In which we are still in limbo...

[jesshartley]

Well, they made the offer. We're researching costs of moving/buying a new house, etc while waiting for the details. Technically we're "in negotiations" I guess.

Anyone have any insights into life in Western Massachusetts/New England?




Oh, and I stumbled across an old friend who's got a new CD out... Check them out. I'm very fond of urSOcool, but the rest of it seems really good, too.

Division Six

Comments

[aberdeen.livejournal.com]

For those from out west, western MA is no further from Boston than Corvallis is from Portland.

Western MA is beautiful, hills and trees and glacial lakes and farms and you'd almost think you were in a different world from the Greater Boston Area. As long as you stay away from Worcester. If you've got specific questions, I can answer, and point you at other places. Where in western MA is it?

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

Northampton, which seems to be a bastion of culture and alternate views, thanks in part to the abundance of colleges nearby.

I'm a bit worried, in that there's no 3 bedroom housing under 200K for sale in Northampton at the moment. Okay, I lied, there's one place that's 191K, but it's not really where I'd want to live.

So, we're trying to figure out if we can afford larger mortgage payments to buy a place in Northampton proper, or large (But not as large) payments in one of the surrounding areas.

[annathepiper]

Let me have solarbird come address this question for you--she's a Deerfield girl. ;) Western Massachusetts is her SPECIALITY!

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

OMG how fabulous! Thank you!

[annathepiper]

Most welcome. ^_^

[passionandsoul.livejournal.com]

I have good friends in both Boston and Lowell (though they are moving closer to Boston soonish)... plus know lots of people in the kink community based out of the greater Boston Area if ya want tie ins.

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

If we end up out there, I'll definately take you up on it, as I know NOONE on the East Coast. I may know people who are, but noone who I /know/ is out there, if you know what I mean. If they're not local, I kind of don't keep track of where they are, because... well, I've been in the Pacific Northwest my whole life... If they weren't here, I didn't have to know where they were....

GEEZ!

[solarbird]

You read 9 Chickweed Lane? It's not entirely unlike that, though that's obviously a bit more midstate (New York State) than Really New England (tm). But the strange farmer? That's some honest New England, turned up.

Cow tipping? It's real.

"May I help you?" means "Get the hell off my land."

Unbelievably beautiful autumns are the standard feature they're rumoured to be. It's real. Also, there used to be really amazing autumn farmer's markets right around 5 (Greenfield Street) and Old Main in Deerfield, and parts south.

Airlocks aren't just for spaceships. Your house should have one. If it doesn't, add one on. ^_^

Brattleboro, Vermont used to the the Gateway to Beer, but that's no longer true, so you probably no longer have to worry about drunken high schoolers driving down Route 2, I-91, or 63. But since old habits die hard, you might watch for it anyway. ^_^

Road signs that say "thickly settled" warn you about clusters of farmhouses.

March is when the snow melts and the crazy people windsurf in the flooded river valleys.

Amherst is really nice and has a worthwhile summer festival. It also has the Bates Motel, which is to say, a rental group house that looks exactly like the one in Psycho. I know people who used to live in it. Also, good bookstores.

Want to get more specific about where? ^_^

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

You read 9 Chickweed Lane? It's not entirely unlike that, though that's obviously a bit more midstate (New York State) than Really New England (tm). But the strange farmer? That's some honest New England, turned up.
**Haven't read it, but I'll pick it up tomorrow if I can find it. Sounds interesting.

Cow tipping? It's real.
**LOL

"May I help you?" means "Get the hell off my land."
**Mental note made.

Unbelievably beautiful autumns are the standard feature they're rumoured to be. It's real. Also, there used to be really amazing autumn farmer's markets right around 5 (Greenfield Street) and Old Main in Deerfield, and parts south.
**We were just out there last weekend, and I was kind of amazed at how... grey...everything was. Of course, the leaves haven't come on yet, so everything's still mainly landscaped in sticks and dirty snow... But it still wasn't bad, and I can imagine that for a good half of the year it's probably much prettier.

Airlocks aren't just for spaceships. Your house should have one. If it doesn't, add one on. ^_^
**Mental note made. One of the things we were talking about out there was so many of the houses have no porch, no overhang, no nothing, just "wham, out the front door and you're outside."

Brattleboro, Vermont used to the the Gateway to Beer, but that's no longer true, so you probably no longer have to worry about drunken high schoolers driving down Route 2, I-91, or 63. But since old habits die hard, you might watch for it anyway. ^_^
**LOL

Road signs that say "thickly settled" warn you about clusters of farmhouses.
**We saw some of those.

March is when the snow melts and the crazy people windsurf in the flooded river valleys.
**Apparently late March, as they had gotten snow just before we arrived.

Amherst is really nice and has a worthwhile summer festival. It also has the Bates Motel, which is to say, a rental group house that looks exactly like the one in Psycho. I know people who used to live in it. Also, good bookstores.
**LOL Hurray for good bookstores!

Want to get more specific about where? ^_^
Northampton. Unfortunately, there's almost nothing for sale in Northampton with 3 bedrooms for under 250K. So we're debating tightening our belts and taking on a slightly larger mortgage to stay in Northampton proper, or ranging out into one of the smaller (But still within commutable distance) houses to get a better deal. They might be harder to resell if we decided we didn't like it out there, though. Insight?

[solarbird]

I'm from here. If you're curious. ^_^

Hm. Northampton. Never spent much time there. Amherst was more interesting, and if you wanted a big mall, you drove the rest of the way down to Springfield. It's nicer than Greenfield, I think, which isn't saying much but, well, is something.

People tell me that New England winters aren't what they used to be, to which I say HAH! YOU LIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE! because I know better. Tho' typically the snow does melt in March, and April's a rain month, and then May is all lovely. Tho' snow in May isn't unknown, it doesn't last. The traditional pattern was that snow hit right around Thanksgiving, stacked up to three feet tall, and stayed there until March, when the floods happen.

About that front door: the airlock is the entrance room just inside that door. They may and not protrude outward from the house, and they're where you take off your wet/outer clothes. They're separated from the rest of the house by another door, and that's all for insulation. Occasionally people think it's a good idea to take those doors out. They're wrong.

9 Chickweed Lane has just undergone a huge plot advance and change in focus - a lot of it now happens in NYC - so it's no longer about the same thing. You'd be better off with an older collection. ^_^

And as for real estate... hmf. All I can say is, don't be carbound if you can avoid it. Unless you're buying with arable land, don't buy anyplace where you have to drive to everything. New England has the advantage of being good for that. And old houses are better than new houses. And by "old," I mean, "pre-War," and by "pre-War," I mean pre-Revolutionary War, as in Colonial. You know how the south is still fighting the civil war? New England still defends the Revolution. No lie. (Not that I understood this until I moved away, but it's true!)

Of course, I kid, but it's only funny because, well, it's kinda true. ^_^ I mean, honestly, my high school had dorms that're older than this country. My home town was burned to the ground four times by the French. Revolutionary War-style bunting is occasionally used as decoration, without a hint of either appropriation or irony. It's part of the native tongue.

And I really kinda miss it. In a lot of ways, I'm a New England Conservative at heart. That's the good, sane kind, that cares about Good Government and Balanced Budgets and NOT BEING AN OPPRESSIVE RELIGIOUS FREAK and all that. But I digress. ^_^

One thing that might and might not be interesting is that of all the other regions in the country where you could move, it's the most like here you'll find, with the possible exception of Minnesota. (The voting pattern in the last election? Blue means one of two things: "California," and "New England cultural background." The upper midwest was settled by people from New England, moving west. Then the PNW was settled by people who had stopped in the upper midwest and then kept going. That cultural heritage shows up, still.)

random other thoughts

[solarbird]

Learn to love the roundabout.

Get a bike. Then don't use it all winter. If you do use it in the winter, don't be insane and try right-angle left turns during winter, unless you are well padded and are going for humour value. ^_^

Any decent town has a commons.

The odds of getting mediocre (much less bad) ice cream are very poor, at least, if you avoid bullshit like Safeway. Kind of like how cheap sushi here is usually good, as opposed to terrifying, nonexistant, or deadly like it is in most of the country? And like how all pizza in NYC is going to be pretty f'ing good, because everybody just knows how to make it right? Ice cream is a force of nature in New England. You might find bad stuff, but not often. Toscanini's is good out east (Boston area); I don't remember any brands specific to the Amherst area. But here are some places to try. One's in Amherst. I think I've had ice cream from there. It was good. ^_^

[kira-baranova.livejournal.com]

Can I give your email to another friend? I'm not entirely sure where she lived in relation to Northampton, but she spent 2 years out that direction.

*big hugs* Congratulations on the offer. I'm excited for you all.

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

Of course you can!
Thank you!

We don't know anything for sure yet, so please don't say anything too much quite yet? I need to call Themselves tomorrow and let them know but it's just too late right now...

[kira-baranova.livejournal.com]

It's not my place to say anything, hon. I'm sure I'll hear from Them after you make the call. :-)

[mythicwarrior.livejournal.com]

Offers are good. I hope this works out for you guys!

[poetsheart.livejournal.com]

happy for you sad for me. that is an awesome opportunity. now you must fulfill your destiny and become a world famous author so you can have worldwind signing tours and come her once a year with autumn and Pat.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I live in Southwestern Connecticut, which is kind of like Western Mass except with fewer rotaries. :)

The way March works is this: the snow that's built up during the big blow outs in January and February goes away. Weather starts to warm up. Hope springs in your chest and you begin to relax. Winter is over!

Then there's another snowstorm to drop half a foot of snow on your head right at the end of the month. :)

Get used to Chinese food and Italian food as your big choices when going out to eat. Admittedly, I haven't been to Northampton in a bazillion years, so I can't speak for sure to there, but those are the big ones down here.

I have to drive to everything. But some of the things are pretty darn close by car (5 minutes or so) while being unpleasant distances on foot. :)

Everyone will talk about the beauty of snowfall in the winter, but here's the reality: It's beautiful until you have to shovel it. It takes about half a day before the white snow is covered over with a dusting of grey and brown dirt. :) Autumn is beautiful. Spring is nice. Late summer can be brutally humid, it's okay to whimper. Leading into fall, you'll think 50 is really darn chilly. Coming out of winter, you'll think 50 is balmy and hey, lets break out the swimsuits. :)

New England is a lovely, lovely place with lots of history and little gems for exploration.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

P.S. Learn how to recognize the symptoms of a tick bite and Lyme disease. If you or your kids (if you have any of such an age) or pets spend time outside, be sure to check for ticks when they come back in. That said, I haven't had a tick bite since I moved back, but it's good to be aware.

Way Out Yonder

[laurinrose.livejournal.com]

Don't know whether to commiserate you or congratulate you.

You're looking at some pretty serious *gorgeous* country. Think of March as *dirty laundry*, and April/May as *laundry day* (complete with clotheslines and breezy, sunny days.

Summers are a tad... humid.

Autumn is breathtaking.

Winters are often breathtaking, only in not-so-good ways...

You'll find that cellers aren't so much a convenience as a necessity. Summertime, it'll be the coolest, comfy-est part of the house. Winters, you'll find yourself browsing your shelves as you would in a grocery store, wondering what to feed the family. (Food storage is a reality. More of that New Englander self-sufficiency.)