When you find the right one...

It is very strange to me, the advice I've gotten as we've looked for a house. "You'll know the right one when you see it. Maybe not right away, but it will be pretty soon after walking in the door." And, "God has the right house for you, and you just have to wait for his time." And, "Why are you being so picky? You don't need to have so much." And, "What's the rush? Why do you want to find a house so soon? Take your time and enjoy life"

Now, all of this is good advice, I suppose. But my question is, when did buying a house become so much like finding a spouse? There isn't much practical advice given (although I do have to mention the one about trying to find a house close to a school - sexual offenders aren't allowed to live close to a school - which I thought was pretty good advice). And then I have this whole group of friends who are also looking at houses. We trade tips, talk about the houses we've seen, steer each other away from even bothering with the real losers. When Matt and I go out somewhere, I catch myself checking out houses as we drive by.

With the house we were under agreement about, I found myself irritated with the house and the seller; That it could have so much right about it and still turn out to be the wrong one ticked me off to no end. I had the same feelings about a guy I dated a few times many years ago. The guy was funny and smart and I really liked his friends. The dates we had were very fun, and we had a good time together. But things just kind of foundered after the first few dates, and then he stood me up when we were supposed to see my brother's band play, and after that, it was pretty much over. I remember being most annoyed that I had wasted a month or so thinking that this was going somewhere, and he turned out to be the wrong one.

Most of what I picture when I think about the house I want to own is a place where the door's open and people drop in and feel comfortable and relaxed. But there is a difference between showing hospitality and entertaining: hospitality is dependent upon the people who are opening their home to others, while entertaining is more about things - how fancy is the kitchen, how deep is the pool, is the TV a wide screen big enough to watch a movie or a superbowl game? So it's good this morning to remind myself that a house is a piece of property and not a vocation. It's a building which we will likely sell at some point, not a lifetime commitment. While we hope that the house we wind up with will be a great home where we can welcome family and friends and children of our own, we also know that we can still welcome people into our home and our lives as it is right now.

Moving on, not moving in

So after prayer and lots of discussion, we've decided to back away from the house. It seemed like a really nice house, but the seller wasn't willing to negotiate or cooperate a few points. So I had to say good bye to that awesome kitchen, which does make me sad, but Matt and I are convinced that this was the right decision. We both felt confident about this after taking time to pray separately, and even after the seller then came back and said that he would do what we'd asked we still felt that God was guiding us away.

Now we've put in an offer for the house next door. We decided that we wouldn't try to do any negotiation on this one since it's a short sale, and so we offered what we think is a reasonable offer. If they accept it, then we're good, and if not, we walk away. Now, because it's a short sale (which means that the seller owes more than his house is worth, so he's basically asking the bank to take a hit on what's left of the mortgage), our offer has to be reviewed by both the bank and the seller. The bad news is that the bank can take months to respond back. The good news is that the selling broker contacted us to tell us that the offer has to have all kinds of contingent language that says that once they accept we'll move fast to close, which is fine with us. The offer also states that if we find another house we like before the bank accepts our offer, that we can walk away without losing anything.

Some things I've learned about the house since we started thinking about it: our friend Joe used to live in our apartment, and he's always liked the house, too. He said that there many times he "claimed this house for Jesus Christ." And another friend's father-in-law apparently grew up in the house, and he said that they had a tradition of praying the rosary together every Saturday much the same way that Matt's grandparents did. I'm trying not to assume that these are signs, but it's nice to know that it's had that much blessing on it.

The offer is officially on the table as of today. So we'll keep praying.

Maybe having second thoughts

Isn't it always the way? Just when you think everything's settled and you know what the plan is, one weekend can throw you into complete uncertainty.

The house inspection was Friday, and I am officially a fan of John Turner from Criterion Engineering. John was thorough, straightforward, and focused on solutions. Overall, he said he was generally pleased with the house's foundation and the land it's built on. He had great suggestions about the porches - both short term fixes and long term overhauls. He was honest and didn't sugarcoat the issues, but gave us realistic ideas about repairs, replacements and renovations and some idea about what those things would cost.

So what are the issues? Well, the biggest one is the overall heating system:

1. The chimney is in pretty rough shape. It could fall down soon, and I keep thinking of a few years ago when we kept getting freezes and then melting and then freezing, and several bricks fell off of the bell tower of Ste. Marie and one went through someone's car which was parked in the side parking lot. Yikes! John suggested lining with metal or (his preferred method) which uses a rubber ballon that you pour the cement around and then deflate the balloon (um, cool. If we do that, I call dibs on popping it). Alternatively, we could power-vent the burner and then just knock the chimney in and not use it at all.
2. The boiler and furnace has no tags on it. There's no history of maintenance at all. So who knows? It could last us a while, it could crap out this year.
   
3. The oil tanks are 50 years old. They seem in good condition, but there's not a good way to test them and we could find ourselves with several gallons of oil on the basement floor if it gives way when we get a delivery.
   
4. There appear to be at least some walls without insulation. Hmmmm. Wait... what??? How does a house get built in New England without insulation in all exterior walls?
   

Aside from that, there's just a lot of work which is pretty half-assed. Several of the electrical circuits have ground wires, but aren't actually grounded. The plumbing is okay overall, but then John turned on the shower and the cold water won't come on, the middle (which should be a mix of hot and cold) actually gives no water at all. So, hot showers? check. Yeah, not as awesome as you would think. The kitchen cabinets and counter aren't installed right, so the cabinets are a little crooked and the corner where the counter ends meet doesn't line up seamlessly. So it makes us question what else have they screwed up?

And then there's the house next door. The house next door is one I've always thought was pretty, had a nice yard and I know the neighborhood. This weekend, the house went on the market. I've lived on this street for a few years so I know that they did renovations, and it seemed like they did a fairly good job on them. This house is bigger, it has lower taxes, a pool, a fireplace, a larger lot, and a finished basement. So there's a part of me that hopes that first house falls through. BUT, the house next door has a tiny kitchen and it's subject to third party approval, so it would be a headache to go through the buying process on that one.

That's where we are. Matt made the comment that either the house next door is a distraction or it's the house God wants us to have or He's put it in our radar so that we don't buy the first and wind up with the house He does want us to have. Right now I'm hoping for a clear and hard-to-dismiss sign from God about which way we should go on this.

Because I have absolutely no clue at all.

Everything in Proportion

Everyone has things they remember fondly from high school. For my husband and his brother, one of those things is Marino's Rainbow Italian Ice. They tell stories about how they and their friends would buy them and eat them. They analyzed how each person would eat them. They talked about the amazing bottoms where all the sugary syrup would have settled to create an amazing taste sensation. They even spoke with a mixture of awe and longing of "the one" which was pretty much all bottom.



You can imagine Matt's excitement, then, when his brother called to tell him that he had found GIANT Marino Italian Ices at Market Basket. This isn't just big. This is an amazing 5 quart container, equal to 26 of the normal size ones. Of course Matt told Mike to get us two of them. Now, this is not like a gallon of ice cream that you can scoop into manageable servings. No. This is ICE. That means you scrape it directly out of the container until your thighs go numb and you begin to complain to your wife that your arm is getting sore from all the scraping.

Wonder what the bottom will look like on this one?

Ah, the back and forth

We heard back from the seller. They came back with a price 10K less than their asking price and 20K more than what we offered. After praying about it some more, we came up another 5K in our counter offer and they then came back another 7K below their counter offer. So we signed the buyer's agreement last night and we will hear something definite today. Our realtor has been awesome in helping us with the negotiations, and he even came over last night at 10:30 pm with the paperwork for us to sign so that we could get this thing done. So we are one step closer to getting this house. Now comes inspection, and appraisal, and waiting... We have to tell our landlords today, and we are hoping that they will allow us to stay a few more weeks after our lease is up.

Happy Fourth!

First things first. We haven't heard anything about the house yet. But it's the holiday weekend, so I'm not entirely surprised. I am just trying to keep myself from either mentally redecorating the house in my head or worrying that we won't get it. We've praying a rosary every night that God's will is done here, and I'd been feeling like God would be answering yes. But then we went to Chuck E Cheese with Therese and Carlos last night and they were talking about how, when Carlos had decided to move the store it seemed like God was telling them yes and that didn't turn out the way they'd planned.

So we had my niece and nephew yesterday. My sister had to work and with my dad still in recovery (he came home from the hospital on Thursday) they needed a babysitter. So since I had the day off for the holiday, Matt and I decided to take them. We went to see Up yesterday afternoon, went to Chuck E Cheese with Therese, Carlos, Gabe and Isaac last night, and made waffles and played video games this morning. I know they like sleeping over occasionally. Heck, when it gives me the excuse to do all these things, I like it when they sleep over.

Today Matt's aunt is in town, so I'll be going to a cookout at his parents' house. I made a delicious pasta salad with asparagus, roasted red peppers, basil, lemon juice, olive oil and cheese to bring, and I've made the base for ice cream, but I haven't decided what flavor to make yet. Shaw's is having a sale on coke 12 packs (5 for $10!) so I figured I would look at their ice creams and get inspired. I might try a chocolate covered pretzel with peanut butter swirl...

The sun's finally out after all this rain, and I am so glad. I'm going to go sit on the porch and read until it's time to go to the party. Hope you are able to get out and enjoy the day too!

Cross your fingers

Matt and I are putting in an offer on a house today! It's not perfect, but it's got the bones to be great with some work. The location's good (close to family, close to church) and the condition is good enough to move it. Some RE Broker bought the house, did pretty much only cosmetic renovations, and threw it on the market. The cosmetics are okay. Everything's neutral, bland, and lower end materials, and there are few things like badly supported porches and only one zone to the heating system that we'll be able to use as negotiating points to bring the price down. Then over time we'll upgrade as needed.

Soooooo, prayers please. We're hoping to get it for 160, which is much lower than the ask price. We'll see what happens!

As for my dad, he is in the hospital right now. Monday morning he woke up with a racing heartbeat, sweaty and vomiting. They went to the emergency room where he was admitted, and they stopped and restarted his heart a few times to try to get it to a normal rhythm but they weren't actually able to get him stable until yesterday. We don't know if it's detox or something else. The psychiatrist said that before he had not thought that dad's problem was as bad as it is, which I guess effectively demonstrates that alcoholics are really good at fooling people.

They are keeping him in the hospital to do a full evaluation, both physical and psychological. I am really hoping that they will finally admit him to a residential treatment program, but I guess last night the doctor mentioned a day program in Nashua to my mom. At least with the full evaluation we will finally know how much of the change in personality over the past 3 months has been due to drinking, how much may be to due to Alzheimer's and how much might be due to him having another TIA which went unobserved and untreated.

My biggest fear is that he will actually drink himself to death. I didn't realize how fragile he is physically, but my older sister was able to explain a lot about how the alcoholism is eroding his body. I hadn't thought about malnutrition due to drinking his meals, and Jules also said that the cardiac and blood pressure meds he is on are impacted by blood alcohol level, if he's even remembering to take them. That's on top of what I already knew about the effects that it has on the liver and brain.

So cross your fingers and pray for my dad, too. I'll keep you updated.