Living on the Edge

I hate real estate. I hate every little thing about it. It sets my teeth on edge even thinking about it. I could never, ever in my wildest dreams, be one of those people who buys and sells houses for a living. At this point in our transactions, I'm about ready to call it quits and live in West Virginia forever. One one side we have a buyer wanting anything and everything to be absolutely perfect by closing, which is an impossibility, both because of time and money. On the other side we have a seller who has lived in their home for almost forty years is very sentimentally attached to it. Which is understandable. However, that doesn't mean that the home is worth any more money than what it's worth. We have an offer in, but they won't even see it until their daughter gets into town. The agent is hoping that she'll be able to help them understand things a little better.

Until things get settled, I'll be holed up over here with my shoulders up around my ears and my teeth gnashed together and a bottle of ibuprofen clutched in my white knuckled hands.

Good times.

On Selling and Buying

We sold the house! The wonderful magnificent totally awesome mother fucking house! Someone else finally realized that it's a wonderful magnificent totally awesome mother fucking house, and decided to take it off of our hands. Now, we still have to undergo the inspections (regular, radon, termites) and then the bank appraisal, and then the relocation appraisal (?) and then the final walk-through, but those should all be completed by the end of the month. Then on August 31 we hand over the keys!

(I accidentally just typed 'kids' instead of 'keys.' Telling, no?)

Now we begin the only slightly less stressful process of finding a new house to live in. Wish us luck!

Adventures in Real Estate, Part TWO

About two years ago, we sold our house in suburban Philadelphia to move to the wilds of West Virginia. It's not exactly wild, to be honest. It's more of a subdivision, but we do have an urban hunt several times a year to ward off the prolific and evil deer population.

Now we're in the process of selling our West Virginia house so that we can move to suburban Pittsburgh. Because we're stupid crazy like that.

Here in Mo-town our house has been on the market for about a month. We've had three showings and three open houses. All have gone pretty well, honestly. And in some way, the less frequent tromping of strangers in our house is nice. I mean, when we were on the market back in Bala, we were had a dozen showings in the first week. It was insane! I was insane.

BUT!

Just because we're having fewer showings doesn't mean my insanity meter has dialed down at all. In fact, it may even be higher. Because if we don't sell this house? My husband is going to be commuting 90-120 minutes to and from Pittsburgh.

AND!

Just because we're not having showings every god-damned day doesn't mean that I don't mentally prepare for one every day. Get up! Brush your teeth! Now hide your toothbrushes back under the sink! Make your beds! Not like that, NEATLY! Eat, but don't get any food on the table/floor/yourselves! Put your dishes away! Get in the car! Let out the cat! Put the toys away! Don't poop in your diaper! Take this poopy diaper to the outside trashcan! Put the toys away! Don't ask for any food that might smell remotely offensive to any other person in the whole wide world! Clear your dishes! Put your clothes in the hamper! Brush your teeth! Now hide your toothbrushes back under the sink! Good night. I love you.

Exhale.

We're spending a few child-free days in Philly later this week (Thanks DAD AND MOM!) and I'm hoping I'll be able to turn off the internal monologue of chastisement long enough to actually enjoy a thing or two.

And I'm not making a single fucking bed.

The Exodus, The Big Kids and Other Things

This post is going to be a scattered mess, so inspired by Miss Zoot, I'm going to use bullet points!

*This morning Sam came downstairs fully dressed, all on his own accord. His clothes were seasonally appropriate, they matched and he had put his jammies away. I was so surprised when he came into to wake me at 7am pretty much ready to go. He couldn't wait to get to school to tell his teacher all about it. He is getting so big and responsible. Thank god he still wants me to get into bed with him to cuddle occasionally, though. Love that boy.

*Speaking of getting big, Lucy has been wearing underpants for over a week now. I haven't posted anything yet because she had been having lots of accidents, but yesterday and today have been better. For the few weeks leading up to last, she was taking off her diapers and being, in general, a pain in the ass when it came to any bodily function. After visiting with my parents, I simply told her we weren't doing diapers any more. She's very happy about the development, but still doesn't have full awareness of when she has to go, so it's been one step forward, two steps back. Wish us luck!

*Even though our house is under contract, we still have to keep scheduling showings. HATE.

*My baby is cute, but you knew that already, didn't you?

*In the past week, two of our neighbors have put their houses up for sale by owner. Let me just say, they are fucking lucky that we already had an offer in our our house, or I might have had to go on a midnight sign stealing expedition. I guess since the coolest people on the street are leaving (well, maybe the second coolest after these guys) they figured there was no reason to stick around!

No I

So I totally did not hold up my end of the deal for this week's Team Up Thursday, so to those of you here looking for our next alphabet diptych - SORRY! I may pull an eleventh hour posting, but don't hold your breath.

The reason for my delinquency? We bought a house. And are in the midst of negotiations to sell our house. It's been a busy week.

Back in January when SOB was interviewing in West Virginia we did a very small amount of house hunting. Basically, we were just looking around to see what the market there was like. However, I fell in love with the very first house I saw. My text message to SOB said "Sign the contract. I found our dream house." And he was only an hour into his interview.

The house wasn't on the market at the time, but was going to be listed in the spring. On Easter Saturday we got a call from our agent out there that if we didn't make them an offer now that it was going on the market ASAP. After a few days of soul searching and number crunching, we decided to make an offer, and they accepted it! Last weekend we went out for the home inspection and things went well. We did a little more negotiating earlier this week for some repairs, but everything is on track and we should be moving in at the end of June!

Then yesterday we had a showing here that lasted for two hours! The interested party was back for a fourth time, and they brought an architect with them. It was crazy. We got an offer this morning and are doing the back-and-forth thing with them, so today has been nuts as well. We have a date night scheduled for Saturday, and I sure hope we'll be celebrating!

Or maybe I'll take the kids out for ice cream this afternoon and kill two birds with one stone!

Unrequited

This morning as we pulled out of the driveway I told the kids how each flower on the apple tree will become an apple. Sam actually rolled his eyes at me because apparently I've told them that a time or two already. While I'm glad that we got to be around for one more blossom season, I'm a little sad that we'll miss out on the harvest in October. I'll always think of Maggie when the apples are in season now, since she was just a wee little bundle when we harvested last year. I hope that whoever ends up here cares for and enjoys the trees as much as we have. The end is worth the means.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

We totally bought a house.

Oh, and we never actually, um, sold the house we're currently living in.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

--

Also, Lucy wore underpants today! Which is a good thing. However, the impetus for said underpants was a situation which involved my daughter rubbing her own feces all over herself and her bed. Seriously. I took pictures. Email me if you want to see them. I figure that every single time she gives me shit (pun intended) as a teenager, I'll whip them out. I doubt any boy (or girl) will want to kiss her after seeing a photo of her with poop on her lips. Maybe I'll even print out some wallets and distribute them to potential prom dates. Because I'm evil like that.

And...............scene!

I Will Sell This House Today

My son has become the world's most charming realtor.

For the past few weeks he has been asking all about why we're selling the house. And every time we have to leave he asks about the people coming and if they're going to buy the house. Because of some unplanned situations (like the realtor who showed up AN HOUR AND A HALF late today, and just expected us to vacate as if I hadn't just put dinner for my three small children on the table grrrrr!) there have been a few occasions where we are still in the house when people come through to see it.

And that's when the magic happens, people. Sam starts flashing his mega-watt smile and offers to give tours, starting with his bedroom. Which is awesome, don't you know? And did you see my Spider Man poster? And where I keep my games?

We had some stragglers from last weekend's open house due to daylight savings, and Sam was all, 'This is our living room! Isn't it great!??!?' He even added several sweeping arm gestures for emphasis. Naturally, everyone loved him.

I'm telling you, we should stick around during showings. I think this kid could close the deal!

Drained

Normally on Mondays visitors to The Cheese Party usually come upon a photo, but today you are out of luck. I haven't picked up my camera since Lucy's hilariously unfortunate vaseline incident. Last week kicked me squarely in the ass, and I'm still kind of limping around. Four out of five of us are sick. In fact, I just got back from dragging the three littlest sick ones to the doctor's office.

(Side bar: why is it that whenever I have to take all three kids to the doctor's office, the only available exam room is approximately the size of a phone booth?)

(Double side bar: at what point do you think referencing the size of a phone booth will become obsolete? Seriously, I haven't seen one in years. I'm old.)

Luckily, no one is seriously sick. Just annoyingly, snot on everything sick. But somehow I'm the only one who wants to nap every day. The other three sickies want to run around like maniacs with ribbons of mucus trailing behind them. Well, Maggie can't run, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want to.

We don't have any showings scheduled for today, which makes me one part relieved and one part anxious. Last week we had eleven showings and twelve parties at our open house, but no one has made an offer yet, which is keeping me up at night. Which is likely the reason I'm always wanting to nap.

(For serious, I went to bed at 8pm last night. On fucking Big Love finale and Oscar night. And I don't just mean in bed. I was lights out, drooling on my pillow by 8:05. So, so lame.)

Hopefully a few of the more interested parties will be back around some time this week, because I don't know how much of this I can take. If it takes too long, I might have to take the money from the sale and use it to buy a lifetime supply of valium.

Adventures in Real Estate

OMG.

Our house has now been on the market for two days, we've had four showings, and I'm already kind of over this whole process. Yesterday was nuts. We had our first showing Monday night, so we took the kids out for dinner. Not too rough. When we got home we got a call that we were going to have another showing from 11-12 on Tuesday. Also, not too bad. We're usually out running around then anyway, and I pick Sam up from school at noon, so the timing worked well.

Except that Sam got sent home early from school on Monday with a bad cough, and wasn't well enough yesterday to go back. So we also couldn't go to the Y. Then we get another showing appointment for 11:30-12:30, but then they rescheduled for 3:15-4:15. And then when we got back home at 4:15, they were just getting here because of some communication error. So we piled everyone back in the car. But just before we walked out of the door, the phone rang with another showing appointment from 6:15-7:15. In my haste, I left without any food for the baby or drinks for the kids. We ordered a pizza, hit a drug store for drinks and baby food and headed over to my sister-in-law's apartment.

A few hours later, as we pulled into the driveway, I said to SOB that I was just going leave my diaper bag and gym bag in the car. I had been lugging them back and forth all day, and since they didn't contain anything I needed in the house I figured they could live there for now.

Except that it slipped my mind that I had stashed my keys in the diaper bag. A fact that also slipped SOB's mind this morning when he tucked his key to my car in his coat pocket in order to keep the clutter to a minimum.

So I go to load the kids in and I realize that I have no way to get into the car. And I cry. In my driveway.

So now I've paid $78 for my roadside assistance to come, even though they're not here yet. Even though they were supposed to be here already. And I've had too much coffee. And Sam is still not at school. And my house is still for sale. Which means I have to keep all of the beds made and all of the lights on and all of the clothes and dishes washed and put away and all of the toys hidden and all of the trash cans empty and all of the diapers and the cat put outside and cinnamon candles burning until the very minute I leave the house and and and.

Do you know anyone that wants to buy a house?

Getting Here

If anyone ever tells you that there flying somewhere with a toddler on their lap while they are 31 weeks pregnant, take a deep breath and smack them across the face. That's the only way to sufficiently knock the crazy out of them. They might think you hate them because of the slap, but really, you are doing them a huge favor. Sam's body was taken over by an alien devil baby the minute we got to the airport, and the vile spirit didn't leave him until, well, he might still be in there. We're waiting on a consultation from a priest and a NASA scientist before we make any conclusions.

In other news, the house hunting is going relatively well. The scant few hours that Sam did behave yesterday was while we were out real estate shopping. We found several houses that we would be very happy with, and we're seeing about a dozen more today. If we're lucky we'll be making an offer sometime in the next 48 hours.

Finally, I haven't had my camera out all week, so I'm submitting this oldie but goodie for my BSM. It helps me to remember that my baby boy isn't always such a terror. Visit Picture This too see all the pretty pictures!