First Night

Tonight we finally get to spend the night in the new house. We are buried in boxes. I know we’ll get through it eventually, but it’s hard to get anything done. Just walking down the hallway, I’ll pass a box and feel compelled to open it and start putting stuff away – even though I was on task to do something completely different.

It is pretty cool to finally be HOME. The challenge with this house will be storage – the house itself is quite a bit smaller than our last and there’s just less storage space overall. It’s going to take some creativity to solve the problem. Especially since we’re minus an office ROOM. My new office is now basically a hallway. So no office closet or anything like that. To compensate, I put a book shelf in the hallway with me, and bought some pretty baskets that fit on the shelves to put stuff in. So when you walk down the hallway, instead of seeing a bunch of office supplies hanging out everywhere, you just see the pretty baskets on the shelves.

Our kitchen has a lot of available space, but to make the most use of it, we’ll have to get some roll out shelves. Wherever I can put a piece of furniture that can hold things, that’s what we’re doing. And of course, we’re continuing to junk as much stuff as possible.

But even with all the boxes everywhere… I’m still so glad we’re done.

Ah, the fun never ends

We were so close. Every night I close my eyes and pretend I’m sleeping in our new house. In our new room. I picture Rachel in her room. Zach in his room. BOTH in their own SEPARATE rooms down the hall from us – as opposed to sharing the same room like they have been the last two months. (I use the term “sharing” very loosely here. I’m not sure constant yelling at each other constitutes as “sharing”) The new house is within walking distance of town, so I picture us waking up Sunday morning, throwing on some clothes and walking to the pancake restaurant that’s around the corner from us. Most especially, I had really wanted to spend Christmas there. I was so sure things would be reasonably settled that I even planned on hosting a New Year’s Eve party. (Family members only – since they would understand/tolerate the fact we’d still be mostly in boxes)

It was so close I could taste it.

And now it’s gotten just a little bit further. Today was the first day we could go in the house, despite the fact that the sellers have been out of the place for a few days. We were told they wanted to hang onto it an extra few days to “clean.” Riiiight. When we moved out of our old house, I hired professional cleaners to come in and clean everything. They scrubbed the kitchen, bathroom, vacuumed every room and closet. Dusted. The place was probably cleaner than it ever was when we lived there. But in our case, despite telling us they were “cleaning” the place, I did not get the same treatment on our new house.

Hair all over the showers and tubs. Garbage on the floor in the closets and in some of the drawers. Paint we didn’t want, left in the garage. Dust piles on the baseboards. Dust and dirt throughout the floors. Hair even on the dirty counters in the kitchen. Toilets that haden’t been cleaned in at least a few weeks (they had that tell-tale mold ring where the water meets the bowl). But as grossed out as I was – that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worse was the strange pile of something that looked like sandy dirt in the corner of the master bedroom.

Termites.

We still have to get someone in there, inspect and officially confirm, but based on the pictures I’ve seen online, what we saw is EXACTLY the same as the examples of evidence of dry-wood termites. The house was inspected for termites and had “section 1 clearance” – which means that the inspector said there were no termites. I don’t understand how we can go from that assessment, to OBVIOUS evidence in such a short amount of time, and on the first day we can get the house. I have no idea what recourse we’ll have, and who will have to pay (we’re already strapped for cash – so I’m just afraid what this means for us)

On top of that, the painters came in today, but didn’t get as far on the job as we would have liked. Our movers are, at this very moment, making their way here and will be here on Thursday, but I have no guarantee that the painters will be done. (In fact, I’m 99% sure they WON’T be done and will still have paint and tarps everywhere) As well, I don’t know what we’ll do with our stuff if we have to have the place fumigated. Oh, and the New Years Eve party? I can pretty much forget about that – as well as having Christmas there. Until the place is cleaned and termites dealt with, I’m not staying there and we can’t unpack.

So… you can probably guess I’m just a WEE bit disappointed. And freaked out. And grossed out. And SERIOUSLY pissed off.

After this whole experience, I NEVER want to move again. Ever.

One month later

Holy cow. A whole month went by in a blink of an eye. Here’s my update on life.

Thanksgiving
We went to Sam’s mom’s house. It was a nice reminder why I don’t want to live where it gets cold. (It was really really cold!) Otherwise it was good. Rachel spent a ton of quality time with her aunt. Sam’s mom got a good look into the insanity that is 5-year-old Zach. I had wanted to take a trip into the Boston, but it wasn’t in the cards. Instead we visited the Yankee Candle factory in Deerfield. Haven’t been there in years.

House
We closed on the house – but the sellers are renting it from us until next week. With Christmas around the corner, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to get our stuff in there though. So it will either be early next week or the week after. The kids sharing a room is really getting old for everyone involved – I’m anxious to give them their own rooms. We bought a new washer and dryer for the house, and I’m looking forward to using it. (We had old ones in the last house, so getting new ones really is exciting. Yes, I need to get out more.)

Dog
We finally came to the conclusion that there was a very specific list of things we wanted in our next dog. Size, look, fur length, weight, personality, etc. etc. so we’ve decided to get a labradoodle. We’ve put a deposit down on an upcoming litter – the same breeder my brother bought their dog from. It won’t be until mid march until the puppies are ready to go home. … and then the fun begins. It was just a little over a year ago ironically, that I posted about how I’m all too aware of all the training involved with a puppy. But, how can you resist a face like this:

(That’s not our puppy – but we’re hoping there’ll be a chocolate puppy in the litter like this one.) We even already have a name picked out.

Sam’s Job
There’s more news on this too, but I can’t talk about it yet.

Weight
With everything that has happened in the last few months, I have totally let my weight get out of hand. I know it’s bad, but I refuse to look at the scale. But I don’t get real control of my own life until we get moved into our own house. So I’m just going to deal with it then. Whatever I’ve gained… I lost it once before. I’ll lose it again. :/ Besides. I’m going to have a dog in a few months that’s going to need a lot of walks/runs. Need to get in shape!

Settling in

Things have settled down from when I posted last. We got some resolution on some open and scary issues. With that resolution, we were able to make an offer on a really nice townhome, just outside of a really nice town (walking distance). Everyone has signed off on the paperwork, so now we just wait. It will be about a month or two before we can actually start moving in, but at least we know a home is definitely within our future.

Living here will not be easy – and we’ll be carefully watching every penny we spend. We’ll be living on a tighter budget than we ever had. That is pretty scary to me – but we’ll do what we have to do.

Anyway – the last time I posted, things were pretty much at their worst. So I felt I had to update. The next few weeks will still be hectic – I have work that has piled up while we’ve been busy with house stuff. And then there’s Thanksgiving – we’ll be visiting Sam’s family back in Massachusetts. And then right after that is Hanukkah… then Christmas… Then sometime then or shortly after we’ll start moving into the house… I’m glad we went to Hawaii when we did. It will be a long time before I can afford another trip like that – and while the rest of the chaos is going on, at least I know the place now and can go there in my mind when I need to escape. 😉

Life in the fastlane

“
-Ferris Bueller

Yeah, no kidding. So much has happened in such a short span of time, I’m literally dizzy. Most likely from adrenaline.

So here’s the order of events:

First, we weighed it all out, and even though Portland, OR sounds like a nice place – the fact of the matter is that Sam wasn’t seeing a lot of jobs there. As well, I know even there, without family nearby, I wouldn’t be 100% happy. Whereas in California, there are more job opportunities and we have family nearby. My brother has offered to help us get settled, so all in all – this is a no brainer. We are headed to California.

The hard part was deciding when. Sam still has a job technically, but it will soon be ending. But they haven’t been really clear about when. At the same time, we can’t base our lives around them. Another factor is the kids. Rachel is FINALLY in a good school, with a awesome teacher – she’s doing really well in class – so I did think maybe we would wait it out this year and head out in the spring as soon as she got out of school… but… I have no idea what the market will be like in the spring. Right now, the market didn’t seem all that bad to me. At least not as bad as I would expect with the current economy and headed into the “slow” season. There were a few house sales right on our street… so we figured we’d jump while it was hot.

We did a massive clean up, and de-clutter, got the house ready to show, put it on the market on Monday. I figured we’d be sitting on the market for at least a month, maybe 2 or 3… We’ve had such amazing luck in the past. The two previous houses we’ve owned and sold, we had a buyer immediately after the Open House. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that we’d hit it a third time…. but we did. In fact, we BEAT our previous records. LOL! This time, the open house was scheduled for Saturday… but we didn’t even make it that far. We got a good buyer by Tuesday night. Seriously. AND, of course we want to make this buyer happy – but they want to move in yesterday. So forget about a lengthy packing and closing process – we’re all going to rush it through in a MONTH.

A FREAKING MONTH from today I will be in my car heading out to California for GOOD. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

I had joked that I wanted the house sold for my birthday. I think I need to be careful what I wish for. (Well somewhat) The other thing I was wishing for my birthday was an iPad. You can just imagine how much I’ve been drooling and pining for one… I wonder how anyone could have ever guessed it’s what I wanted for my birthday… well, that and my trip to Hawaii – which is the reason I really didn’t think I’d get the iPad too… but I GOT IT!!!!! And it’s everything I was hoping it would be. No birthday wish remorse at all. I totally love it.

So yeah. We go to Hawaii for vacation – Just Sam and me – then we come back and hit the ground running like crazy people. Pack. Move. Done.

Oh, where will be staying in the meantime until we get settled? Heh. My parents. You’d think when your kids turn 40, you’re free from them moving back in with you. Think again. And it’s not like I’m just bringing a load of laundry from College. I’m lugging a husband and two kids with me this time! LOL!!!

Spiders

This past weekend we made the trek up to Park City to the “Park Silly” market they have on Sundays. It’s lots of fun, always get to see cool jewelry, clothes, and crafts. I love to look but rarely buy anything. We saw this one booth for “Twisted Spiders” – and I had to break my rule and get one. It’s not like I’m a fan of spiders, but at the same time I’m fascinated by insects in general just about as much as I’m grossed out by them. (Yes, I know, a spider isn’t an insect, it’s an arachnid – don’t get technical on me!) 😉 So, the jewelry… they make these spiders out of metal wire and beads, and I’ve never seen anything like it. (They then make the spiders into necklaces, earrings, pins) They looked too cool to pass up. Even cooler was seeing all these (FAKE) spiders all over their booth table. Take a look: