Follow your Brains.

In order to maintain the delicate balance of familial bliss in the Brainses household, it is required that I take about a week away from the rest of the family and travel.  I will go at least out of state, and if lucky, out of country and usually in the Spring. This is not something that was planned, but this February marks the third year in a row and it's working out great. This year it was perfect timing to take my week away to visit my sister and then our new house! My sister lives in L.A. and we made plans to visit Palm Springs for a fun weekend before I took off to Michigan. In early February.  Packing for this trip might have been the most challenging piece of the whole adventure. Sunshine Sistertime! My sister and I shared a lovely few days filled with 80+ degree days, delicious food, the best company and the Museum of Death .  It was also a great lead up to see our new house as my sister had just bought and renovated her house and I was able to get an ...

We had the timeline, we had a house, we even had a map up on the wall! With all the pieces falling into place, Michigan plans hit a little lull, which was fine, since we had a lot of stuff still going on here in Oregon; James got a vasectomy, I tried to completely destroy my knee by playing one more roller derby bout, we celebrated the holidays and both kids' birthdays- we had plenty on our plate.  In January, Agent Orange adjusted a previously planned trip to Florida to include a 2 night stay in her newest acquisition as a land baroness.  She sent us videos that gave us the idea of layout of the house as well as some quick sketches to give us an idea of the floor plan.   We finally had a solid idea of exactly what was going on with this house and could start wrapping our head around what we would need to do to actually live in it. I am also working on convincing AO that her true calling in life is giving home tours.   She spent both nights in...

In June, 2018 the Brains family will be relocating from Eugene, Oregon to Lansing, Michigan.   There are many reasons that led to this decision that we made last summer: -James has a lot of family and friends out there -Michigan summers are beautiful and full of lightening bugs and thunderstorms -I'm eager to try living somewhere else, I've been in Oregon my whole life and am ready for a new scene -Lansing, Michigan is centrally located and we can go so many more places for a weekend or even just a day trip (here we come, Canada!) -The housing market in Oregon is cuckoo bananas and we can actually afford to own a home in Michigan  There are plenty of other things that we kept in mind, but that final reason, the cheap as dirt houses, was a HUGE thing.   Initially, we had an idea that we were going to get a reasonable sized house, that was move in ready and with the paltry pre-approval we qualified for, we could get a really nice place. But ...