Homeowners at last!

We own the house as of 11:06 AM on Oct. 31.

It has been a tumultuous couple of months. What I didn't tell you when I told you about how the sellers accepted our offer was the drama that ensued with our apartment. I'll tell you if you ask, but probably best not to post. So, while I was strong-arming the mortgage company and my phone ringing off the hook with lawyers and agents and loan officers, we also had this to deal with. At this point, I think we have avoided a lawsuit, *knock on wood*. Let's hope everything goes as planned.

We were trying to keep the apartment in good condition to show, because we were hoping to find a new tenant. Anyone who thinks Mike doesn't know how to clean, you are incorrect. Me, I am messy because I never really learned how to keep things clean, even though I really want to be neat. Mike really does know how to do it and he did it like perfectly for a month. At first I was like "ME-Ooowwww", but then I was like "Hey! quit moving my stuff!"

Due to circumstances at the apartment, we had to do a split move. We needed our stuff out of the basement by the 29th, and what with my bum shoulder, I knew that the two of us bringing all of the stuff upstairs was not really an option. So, I arranged for the movers to come on Sunday, Oct. 28, store our stuff for a couple of days, and then drop it off on Nov. 1, after we had closed on the house. This turned out to be about $500 more expensive than I anticipated, but there was nothing to do about it after they already had everything on the truck!

We closed on Tuesday night. Everything went pretty smoothly. The loan officer from Wells Fargo, who I had strong-armed, brought us a nice flower arrangement to thank us for our business. (Very nice of her!) The sellers left the house in great condition, which was very thoughtful of them. On Oct. 31, we brought over our food, suitcases, and the couple of things we had kept with us, like the air bed.

Mike's cousin Brian arrived in the afternoon. He will be staying with us for a couple months while he gets himself oriented in an internship in the area. The upstairs bedrooms are (were) neon green, bright sunny yellow, pumpkin orange, and mauve. Within 24 hours, Brian had the green room completely repainted with two coats of paint. And two walls of the orange room with their first coat! Without Brian, who knows how long we would have been talking about how badly we needed to paint those rooms! With the green gone, the sunny yellow isn't so bad. Not wild about the mauve, but it is not as ... extreme .... as the green. (My camera is with Christine, and so I got a disposable camera, and those pictures are still at CVS.)

The movers arrived around 9 AM on Nov. 1. They were amazing. Our house was built in 1860. The staircase going upstairs is pretty narrow, and has a moment of low clearance. It took all three of them like 20 minutes to get our pillow-top king size mattress upstairs, but they did it! (Aviv moving in Brighton, for anyone interested). Mike had said we were going to send half the stuff to the basement, and I said no way. We had taken two full carloads of stuff to the Goodwill, after all. As the boxes came off the truck, as Mike predicted, a lot of them got sent to the basement. We are going to adopt a policy of getting rid of things that have not been opened in a year. I confess to being a pack rat, but I think getting rid of stuff that is not giving me benefit will really improve the feng shui in the house!

So, having been stressed out for like two months straight, and having been running around moving boxes, out in the cold, etc. Of course, I have gotten sick. After being out of work for two days (Oct. 31, and Nov. 1), last night I said that I needed to at least show up at work today to demonstrate that I was sick. Sure enough, my boss sent me home. yay!

This weekend, I hope to arrange major pieces of furniture, and unpack clothes. (kitchen is already unpacked!) If there isn't a torrential downpour all weekend, I hope to put in some spring bulbs. I love crocus. They make me happy when there are little yellow and purple flowers in February.

Look forward to email / mail with our new address and land-line phone number!

Cheers!