Sunday, August 06, 2006

Do You Think It's Too Late to Switch to Looking in Another Part of the Country?

Following the wise parental advice I received last night, I began hunting the internet after church today for a new “new” house.  My parents never nag, and only very rarely even offer unsolicited advice, so when they suggested with some urgency last night that it really was time to get cracking on that “house thing,” I decided that they might have a point.  (I’m not being sarcastic here – I’ve been kind of taking a relatively laid back approach, trusting that some magic will happen and that brick house will work out.)  T.’s friend, Hana, came over after lunch, and Ed took K. down the road to play with an acquaintance, so I settled in to house hunting.  Nothing new in NC, so on a whim, I decided to check northwestern Pennsylvania (Meadville, specifically.  No reason, except that when I looked at the map, I saw Meadville and remembered the story of my grandpa as a kid  thinking that the bit in the Lord’s Prayer which goes “deliver us from evil” was “deliver us from Meadville.”)  Anyway, there are quite a few beautiful, affordable houses in Meadville and the surrounding area!  Big houses, which, according to their descriptions on Realtor.com, have been renovated and are perfect in every way.  I printed out several (please don’t ask I would find time or money to go to Pennsylvania and really check them out in the next 11 days – one step at a time here!), and then remembered that Pennsylvania is considerably north of North Carolina (and even more north of Florida) and decided to check on the coldness factor.  Well, it may not surprise you to learn that Pennsylvania is colder than North Carolina – Meadville has an average January low temperature of  15.2 and an average yearly snowfall of 111 inches, versus a January low of 25.3 and yearly snowfall of 11 inches in State Road, North Carolina.  That is colder, I’ll grant you that, but it isn’t really as much colder as I’d expected.  Lots more snow, though, that’s for sure.  The problem may be that I can’t even begin to get my feeble Florida imagination around the concept of 25 degrees, so how much worse could 15 degrees be, anyway?

3 comments:

CeCe said...

DUDE, it doesn't even get that cold where *I* live!

Melora said...

Aack!!!! But you are Way. Up. North!! I am so confused.
If I weren't so totally pigheadedly stubborn, we'd be down at the bank right now, checking on getting out a ginormous loan so we could buy another house right here, where I have a Job (the boss says she'd keep me on). But I'm stubborn.

Dy said...

Well, PA wouldn't be a good fit for me - waaayyyy too much gov't intrusion into private lives. But my SIL lives there and loves it (she's near State College, where Alaska - pupmom - lives, and she loves it there, too).

Naturally, I'm still quietly pulling for AL, but PA might be a good fit.

It's never to late to make changes. It may get more difficult, and the process a bit more complex, but it's definitely not too late! (Sent you an email, and also emailed WR for more info.)

Dy