VOILA! And House Drama...

(Courtesy Google Images)

The new look is complete!  Thoughts?  I love it!
Big thanks to Diana for the design
and to Chelsey for the incredible photography!
Both are fellow adoptive Mommies, too!

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  In other news... may I vent?

 

(Courtesy Google Images)

 

I have been so overwhelmed lately, mostly with the house selling and house buying venture.  Someone once told me that selling a house and buying a house at the same time was fun.  I now believe that person smokes crack, and frankly I'm starting to get jealous that they haven't been sharing with me.

Oh relax, I'm kidding!  Maybe.

We made the offer on the new place on April 30th.  That is almost two months ago and closing is still three weeks away.  And it hasn't just been a waiting game, it's been a hurry-up-and-wait, panic-then-breathe-then-panic game.  I suppose the sort of person who loves bungee jumping is the same sort who enjoys this process.  Me, I don't have any desire whatsoever to jump off a perfectly good bridge.  However, if you ever see me mention moving again after this move is finished, please do PUSH ME off the aforementioned bridge.  Preferably without a cord.

Yes, it's been that much fun.

When we set out on this road, we were thinking it would be relatively easy.  Make an offer on the new place contingent on the sale of the old place.  Put the old place on the market.  Get an accepted offer on the old place.  Get the inspections and testing done on the old place.  Get the inspections and testing done on the new place.  Close.  Move.

It's been more like this.  Make an offer on the new place contingent on the sale of the old place.  Pack everything we own in a frenzied panic in order to get the old place show-ready.  Live like refugees while the house is being shown.  Every night before bed, the dishes must all be washed and put away, the kitchen must be pristine, the laundry must be folded and put away, etc.  Every morning before we head off to work, the kitchen must be re-checked, all bathroom paraphernalia (brushes, hair dryer, deodorant) must be hidden away, the dogs must be locked in a cage in the garage - which they LOVE - and the floor must be vacuumed.

After a month of living like refugees, there's finally an offer!  Woo hoo!  Oh, except the people want to buy it for 10% less than what we wanted to sell it for.  Okay, sure, not bad in this economy.  Spend two days going back and forth with them and finally settle on price/terms.  Yay!  Progress!  Have the inspection done on the new place.  There are just a handful of things that need to be fixed, almost all very minor.  Write an addendum to the contract on the new place asking them to fix the things on the inspector's report.  (Mind you, every time something has to be signed, the realtor emails it to me, I print it, sign it, use my lunch hour to take it to hubby's work, have him sign it, take it back to work, scan it and email it back to the realtor.  We've done this, oh, fifteen times by this point.)

Oh, but the seller comes back saying they'll only fix nine of the 11 items on the inspector's report.  Uggghhhh.  Seriously?  This is a company that is in the process of selling an entire complex of townhomes.  They have maintenance people and contractors there every day doing work.  It would take nothing for them to fix all 11 items.  We push back.  They ultimately come back and say they'll knock $350 off the price of the unit and fix the 9 items, final offer.

Sigh.

Fine.  We'll do the work ourselves.  You know, because $350 off a $180k townhouse over a 30 year loan is going to make a boatload of difference.  Whatever!

Have the inspection done on the old place.  It goes extremely well.  The only significant item of concern is the roof, which is original to the house and getting older as roofs go, but is still in great shape.  We haven't had a single issue with it.  However, the buyers are apparently concerned about it because there's a little bit of moss (totally normal for our area).  They want a licensed roofing contractor to come out and either replace the shingles or produce a statement on letterhead indicating that the roof is in good shape.

I begin calling around for roofers, because somehow no one I know can recommend a roofer.  How is this possible?  If I wanted to buy fudge, or windows, or drugs, I'd have a whole list of people ready to help me out.  Are these people actually living without roofs on their houses?  I'm thinking so.  I finally find a roofing contractor that is BBB-approved.  They inform me that because my house is in the process of being sold (and only because my house is in the process of being sold), they will charge me $250 to come give me an estimate.  To give me an estimate.  For a guy to spend ten minutes visually checking out my roof, $250. 

Clearly I'm in the wrong line of work, no?  Geez, for that I'd better get a free steak dinner out of it.  Or a night of babysitting.  Something.

I inform my realtor that the roofer is coming over to check out the roof and I mention the $250 fee.  He says some colorful words along the lines of 'they want $250 to LOOK at it?!'.  I respond in the affirmative, triggering another mini-tirade, which makes me laugh.  (I haven't mentioned this yet in the story, but I love our realtor.  He's just a great guy.  I cannot imagine doing this without him.)  He says, 'cancel that appointment; I have a buddy.'  Ummmm... this makes me nervous for a moment, then I remember how we've known this guy for years, he helped us buy the house we have now, and he's never led us astray.  I just have to trust him!

Did I mention that the septic tester guy is, through all of this, threatening to flunk the septic system simply because it's 28 years old?  Yeah.  Two problems with this.  One, it's working beautifully.  We've never had a single issue with it.  Second, IT'S NOT 28 YEARS OLD!  The leech field is new as of 6-7 years ago, this was documented when we bought the place.  He is asking to see the septic report that was done almost 6 years ago when we bought the house.  Because, you know, I have that handy at all times.  Along with the first string-and-macaroni picture I ever made for my mother.

I dug out all of our paperwork, a stack probably 4" thick, and went painstakingly through every page looking for the report.  It's not there.  I went through it again.  Still nothing.  I called the title company where we had our closing done.  They told me that our file is old enough that it wouldn't have been scanned in, so it's in their warehouse.  They only go to the warehouse once a week.  They've already gone this week, so we have to wait until next week.  This makes me nervous because the septic and the roof are the two things that could potentially throw this entire process off track, causing us to scrap both the sale of our house and the purchase of our new one.  Which in itself would cost us several thousand dollars.

Grrrr.

Oh yeah, and the appraisal is expected to come back lower than we are selling the house for.  This is stellar news, you know, because I was hoping to lower the price by $3,000 for no reason whatsoever.  The house just down the street, very similar to ours, sold for $7,000 higher than that.  What?  Who knows.  I swear they take a bunch of those bazillion-sided dice, throw them on a table, and write down all the numbers for the appraisal.  And we pay them $700 or something to do it.  Again, wrong line of work, for sure!

Just when I was feeling frustrated and hopeless and angry, there was a ray of light.  Somehow, I woke up yesterday feeling like there would be good news.  Just a gut feeling.  I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I even told someone I felt like something good was going to happen yesterday.

Then the phone rang.  The seller agreed to add the $350 (in lieu of those two repairs) to our appliance allowance instead of taking it off the sale price.  This means we get the money up-front instead of spread over 30 years.  Good news!  One hurdle cleared.

Then the roofer (the realtor's 'buddy') showed up.  He said he sees no reason why the roof should need to be re-shingled!  He's going to do a few minor repairs and get rid of the moss, but he said otherwise it looks good.  YAY!  Major hurdle cleared!

This morning, the realtor was finally able to reach the guy who did the septic test back when we bought the house.  He's going to pull the report and the HOPE is that if we show the old report to the new guy, he'll sign off that it's fine.  That will be a huge relief.... and essentially the last hurdle.

Once all that clears up, we can focus on packing the rest of our stuff and moving.

Wait... moving?!  We're moving?!  I hate moving!!  That's a crappy reward for surviving all these headaches!!

I start thinking that way, then I remember that I get to have a craft room in the new house.  We're gaining over 700 square feet.  The kitchen is bigger and will have all-new appliances.  I won't have to wedge myself between a closet door and a washer in order to transfer clothes to the dryer anymore.  I'll have a front-loader washer and dryer.  I'll have a little fenced yard with grass so that Aidan can play safely outside without my needing to worry about a neighbor dog wandering over and hurting him.  There are several playgrounds in the complex.  The bedrooms will be upstairs, out of the way, where they should be, instead of right off the living space.  We'll be back on city water and sewer instead of well and septic.

I'll have so much more room for friends and family when they come over!  I may even have space to set up a few long tables and have Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at one big table, as a FAMILY, instead of 20 people scattered everywhere eating from TV trays.  I'll only be 5 minutes from work instead of 25.  We'll save probably $400 a month on gas alone from not driving that far each day.  Aidan will have other kids around to play with when he gets a little older.  There's a fantastic elementary school less than a mile away.  There are four grocery stores about 5 minutes away (versus now, one grocery store 5 minutes away that has the highest prices in town and the next nearest one 20 miles away). 

And perhaps best of all, it's just a fantastic place for my little boy to grow up.  And at the end of the day, that's a HUGE part of the reason we're putting ourselves through all of this.

He's so worth it.