Thursday, November 21, 2013

Chhhhha cha cha changes...

Oh hallo. Guess I got caught up again. I had a great freelance run there from August until...last week. What have we missed out on? Lots of summer trips, busy weekdays, friends and grammas in town. Everything was just flying along like normal until we got THE CALL.

The house. We had fallen in love with this house back in August. The day before I left to fly to see A. in Maine we toured this house. I loved standing in it. Its felt like a home. It felt like our style. I got to the basement and found the little hidden room with a bar, with a faux fireplace, and I stood behind the counter, put my elbows up on the bar and my face in my hands and smiled at motoboy. I like this house, I purred. He did too. (We had never fully agreed on any one house before.) It needed a lot of work though, and it was overpriced. It was our first showing with our new agent and he couldn't believe we were ready to make an offer. He didn't realize we had seen about 20-30 bungalows before this. This was the one. We went to get some BBQ and discussed what we would offer. I liked our new agent because he wasn't afraid to throw around numbers. We came up with one easily. We put in the paperwork that night.

While in Maine, I learned they rejected our offer.  I had been so anxious and thought maybe now I could relax, but it only meant we had to look at more houses, which we were tiring of,  because nothing ever measured up to this one.

Coming home, going back to work, every weekend the house popped up in my emails for having a Sunday open house. This guy thinks open houses are going to work? Every Sunday, the same thing. The only consolation was that the house was still on the market. I could still dream. I was told not to dream. I looked at the listing all the time. They would call our agent from time to time, to see if we were still looking, we played it cool. Finally, in October, the only other place we bid and lost on was an estate listing that I was sure was haunted anyway, we tried THE house again. Added a few more grand. Hoped they were tired of having open houses. They stayed quiet (they had an open house that Sunday), and then at about 8pm, when my friends from Ohio were here, after I had complained that morning that they should just give us the house because it was our house (cue: whining me), we got THE CALL. Our agent called me. Everyone was still eating pizza. I knew from his tone. They accepted our second offer. I had to poop.

What have I done?? How am I married to motoboy and have a baby who looks just like the two of us, combined, and now own a home? Who told us we were allowed to be adults?

Ahh, its great. Its a lot of work and moving pieces and both our subletters fell through for our current apartment, one of whom took us on a tour down lead-paint-lane and led to us having to test the water and glaze the tub, but its cool. We got our house. We might have to pay rent for another month or so but we got it. Or, rather, we will have it tomorrow. (How many xanax do I take before a closing?)

Baby will have a back yard, and a basement, and an attic, and a piano and a pool table and lots of room to run around (and all the stairs have doors that close). And I am magically off work for a few weeks which is really handy because the combination of work and being the EP of my home and move was making what should have been a simple cold turn into a full blown sinus infection but it went away with my first weekend off. And baby is in daycare so I can pack or nap or go to lunch and generally take everything down a notch because internally its revving up anyway.

Whew. We will get there. Can't wait to be on the other side with a Christmas tree and a nice big cocktail, which my husband has made for me in the bar, and a record playing while our fake electric fireplace crinkles and dances in the corner, baby running from room to room chasing the dog. I guess I get it now.

E