on a glorious day on the world's prettiest farm.

Lars, Melissa and Mai-Evy stayed with Joanne and me in our little Sinai house. It's a good thing I got the A/C fixed before they came. It was a warm, sticky weekend.

Oh yes...in case you haven't heard, we're looking for a condo in downtown Minneapolis.