Inspection tomorrow

The temperature is supposed to drop to over ten below tomorrow, and Frankie's school has already been cancelled. Still, the show goes on... The inspection at the Knollwood house is set for 8am tomorrow morning. It should be a long, cold three hours for matt and the inspector. Brr!

I was originally planning on going over to the house for the inspection, but since I'll have Frankie with me, I might have to skip it. We'll see how it goes. I'd hate to let the weather stop me from getting another peek at our soon-to-be house.

We bought a new house!!

We got the house!! I'm so excited!!!

We close on Feb 25th, as long as the inspection on Tuesday goes well. There's so much to do in the next few weeks.... My head is spinning!

An exciting 24 hours

These past 24 hours have been an absolute flurry of activity. We accepted an offer on our house last night, and put a bid in on a house on the north side of town this afternoon. We'll hear back with an answer by morning... The waiting is killing me! I really hope we get the house, and that all goes smoothly.

The house we put an offer on was the 80's-style place on Knollwood Ct. It's hard to explain... Even though the place needs some work, it just feels like home. If we get the house, I can't wait to sit on the back deck and stare at the mountains while Frankie plays in the giant  backyard. Or, to have people over for dinner & hang out in the giant front room. Or, hide out in my very own office. Or...  just *live* there.

I predict it'll be a long night, waiting for the call. I'm really feeling positive, though.

I can't believe it, but....

...I think we just sold our house!

Matt and I just signed the paperwork accepting a full price offer that came in this afternoon. I can hardly believe it! So exciting!!

The woman who is going to buy the house came to see it this morning, and fell in love with the place. The offer looks great, and since she's currently renting a house the offer isn't contingent on anything. Pretty perfect, eh?

When our realtor found out the the offer had come in, she sent a courtesy email out to a few of the other people that had seen the house earlier in the week. TWO of them sent back offers on the house. None of them could match the day's first offer, though. So, we sat down and finalized everything an hour ago.

We close on Feb 25th (barring any unforseen complications). That seems fast, but it's definitely doable. Now, it's on to the fun part: Where are we going to live??

More house stuff

We had a group of real estate brokers tour the house today, and they all gave us really positive feedback. Hopefully, one of them will bring a client through later in the week that will be interested in our little bungalow. In  the meantime, I'm trying to stay out of the house as much as possible, keeping everything clean and clutter-free. It's not especially difficult... All I have to do is make sure that the house is clean and staged every morning. Still, I find the whole process of sitting and waiting for the right buyer to come through to be a little emotionally exhausting. It's always on my mind... It's almost like I have no room in my brain to think about anything else.

Our realtor thinks that the people that put an offer in two days ago might come back with another bid Wednesday. So, we'll see. In the meantime, I'll be hanging out in coffee shops, obsessively drinking espresso and reading my Kindle.

The first offer is in!

Good news: We got an offer on the house last night.

Bad news: It's a *terrible* offer. 17K less than our asking price, and contingent on the sale of their home.

Since the house has only been on the market three days, we decided to pass. It's disappointing that it wasn't a better offer, but it's good to see that there is interest in the house. I'm feeling good that someone else will make a better offer in the near future.

Two showings today... Here's hoping that one of them pans out.

Very exciting!!

No Nibbles

After an exciting first day on the market, we were really disappointed to have *zero* showings of the house today. Not a single person called about the house, which makes me pretty nervous. I thought (as did our realtor) that this weekend would be a busy one. But, nope. Nothing. Just the sound of crickets and a lonely wind blowing across the foothills.

Hopefully, we'll have better luck tomorrow? If we have another day with no showings, I'm going to start freaking out a little.

Our Virtual Tour

It's up and running! Here's the Virtual Tour of our house:

http://www.visualtour.com/show.asp?t=2381807&prt=10003


It's funny... All I can see when I look at the tour is our crazy decorating style. So many weird paintings and retro lamps. But, all in all I think it turned out pretty well.

Lookin' good, house!

The house is on the market!

The photographer just came over to snap some pictures of the house for our "virtual tour," and the official FOR SALE sign went up in the yard this morning. The MLS listing will post today, and we'll be accepting showings as early as tomorrow. Yay!

The photographer was a super nice guy, and he really loved the house. He was worried, though, that the house next door would be the "dealbreaker" that prevented anyone from making an offer on the house. The neighbor's super messy backyard and the trailer parked in the back really concerned him. I'm worried that he's right.

The house next door is so out of control. There is junk EVERYWHERE in the backyard. It's like an epiosode of "Hoarders." I walk past it every day, so I've gotten somewhat de-sensitized to it. It's like my brain has learned to "unsee" the mess next door. Someone just coming in to look at the house, though, probably won't be so forgiving.

It's at the point that I really don't know what to do about it. I could complain to the city, but it would take them *forever* to do anything about it. Plus, the neighbors are the parents of Frankie's little buddy, Noah. So that's pretty awkward.

I guess we'll just have to have a few showings and see how it all goes. I really hope someone falls in love with our house, and can "unsee" the neighbors too.

Another one bites the dust

Tooth #2....GONE!

Frankie lost her second tooth this morning at school. Her toothless grin is adorable, don't you think?

Outside pictures = done

The photographer came over this morning to take pictures of the outside of the house for our "virtual tour." He was a nice guy, and seemed impressed with the size of the yard. He kept saying things like, "Why on earth are you guys selling this place??"

Hopefully, that  bodes well for a quick sale. And I can already predict that when the house does eventually sell, I'm going to be a little bit sad. It's time to move on, but hard to say goodbye.

Antici...pation!

It's happening. Friday, our house will officially be on the market.

We're having someone over Thursday to photograph the inside of the house, and the listing and virtual tour will go online on Friday morning.

It's hard to believe that people could be walking through the house this week. Crazy!

The Searchers

The search continues for a new house...

Matt and I went to see the house north of town that I liked, and we came really close to making an offer on it. In the end, though, we decided that we need to sell our own house first before entering into any contract on another place.

Bummer.

Still, I think it's the right choice. And who knows? Maybe the house will still be there once we have an offer in on our house. It's impossible to say how long it's going to take to sell this place, but we're optimistic that it won't take longer than a month or two.

I'm sad at the possibility of letting the house north of town go, but I know that we're going to end up somewhere great. Just don't know exactly where that's going to be yet.

Updates

A few quick updates:

1) Frankie was back to normal yesterday when I picked her up from school. This leaves me wondering where on earth all that bad behavior came from? Very mysterious.

2) The realtor put a "for sale/coming soon" sign in our yard yesterday. Exciting! We're're definitely close to the point where people will start walking through.

3) Speaking of moving, Matt and I have an appointment to re-visit the house north of town that I loved tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one makes an offer on it before we have a chance to get in there again.

4) Matt gets home today. Yay!

Bad Girl

From the second Frankie work up this morning, she's been an absolute pill: Yelling, throwing fits, acting all kids of crazy. It's the very definition of "waking up on the wrong side of the bed."

The very first words she spoke to me this morning were to snap at me for not putting the right stuffed animal in bed with her last night.

When I said she couldn't have choclate milk for breakfast, she threw her cereal across the room in a rage.

She flung herself on the floor, using passive resistance techniques to avoid being sent to her room for a time out.

She locked herself in her room and refused to come out. Shortly after, she couldn't figure out how to unlock her door (or at least pretended not to know), forcing me to break into her room from the side window.

She was perfectly fine yesterday. In fact, she actually earned a good behavior award at school yesterday. It's like all of the bad behavior just materialized in the night.

It feels like I put Frankie to bed, and woke up with a deranged, mentally unstable Orangutan.




I hope that when I pick Frankie up from school today, she's back to her normal self. Otherwise, I may have to give the zoo a call...

House Hunting

I was just talking to K.C. about house hunting, and I agree 100% with her-- House hunting is fun.  It’s oddly thrilling to peek inside a home and imagine what life would be like there.

And to be in a position where I can actually walk in to a house, love it, and buy it? How awesome is that?

Speaking of which,  I started our family house hunt by walking through two houses today. Both were really interesting, and in a lot of ways either house would be good for us.

The first was brand new construction in an Old Town neighborhood right down the street from us.

It was a really nice house, craftsman style. 3000 square feet over three levels. Everything about the house was new and clean and lovely. But, there was something missing that I couldn't put my finger on. The house was so new & elegant, it just didn't have any personality. It seemed like a nice house, very grown-up. But it seemed like somebody else's nice grown-up house.

The second house, I fell in love with a little. No rhyme or reason to it... I just walked in and felt right at home. It's a 3300 square foot brick house that was built in 1985, but has a bit of a mid century mod feel to it. It looks like a ranch from the front, but has a walk-out basement.

The main room off the front door is enormous. It's the largest space in the house, and has a super tall vaulted ceiling. That huge main room is a multi-purpose space. It has a large kitchen, which opens onto a dining area, which spills over into a huge living room.

The big living/dining/kitchen room has a huge bank of windows at the back that look out onto a large wooden deck. Below that is a huge yard with lots of mature trees. Beyond that is 40 acres of open space. Beyond that, the mountains. It's a really majestic view, and despite the fact that it's in a subdivision (at the end of a cul de sac), it feels very serene and private.

The big room also has a bay window that overlooks a small courtyard at the front of the house, and a screened in porch at the back (to the side of the deck). There's tons of natural light. Down a hallway are a master bedroom with attached bathroom and 2 huge his-and-hers walk in closets, an office, and another full bathroom. All wood floors throughout. Downstairs has a walk-out basement, two more bedrooms, and another bathroom. The bedrooms down there are very large and bright, and one of them is perfect for Frankie-- Huge, with a hardwood area that would make a great play space, and a carpeted section where the bed would be.

There's central air (finally, thank god), a wood-burning stove, a sprinkler system, and a 800 square foot garage with a little workshop/workbench area built in. That'd be great for Matt.

The only problem is that kitchen and bathrooms in the house are badly in need of updating. The kitchen appliances were probably top of the line in the 80s, but now are really dated. The kitchen hasn't been remodeled in so long, it actually has a trash compactor in it. (Seriously... Do they even make those things anymore?) The bathrooms are just old. Not dirty, just old (and old-fashioned).

Come to think of it, the house actually reminds me a little of my grandma and grandpa Myers' lake house in Angola. It's really similar in a lot of ways. Maybe why that's why I'm drawn to the place so much?

Another potential downside is that the house is really far away from the center of town. It's not even remotely close to Old Town, and even farther away from the major shopping areas on the south side of town. Also, there isn't a playground anywhere in the vicinity, and it doesn't seem like there are many families with young children in the neighborhood. The neighborhood is quiet and seems to skew a little older. That's something I like, but probably wouldn't be Frankie's first choice.

Still, if all of the fix-er-up projects were finished, it could be a really spectacular house. And honestly, if it was completely updated, we'd never be able to afford it in the first place. So, iit's probably a good thing that those cosmetic updates still need to be done.

Anyhow, I'm  now anxiously waiting for Matt to get home so we can walk through the house again on Saturday. He's excited about it too, so it seems like a genuine possibility.

It's weird, though. How can I possibly love the second house that we've looked at? Am I rushing it? It's had to say. Still, I can definitely picture us living at that house. And since we're super picky about the houses we like, that's saying a lot.

Sweet Freedom

Even though it's bitterly cold, the snow finally let up enough to let me escape the house. After I dropped Frankie off at school, I pretty much stayed out on the town all day. I had a nice leisurely lunch with The Dove and Lisa, and then did a little bargain shopping with Lisa. (I can't help myself... I love the post-Christmas sales.) There was much giggling and pawing through clearance racks. It was really a fun day.

Tomorrow morning, I have another exciting outing planned. I'm going to look at a house that Matt and I might be interested in. It's a brick house with a walk-out basement that backs up to 40 acres of open space. The house itself was built in the mid eighties, and wouldn't typically be my style. Still, there was something about it that Matt & I found charming. Too soon to tell if it'll amount to anything, but at the very least it marks the start of our house hunting phase. I'm really looking forward it.

Foiled

A big snowstorm today foiled my plans to leave the house. Instead, I spent the morning attempting to teach Frankie how to use the Wii (with limited success) and making snow castles.

Since the grocery store is out of the question, I threw a bunch of random canned and frozen things into the crock pot in the hopes that something delicious will magically materialize. I would say I'm cautiously optimistic.

So far, it's actually been a pretty enjoyable lazy day. Frankie's in the back yard playing with her next-door-neighbor friend Noah, so she's definitely recovered from yesterday's bout of sickness/exhaustion. Not sure what the evening will hold, but I suspect there's a spritied game of "Sorry" and some hot chocolate in our collective futures.

If I don't get out of the house tomorrow, though, I think I'm going to go a little crazy.

...yawn...

Dreadfully boring day today.

Frankie woke up before 5am, and all day long she kept telling me she was sick. She just wanted to stay in bed and lay around, watching a little tv here and there. She ended up staying in bed all day, only getting up now and then to go to the bathroom.

I tried to keep her comfy all day, and gave her ample chances to rest and recoup. I made her breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, made myself available for temperature-taking and on-demand cuddling. We didn't leave the house all day long.

Honestly, I don't even think she's really all that sick. If I had my guess, she's probably just worn out and tired from her first week back at school. She doesn't have a runny nose or a temperature or any of the usual telltale "sick" signs. But, every time I accused her of crying wolf, she claimed that she really was sick, and really did feel badly. So, after a while I just let it go, and settled in for a long boring day of light nursemaid work.

Now that she's in her bed asleep, though, I'm pretty darn bored. I really hate not leaving the house all day. It makes me feel really restless... Stuck in time.

Tomorrow, though... Look out world! We're getting out of the house, if only to go to the grocery store.

Window Shopping

Last night, I watched an episode of “Bizarre Foods” with Andrew Zimmern that was set primarily in Edinburgh. It was so great to see the city again! All of the restaurants and sights that Zimmern took in were either places that I had been to before in Edinburgh, or had walked past many times. Just seeing a shot of the sign for the “Jolly Judge” pub made me miss the city so badly that I immediately hopped online and window shopped for flights to Edinburgh on Travelocity, looking over travel routes and prices, fantasizing about going there one more time.

Antique shopping in the Grassmarket, walking up and down The Royal Mile, exploring Greyfriar's Cemetary...  I wonder if I'll ever get there again? I really hope so.

One of the best things about living in the UK? Whenever I got a hankering to visit a city and do some exploring, I was always just a short hour train ride away from pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. Even London, which was about as far away from Cumbria as you could possibly get, was only a five hour train ride away. I miss that.

New Year's Eve

This was our family New year's Eve celebration:

Board games, make-your-own-pizza, sparkling cider, and Frankie's first viewing of Wizard of Oz.

Sound good?

Sweet Irony

I am a really light sleeper. Almost any noise will wake me up. I’ve woken up before, hearing Roscoe walk across the kitchen floor. I’ve woken up from hearing a pillow fall off the edge of the bed. I've woken up from hearing the fridge motor kick on during the night.
Now, I can add a new one to the list:

I have woken up from hearing my own snoring.

This is a terrible development for several reasons.

1) My snoring wakes me up every time it happens

2) I wake up SO MAD at myself for snoring that I can’t get back to sleep

3) Matt think’s it’s hilarious that I, someone who really hates snoring, have started to snore


I hope that it's just this cold I have right now that's causing the snoring. Cause if this is a permanent thing, I'm going to lose my mind.

It's Seriously Cold Here

This is Frankie, Dec 31st.

Now, contrast that with Frankie on Christmas afternoon:

From short sleeves and bare legs to snow pants and mufflers in less than a week. It's quite a shock to the system.

The plummeting temperatures have been a real thorn in my side, foiling all sorts of fun Christmas-related plans. A snow & ice storm on the 30th made it impossible for us to meet dad and Olga in Denver for a visit to the Modern Art Museum and a fancy home-cooked meal. I felt just awful having to cancel, but the roads were just too slippery to navigate.  It was really disappointing. Stupid weather.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just move Christmas to June? Seems like that would be a *much* easier time to travel. Far less chance of snow-related obstacles, canceled flights, and bone-chillingly cold weather.

Frankie's New Smile

I can hardly believe it, but Frankie lost her first baby tooth yesterday.

It's exciting and weird all at once... It doesn't quite seem like she could possibly be old enough to start losing her baby teeth. But, here she is. My gap-toothed cutie.

Language Barrier

I'm Facebook friends with a few of the moms from Frankie's UK school, and have learned an interesting thing lately. The people I'm friends with in England have  a completely weird, almost unrecognizable, shorthand they use when writing on their computer. It's gotten to the point that when I log into Faecbook,  I can barely understand what any of them are saying. It's *way* harder than deciphering the Cumbrian accent. It's almost a completely separate bizarro-world language.

For example, here's a Facebook status update posted from one of my Maryport friends today:

"had a belter nite last nite god crack with some good friends, took all my decs down and found a home for most of Mads n Mischas toys now to play with barbie and waybaloo!"

Ok... I think she's saying that she had a good night with friends, took down her Christmas decorations, and found a place for her kids' new Christmas toys. But, what a weird way to phrase it!

And check this bizarre expression out. I can't even guess what this means:

"i wish this cold would dee yan!"

This is like a word puzzle, too:

"queen vic has had its first get out of my pub phrase cat fight and first snog all in one night!"


Or, here's this cryptic written exchange between two friends:

Mum A: "Your car getn markd by sum1s bin haha. U said guess x x"


Mum B: "hahahah you probably won't be wrong summet else is bound to happen everthing ok up your end??"


Mum A: "Ova then my bins n rubish being over my frunt garden b4 i ad to go n pik it al up n move them round backs, ova then that touch wood yeah lol. x x"

And it's not like all this text is just from one odd duck that happens to have a weird linguistic quirk. It seems like everyone from Maryport that I'm in touch with writes this way when they're online. I got a few Christmas cards in the mail, and all of the writing was perfectly normal. But, add the computer into the equation, and everything goes all wonky.

It's fascinating, really. I can't quite figure it out. And even if you asked me to try to imitate it in my own writing, I don't think I could.

I don't know if it's an English thing, a Cumbrian thing, or a young thing (I am, after all, the oldest of the school moms). Either way, I'm fascinated and perplexed.

Resolved

My New Year's resolution for 2011 is to write more.

Even when I don't feel like it... Even when I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say, I'm going to try to write every day.

I'm going bring this blog back to life!