Signed, Sealed, Almost Delivered

We closed! We now own a house we aren't living in and renting the house we have been living in for the past 7 years. We almost did it without a hitch too - except my husband, the proverbial nice guy, pointed out to the buyers of our house that we put in new landscaping last November and that it didn't survive the winter very well. He told them, unsolicited that we would have them replaced before we moved. Well, we have been hounding the landscaper, but he hasn't gotten back to us so I wasn't going to mention the bushes at all. Now they are holding $2,000 in escrow for that (and a couple of other minor things). Whatever.

The new house is being torn apart on the inside as all the renovations are being done. It is a little freaky to see it that way, but I know it will all be for the greater good. I just couldn't stand to live with the neon blue in the guest bathroom and the green shag carpeting in the living room and dining room, etc. My contractor has been great - he's been there from 7:30am until 11:30pm every day, although every time I go over there he shows me something else that is going to cost me more.... I should stop going over there! At least I know it is going to be much better when all is said and done.

One week until we actually move in. Weird. Today the baby was supposed to be in school but I had to keep him home because he vomitted 3x (2x on me) last night. He of course, seems fine today but I didn't want to take any chances. Poor guy. But I don't have time for a stomach bug now! My poor baby.

Well, time for me to run over and see what the latest expense is over at my money pit. I'm so excited though! I have a new house!! Whoppee!

Signing my Life Away

This morning we went and signed the papers to sell our house. The actual closing is on Monday but we don't have to be there. Amazing how matter-of-fact it all ends up being. I am only mildly nauseated over the whole thing and my breath is slowly coming back. Wow.

My big guy has been my comic relief lately. Yesterday we were having a "dispute" and he told me "That's Not Fair!" When I explained to him that life wasn't fair, he answered "Life Stinks." Very philosophical for a 4 year old I think.

Driving in the car the other day he was playing Dora the Explorer. Our babysitter was Dora, he was Boots and his brother was Swiper. When I questioned him about being Boots, he said "Mommy, (big sigh and rolling of the eyes) I'm only pretending to be Boots, I'm really Supergerky." Silly mommy. Oh, and I love that he taught his babysitter the words to the Dora theme song and the 2 of them were singing at top volume "Come On Dominoes, Everybody Let's Go.." (should of course be come on Vamanos).

Magician's vocabulary is getting a little more varied every day. Still just simple words for now though - up, out, mama, car, bye-bye, hi, baba, etc. Athough if his speech progresses anything like his walking did I fully expect to come home one day and he will be reciting the Gettysburg address or acting out Shakespeare in perfect rhythm.

I just need to get through the next 2 weeks.... I can't believe we close on MONDAY!

Murphy's Law

So here we are, 5 days before the closing and I feel like I am living in the house from "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, although with a house that is the fraction of the size (can probably fit 8 or 9 of my houses in their house), and with all the problems happening BEFORE we close! That's not the way it is supposed to work! For starters, the landscaping that we spent several thousand dollars on last November is dead. I don't mean a little wilted, I mean DEAD! The landscaper hasn't been returning my calls (of course) and the yard is OUT OF CONTROL! I have a 55 pound dog that I nearly lost in the backyard the other day - I couldn't see him through the overgrown lawn. And nevermind letting the baby go on the swingset! I'm afraid it would be like a scene from "Honey I shrunk the kids." (Let's see how many movie references I can get in this post). Hubby doesn't have time to mow the lawn either because he has been working around the clock - not on packing or this pesky little move thing either, but that's another story. So back to the money pit...

The towel bar in the master bathroom broke off. No, not just unglued and fell to the floor but BROKE taking a good chunk of the wall and the tile with it! Now I KNOW my buyers are planning to redo the bathroom anyway, but I don't know I just couldn't in good conscience leave the gaping hole there. So we busily retile, grout, caulk etc a tile wall that I will never benefit from and that won't be there for much longer anyway.

Then, we are getting ready to leave the house this weekend and I reach for the front door knob. Well, the knob pulls back easily enough but the door stays firmly in place. Yup, the knob broke off in my hand! Someone is playing with us for sure. I stand there with the knob in my hand looking around. I think I was expecting the Candid Camera people to jump out at me (ok, so it was a TV reference, but still a form of media so it still counts!). I am waiting now for the roof to cave in, the water pipe to explode, the floor to give way beneath me.. who knows. We just have to get through the next 5 days. Just 5 days.

Oh, and my 4 year old has informed me that he doesn't want to go. In pressing him a little further, I found out that he thinks that we would be living there with the family that lives there now! He is afraid that we are going to leave him there with this new family. Poor baby. He said "Mommy! I have a GREAT idea! Why don't we stay HERE with the new family?!" Yes, great idea, me, the hubby, our 2 boys, our au pair, dog cat, the new couple, their 3 children and who knows what pets. Guess we need to work on this one!

Rain Rain Go AWAY!

AGAIN! It is supposed to rain tomorrow. This is the second time we tried to plan a garage sale and it rained. This week however, I have decided that we are going to do it rain or shine. I bought a cheap canopy at Target which I will set up on my lawn. I figure the goal here is to get rid of stuff, not really make a profit. So if I break even on the canopy, I'm a happy gal.

Lots more to talk about... but time is running short and I need to beat the rain to put out my signs. I'll try to update more soon.

Moving Right Along

So it looks like we are finally set to move ahead. I can't believe the closing is a mere 12 days away. It was a bit touch and go there for awhile when my buyers and I both dug our heels in about the inspection issues. I won - mostly. I had to come up another $65 dollars but that's ok, it is still a victory for me. Now we are in the midst of furniture shopping and I am watching my savings dwindle to nothing. And we still have one completely empty room. I have absolutely no sense for colors and styles and such so you can only imagine what it will look like. I wanted to do one wall of the living room brick red. Just one wall. My designer and my husband pretty much vetoed that idea, and I handled it like any mature minded mother of two would handle this type of thing - I sulked in the corner and refused to give my opinion about anything else. I know my son would have liked it anyway.

I am getting so tired of living like a tornado has passed through my house. We can lose my youngest in the midst of the boxes! Luckily though, he has perfected his screech so there is no way to lose him for very long. He will not be underheard! And then the oldest likes to answer his screech as if they were birds talking to each other. Nothing like a little screeching to keep a party interesting. We are supposed to be having a garage sale on Saturday and that will hopefully help to get rid of some stuff. My mother is going to sell stuff then as well. With my luck, I won't sell anything and then not only will I have my stuff cluttering my house, but I will have HER stuff as well! It was supposed to be last Saturday but it was raining. We had several false starts - there are several families doing this garage sale thing at my urging and we collectively placed an ad. There were so many cars coming by, even in the rain, that at one point I found myself chasing cars down to see what they were looking for - Please! Take my crap! At one point though I had 5 perfect strangers standing in my garage and it just became too much for me. We decided to do it this weekend instead.

So the countdown has begun. All we can do now is keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.