It is baseball season, so I guess curveballs are to be expected.

I was all psyched to tell you all how well the inspection went, how everything was going forward as planned and maybe even sooner. I spent the morning dropping off all the paperwork and checks and felt like it was all in order.

How wrong I am capable of being! There were some red flags for the day which I tried to ignore...

• The fact that the bank had wrongly cashed a $1000 check twice, thereby ensuring that my rent check will bounce if not remedied immediately.
• The terrible behavior of the children in said bank.
• The crossing of my path by my nemesis who failed to signal while making a left turn, almost causing an accident.
• The fact that I thought I everything was under control.

That last illusion was shattered by a phone call from the mortgage company saying that they heard the appraisal done by the sellers rated the house as "Fair" but they will not lend for anything less than "Average." Now things that I was planning to fix after the closing will have to be done before in order to receive financing. This throws a complete monkey wrench in my plans and complicates everything.

I should have known it was going too smoothly. So now I need to be a little more reserved in my excitement. Jeremy seems to be maintaining a level head about it, so I guess I can try.

I need some chocolate.

Crazy weekend ahead!

This weekend is jam-packed with excitement. It will be good, and it will be fun, but as usual, there is no rest for the weary. (Just in case you are confused, I am the weary.)

Tomorrow starts off running at 9am when the house inspection begins. We will then know for sure how many millions of dollars in repairs this 130 year old house really needs. I'll take more pictures so you can fully appreciate the ceiling caving in and all the broken windows.

A quick bite to eat, and then we're off to see Wall*E, the new Pixar movie. We're really excited/intrigued by this practically nonverbal robot movie. I'm sure Sebastian will do a review at his earliest convenience.

Then, the big trip to FunSpot happens on Sunday. It is now officially the largest arcade in the world. Cortney, Dustin, Quinn and Rob will be experiencing its magic for the first time which will be fun to witness. With a total of 5 hours driving + who knows how many staring at blinking lights, I know I won't want to wake up on Monday.

"I'm all done, Mama."

So says Dorian.

I'm not totally obsessed with the house

Despite a ridiculous number of posts on the topic, buying a house is not the only thing I've been doing lately.

Thanks to an absurdly chilly spring/summer I have been able to continue working on the blanket. I know I live in Vermont, but I don't think I should be comfortable knitting bulky wool in the summertime. Nevertheless, I have been, so the third panel is almost finished. I just have one more section to go before I start the fourth, and final, panel. I'll still have the border to complete after that, but it looks promising that I may have it done for use in the coming winter.

And in a foolishly ambitious move typical of yours truly, I decided to make 3 jars of strawberry rhubarb preserves during the 40 minutes I had to get ready to go to the lake. I'm a genius, I know. I did manage to get it done and pick our friends up on time, so I guess it wasn't that foolish. I'm excited to have a pantry full of jam for the fall and winter. A real pantry!

Yay for 31!

Yesterday, Mr. Jeremy turned 31, which I'm hoping was his best birthday ever, like it was for me. (At least until 32, which was just as good.) He did get a great collection of presents, including...

A new house! I know it's a bit over the top, and it isn't finalized yet, but I'm giving him over $100,000 in debt for his birthday this year. They were signing the papers yesterday to agree to sell, assuming we don't bail out after the inspection. I took Quinn and Cortney for a field trip around the corner last night, and we got the seal of approval (which we'd already received from Christine and Steven). And a hot tip on a chimney sweep should we need one. So now we're in business.

Happy birthday, Jeremy! 31 is sure to be an exciting year!

Let the gut clenching begin!

They came back to us today with the results of the appraisal and a new price. A price which just happened to be what we had decided already we were willing to go up to, but not past. (I was completely vindicated in terms of the home's value, thank you very much.) So assuming they accept the offer of the price they suggested, we will be heading a little further down the path to home-ownership.


Of course, there is still the inspection to be done which will undoubtedly turn up all sorts of unpleasantness.


But the financing portion seems to be in order, and I am highly motivated to get the hell out of this apartment, and I imagine they would like their inheritance, so I hope it goes smoothly from here. The projected closing date is August 12, meaning we would hope to be in the house mid-September.

Aaaahhhh!!!! (Imagine that equal parts ecstatic, terrified, and crazy.) Just don't bring up how much more the mortgage will be than our current rent. I'm trying to ignore that part.

The wait is almost over

I hope. After many delays, we are supposed to find out at some point tomorrow what the results of the appraisal mean to us. Do they feel justified in waiting for a better offer? Do they realize now that they should take our money and run? I don't know.

But if I don't find out by the time I go to bed tomorrow night, I may explode. I thought I was being patient, but now I'm not so sure. I've been overly sensitive about some silly stuff. I've been a little snippy with the rugrats. And my stomach feels slightly knotted.

It's all in not knowing whether I will have to spring into action at a moment's notice to line up an inspection, a lawyer, etc. Thank goodness I'm not an ER doctor or I'd end up having to operate on my own stress-induced intestinal tangling. I'm quite sure that would not end well. I get a bit squeamish.

Not my best day

Yesterday, those little cherubs pushed me almost to the breaking point. Their behavior and attitudes were heinous and culminated in Sebastian dumping dirt on his brother's head. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get out even half of the dirt while we were outside. Hence, we came in for bath time. That photo isn't the result of my bad housekeeping, but of what happened when I spent 15 minutes scrubbing Dorian's head. "If you are ever trying to trap some sand, use your child's scalp" was the lesson of the day. I may have to embroider a sampler. It didn't get much better after that, so as soon as I finished my dinner, I bolted, leaving no forwarding address.

I don't usually have much luck when I do this. Invariably, everything I want to do is closed/closing, a mob scene, or has children nearby. The fates decided to align for me yesterday, though. It must have been pretty obvious that if I didn't get my way, there would be hell to pay.

I started by getting a big, wonderful brownie at the deli. And I ate the whole thing. (Normally, I will eat a reasonable portion and make it last a couple of days, but not yesterday, oh no.) Then, I went to GameStop and played some MarioKart for a while. Then I went and had my pedicure that the Princess and her prince gave me for my birthday. Boy, did I need it! Yes, my feet were looking kind of rough, but once I got past feeling guilty for having prickly legs, having someone massage my feet while I read a month-old copy of OK! was exactly what I needed.

Potty humor: nature or nurture?

The answer to this (in our house anyway) is a resounding NATURE.

Mr. Sebastian aka "the little man" was never one for potty humor. Well, maybe not never, but rarely. His darling brother, on the other hand, never met a poop joke he didn't like or make up himself.

Dorian has taken lately to playing the keyboard while singing his original tune "Poop Smell" at full volume. This distresses Sebastian greatly. "He shouldn't be talking about poop!" he yells over the din.

Dorian also has a new pet name for me, "Shmoopsie Poopsie," which I find terribly cute. Sebastian disagrees. "When I hear him say 'Shmoopsie Poopsie' it makes me think of poop. He needs to stop saying that!"

As you can see, the young'un didn't get it from his older brother. The funny thing is that it is my policy that it's not appropriate at the table, but otherwise, I don't care. Kids will be kids, and in my mind, potty humor is normal and pretty harmless. Sebastian needs to lighten up.

Just plain creepy

The kids had amassed quite a collection of those toys that, when put in water for a couple of days, expand to 6 times their size or hatch out of an egg. On Monday, we put 3 of these into a container of water. Two are totally normal. This "cat", not so much.
Instead of getting bigger, it is covered in tumors. Perhaps this is why cats don't like to be bathed.

Everything is going up...

Except the size of the paycheck.

First, it was gasoline. Then, heating oil. Then, groceries (compounded by Sebastian aging out of WIC). Now, I get a letter today informing us that our health insurance premiums will be rising next month.

Great. Now how am I supposed to support my chocolate habit?

I swear this was not funny at the time

A certain young 5.5 year old gentleman in my house has been driving us a little nutty with his lack of listening skills. Saturday night, Jeremy went to a party so I was left to do the bedtime detail myself. No big deal, right?

I finished up Dorian's potty time/toothbrushing and said to Sebastian, "Okay, wash your hands and brush your teeth and I'll be back in a minute; I have to get your brother's pajamas." I get Dorian dressed and come out of the bedroom to discover...

Sebastian is standing in the middle of the living room, pants and underpants around his ankles, Oriental Trading Post* catalogue in hand, saying, "I need to show you this!"

It wasn't until the next day as I was telling Jeremy how poorly Sebastian was listening that I realized how ridiculous this scene really was. I need a break.

*I have no idea how we got on this list, but I guarantee there have been no purchases made.

The house drama continues...

The family who owns the house we're trying (and failing) to buy decided to have an appraisal on Friday. I, personally, believe that this appraisal will mean nothing. They can tell the family it's worth what they are asking all they want, but they are losing money every month the house goes unoccupied, what with taxes and upkeep. Now they are spending more money on an appraisal. Fine, do what you need to do, I say.

Here's the (slight) complication. A house of the exact same style which was on the market for some time at $175,000 and has nicer architectural details-- pressed tin ceilings, French doors, some hardwood floors-- has now dropped to an astonishing $119,900. I am not interested in this house because of its proximity to the highway. I am interested in the current selling price since that house is so similar and even has slightly more property (.23 acres instead of .16). Will this information sway the family to take our offer? Or will they believe some potentially inflated appraisal?

Tune in next week when we should have answers to these questions...

Two loves

This Spring and our CSA subscription have introduced us to a new love, rhubarb. This stuff is so delicious and so sour. We can't get enough. Well, Jeremy and Sebastian and I can't. Dorian wants nothing to do with it. More for us! So far we have had rhubarb crisp, blueberry rhubarb cobbler, rhubarb pie and rhubarb jam.

I made a batch of jam so I could send some to my Grandma in MD who turns 93 today. She apparently didn't care much for baking, but would make rhubarb pies, so I hope she enjoys this. Sebastian has been loving the jam to the point that he will even ask for a peanut butter and rhubarb sandwich. (He normally cringes at anything peanut butter related.) So today I made a second batch to keep us going for a little while. I still have enough rhubarb left for another dessert this weekend.

My other new love is Ciao Bella Gelato. The sorbetto is great, too. Last summer, Cortney and Dustin introduced us to the wonder that is their Fresh Mint and Chocolate Chip. It tastes so fresh it really is like eating a mint leaf right off the plant. I don't know how they do it, and I don't care, as long as they keep it up. Lucky for us, the co-op recently had this brand on sale. Normally, they charge $4.99/pint, but last month they were $3.49. We tried 4 more flavors: blood orange sorbetto, mango sorbetto, raspberry sorbetto and dulce de leche gelato. So good! They are all really intense and rich without being too sweet. Pure heaven. I highly recommend searching this little goodie out.

House update

They did not accept our offer. I didn't really expect that they would, but you never know. They have countered with a price $25,000 more than we offered. We are only willing to go up by $5,000. So it would appear we are at an impasse.
So be it.
In another month, if they haven't had any more offers, we can try again if we still want it. Or something else might come up. But at least we tried. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed. I was really looking forward to getting out of our apartment and into something all our own.
Especially after seeing the new upstairs neighbors' bumper stickers this afternoon. Would you like to hear what they are? Sure you would!

• A ribbon reading "Support drinking"
• A ribbon reading "Support bitching"
• A ribbon with a depiction of a man's silhouette being violated by a gas pump nozzle
• The infamous "If you are going to ride my ass, at least pull my hair"
• And one that I have mercifully forgotten

Why me?

It really wasn't my fault. Well, not entirely.

I swear I put on sunblock yesterday when we went to the lake. I even used #50. 50! Yet, I still managed to burn. I have proof that I put the sunscreen on because there is now a wiggly line on my back where you can see I could not quite reach to the top of my bathing suit. (I thought I did.)

Jeremy said I'm just working on my base. But I'm not sure you are supposed to make a cancer base.

Incompetence, I'm sure of it

Things that lead me to believe that the listing agent for the house is incompetent:

1. Did not bring appropriate informational paperwork to initial viewing.
2. Told me the house had been purchased in 1930s when the deed revealed a purchase date of 1951.
3. Told Jeremy the son who pasted the cars to the wallpaper had moved out 58 years ago. This is obviously wrong because a) they didn't own the house then and b) most of the cars are model year 1954 or later. Although, Jeremy thinks he may have had access to newspapers from the future.
4. Did not bring all of the paperwork to the second viewing, just half.
5. Despite a clause in our purchase offer delivered yesterday requiring their decision by 5pm tomorrow, was not planning to discuss it with them until tonight.

I don't know, maybe she doesn't really want to sell the house. I'm sure they want to continue to deal with an empty house which left unsold for much longer they will be responsible for maintaining the lawn of and heating this fall/winter.

The longest morning

It is done.

I dropped off the paperwork and a check and potentially signed my life away this morning. Jeremy tried to sign his life away exactly one year in the future, but I corrected that for him. I'm nice that way. Besides, if he thinks he gets to wait a year and see how it all shakes out, he's got another think coming. It's his money I'm spending, after all.

I'm not going to embarrass you (or myself) with the details of the roller coaster my stomach has been riding. Nor will I give you the details of today's transaction. (I wouldn't want you to have a realistic idea of how much money you could hit us up for.) But I will tell you that despite the promise of lollipops for good behavior at the myriad errands this morning required, my kids acted like complete hellions at every stop.

Dorian especially had the devil in him (surprise, surprise), running off at every opportunity. First, he took off into the bowels of the cubicles at the oil company while one of the women yelled at me, "There's a stairwell back there, ma'am!" Great. He runs off, but I get yelled at and called "ma'am". This was followed by his refusal to hold hands to cross the street, resulting in my grabbing his sleeve in a very unflattering way. Off to the post office, the post office I try to avoid as much as possible because of one particular clerk who shall henceforth be referred to as "Dummy". Dummy has both offered a year-old Dorian Star Wars stamps (because he should have known who Darth Vader is, right?) and, when asked for the cheapest possible delivery of $1.79, kept trying to upsell me to the $22 next day delivery. Today, Dummy's genius plan to make my morning even worse topped everything he'd ever done before. I'm next in a very long line. A woman comes from the back, opens a register, then disappears again. Dorian and Sebastian choose this time to "play chase". I snatch Dorian up as he swings by again, and the customer at Dummy's desk finishes and walks away. Dummy looks up at me and I walk over, foolishly believing he intends to help me. Ha ha. Dummy says, "I need to fill out this form before I go to lunch." And puts up his "next window please" sign. And starts filling out the form right there. Leaving one window open. Unbelievable.

And did I mention that after we finally got home Dorian started chanting what sounded like "Six six six" over and over again? I kid you not.

Let the ulcer begin!

Tomorrow we will officially be putting in an offer on the house.
Jeremy liked it.
Steven told me it was less work than I thought it would be.
It still will need to be inspected, so who knows what will come of that.

As soon as I get all the paperwork signed, we get to sit back and wait to see if they are willing to accept an offer that is $55,000 less than their original asking price and $19,000 less than the town has it assessed.

Maybe I shouldn't hold my breath.

But the fact is, they have only had offers from contractors looking to "flip" it, it has been sitting around unoccupied for a year, and if they don't accept our offer, then so be it. I am not so in love with it that I will cry if we don't get it. I may cry because our new upstairs neighbors are heavy walkers, but not about that house.

What a weekend!

The excitement?

• Strolling of the Heifers! Y'all need to come for the best parade ever next time. There will be a highlight reel on the boys' blog soon.
• Sunburn #4! I really didn't want to/wasn't planning on the festival post-parade. I don't like crowds, but got suckered into it anyway, and the goddamn fireball in the sky escaped the clouds and burned me. Boo to that.
• Kathrin got married! You know her, she may even have slept on your couch. She's the best German girl in the world and she's finally marrying Marc after living in sin forever. Congratulations to her! I really wanted to be there. Neither of us could make it to the other's wedding which stinks. But I will get over there again one day. Who wouldn't want to go to a town called Luneburg?
• It's Christine's birthday on Sunday. A special one. And my present to her? Borrowing her man for a little while tomorrow for...
• ...the second viewing of the house. The house that, if we put an offer on it and the offer is accepted, will surely give me palpitations and panic attacks that I will relate in detail until I officially drive away all friends and blog readers. I'm hoping that Steven will be able to give me a relatively realistic idea of how much really needs to be done and how poor it will make us to do it all.
• Oh, and Jeremy and Sebastian are having a special boys' night out at a Swampbats game in Keene. It will be Sebastian's first baseball game. My first game that didn't involve my brother playing? When I was 15 or 16, shortly after Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened. So once again, the boy is way ahead of me. Even if this is minor league, you still have to buy tickets. My brother's T-ball was free, but maybe slightly less co-ordinated. Maybe.

Upon consideration...

We're going back on Sunday to have a second look at the house that is in our neighborhood. The one where someone had written "f*** you" on the wall. I like a house with attitude, I guess.
Actually, what I like is a house with 3 bedrooms. And room for my sewing machine. And a first floor laundry room. It is exactly the style of house I was envisioning. Well, maybe not exactly but really, really close.
I know it needs a lot of work. But from what I know, it is mostly cosmetic work. And I also know that we can't afford anything that doesn't need a lot of work. I was looking for a project, after all. And I think I could really love the house once it was done.
Jeremy will be seeing it for the first time. He may run screaming. But probably not. I will say that when I saw it the first time, I did feel overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done. But since then, I have been able to formulate a plan for what work would absolutely have to be done before we moved in, and what could wait. I like having a plan.
Here are the pros:

• Good sized yard-- big enough for playing and a garden, but not so big it requires a riding lawn mower.
• 3 bedrooms-- Sebastian wants his own room, or they could share and have a playroom.
• Large kitchen
• Lots of space for our family, plus room to expand into what is currently the workshop.
• We can still walk to everything (gas prices being what they are).
• We would likely be able to turn a large profit if we did want to resell it in a few years.

Here are the cons:

• We'd still be in the same damn neighborhood I was trying to leave.
• Lots and lots of sheet-rocking, painting, planting and fence-building to do.
• No privacy on a corner lot.
• Still in Brattleboro where I'm not keen on the school system or the high taxes.
• It would cost more to heat and oil is expensive.

I would love to hear your opinions, if you have any. Click the link above first, if you'd like to see for yourself. This is all predicated on convincing them to take a way lower offer than their asking price. But, hey, they have owned that house since 1930, the old lady's dead, and it's been on the market for 8 months now.

Gotta keep those rodents clean

Dorian: I need a band-aid. A square one.

Me: Just a minute.

D: I want a square one!

M: Hold on, I need to wash my hands first.

D: You need to wash your hamsters?!

A dream deferred

Unless something magical happens, it would appear that we are not buying a house any time soon. We visited the last house in our price range on Sunday. It had a really nice yard. And the room that the boys would have was pretty cool.
But the house needs a lot of work. A lot of work has been done, or at least started, but even to my untrained eye, it doesn't seem well done. The layout was also quite strange. And as much as I like certain aspects of the town, I think it may be a little too conservative for a family with a cross-dresser.
It is hard to let go of the idea of 4 apple trees, a chicken coop, and a separate heated studio. But the house itself is not really worth those amenities.
Not to mention the fact that when I called for heating oil yesterday, the price had gone up $.50/gallon in 2 weeks! $4.589/gallon! I remember complaining when it went up to $1.79 the first year we lived here. I'm not sure we can afford to pay a mortgage that will surely be larger than our rent, and be able to heat an entire house.
It just plain stinks.
The good news is that a new couple has moved in upstairs and they seem nice so far. She's pregnant so I can only hope they won't be partying and up all night. And the knuckleheads in the other part of the house are supposedly moving out by the 15th. So if we get someone decent in there, and have better people upstairs, moving out will (I hope) feel less imperative than it does right now.

The elusive Hott Mama

Rarely caught on film, Hott Mama was spotted today practicing faux-ga on the banks of the West River.

Here she is performing such poses as "the pointy flamingo", "the upward jig", "the mentally unbalanced" and "the precarious table". Gamera, mystical turtle though he may be, could not match the fine form of the Hott Mamonster.

He must, however, be given credit for his moves, "the inimitable forcefield" and "the velocipooper".

Even their young contributed "the inimitable backhand".

She's magic: