quiet time, reflecting on my homelessness

The boys are in bed, the house is clean, and brownies are baking in the oven. What I should be doing is working on Dexter’s first year photo book, but that’s a lot of work and I’m feeling a little lazy right now. Can I just say I didn’t really get the rage about an iPad until we got one? Love this thing.

So I’m just sitting here, looking out the window at our big, pretty backyard, thinking how much it’s going to suck in a month WHEN WE’RE HOMELESS. Yep, we sold our house in 12 days, and if everything goes smoothly from here on out, we will be closing at the end of May. And living out of suitcases in our car. We haven’t found anything we want to buy and since we’ll be spending a lot of money and a lot of our lives on this purchase, we’re not going to rush because our lives are inconvenient right now.

Could someone please remind me why we thought it would be a good time to do this with a two year old and an 11 month old? Can’t remember for some reason.

We are still having Dexter’s party at the house in a couple of weeks. Weird to think that it will be the last time most of our friends and some of our family ever see this place. It was so much fun buying this house and making it our own. I wish I had photos of the transformation over the past 8 years. It has been a work in progress, that’s for sure. It’s home to us and it’s hard to imagine any other house feeling so much like home. Home sweet home.

It’s where we became a family. We loved here, we fought here. We rejoiced here and cried here and celebrated here and lost here. We are only the third owners of this fifty year old house. We are as much a part of its story as it is a part of ours. We are really going to miss this place.

~C~

having your house on the market is for the birds.

Our house has been on the market for 10 days.  We’ve had 14 showing and two offers.  The first offer came on the first full day it was active and it was a good offer.  We responded with a fair counter offer that we were sure would be accepted. We couldn’t believe how easy and fast it happened.  Then the buyer totally flaked and we never heard from them again.

Then we got an offer tonight and it was a complete joke.  It’s hard not to get offended when someone low balls you.  After, you know, you spend weeks and weeks working hard to get the house ready to list.  When you run around like a crazy person to get it show ready on a moment’s notice, meanwhile scrapping your dinner plans and waking kids up from their naps (and if you have kids, you know this is a monumental sacrifice).  These 10 days have been the most stressful days we’ve had as homeowners.

We have been on edge for the last 10 days.  I don’t know how people survive in this state for more than a couple of weeks.  I so hope something comes through soon, before we all lose our minds.  At the same time, we have nowhere to go.  We looked at five houses on Friday night and none of them meet our needs.  I sure have a lot more sympathy for the owners of the homes we visit, knowing we are displacing them for the time frame we are supposed to be there.  Knowing that they are waiting to hear if we liked it, if we are going to make an offer.  Knowing they probably ran around like a crazy person trying to clean it up at the last second before our showing was scheduled to start.

Potential buyers are kind of annoying.  Like the way they leave the toilet lid up.  Um, hello. We have cats.  We’d rather they didn’t go swimming while we’re not home.  Realtors are kind of annoying too.  Like the kind that take our furnace cover off and just sit it there instead of fastening it back correctly…because that means the furnace cover falls on my car and cracks my windshield.  Yeah, that happened.  So now I guess we get to eat $300 to get it replaced because we invited him into our home and he was too lazy or dumb and disrespectful to do the right thing.  Thanks, guy.

I’m over it.  Can you tell?  Maybe we’ll just stay here.

fed up,
~C~

Come on.  Who wouldn’t want to live here?  (Besides us?)

Project 365 (april 5-april 12)

Days 95 through 102-

95/365: Daddy’s home!
96/365: Theo discovers chocolate-filled twinkies.  As should you.
97/365: An apple so big your nose will squish.
98/365: Happy Easter
99/365: Matching jammies and matching tractors.
100/365: FAIL
101/365: FAIL 
102/365: Our humble little home.
Yep, I missed two more days.  No excuses. Maybe I’m not cut out for commitment!  Well, at least I’m getting these pictures up in the same month they were taken.  It has been a busy week with Easter, getting our house ready to list and normal day to day life.  I’m looking forward to a no-plans kind of weekend.
I just love the picture of Dexter on Easter, is it just me or could he not be a supermodel baby?  Hello? Gerber?  Which is your favorite from this week? 
~C~