Whirlwind!

Events of the last five days, in chronological order:

1. I turned 28.

2. We moved to a new house.

3. We “celebrated” our anniversary. Seven is the cardboard anniversary, right?

My sister tried SO hard to get us to go out to dinner. Despite my protestations about how much I needed to do, I finally conceded and was looking forward to it. Then Carter totally lost all reason and clung to me like a tree sloth and much freaking out followed. Not wanting to leave my poor sister with that mess of a child and the other crazy one, we decided to go with a rain check. It was kind of fitting of our life. 

4. We have spent hours at places like Ikea and Target buying lots of boxes and bins and a few pieces of furniture and such.

5. We did NOT get any response on what’s going on with the sale of our old house. So still praying we get some final answers there soon. Like yesterday. 

Things I have learned in the past 5 days: 

1. Do not ever attempt to move with a one year old. Especially mine. My sweet, adorable, stealth and mischievous busy girl did not help the process. I spent 30 minutes attempting to unpack one box of books while watching both kids. As soon as they were on the shelf Avery pulled every single one of them off. And then ran away and tried to dive head first down the stairs. 

2. We have way too much stuff. Specifically… 6 boxes of cleaning supplies (no exaggeration at all). It will be at least 5 years before I need another bottle of lotion. And with the massive amount of candles I have, we shouldn’t need to run the heater all winter. 

3. We have truly awesome, incredible family and friends. It almost brings tears to my eyes thinking about all the help and support we’ve had through this process.

More wrenches

The last few months have been such an insane roller coaster that nothing should surprise me at this point. And yet, when we got the call Friday that our buyers had backed out, I really wasn't expecting that. Especially since this buyer confirmed weekly that they were still interested and we were 10 days from the close date. They walked away because they re-ran their calculations and wanted to offer slightly less, which in our situation jeopardizes the whole process and would have to go back to the approval board.

The good news is we now have another buyer that allegedly really wants the house and was able to step into the void. This doesn't have to go back to the board, but still required review and approval and more time.

At this point, we're still planning to move this weekend (assuming our rental is actually ready, although I have my doubts about that, too). The rental market is really tough right now and we don't want to end up without a place to go, or settling for something that really doesn't meet our needs. Plus, we have a lot of specific criteria (dog friendly, kid friendly, specific area, 3 bedrooms, etc.), so we don't have too many choices. And our realtor feels really confident that this is all going to go through with this buyer for several reasons. So here's what we're praying for:

1. A quick process with our lender, and that they would not require additional payment for the extended time (also, lender, we've paid you every single penny of our mortgage plus some, and we settled privately with our second mortgage so you don't have to pay them anything, and we don't have buckets of money sitting around, so if you could just cut us some slack and be cool, that would be awesome). We'd also really like to hear from them before we actually move.  Tomorrow would be great.

2. The buyer's loan would go through quickly which would expedite the process. 

3. The buyer actually goes through with this and actually buys the house.

Wrenches

You know what is super not cool?

When you're all ready to move on Saturday and you get a call the Monday before that the house isn't going to be ready Friday when it was supposed to be, or Saturday when you're supposed to move, or maybe even Sunday. So now that pushes the move that was supposed to happen at 8am Saturday to maybe late Sunday afternoon, or sometime midweek or the next weekend.

This is especially not cool when you have to, you know, move out of your house.  And all this happens after you've already signed the official lease and paid a deposit. And you've already scheduled days off, booked a moving truck, and everything you own is already packed in boxes. 

On the move!

Life is funny sometimes.

About, oh… 19 (or 20?) months ago, we decided to sell our house. It was a decision we agonized over. Like most people who bought when we did, the market didn’t quite turn out how we thought it would. Unique to us was the situation of our house and the massive amount of money we would need to invest in making our house merely functional. In the end, we decided to move forward with the short sale, considering baby #2 was on the way a little sooner than expected.

“Move forward” is not a term that should ever be associated with the sale of our home. Perhaps “creep forward, slide backward, stall, and then scoot one millimeter forward” might fit.

Today we got the miraculous news that we’re officially approved.  And we close on July 25. As in, 20 days. Also, a Wednesday. Also, the busiest time of our busiest month. The Saturday before that, the 21^st, is already busy with all kinds of festivities. So, it looks like we’re moving the 14^th. As in, less than 10 days.

Although we’re thrilled to be at the end of this road, the irony is not lost on me that we have waited MONTHS and MONTHS and now we have less than 10 days. As maddening as it is, we'll make it happen somehow!