Small update

Wow, it has been a while since I posted last. Every waking moment it seems has been consumed with house selling, house hunting and at long last, house buying. We put in an offer on a home here a few days after we closed on our old one. We wound up not choosing the house we made the verbal offer on because their response wasn't acceptable to us. Their loss! This is the house we picked out instead:


It isn't huge, but it works for us, it's in a wonderful neighborhood, and it has a lot of curb appeal. There's a lovely street lamp in the front and a porch with a swing. The backyard is pretty big with plenty of room for Shona and Bailey to run. We have, however, hit a snag. Yes, we offered, they countered and we accepted, but the next day our realtor discovered a discrepancy in the square footage of the house in the tax documents vs. what it was listed as. While the number doesn't matter to me, it matters a great deal to the appraisal experts and if the house doesn't appraise for what we agreed on price-wise, that would kill the deal. Why can't anything ever be simple? House selling and buying certainly isn't for the faint of heart and it isn't for quick-tempered people.

I'm tired, dangit

Another four hour round trip. Another full day spent putting stuff into storage. At least it's finished now. We should close on the house Friday, ending this long house selling saga. At least we had better close Friday. I might go postal on someone if it doesn't happen, especially since John dragged out with pneumonia today to finish putting things into storage. I finally got to see my grandma for the first time since Christmas and she doesn't look good. I'm sure she looks better than the last few months spent in the hospital and the rehab center getting her back on her feet, but to me she still seemed very frail. It's hard to see such a force of nature in a wheelchair with oxygen on her face. I hope to get up to see her far more than I have been able to this past year.

No news on the verbal offer on the house we want. Their realtor is playing stupid games, and it's just another drop in the vast pool of reasons I hate RE/MAX. I could write a novel at this point of reasons why they annoy me, but they are only hurting themselves. The more they play stupid games the less we want to submit the written offer next week. Idiots. If I were the sellers, I'd be wringing some necks. Now we are seriously considering building a house instead of buying one. It's cheaper, only takes between three and six months and we could have EVERYTHING we want in a house. We wouldn't have to settle one bit. Plus, it would be NEW everything. The more I think about it the more exciting it sounds. Still....my beloved '40s brick house downtown is first on the list and we'll put up with stupid RE/MAX games for a little while longer because we have a wonderful realtor guiding us through the madness.

At least it isn't snowing like it was yesterday. I won't even go into how wrong that was. Have a wonderful week. Hopefully it's a little more restful than this past one has been.

A long night and other news

DH hasn't felt well for a few days but I underestimated how badly he was feeling until he asked me to take him to the ER last night. He doesn't go there very often, so I knew it must be bad. It's an hour round trip to the hospital, so off we went. We were there for 3 1/2 hours while they drew labs, did X-rays and checked him over. The diagnosis was pneumonia, and I was afraid they were going to admit him. They did give him an IV of antibiotics that took an hour to administer, then loaded him up with other meds and sent us home. We got home a little before midnight, and he called in to leave a message for the school that he'd be staying home today. Imagine my surprise when I woke up at 6:15 this morning to find him all dressed to head to the school. "Where are you going?" I asked...very groggy because even though I'm a night owl, last night wiped me out. The crazy fool decided to go in anyway because he was feeling better. I personally think it had more to do with the science experiment he was scheduled to do with his classes today involving matches and danger more than it did any work ethic. Men.

We had a late afternoon call from our realtor yesterday saying the people who own the red house we are interested in would like to entertain our verbal offer. Our agent wanted to do a verbal just to see where we stood before actually submitting the offer we have written up next week. We were waiting to close on our house first. The seller's agent was a little snooty and said they have a policy not to accept verbal offers, so we were just going to wait. Apparently the owners caught wind of the offer, had some words with their agent and were "eager" to have an offer, any offer. I would imagine so after having it on the market for a year. I know exactly how that feels and any progress is better than none. The other agent had to backpeddle a little there, which I find a bit amusing. We should hear something by the end of the weekend, and I'm actually OK with it either way. Either we get this house or we don't, but I'm feeling very "zen" about the process right now, knowing I can have something built if this doesn't work out. As stressful as all this is, I do know we'll wind up where we are meant to and life works out like it should. I'll let you know when I know!

Still in limbo

I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd blogged, but it has been rather hectic. Shona's birthday was a bust. We invited four girls over for her first slumber party and no one showed up. Not only that, no one called to say they would or wouldn't be there. I find that so incredibly rude, yet it seems standard practice wherever we go. I was so annoyed by that once in Texas that I put at the bottom of an invitation to a bowling birthday party that anyone who didn't R.S.V.P. would have to pay their own way if they showed up on that day. Only one person did that and he was nice enough to pony up the dough. Still...how difficult is it to pick up the phone? To make Shona feel better, I was going to treat her to a movie the next day, but she behaved so badly all morning that she finally had it taken away. I felt bad for her, but I'm not rewarding bad behavior. I finally let Katy call a friend and I drove the two of them to the movie and paid their way in. I didn't want to sit through the film, so I left them there and picked them up later.

In house news...dare I say we might just close this time? I don't want to jinx it, but it looks like the 20th will be the big day. We have papers drawn up to submit an offer on a house after that. I do not want selling my house as a contingency on the offer, so we are waiting. The house we want has been on the market for well over a year, and I figure if it is snatched up during the next two weeks, I'm just not meant to have it! Interestingly, as we were out driving around this evening in some of the neighborhoods currently under construction, we happened upon a man working on a place. He's an electrician by trade but also builds houses. We really liked him and he gave us a LOT of information. If the red house doesn't work out, we might look into having something built. I'm not crazy about waiting up to six months to get a house built, but it seems to be a very affordable option in this area, and it might even be a better way to go since we could get everything we want in a house for what we are offering on the other one. Plus, he told us of two plots available for sale in an area outside of town. You get three acres out there as opposed to a quarter acre in town for about the same price. That got John's attention. He wants to be able to shoot off fireworks in the worst way. We will call and arrange a meeting with him to find out pricing on what we want in a house. Before I hire him, though, I know I would have to check him out with my sister. She's the investigator for the state attorney general's office and her area is contractors and the construction business. If this guy passes her test, I think we will have a winner.

More when I know more!