Real Estate Unloaded. Check.

Well, we successfully sold one of the houses in ATL. We finished all the back and forth negotiation with Jack & Jill's (no kidding) agent, and ended at 12k less than our asking price. Quite respectable, I think. After 75 days or so on the market, I'm just glad it is over, and I'm sure Steven is too, since he had to deal with it WAY more than I did. All I had to do was bite my nails and sign some faxes. We're keeping the investment house in Atlanta (Steven's old house), since that may be our only chance to make any money in real estate in the coming years. Real estate in Athens appreciates a whopping 5% or so per year, if you are lucky. We made nearly 50% on our house sale in ATL, and we scarcely owned it for 3 years. And poor Steven, all this happened on THE day when his mom returned to China after her year-long stay with us. The first time I talked to him yesterday, he was on the way to the airport with JingXia, and I've never heard him so stressed out. Later, he sounded much better, even though Delta and China Airways had apparently already lost his Mom's luggage, and she was only in LA! She should be arriving in Haikou right about now...I'm sure Feng, Da, and Yenshuen will be glad to have her back for a while.

Well, I'm excited that we can finally step on the buy a house gas here, soon hopefully. I'm ready for Steven to quit Earthlink, pack up the house, and get up here. He can take some time off, and step on the find a job in Ohio gas, so we can figure out if we will indeed be able to live in Athens. I hope so! It's a cool little town.

As I told my friend Dawn in an earlier email, a lot is going on here today. This morning, the Athens Marathon and Half Marathon happened. Steven and I will hopefully be running the half next spring. I went for a bike ride with my friend from work, Liz, and most of the course for the Marathon was on the same bike path we were on, which is an old rail bed that snakes all around Athens, parallel to the Hocking River, and goes all the way to the next town to the north, Nelsonville. I'm so glad I got that fancy bike from Dawn and Preston's friend, and i'm so glad there is a rail-trail right at the end of my street. Everyone is outside today, it is really the first beautifully warm day of spring here. All the Frat and Sorority kids are out doing barbies and parties and whatever, people are working in their yards, running, biking, walking their dogs...now my little day of fun is coming to a close, so i can work on a freelance project tonight that was supposed to happen last year.