bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2009-01-01 12:57 pm
bigmacbear) wrote2009-01-01 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
2008 in review
I was going to do the "2008 in review" meme that is going around, but don't feel like answering every single question on that long list so I'm just going to write my own.
There were basically two very significant highlights of the year for me: GALA Festival 8 in Miami, and the purchase of our new home in Everett.
GALA was a blast, as always.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gmjambear and I got to hang out with our friends from all over the country, especially cincycub. The material for Seattle Men's Chorus' performance at GALA was drawn from our two previous concerts in 2008, the March show with Rick Steves and the June show with Leslie Jordan. Both of our guest artists were fun to work with.
Upon our return from GALA we went house-hunting in earnest, with a fellow Chorus member as our buyers' agent. After considering a number of more or less quaint mid-century homes sprinkled around the north King and south Snohomish County neighborhoods, we found a newer (built 2001) home in Everett with a motivated couple selling, and snapped it up two days after it hit the market. As we were waiting for the mortgage paperwork to go through, of course, the bottom fell out of the US financial market, but since I'd been per-approved back in May we were in no danger of losing the loan; in fact it helped us by reducing the interest rate we would have to pay. Other than some issues with the furnace which were easily resolved by replacing the spark plug ;-), the house has been fairly low-maintenance. Of course, we're still shopping for those little things that are always needed when moving into a house from an apartment, like a lawn mower and garden tools.
Another interesting fact about 2008: for the first year in a very long time, we didn't leave the US in 2008. We missed it by only a day or two though, as our last visit to Canada was the weekend between Christmas and New Year's in 2007. I expect we'll be making another trip north in 2009.
Hope y'all have a Happy 2009.
There were basically two very significant highlights of the year for me: GALA Festival 8 in Miami, and the purchase of our new home in Everett.
GALA was a blast, as always.
gmjambear and I got to hang out with our friends from all over the country, especially cincycub. The material for Seattle Men's Chorus' performance at GALA was drawn from our two previous concerts in 2008, the March show with Rick Steves and the June show with Leslie Jordan. Both of our guest artists were fun to work with.Upon our return from GALA we went house-hunting in earnest, with a fellow Chorus member as our buyers' agent. After considering a number of more or less quaint mid-century homes sprinkled around the north King and south Snohomish County neighborhoods, we found a newer (built 2001) home in Everett with a motivated couple selling, and snapped it up two days after it hit the market. As we were waiting for the mortgage paperwork to go through, of course, the bottom fell out of the US financial market, but since I'd been per-approved back in May we were in no danger of losing the loan; in fact it helped us by reducing the interest rate we would have to pay. Other than some issues with the furnace which were easily resolved by replacing the spark plug ;-), the house has been fairly low-maintenance. Of course, we're still shopping for those little things that are always needed when moving into a house from an apartment, like a lawn mower and garden tools.
Another interesting fact about 2008: for the first year in a very long time, we didn't leave the US in 2008. We missed it by only a day or two though, as our last visit to Canada was the weekend between Christmas and New Year's in 2007. I expect we'll be making another trip north in 2009.
Hope y'all have a Happy 2009.