Preparing.......

I can squeeze a few words in here before I have to go to the dentist, for the third time in a week. There's no huge problem, just that he can't get a crown to fit properly. Every time I go expecting to have a new tooth in my mouth I end up having to bite down on what feels like unflavored chewing gum for 3 1/2 minutes while he makes yet another impression. The dentist is actually more frustrated with it than I am--the first time it happened he was sputtering in anger and I actually thought he was going to start flinging his instruments about the office. I had to calm him down. I take it as one of those things that can't be helped and just roll with it. The stainless steel temporary is working just fine and frankly I could be happy just leaving it at that. It's way in the back, upper, so nobody's going to see it anyway.....

We passed one more troublesome hurdle yesterday on the house: a successful radon test. To test for radon, a technician installs a meter in the basement near an obvious entry point--in our case, adjacent to the crawl space beneath our living room extension. The meter stays in place for 48 hours and does a reading automatically once every hour. During that period, you can't open any windows, and doors you can use only to get in and out of. It was a bit worrisome because radon is so common everywhere, and the fix, a fan system, isn't that cheap. And it turns out that rain, of which we have had amounts in biblical proportion lately, can cause high readings because moisture traps the gas in the escape seams underground, making it more likely to get into the house. So with all that, I was a bit concerned. But we passed with flying colors. Any reading over 4.0 mandates a fix. We were consistently at the 1.2-3 level. My fellow males will understand when I say this is like receiving a good PSA reading. Like prostate cancer, radon is a silent menace. And the readings are similar in scale. A low score is a relief.

The very last possible stumbling block is the requirement of a new appraisal by the buyer's lending bank. Could a different appraiser come in with a lower number? That would certainly throw the whole deal into jeopardy for us. But Ron, our Realtor, tells us that there is so much refinancing and real estate marketing going on at the moment that appraisers are booked solid and the mere lack of time may obviate this step. If an appraisal were going to take place, it would have to be done and turned around by May 22. Ron says if we don't hear something by the end of this week, we're probably home free. Besides, our current appraisal is only three months old, and a new one could just as easily come in higher as lower.

Steve will be spending Saturday doing the minor repairs found necessary by the engineer visit last week. The brick furnace-exhaust chimney has a few rows of loose bricks at the top and needs a new cap, and for that I engaged a bricklayer who will do the job for $1100. That's the most expensive item on the to-do list, so we're getting out of this part of the process pretty inexpensively .

I've also been interviewing movers. We were hoping we could avoid having to use professional movers--we are both able-bodied, and lifting boxes and furniture is well within our capabilities, but 10,000-12,000 pounds of belongings is just too much for non-professionals to handle--you can't even rent a truck that's big enough to take it all. So the move should be the only major debt we'll incur in this entire venture. Prices are all over the map. An invaluable tool we have in this area is the Washington Consumers' Checkbook, a Consumer's Union-type organization that covers only the DC area. Think Angie's List, but much more comprehensive because it's been around for decades. For $30 a year you can check their enormous database of user ratings, comparisons between cost and quality, etc., of every service you can imagine, from drycleaners to pet sitters. It's a natural go-to for movers, and that's how we're choosing.

Off to the dentist. Third time's a charm.