One More Night

Both houses have closed and we have the keys to our new home. The moving truck arrives tomorrow morning. Thank Goodness.

Our latest twist in the house selling/buying saga:

The Laundry Debacle.

Less than 2 years ago I bought a new front loading LG washer and an LG dryer with a steam cycle. I LOVED those things. Loved. Seriously never thought one could love one’s laundry-doing appliances, but I did. Not only did they work awesomely but they also sang me a song. It goes like this:

Have you ever heard a happier tune than that?

It made me smile every. single. time. I heard it.

When we put the house on the market I insisted that we take the washer and dryer with us. The buyers insisted we include them with the house. It was almost the undoing of the whole deal. (On the first offer, that was so low as to be ridiculously laughable, they massively underbid AND asked for BOTH the washer/dryer AND our kids’ playground {which we also intended to move}. Those people had some gall. They also got pretty much everything they wanted.)

You guys, I know there’s probably some kind of psycho-emotional explanation beyond the stupid washer and dryer, but I lost sleep and CRIED over the loss of my washer and dryer. CRIED.

Okay, moving on to the new house…

The washer (a front load, but obviously older than mine) and dryer were to “convey” with the house. “It’s standard” our realtors told us, when I whined about the loss of my beloved LG’s. It was also spelled out in the contract.

Tuesday we closed on the house. A couple of hours later we had the walk through.

{Long Aside Here: I don’t understand the point of a final walk through AFTER the house has already closed. Even if something is wrong, at that point what can you do? Also, what is with having the previous owners give the new owners a tour? Okay, in theory it’s nice or whatever, but in reality it means your first real look at the house (sans their furniture) is colored by THEIR memories and narration, thereby making it that much harder to think of the house as YOURS. In addition, should you notice something amiss, it would be horribly awkward to say anything if you happen to be a manner-driven people pleaser such as myself.}

Guess what wasn’t in the house?

The washer and dryer.

Now I admit, my first thought upon seeing an empty space where a washer and dryer should be was “HA! Now Hubby has to let me buy my LG washer and dryer!!”

Also, I didn’t remember that it was written into the contract that those should have conveyed. I thought it was just one of those things that everyone assumed. And Hubby walked right past the same empty space and didn’t say a thing.

So here we are. Gave away the two appliances I loved the most and got NOTHING in return.

Irony much?

Not knowing what else to do (and frankly, really wanting to do it anyway) I set about buying myself a new LG washer and dryer ASAP.

Problem: While one can BUY said appliances at any number of places online and in stores, it is quite another thing to actually have them DELIVERED in any kind of timely fashion. The ones I really wanted were not available for delivery until mid-June at the earliest.
Yeah, no laundry for 2-3 weeks is SO not an option. I had to settle for more basic models which have even less features than my last ones, despite being two years newer. But, they still play the song! (I’m holding on to the positives here people)

The part that annoys me the most isn’t that they took their washer/dryer – goodness knows out of everyone on the planet I of all people can understand that! — but since it was in the freaking contract that we were supposed to get them we had NO notice for shopping/delivery and thus I end up having to settle rather than getting the ones I really want. (and, for the record, the ones I really wanted were on sale for LESS than the ones I got).

I am so over this whole moving thing. Kind of unfortunate given that a giant truck filled with zillions of boxes to unpack will be arriving at my new house tomorrow, huh? Ha ha. At this point, I’m totally looking forward to that truck and all those boxes because it means we will be out of this temporary housing purgatory at long last.

I. Can’t. Wait.

 

It’s All So Very Temporary

I think we’re at the mid-point now. Just over 3 weeks since we arrived at our apartment in the outerburbs hills, and just over four weeks until we move into our new house, if all goes according to plan. Oh darn. That isn’t the midpoint then, is it. It feels like it ought to be. Some days it feels like we’ve been here for-positively-ever. But when the small space and the sounds of people walking on my head and the kids bickering because they share a bedroom smaller than either of their rooms back in our house and the teeny tiny bathtub that doesn’t relax me no matter how many magzines I stack beside it or how warm the water is start to really get to me I think, “Not much longer. I can do this.” They do call it temporary housing for a reason, right?

I am spoiled. I know this. Many people live in similar fashion all the time, nothing temporary about it, and are perfectly happy and comfortable. That said, were we to suddenly see a reduction in our family’s income, I would be lobbying to live in the old rambler in the sticks, not the apartment in town. I had a t-shirt when I was a little girl, it had a picture of John Denver wearing those round Lennon-style glasses and it said in a cheesy 70′s rainbow-colored bubble font, “Thank God I’m a country girl”. And I am. I like wide open spaces and room to breathe and to hear myself think.

That said, we are adapting to this temporary lifestyle. We take long walks on the nearby trail to neighborhood playgrounds where the kids can get a little bit of their energy out. I come up with all sorts of plans that take us out of the apartment all day on the weekends so that when Monday comes around I can face another week of close-quarter homeschooling. And I bought the kids Lego Heroica, a kid version of a role-playing game as a “reward” (for staying in bed and going to sleep. Oh the bar is set so very low these days). It’s supposed to be a very involved game that can be played for hours and in many different ways. Here’s hoping.

And something occured to me, not for the first time, this afternoon. As hard as this time is, it’s also a blessing. Because my older son, who can easily spend most of a day on the computer in his room at home, is now parked at the only desk, in the middle of the living room. This is quite possibly the most time I’ve spent with him since he was about four years old. And you know, he’s really fun to hang out with, in his own quiet way. And at lunch every day the four of us sit down together and I pull up a Bill Nye The Science Guy episode that is somehow tangentally related to something one of the kids is learning and we all watch and laugh together and I think, we will always remember this fondly. Years from now one of us will say something like “Science Rules” and we’ll all laugh at the inside joke and remember our homeschool lunches.

So yeah, I’m anxious to get past this in-between time with all the house selling/ house buying stress and apartment living and homeschooling out of necessity without a curriculum; but it ain’t all bad. I bet there will even be a day, maybe years from now, when the kids are grown and out on their own and I’ll think “I should have enjoyed that time more.” Maybe.

 

I’m The One In Pink

Four offers.

They picked ours.

Their realtor said the pictures and letter (our realtor wrote, about us) swayed them.

I am doing the Happy Dance.

 

A Very Noble Family

Our agent, figuring our bid could use all the help it can get, threw in some pictures of our family and a little write up about our adorable children and their desire to go to that neighborhood’s school. In my mind, in which all things somehow relate back to The Princess Bride, the house bid process goes a little something like this…

Perhaps we should have added a clause promising our bid would cause Humberdink “humiliations galore!”…

 

Time To Bust Out The Chocolate

We accepted the offer on our house. They get my washer and dryer. And the kids’ playground. And the house sold for barely more than we paid four years ago. Definitely a “loss” if one considers the amount we invested in it; even more if one considers where the market is now versus four years ago. This is sticking in my craw something awful. I need to get over myself. The house was never “mine” to begin with. It was a place to live, a place to abide for a while. It was a huge blessing that got better and better with every improvement we were able to make. And now it will bless someone else.

We don’t know about the house that we put an offer on yet. What we do know is there are at least two other offers, with more people clamoring to see the house and make offers. The sellers have said they will stop accepting offers at 10am tomorrow and make a decision at 11:30. We ended up putting together an offer that was significantly OVER list price. Our agent said the house was clearly underpriced – the seller’s agent is a relative and apparently doesn’t really know the local market all that well. So we were fine offering more, because it was still within our budget. Also, our offer is contingent on the sale (or rather now, on the closing) of our house, and the other offers are noncontingent. The selling agent told our agent the contingency made the sellers “nervous”. Can’t say as I blame them, but there’s not much we can do about it. We’ll either get the house, or we won’t. There’s other houses. It will be okay either way.

Still, doesn’t it seem like I have the worst real estate ju-ju ever? Not that I believe in ju-ju. Just sayin’.

This apartment is tiny. I caught Hubby’s cold and was so tired and achy today it was all I could do to school the kids; going for a long walk was out of the question. The kids have lost x-box and ds privileges and spider man comic books because of sneaky late night misbehavior; Zeeb can’t read the library ebooks I put on my ipad for him because he switched over to a game the second I turned my back. There has to be a better way to discipline them that doesn’t result in me feeling even more punished than they do. But if so, I don’t know what it is.

These are light and momentary troubles. Things will get better. Soon, I hope. In the meantime, I’m keeping these guys on repeat.

How cranky can anyone be while singing along to “What a Friend We Have In Jesus?”