Bad News, Henna & the Mad Rush to Finish

Hello all!

It's been a crazy few weeks! I think it would be an understatement if I said that Mike and I were looking forward to all of this to be over!

As I mentioned in my last post, we had an offer on the house. Things were looking good, and they accepted our counter offer and signed the contract. The house was considered "under contract" officially, and there were no more showings for about two weeks. However, a few days ago, Mike got a call from our realtor, and it turned out that the man who wanted to buy the house, lost his financing. Someone dropped the ball, somewhere, as their realtor thought they were okay, the bank told him that he was okay, and yet, he wasn't. I highly doubt that he was even pre-qualified to be looking.

As soon as the house was put back onto the market, we had three showings within two days, and one everyday since. At least we are still getting the attention. We've had some good showings, and then we had one guy look at the house, complain about the layout, and then say that it was over-priced, but decided to look for more expensive houses in a different area. Mike and I had to laugh at the stupidity of that. We understand the logistics that he thought our house was over-priced, but still. Some people are just dumb.

Monday, we close on the house here in Craig. The Sunday before, we are walking through with the previous owners and going over everything from sprinklers and what-not. Then after we sign on Monday, we head to the Springs, finish up any last minute packing and organizing for the movers who show up that Tuesday. It will be a very busy few weeks!

This last Thursday, my friends and I got together for a night of laughs, dinner and henna. For those of you who are not familiar with Henna, it is a plant that is used to dye the skin and make temporary tattoos, if you will. It is very well known and used in places such as India. The thing with Henna, is that you cannot move the area that you put this stuff on for a few hours. Silly me, chose to have mine done on my wrist and hand, and as I went to stand up, bent my wrist. My friend Dana, scolded me as she cleaned up and redid the design. It was a running joke for the rest of the night that I wasn't allowed to move at all... It was a fun night, and I look forward to another chance to do it again. When I told Mike what the plans were for that night, he told me that I should get the Marque from one of his favorite fantasy novels. I surprised him, and did just that. So I did not have a traditional looking henna design, but it still looks cool. Mom had told me before I left to go to that girls' night, that if it turned out well, that I could do some on her. I had invited her to join us, but she said no.

Ana's design. On the back. Took about 2.5 hours.

Beth's design. On back. Took about 45 minutes-hour.

Tessa's design. On left hand. Took about an hour.

My design. On right wrist/hand. Took about 45 minutes-hour.

After it had dried and the henna washed off.

I had shown Mom the final look, and she was not expecting the brown/orange tint of the dye. She was hoping for black, I told her that there are different dyes out there. I explained that she could look at one of the Indian grocery stores and get the dye color she prefers. Each henna kit/box costs around $3? I'm not sure if she will or not, but I think that it was a lot of fun. It's like getting a tattoo, but I don't have to be absolutely positive on what it is, as it will wash off. No worrying about hating it when I'm older!

On Friday morning, I had gotten a phone call that woke me up. It was from my all-time favorite person from our realtor's team. (Did you catch the dripping sarcasm?) Kevin calls me bright and early in the morning, waking me up, to inform me that he has another realtor who would like to show the house...in less than twenty minutes. I asked him if it was possible to move it out into the early afternoon, because in my head, I'm running down the list of things that I have to do before leaving...such as, get up and showered, dressed, packed for Craig, loading the cats into their locked room, with their crates, in case there is someone who wants to see that room, and load up my car with personal transport items, open up the house, and make sure that everything is set for a showing. A lot to do in 15 minutes. Without even asking the other realtor if it is okay to move it back, he informs me that if he asks to move it back, it could result in a cancellation. In my head, I wanted to tell him that "Well, I guess that means they need to cancel, doesn't it?" Have I mentioned how much I loathe this guy? This is the same guy that I mentioned before that has called and argued with me for ten minutes about why the cats are locked in a room, and why I have the only key...really? I told Mike this story, and he agrees that this guy needs an attitude adjustment. I hope that we have a "how did we do" type survey for the realtor that we hired, as I will say, great, but... and then point out the negatives of this guy. Okay, maybe I won't as it's not really in my nature, unless he does something else that I will snap and do it anyways.

After getting everything above taken care of, I headed to Mom's house for an hour or so. I got there and gave her my keys to the house, and the cat room. I explained that if there is a showing and someone wants to see the cat room, that I've moved their crates in there, and all that she has to do is make sure that they are in the crates and then once the showing is over, let them out but still locked in their room. So far, no one has asked for that second showing. It doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't interested in the house because of not being able to see that room, as the man who's financing fell through, hadn't seen that room, and was all willing to buy the house. We're going to be out of the house soon enough, so it may not even matter soon.

So, I left for Craig early Friday afternoon, and didn't run into too much traffic. There were a few dumb people on the road, and were ready to cause accidents, and it made me nervous, but hey...those people are everywhere!

I got to Craig a little after 4pm. I unloaded most of the boxes from my car, except the heaviest one, as I was having some major back issues. My back has been killing me for the past few days, and with Mike's help rubbing it out and medicating me, it's much better than what it was!

On Saturday night, Mike and I headed to our favorite restaurant, called The O.P. (O.P. stands for the Other Place) for a fireman's ball/luau. Mike's techs at the pharmacy had invited us, and one of them's husband is not only a fireman, but runs the DJ business in town, so he was working the booth too. We had a few drinks, some food and watched the town folk who came to dance and drink. The techs kept trying to get me out on the dance floor, but because I don't know any of the songs, it makes it rather tough to dance to music you don't like, such as country, or don't know, like a lot of popular dance/techno music. When Mike and I headed back to the temporary housing, we put in our Ipod and I selected a couple of songs to dance to. I told Mike that had they played my music, no one would have known who these artists were, and no one would have been dancing.

Yesterday, we played one of our many online games in the morning, while it was still cool inside our temporary housing, and once it got really too hot to stay indoors, we headed to the local frozen yogurt shop and stood there forever before the guy came to serve us. The yogurt place is inside the Subway shop. The people who do the sandwiches, also are in charge of the yogurt. It was apparent that the kid that helped us hates doing the yogurt side of things. I ordered a large, and ended up with a medium by the time he was finished mixing things. I had to shake my head. Mike's was practically over-flowing with yogurt. Next time, Mike orders first.

After we got our yogurt, we headed to one of the local parks in town, and found a picnic table to sit at and play a board game. It was so nice outside, and it was a lot of fun to get outside and do something unexpected and out of the norm for us. After a few rounds of the game, we packed it up, as we were getting attacked by the local bugs, and headed back to the apartment. Once there, we stayed up a little and played the game online before heading to bed.

I'm not sure what we are planning on doing today, after Mike comes home from work, but I am looking forward to it. I am leaving tomorrow for the Springs again, and it will be busy as I am going to be focusing on getting the rest of the place packed. I will be trying to eat the food that I have, and whatever is left that isn't safe to transport, I'll be giving to family/friends.

I don't believe that there is a whole lot more to say. There are a few people who are asking Mike about my photography services, and it makes me smile. There are only a couple photographers in town, and I think that they are retiring or moving away. So business may be coming my way!

I tried to get Mike to take a little trip to the Arches National Park, in Utah because it is only four hours away from us, but it was a little late for us, by the time I looked it up and thought about it. But one day, I think that it will be a trip that we will take. Anyone want to join us? =)

Well, I think that covers it. Things are looking up, and I'm loving life, regardless of the drama and stress. And things are only going to get better from here on out!

Until next time!

Festivals, Sunburns & Positivity

Hey everyone!

Who knew that I'd be updating this so soon? It won't be a long update, as there hasn't been that much that has happened since my last update.

Last weekend, Mike came down from Craig to spend his days off with me and friends in the Springs. We had plans with friends to go to the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur. Mike had never been, and the last time that I had been, I was possibly 3 or 4 years old.
We had a great time and enjoyed seeing our friends. We watched some of the jousting, a Celtic band, endangered big cats, a rather pun-filled not-so-funny stand up comedy, and a flame show. Mike and I also wandered through the many shops that were in the area. There were a ton of those!
We laughed at some of the costumes that people wore, and were amazed that they thought they looked good in them! We saw a guy dressed up as Legolas, the elf from the Lord of the Rings, and watched how this poor guy was asked to pose for pictures.
I mentioned that the next time we go to this Festival, that we should all dress up as victims of the black plague. I got a few chuckles, but I think that would be hilarious to watch the actors, those who know their history, that is, and see what their reaction would be.
I also felt like a huge nerd as I was in love with a love of the costumes that you can buy in the shops, though not for the price they wanted, and I was walking around, pointing out all of the historical inaccuracies in the festival.
Mike and I did get a bit burned, but nothing too terrible. When we got back home, we picked up a few things at the store to fix up at the house, such as caulk and weather stripping. I still need to do those when I get back home, but it won't take me that long to do.

Last Sunday, the day after our adventure at the festival, Mike and I decided to work on the yard, just to make it look presentable, as I had convinced Mike to allow me to drive him up to Craig, and spend the weekend with him, and drive back down to the Springs this coming weekend. So, we took care of the house and packed up the car for the trip to Craig. The traffic was okay, a little on the slow side, but a large part of that was due to the Festival traffic leaving.
When we got up to the temp. housing, we unloaded the car into the house. As Mike was hanging up his clean clothes into the closet, I sat down onto the bed and we talked as he worked. I got up and went into the other room, and as I came back, I see this spider walking across the bed sheets, where I was sitting. I freaked out, as I hate spiders, and Mike killed it, flushing him down the toilet. Needless to say, I had the heebie jeebies for the rest of the night, possibly to the extent that I didn't sleep at all.

On Monday, Mike and I went to the grocery store, and picked up items to make lasagna (which I had to use oven-ready noodles as the temp. housing has no pots to boil noodles in and it turned out pretty good to my surprise). While we were in the store, Mike asks me if my phone is ringing. Sure enough, it was. I didn't really hear it. It was from our realtor. He was informing me that we had an offer on the house. I passed the phone to Mike, mainly because it's his house, and he's the guy who knows all about this. He spent about 15 minutes on the phone, discussing the offer, and counter offer. When Mike got off the phone, we laughed about how only a few days ago, Mike had very politely got onto our realtor's case for not checking in with us, nor getting back to us in a timely manner when we called for questions, and then the next day, he sells our house. I told him that maybe it was a moment of "Crap, I better get back on these people's good side" and so he does his job.

The original offer on this house was going to be $230 possibly $235,000 but after our realtor talked to their realtor, he found out that if we were to counter with $240 and leave the refrigerator in the kitchen, that they would agree to the 240. So, when we got back to the temp. housing, Mike checked his email, read over the offers and signed them. The buyers had a 7pm deadline yesterday, to look things over, discuss and either accept or reject the counter. Mike checked his email around 730pm last night, and got the confirmation that they wanted to buy our house.

Mike and I think that these people are victims of the fire because of some of the information that we know about them. We were told that these people are looking to buy and move in as soon as possible, which means that the closing date will be September 14th, thereabouts. They also have about $20,000 to put down on a down payment, and we think that if they are wanting our fridge, that it could be that they have nothing left. The other thing that makes me wonder if they are, is simply because we have our three indoor cats, locked away in on of the spare rooms. They haven't asked to see that room before signing the contract. We really don't care if they are or not, but it just makes you wonder.

Speaking about that locked room, yesterday morning, after driving Mike to work, I got a phone call from the realty company, setting up another showing on the house. Since we weren't under contract yet, I decided to say that it was fine that people keep looking at the house. It might get us another potential buyer and there could be a bidding war...Anyways, after a couple hours, I get another call from the same person. Now to fully understand what I am about to say, let me give you a little background on this individual. This guy's name is Kevin. Each time he has called my phone, he is not a friendly person, and if you interrupt him to be friendly, it completely throws him off his train of thought. He called me once and said," Hi, this is Kevin from Keller Williams" this is where I cut him off by simply saying "Hi" back and it took him a minute to get himself back together. Anyways, he's just not friendly on the phone, and speaks so quickly that I end up having to ask what time the showings are, at least two times, before he slows down, and breathes. So the second time he called me yesterday, this is how the conversation went...and I wish I were exaggerating with this, but I'm not...

Kevin: "Hi, this is Kevin from Keller Williams. I called you earlier about the showing from 1pm-330pm and this is their second showing, and they would like to see the cat room this time."

Me: "Well, I'm up in Craig right now, which is 5 hours away. There wouldn't be a chance of my being able to get down there to open that door, so if they want to see that room, we will need to reschedule it for the weekend, when we are down there."

Kevin: "Is there a key that they could just use to get into that room?"

Me: "I have the key with me-"

Kevin (cutting me off): " Well, the door is locked, but is there a key that they can use? Will the front door key work in that lock?"

Me: "I have the only key. The reason that we have it locked is so that our three cats stay safe in case someone leaves the door open."

Kevin: "Okay, that's fine, but is there another key."

Me (Now wanting to cope an attitude): "I. Have. The. Only. Key. With. Me. In. Craig. Five. Hours. Away."

This conversation lasted about ten more minutes before he finally figured it out. This wasn't helping my mood which was bad from waking up. I can laugh about it now, as it was utterly ridiculous, but come on. How hard is it to understand that I have the only freaking key and that the door is locked. Why would I lock up the cats in a room, and leave a key for people to go in and out at will? If I did that, then I wouldn't bother locking the cats up in a room. Seriously...use your brain, if you have one. Moving on...

Now, about a week ago, we had been getting a lot of reviews on the house, a lot of them were absolutely stupid, as I mentioned before, like "there's no laundry shoot", "there are no pictures of them anywhere" and one of the most common complaints was the price. It really bothered Mike, but as I told him, those people complaining about the price, clearly don't want the house that badly, as they aren't even making offers. So, with that in mind, I didn't think that was the problem. I honestly believe that those people just didn't like the house, and instead of just admitting that they didn't like it, because they had something more grand in mind, they blame it on price, as it's the easiest excuse to give. He agreed, and I told him that we also have to keep in mind that the house has only been on the market for a little over a month. We've had consistent showings, averaging about 5 a week since it's been on the market. We have had some good reviews, and a lot of stupid people as well. I told him that the house is in immaculate shape, and we've been fixing things up, so that it's still in great shape, leaving no excuses for people to hate it. Now, after all of this was said, and Mike agreed that we still have a great chance of selling the house at the price we set, and basing of the rest of the houses in our neighborhood, we're selling cheaper than the others, that have been on the market for forever.  It was after this conversation that we got the phone call, that next day or evening that we had the offer.

The timing works out perfectly, as we sign and close on the house here in Craig on the 20th, and we should have our things moved up by that Thursday. Then it will be a matter of heading down to the Springs once a week for the following three weeks after we're out to take care of the yard and then sign the papers for that house. I still can't believe that things are moving this quickly. I did tell Mike that it just took us to keep positive on the house and things would fall into place, and they really have.

This coming Monday, the moving company that we've decided to go with, will come to the house and reassess the cost of moving our things, as we've been moving some of the boxes up already. Mike has a box wall in this small temp. housing, and it will only get worse, with each weekend, as we will be bringing up more and more of our personal transport items.

All things considered, the house has only been on the market for 33 days, roughly, with lots of showings, and a couple offers (regardless of how stupid they may have been). This is a pretty good short sale, as there have been lots of houses still struggling to sell, as I mentioned above.

Well, I don't think that there is a ton more to update you all on, so I will end this and just know that if there is something else that should come up, I will try my best to update this blog as soon as possible. It would also appear that since I will be moving sooner than we had originally anticipated, that I should be updating this much more often, seeing that I will also be one of those family members that are out of town.