About a week before we moved into our new house, Lee and I took one of our many drives by to look at it and hope and dream. Sometimes we would pull into the driveway to pretend it was ours. Sometimes we’d get out and stroll around the yard.
One day as I was walking along the sidewalk where a small brick retaining wall outlines a bed of ivy, I saw an old sundial. I read the inscription, and fell in love with the sentiment etched into the metal. “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”
I am so happy to finally be in our new house. After all the ups and downs, I wasn’t sure if owning this home would ever be a reality. But Friday afternoon, we sold our old house to a couple who seemed as excited about it as we were when we bought it four years ago. I think they’ll treat it well. An hour later, we signed the papers on our new house, and were finally handed a set of keys. When we stepped inside, it felt like home. It felt right.
Just because the sale went well and we’re ridiculously excited about our new house, doesn’t mean everything is all fun and fluff. We hired movers to help us get all of our tons and tons of stuff to the new house, and it cost twice as much and took twice as long as expected. But as they were moving our washer and dryer, and then carrying a huge armoire up the stairs, I thought to myself, “this is why we are paying you. It’s worth every penny.” A downpour halted the process for a while, and the crews were unloading until midnight.
I don’t have to work today, so I thought I might sleep in just a little bit. But no – my eyes began popping open about 5:30 a.m. I was able to go back to sleep off and on until about 7:30, then it was no use. So for another half hour I lay there in bed, and couldn’t get the thought of mowing my lawn out of my head.
While we were showing the house, we kept the yard looking quite nice. But lately, the fact that we’re not showing the house anymore mingled with the frustration and depression we were feeling over the whole process meant we just didn’t feel like working in the yard.
If all goes well, today will be our last full day of ownership of this great house. At 8:00, when I couldn’t stay in bed any longer, I got up and headed straight for the lawnmower. I am not a morning person. It usually takes me a couple of hours to clear the sleepy cobwebs from my brain.
While I was watering the plants and mowing the lawn, I realized why I was so obsessed with yardwork. The first reason is simply house karma. I want to do the right thing for the people buying our house, in the hopes that others will do the same for us. I’m making a deposit into the karma bank.
But the main reason I had to mow the lawn was because I really do love this house. It has been a wonderful house for us, and I just couldn’t bear saying good-bye to it in anything but the best condition. I imagine it’s like taking your child to the first day of kindergarten. You’re handing him over to the world, and you want to make sure his shirt is tucked, his hair is combed, and you’ve wiped the snot from his nose.
I’m very excited about (hopefully) moving into our new house tomorrow. But I want to make sure I leave my old house with plenty of signs showing how much it has been loved.
…I just haven’t figured out who, yet. If I knew exactly who was to blame, I’d be warming up my back-handed bitch slap.
I’m no longer on the verge of freaking out. I’m in total freak out mode. I got a phone call yesterday evening from my realtor, letting me know the realtor representing our buyers was a little concerned about whether or not we could actually close on this house Wednesday. I took a breath and told myself not to freak out yet. It was just a concern, not a problem.
Today on my lunch break, it became a problem. It’s never comforting to hear your realtor say over the phone, “I just don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what you should do.” Someone along the line of communication thought we could close Wednesday. But apparently, what the bank really said was Wednesday at the earliest, more likely FRIDAY. Late Friday.
The problem is – well, there are several problems. Where to begin? I have already arranged to have most of my utilities cut off Thursday, though thankfully I had not cut off the electricity yet. I had MOVERS scheduled to be at my house Thursday afternoon, ready to move us into the new one. Which as it now stands, we won’t own by Thursday afternoon. Which makes moving in a bit of a problem. I have already taken off work for Thursday and Friday. I’m going to have to call the person selling us our new house and tell her there has been another delay. She is really going to lose it.
But most of all, I had mentally latched on to selling our house Wednesday and buying our new one Thursday. All week long I’ve been telling myself, “just three more days… just two more days…” And even though we have a closing scheduled, all the paperwork isn’t in and no one can reassure me it will be in by Friday. I have lost all confidence in our realtor (this is just one of many miscommunications). I don’t feel like packing anymore. I don’t feel like dreaming of the colors we’ll paint the walls anymore. I’m just stressed, and I’m not going to feel good until the deal is done. My only consolation is that vanilla vodka tastes good in a dixie cup of coke.
Right now, it’s looking like we’ll close on the sale of our current house Wednesday. That’s great, but that’s also in 3 days. It’s beginning to sink in just how much work we have to do between now and then. After being in the car for 5 hours, we got home this afternoon and began packing.
But first, we needed more boxes. We’ve found a little treasure trove behind the nearby Family Dollar. They have two dumpsters full of nothing but cardboard boxes. And because there is a big sign on them that says “cardboard only,” we don’t worry about the boxes smelling like the ones from the neighboring chinese food restaurant.
Except, this time, I think someone might have thrown their old lunch in there. On the short car ride from the Family Dollar to our house, we could distinctly smell garbage. Now we’ve got to figure out which is the offending box. Meanwhile, Lee is packing up our pantry and ran across a few vegetables I’d forgotten about. I’m not really sure how long they’d been in there. It was not a pleasant experience for him. I wasn’t here. I was at Kroger getting more boxes.
We’re taking a quick break, then we have to get back to it. I’m afraid we may be pulling an all-nighter before it’s through – but at least we have the excitement of a new house to keep us going.
We got a phone call this morning – one we had been waiting for for ages it seems. The people buying our house finally got their loan stuff figured out, and want to close the deal middle of next week. I am sooo excited! I’m also excited because i’m typing this on my new BlackBerry phone while we drive to Fitzgerald. Very cool technology. Now if only my BlackBerry knew how to pack boxes.
I graduated from high school 10 years ago, and had been wondering if my class would have a reunion. I hadn’t heard, so I assumed my lazy class president was sleeping on the job. I was a little disappointed. It would have been interesting to see some of those people.
But when I got home tonight, I had an email message entitled, “reunion,” from an address I didn’t recognize. I figured it was spam, but opened it just to be sure. Instead, it was from a classmate who’d married, so I didn’t recognize her address with her new last name.
She got tired of waiting for someone to arrange a reunion, so she’s working on it for sometime in October.
Suddenly, instead of excited, I felt apprehensive. What will these people be like? High school is such a catty time for us females, and the mere thought of seeing all these people again brought back those feelings of insecurity and competition. What’s that about?
The feeling faded (mostly), but I’m already wondering what I’m going to wear. Time to eat salad and carrots and go shopping.
Nearly every room in my house is now crowded with cardboard boxes. But instead of making me nuts, seeing the boxes makes me glad, because they’re signs of progress.
The last week has been crazy. So crazy I hadn’t even wanted to write about it because I was so frustrated with the whole house buying process. One day, everything with the sale of our house is great. The next, we get bad news and are sure the deal has fallen through. Then, the deal is back on. Now, another delay.
We still aren’t sure when we’re going to close. We were supposed to close in five days, but the loan complications have nixed that. I’ll feel a lot better when our buyers can give us a date and a time for the closing. Meanwhile, we’ve started packing the house. That’s helping me get excited about the new house, although with all the ups and downs, I’m not going to be completely excited until the keys are in my hands and the deed is at my bank.
On a sort-of-related note, there is a new store in town that Lee and I love. It’s a chain called World Market, and it just opened here about a month or two ago. They have everything from furniture, to greeting cards, to candy, wine, food, and gifts. The stuff isn’t Ikea cheap, but it’s also a bit nicer and not too terribly expensive. We walked through it today, dreaming up all the things we’d like to buy for the new house. We’re going to need a second loan.
Two weeks ago, Lee and I returned to the house after walking the dog, to find mail sticking out of our mailbox. I grabbed the envelopes, then behind them I saw it. The box. With my copy of the the book.
It felt like Christmas in July. I reread books 2 through 5 this year in anticipation of book number six. But with this book, I planned to take my time. It’ll be ages before the next (and final) book is released, so I savored each page of this one like it was a candy bar and I wanted it to last.
I finished it this morning. It was great, really great. But now that I’m finished, I wish there were 600 more pages. What will I do now? Laundry? Clean the house? No, I’d rather read more Harry Potter.
I will never understand why so many people are afraid of these books. I read an article recently, in which the author of an anti-potter book claims to have received a letter from Pope Benedict (before he was Pope) about the books. He allegedly said, “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”
What? I might be a little more concerned about the story of the three pigs. I mean, animals, walking around, talking? Building houses? Using bricks and mortar? Wolves coming down the chimney? Now that’s a little disturbing. How is it different from Star Wars – with the Jedis, the Force, the Dark Side, the lightsabers and the many strange planets and moons?
These books are FICTION. They’re good stories about decent people – people who try to do what is right, make mistakes, then keep trying. There is no anti-God sentiment, nor is there talk of religion at all, and that’s fine by me. Stories like these are good entertainment, and can offer a brief respite from reality. People need to lighten up, or I’ll go sectumsempra on them all!
The good news is… our new house will have a gigantic backyard, a fountain and pond, a pool, tennis courts, and a basketball court. Our new house will be a little small, but the yard will have a playground, and even a baseball stadium.
The bad news is… I’m beginning to think our new house will be a cardboard box in Daffin Park.
Things really seemed to be going well, but over the last few days the sale hit a snag. The deal hasn’t completely crumbled yet, but if we can still even work it out, it probably won’t be as sweet a deal as we’d thought because the appraiser is causing some trouble.
It’s disturbing because we don’t want to lose the contract on our current house, and we especially don’t want to lose the contract on the house we hope to move into. It’s also disturbing because we love our current house so much and think it’s worth a billion dollars, and it’s hard to hear someone questioning the value of our home.
I’m trying not to freak out yet, but I’m not being very successful. I’m hope we’ll know more tomorrow. Fingers and toes are crossed.
They signed our counter-offer. Ohmygoodness they signed our counter-offer! Lee and I broke out a bottle of our favorite wine and talked about all the things we love about the new house and all the projects we plan to do to make it even more adorable.
I’m officialy in high-hopes mode, although there is still one seemingly large obstacle keeping me from completely celebrating. Our current house still has to pass inspection. It’s 79 years old – let’s face it, there will be a few issues. The termite guy came and didn’t find any evidence of termite infestation, which was a big relief. A wood frame house in the south is always a bit of a risk. Now I just hope the regular home inspection goes as well.
Once we’ve cleared that hurdle, I might pee my pants. Except I won’t have time to pee my pants, because we’ll have to start packing our entire house because we’ll be moving 2 weeks later! Bring it on!
