NY, USA

Well, things have changed around here in real life land. My company has closed the branch I in the city I work in completely (one major distraction and PITA), and I have been involuntarily displaced to another location: New York. For the time being, it looks like a commute will be in order, and that will be difficult only being home a few days a week as opposed to my current schedule which allowed me to be home every night in addition to the days off if I chose.

What's my grousing got to do with castles, you ask? Yet another blog disintegrating into whinging and complaining? No. As a matter of fact, this shove out of my comfy-chair lifestyle location is a kick in the pants to get going with building a dream. We will likely move to NY by the end of 2009 and hopefully sell our home at our current location in Massachusetts as well. The plan is that we'll temporarily rent for a little bit in a NY area that we'd consider settling in, get to know the area and see if it's where we want to be for the long haul, and get our finances squared away. We can also finally search for land to build on! The purchase probably won't happen for a couple of years, but compared to waffling over what to build, where to build and when, this is the light at the end of the tunnel. We are looking at the West side of the Hudson due to cheaper land with lower taxes, and we'll take a drive there at the beginning of next month to see the area and how the drive to the metropolitan area will be. I've even come up with a not-so-serious "working title" for the castle: Yanyca Castle (Yet another New York Castle), because there's so many castles in NY already... Trust me, it's not permanent. It'd be nice to build in one of the rural towns more upstate, like Wurtemburg. Wurtemburg Castle. Savillon Castle. Yeah...those names have a nice old-world ring to them.

I'm also getting a little farther along in stained glass (I'm not paying anyone to make my castle windows pretty for me!) and have been working on several designs, one of which is currently on the table being assembled (another distraction). These will be sold to make money with the intent of using it to bolster the finances for a better down payment on property. A non-obtrusive, non-offensive link will appear sometime featuring the pieces as they come up for sale.