I may still be a "flatlander" but...

I think I am officially now a New Englander. Despite temperatures topping out at about 70 degrees before the windchill, I did go boogie boarding at every opportunity in water I'm estimating as being about 65 degrees.

The weather for our trip left a little to be desired, but we made the best of it and had a really good time. My sore elbows are finally better (who knew boogie boarding was so tough on the joints?) and I'm gearing up for 2 weeks of home renovation starting Tuesday. Well, 2 weeks before we move in. Then, at least 2 years after that. I'm so optimistic it borders on insanity.

Our closing is first thing Tuesday morning, so by lunch time Jeremy and I will be homeowners! At least his business trip for this week was cancelled. That gives me more opportunity to get some work done. I have my calendar all worked out and I'm going to do my best to stick to it. I've got some terrific friends all lined up to help me and I guarantee to return the favor at the earliest opportunity.

I'll do my level best to keep you all updated, but the rest of the month is going to be nutty getting the house ready and possibly sending Sebastian to school. Keep your fingers crossed (Kathrin, hold your thumb) that I don't pull down the wall with the wallpaper!

What a summer!

The summer continues to fly by, and the projects (completed and yet to be) continue to pile up. After our usual Tuesday trip to the lake, we stopped off for our CSA pick up. This week, we got to reap the benefits of the Rupard vacation by taking their share. (They get ours next week.) We also got to reap the benefits of PYO organic blueberries. Thanks to the extra bounty, we now have a few more items to add to the pantry. Two jars of peaches and four jars of blueberries and one jar of blueberries and peaches have been added to the cabinet temporarily. Temporarily, you ask? Why, yes, I answer because...
We have the craziest month ever ahead of us. We go to the ocean for a week, come home for 2 days, and then close on the new house! That laughable appraisal slipped by the mortgage company, so we can, in fact, buy the house. Here's the new twist: Jeremy leaves the next day for a business trip for 4 days. But, that helps me justify clearing out for IKEA the day after he gets back. Then, we have a week to prepare the house to move in, 5 days to get settled/clean out the old apartment, and then we're off for 3 days of camping. And if I can find time to sign Sebastian up for school, he would start the day after that.
Crazy! We are crazy. Or we will be when this is all over.

The (barely tempered) excitement

I'm still trying not to count my chickens, but there are a few things I'm really looking forward to about this house.

1. I will have a real garden. A garden with ample sunlight. A garden big enough for everything I want to plant. Fruits, vegetables, herbs-- all of it. You have no idea how happy this makes me.
2. There will be color on my walls. No more "cream" with white trim. Hell, no. My only fear is that I will obnoxiously over-color everything. But, so what? The boys have picked their room color, we've settled on the kitchen color, so now we need one for our bedroom. I want it to coordinate with the blanket I'm knitting, but it has a lot of neutrals and I don't want a neutral, but a hot pink room? I don't know. Make a suggestion!
3. The bedrooms will be upstairs. I'm hoping this means a lot less trouble with living room activity disturbing those trying to sleep. Having our bedrooms connected to the living room these last few years hasn't been all bad, but neither has it been good.
4. A first floor laundry! In our last three places, the laundry has been at the top of a ladder, at the end of the group of town houses, and in a dirt basement. None of these was ideal. I'll even be able to set up my sewing machine in there.
5. An extra bedroom will be very nice. Whether we split the kids up, or have a play room or a guest room, the extra space will be appreciated.

I'm sure there are more good things, but those are uppermost in my mind. So many projects to plan! I love to plan!

Conversation with Sebastian

Me: So, I have some good news. I heard from the mortgage company today that the appraisal was better than expected. That means we should be able to buy the house!

Sebastian: Yay!!!

M: Are you excited?

S: Yes!

M: What are you most excited about?

S: We won't have neighbors!

M: Well, we'll still have neighbors. We just won't have upstairs neighbors.

S: Yeah! No upstairs neighbors!

M: What else are you excited about?

S: Going to the ocean, The White Pants... and I like turtles.

M: ...

Pretending we're moving

All's quiet on the home-buying front, lulling me into a potentially false sense of security that we will actually be moving out of this apartment we have occupied for 4 years and 10 days now. Not that I'm counting or anything. I have spent the last few days behaving as if we have an impending move, and it's been both good and bad.

Pros to pretending we're moving:

• It's fun to pick out a rainbow of paint colors to fantasize about.
• I can look forward to a day with no overhead stomping. (But only if the kids are downstairs with me or asleep.)
• I got a lot of things organized today and even found more stuff to get rid of, including 2 old sleeping bags, an incomplete set of dishes, vases that I never unpacked 4 years and 10 days ago, and Jeremy even was willing to give up a crate full of records.
• IKEA fantasy trips are always fun to take.

Cons to pretending we're moving:

• I have a huge list of supplies and tools to buy in order to prepare the walls for "Capri Grotto" blue paint.
• I look around at all the stuff we have and ostensibly need and shudder to think about packing and moving it all. Even if it is just going around the corner.
• The prospect of all this work is extremely overwhelming.
• The amount of money we are and will be hemorrhaging for the next few months is absolutely horrifying. This will probably leave the IKEA trip in the fantasy realm instead of reality.
• The kitchen floor that was already overdue for a mopping keeps getting spot cleaned and Jeremy and I walk around saying we'll take care of it when we move. Realistically, that will be in mid to late September. Gross.

No, I haven't forgotten to update you

Okay, I would just like to say that this whole home-buying thing is a real pisser. It has been totally absurd and terrible and stressful. I can only hope that the actual home-owning is better. (Please let me believe that it will be.)

We gave the sellers a list of demands that we asked them to fulfill or give us our deposit money back. Well, we finally found out 2 weeks later, that they are fixing the furnace and giving us money toward the other repairs. So, it looks like it's going forward unless the bank craps out. Which is certainly possible. I have found out that anything is possible in this game.

So, this is part of what we will be mortgaging if all goes well:

Our glorious future bedroom

Just look at that beautiful ceiling!

And who wouldn't want a duct-taped chimney thimble complete with creosote stains? And what a view through the cracked window glass!

And that closet!

What more could a gal want?

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.

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.

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...

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?

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.

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.

Another one bites the dust... and covers my children in it

We went to see another house. Another house that is out of the question. This one, at least, had a lot of potential. But the 3 bedrooms upstairs were all versions of what you see in the picture. One had these cars pasted to the wall. One had the words "F*** you" in cursive and circled repeatedly. And the last had a ceiling that was caving in. Basically, the entire upstairs needed to be gutted and re-sheet rocked and painted before we could even consider moving in. For some reason, exposing my children to decades old, flaking lead paint is unappealing.
The downstairs was only marginally better. The laundry room, bathroom and dining room were livable. But the living room was filthy and disgusting and the kitchen would have to be painted before I would even think about putting my food in it.
It did have a workshop off the kitchen, that if you finished, would be a nice extra space in the future. It had a nice sized yard for a garden and room for the kids. It had plenty of space for our family.
BUT
It is right around the corner from us. In the neighborhood I desperately want to leave. And I tried to convince myself that it was different around the corner. There aren't any houses across the street from that house, therefore less neighbors. But there is a weird little trailer type house behind it that I am wary of because there is a heap of trash outside it at all times and I often hear yelling when we walk by. And while the real estate agent and I were standing outside discussing the situation, we could hear someone's phone ringing repeatedly at top volume and some dummy with a sideways cap came running out of the little trailer house and trailing a cloud of cologne, yelling, "Yo! Yo! Yo!" and jumped into a car booming loud music. This is exactly what I am trying to get away from.
So the search continues. There is only one property left that I haven't been inside. It is in the town with the nuclear power plant. And the fire department is right across the street. God help me.