Seeking Imperfection

I paid my first mortgage payment today. I'm excited to be able to have made the first payment - due January 1st, of course. Happy New Year. LOL

I'm excited that 2008 is almost over. It has been a very challenging year, and I'm looking forward to starting the next chapter in my life, as a home owner.

I know the next year is bound to be full of challenging times as well, but it is an amazing feeling knowing that I was able to get us to this point.

I realized the other day that I should be proud of me. I don't often let myself be proud of myself or my accomplishments, but this feels like a big one, and maybe I should acknowledge that I did a good job.

Now who wants to help me unpack???

Well, as of about 11:30 this morning, I am officially a home owner!!!

We had planned to go for a final walk through with the real estate agent before the closing. First, we had to stop at the bank to get a certified check for the closing costs. When we got back in the car, Roland looked at me and said, "let's go home." He turned on the radio, and the song that was playing was, "There's No Place Like Home For The Holidays." Roland and I couldn't believe it. I decided that must be a good sign.

We went over to the house and waited for our agent. While we were waiting, he called my cell phone and told us that the selling agents had supposedly left us a key, maybe in the mailbox, or taped inside the front door. So we looked, but couldn't find a key. Our agent showed up, and we all searched for the key, but no one could find it! Our agent called the selling agent, and would you believe the selling agents couldn't find a key??? Apparently they'd gone over to check the fire alarms and whatnot, and had duct taped the key to the inside of the screen door when they left, but when we got there there was duct tape, but no key. No one from the seller's office could seem to find a key. They gave our real estate agent a key code for us to go have one made! So after closing, we had to go to two different places to find a place that could make us a key, then we got to go to our house.

Late this afternoon we took Paige over. We told her we were going to see a surprise. When we pulled in the driveway, she said, "Who's house is this?" and we told her it was ours, and she said, "no way!" :)

I am so happy to have finally been able to bring my baby home. :)

Well, after the 24th, we were on for a short period of time on the 31st. Then we were delayed again, but it looks like we might actually be on for this upcoming week. I am trying to be "cautiously optimistic" at this point. I would really like to be able to move before we are moving in snow!

Work has been VERY stressful, and home has been VERY stressful. I am exhausted from the emotional roller coaster I've been riding for the last few weeks.

In other news, I'm trying to learn how to make better use of my time by scheduling activities that I want to do and/or need to do. I've always been a bit resistant to calendars and scheduling systems, thinking they'd make me dull and would suck any spontaneity out of my life. However, I'm also learning more and more that the things I'd like to do "someday" will never actually get done if I don't determine when "someday" is. This week, I scheduled in time to make a recipe I've been wanting to try - baked French Toast. Paige, Michelle and I made it tonight and it sits in the refrigerator until tomorrow morning, then we'll see how it is. I like a breakfast recipe that I can make on Saturday night when I am coherent, and not have to try to figure out in the morning, when I'm not. If this works out, I might have to look for other recipes like it. Suggestions are always welcome. :)

Next thing to schedule is some time to play around with moving photos from my new camera onto the computer and sizing them, so that I can go back to posting pictures from all of my Unplugged Projects, Halloween, etc. I did much better with pictures when I could just stick the photo card in the computer and access all of my pictures. For some reason it seems much more time consuming to get the cord to hook the camera to the computer, and then to have to resize the pictures to post them here. I think maybe I just need to dedicate some time to it.

Yesterday was the day that we were originally supposed to be out of our house and we are not. We sent the landlord a letter that said we wouldn't be out by the 15th, and life has been fairly miserable since. The landlords are husband and wife, and one or the other or both have been calling or showing up at our house, harassing us about getting out of the house. They are telling us that if we aren't out by May 27th, their sale is going to go through. Now we are really thinking, "so what do we care?" and we could push it and stay here, but we aren't sure if it is worth them making our life miserable. It has been very stressful, especially for Michelle, since she is disabled and home during the day when they are calling and/or coming over.

So, we are going to rent a POD, and are moving for what will hopefully be only a couple of weeks into my sister-in-law's house. She owns a three family, and the third floor is currently unoccupied. Roland's mother lives on the second floor, and Paige has a room that she uses when she sleeps over, so the plan is that she will sleep there, and Roland, Michelle, and I will be camping out upstairs.

The problem with the place that we put our bid in on is that it is a short sale. This has been one of my new vocabulary terms since all this began. For an online definition of a short sale click here.

Basically, it means that the property was about to go into foreclosure, but the bank could accept our bid on it instead of going through the foreclosure process. However, it makes the whole process longer, because we need to wait for third party approval by the bank. The bank has had our bid for over three weeks and had not assigned anyone to look at our proposal yet. We were told at one point it could be at least 30 days before anyone even looked at our bid. So we are closing in on the 30 day mark, and hopefully once they look at it they'll accept it and the ball will be rolling again, but it doesn't seem that it could all possibly work in time for us to be out of where we are now in time. So, we will hopefully only be displaced for a short period of time.

This whole process has been very stressful, and although I hate the idea that we are being bullied out of where we are, it isn't worth the stress to stay. A month's worth of rent at my sister-in-law's and the price of the POD for a month roughly equal what we pay in rent to stay here and be harassed for another month. So, it seemed to make sense to throw in the towel and get out.

So now I get to spend the next week and a half or so packing and trying to get all of my stuff into the POD, and trying to figure out what I'll need to camp out for an unknown length of time in a tiny third floor apartment. Maybe we can make s'mores up there or something while we are camping out.

You may have noticed that I've been a wee bit quiet this week.

I've been pretty tired - this was my last week to finish up the standardized test portfolios that I have to do for my students. I turned them in on Thursday, and the assistant principal thought they looked so good she rewarded the nurses and me with a box of Girl Scout Cookies. Oh how I love thin mints.

The other crazy thing in my life is of course the whole house thing. We were told that it could take up to 30 days for the bank to make a decision about our offer. Then we were told that the bank could take 60 days. Then we were told that the whole process of buying the house could take 60 days. It is just so overwhelming. We were supposed to be out by May 15th, which is this coming Thursday. We sent the landlord a letter that it just wasn't possible, as we were still waiting on this house thing. He said that they were closing on where we are living now on May 30th. He said that our lovely neighbors said a condition of the sale was that we have to be out, or they won't close. So, I don't know if we'll be ready to move by the 30th, but now I feel like I need to or they'll lose their sale. Roland could care less if their sale falls through, and now we are all tense. I just would like to know where I'm moving and get it done already.

So between those two things in my life I've been a little tired. I have also been suffering a bit from perfectionism writer's block. I'm having a hard time thinking of what to write about in here. I know that I end up making it be too big a deal - I keep thinking about what a great post topic would be, one that everyone will love. Then I forget that I am mainly blogging for me. So, there I go getting stressed out over something that's supposed to be fun again. LOL

So, I guess my question is, how do you come up with ideas of what to blog about? Do you just blog about whatever comes to mind, or do you have a greater plan?

Oh, and to all of you Mom's out there, Happy Mother's Day!

I have been approved for an itty, bitty, tiny mortgage. Of course for the amount that houses go for out here, it is actually a pretty laughable mortgage - most of the places in our price range are listed as "Handyman Special" or "Contractor's Dream." I am neither a handyman nor a contractor, so these things do not excite me.

Yesterday Michelle, Roland and I went and looked at a few houses. One was listed as "vacant - easy to show." We went in and it turned out that it should have been listed as "condemned and gutted - hand out hard hats to show." Upon entering the first thing you noticed was the smell of skunk. The next thing was the fact that there was plywood for floors, insulation exposed and hanging off of the walls, and it just looked like crap. Michelle is highly allergic to insulation and went running out the door. I wasn't in there that long, and still ended up feeling itchy and needing a shower by the time I got home. The real estate agent was someone who was referred to me, who wasn't familiar with the place and who was showing it to us per our request. He looked pretty upset that all the listing said was, "property needs work," with no mention of the fact that it really looked like it should be torn down. Roland has come up to me several times since last night to say, "Hey hon...vacant! Easy to show! Property needs work - ha!"

I think we are all slowly losing our minds....