For the past month, I have been sporadically looking at condominiums and cottages in the Seattle area.

Why? I need to get away from the stress of owning a big home and yard that I can’t take care of by myself, with my work and travel schedule. And I really need to be closer to my office than the current exhausting 1.5 hr one way commute, now that my kids are done with school. And finally, it really is time for those kids to fly the nest, perhaps with a little help, but definitely find their wings.

My wish list isn’t really huge, but it’s not simple either. Close-to-downtown Seattle real estate in good neighborhoods can be ridiculously expensive.

• 2-3 bdrm, 2 bath condo/townhouse/cottage w/ full groundskeeping

• Sunny, well lit, open, prefer architecturally interesting to apartment-bland
• Usable kitchen for cooking/entertaining
• Hardwood or other non-carpet material floors
• Fireplace
• Deck or patio
• Covered parking or garage
• Laundry room on same floor as bedrooms
• Reasonably quiet location – not end of runway or on major highway
• Within 30 min of downtown

A townhouse is a plus, as is a soaking or jetted tub, a garage, and a view of a slice of green, mountains, or sound. High HOA fees are a minus, as are huge hive-like facilities with long hallways – not very dog-friendly.

I’ve found two I’ve loved but haven’t worked out:

The Bainbridge Condo is lovely. Totally lovely. It’s my gold standard. But, in the recession, not a single unit has sold and they’re all being rented out. This puts any single buyer at significant legal risk both from a underlying land perspective (owned by the developer) and from a HOA/assessment perspective.

The Ballard condo/cottage is a tiny, light, bright jewel. I also loved it. Apparently, though, contravening all customs re: condo ownership, there will be no community maintenance of grounds or building exteriors. Groundskeeping and the relative lack of headache is precisely why I’m looking at condos, so that is strike 2.

I’ve also found many I’ve really disliked, some for rather comical reasons.

The Capitol Hill condo had fabulous photography – and was, indeed, light and bright. It also had amateurishly installed Ikea cabinetry and closets, horrible kludged together bathrooms, and in a supreme triumph of idiocy, no *refrigerator* in the kitchen. Check the photo. There is no space for a fridge. Apparently the previous owner installed 18′ of cabinets and made do w/ under-counter wine chiller units in lieu of a fridge.

The Lake Union condo was in a style I really like – sort of the Dwell design/style, dark bamboo floors, re-engineered stone countertops, window seat, lots of light. Still, it was four stories. Count them. And the first bathroom was on the third floor. The shared kitchen/living room was about 12′x14′, and had about five cabinets; apparently residents have to choose between storing dishes or food.

Then there was the Fremont condo, which was also new and modern, but the copious back windows all overlooked a really seedy 7-11 and its filthy parking lot, and beyond that a head shop.

The inexpensive Normandy park townhouse condos were new and pretty and spacious, and conveniently positioned at the end of one of the SeaTac runways. How thoughtful for my travel schedule! And sleep schedule.

Anyway, I think I’ll take a break for a while, and only look when I see something stellar, avoiding any further emotional investment.

Note: I have a real estate agent. One on each side of the Sound, actually. I am perfectly happy with them, thank you.

Note 2: I am being heavily comment spammed lately. While I do review my comment moderation queue, if your comment disappears into the spam queue, I probably won’t see it to retrieve it, sorry – email me!

About 10pm last night, there was a knock on my door. I’m a little nervous answering the door at that time, so had a large teen boy answer with me.

It was the Poulsbo police.

My boys – including my sorta-kinda-adopted extra boy – were all home, watching tv, so while I flashed on the police delivering horrific news to me this spring, my brain didn’t dwell there long.

These gentlemen were looking for a runaway girl with a warrant out for her arrest. At this point, all three boys in the teen boy squad were behind me at the door, so it was pretty funny. “Sorry, officer, we’re kind of an all-boys household here.” I say boys, but they’re 17, 18 and 20 and all over 6′ tall, so really, they’re men.

The officer asked, “Are you sure that there’s no girl upstairs in a bedroom or anything?” I obligingly went and checked – no stray girl in any room or closet. My guys have done stupid things but concealing a girl in their room has not yet made the list.

The teen boy squad had never heard of the girl. Apparently she’s a couple of years younger.

The police indicated they’d received a report that she’d been at our address a couple of hours ago. Huh? The guys had been at youth group at church and I’d been home alone. (Ah, peace!)

After some back and forth, we determined that she’d made a call from a cell phone, and the cell number she called from was Zach’s over a year ago. Somewhere there’s an old billing record still tying it to our house.

News flash! Cell phone billing data is not useful (except for billing), just like it isn’t useful for E911 purposes. Cell phone locator data or GPS data would have been great for detective work, but the police didn’t have that information.

The police thanked us, and we them, and they headed off about their business. I hope they find the girl, and that she’s safe.

I was proud of the teen boy squad; they were uniformly respectful, helpful and positive with the police. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s one of the benefits of living with a clear conscience and a good attitude.

This has been a crazy week and I’ve been completely neglecting my blog. (Twitter is a bit easier because I can find time for 140 characters!)

• Monday: Work all day, fly to Anchorage in the evening

• Tuesday: Get up at oh-dark-thirty for a project deployment, spend the morning providing customer support onsite, then the afternoon prepping for the next one.
• Wednesday: Get up at even earlier oh-dark-thirty for a second project deployment, then go back to bed. (Yeah!) Go in late, coffee in hand.
• Thursday: Work on budgets for next year’s projects. Fly from Anchorage, to Fairbanks, to Anchorage, where my flight to snowy, icy, Seattle is delayed. Make it to Seattle by midnight, and crash on my kind sister’s couch.
• Friday: Creep home slowly on icy roads, work a couple of hours, then take boys back over to Seattle to train station. Wander through awesome indie bookstore Elliott Bay Books, navigate skating rink roads to dinner date at Etta’s Seafood. (Mmm, crab cakes!)

This morning, after coffee and green chile omelets, I’m being lazy. If I could go *nowhere*, I would, but we’re expecting Snowpocalypse v.2, this time with 2 feet of snow and then freezing rain. I need to get groceries today if I’m going to get them at all. All in all, we’re supposed to be socked in with snow and freezing rain for the next week.

I can think of worse things than to be snowed in with my husband while my children are out of town.

Happy stormy solstice, all!

We just finished stripping, sanding and refinishing somewhere between 800-1000 square feet of deck. (We have a wonderful deck, it’s like an outside room in summer.)

I confess, I had three hardworking guys on that task who will be very sore tomorrow, so my job ended up being more coordination and less back muscle. I spent part of the day pruning and tying up tomatoes and roses and weeding garden beds.

I actually have lots of help from our teens on yard upkeep – they mow, weed, and do bigger projects for extra money. When they leave home it’s going to hit us hard.

I think our empty nest home needs to be a condo, one much closer to Bryan’s office. I’d like plenty of room, a garage, a housekeeping service and a nice deck or patio. We can have a ‘garden’ of 4 or 5 containers of flowers and tomatoes, a comfy patio table and a grill, and hopefully a bonus great view.

I’m not quite sure how this will work with dog ownership, but other folks do it. I would prefer to spend my weekends relaxing, rather than working on the DIY and home/yard upkeep projects.

My thermometer tells me it’s 90.3 degrees in the shade here at 4pm – and Poulsbo is a marine microclimate, cooler than most surrounding areas that are further inland or less shady.

I don’t even want to think about how hot my second story, southwest facing bedroom is this afternoon!

Bryan and I have been looking for a portable air conditioner for several days, and everywhere we go, they’re sold out. I don’t want a window air conditioner because then I’d lose my window functionality. I can’t see spending $3500 on whole house A/C when we only need it 10-12 days a year here, and then only in a couple rooms of our house, upstairs facing southwest. The cost per use equation just does not make sense.

On top of the heat issue, my allergies are miserable this summer. Having the windows wide open and all fans on high means I’m constantly sneezing, sniffling and sinusy. My HEPA filter does me absolutely no good.

After some creative research, we finally found this portable room air conditioner in stock at Circuit City. We’re going to grab a salad for dinner tonight and then pick it up

Hopefully we’ll sleep in a cool, allergen free room tonight!