Hi.

It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve posted a blog entry, but my entry dates tell me it’s only been a few days.

It has been a very very busy few days.

We’ve seen, no joke, somewhere in the vicinity of 30 houses.  We narrowed it down to two and could NOT agree on which of the two to go with.  I wanted the house with no upgrades but tons of space, because you can add anything after the fact except square feet.  J wanted the smaller house that still had everything we needed, but had some upgrades.  Unfortunately, they weren’t upgraded in the way I would have chosen to do it myself, and they did the most ridiculously sloppy paint job I’ve ever seen.  Cherry cabinets are great, but when the edges have white paint all over them because the idiots didn’t use TAPE, it’s very difficult to fix.

In the end, we ended up marking both houses off our list and making our real estate agent hate us completely revamping our search criteria.

And yesterday, we found it.  The ONE.

Actually, there were two, and once again we had to choose between them, but it was a much better situation this time because a) we both would have been very happy in either one, b) they’re both move-in-ready, and c) we didn’t disagree on which one was the better house.

It’s just that there was a $30,000 price difference between the two and we had to decide whether it was worth it to have a bigger house (which is really more than we need right now), or to save $30,000.

It was a hard decision but we ended up going with the bigger house.  It has a sunroom and extra space so that when Little Button has friends over to spend the night, or we have Christmas parties, or we end up with the entire youth group taking up residence at our place for a week, there will be room for that.  And the master bedroom is totally secluded from all the other bedrooms and mayhem that will undoubtedly be going on during those times.

Like I said, it’s really quite a bit more than we need in a house right now.  But the plan is to stay here for years.  As in, more than two.  Two years is the longest I’ve stayed at any one address since I graduated high school.  And although new things can be fun, I’m tired of having to move all the time.  Of hesitating to personalize and make a house MINE because we’ll need to move in a year.

So this time we planned for the future.  The way far out future.  And in that respect, it’s perfect.  We love the house, we love the location, the family-oriented neighborhood with community parks and pools and even a water park.  We love that it’s close to my parents, which will ease my commute when I drop Little Button off at my mom’s house on the way to work.  And it’s pretty centrally located with respect to most of our friends.

And we love that the people who live there have no pets and no children and both work so they are never home and the house is immaculately clean and doesn’t even look lived in.

And they have relatively decent taste, save an over-indulged affection for mirrors.  We call it the Mirror Mansion.  Seriously, I can watch myself when I’m cooking, eating, working on the computer, doing laundry, getting out of bed, walking down the hall, sitting in the living room, vacuuming the stairs and peeing.

It’s kind of weird, actually, and I think some of those are going to have to go.

We made an offer on the house today and are waiting for their counter offer.  Fingers crossed.  I’m really excited about this house, and the more I think about it, the more I love it.

I’m such a house dork.

I was almost afraid to write about it just because I’m inherently superstitious.

Have I mentioned that we sold the house? I have?

Well I’m going to say it again because I’m still enjoying the sound of it: WE SOLD OUR HOUSE.

No more vacuuming every day, no more worrying about being unable to get the price we need, no more stuffing the laundry under the bed to keep it out of sight while random strangers poke around in our bedroom.

That last part alone makes me want to start dancing with glee, but I won’t and you should thank me for that. Dancing does not run in our genes, which is why when my daughter attempts to boogie down she just looks like she’s operating marionette puppets.

One day she will come home crying because she did not make the school dance team and I will comfort her with the fact that it is not her fault because all the cartwheels and pompoms in the world cannot overcome genetics. But it’s not so bad because she did get a killer set of dimples and there are people who pay money to achieve that kind of cute SO BUTTON, YOU MAY REMIND YOUR FATHER WHEN HE’S SCARING ALL THE BOYS AWAY WITH HIS SHOTGUN, THAT HE IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REASON THEY ARE SO INFATUATED WITH YOU.

But back to the house, or rather lack of. See, our original plan was to build a house, and we’ve signed the paperwork and picked out our tile and carpet and everything was hunky dorey. Except that the house won’t be built until at least November, and we close on our current house mid-August.

I’m going to give you a moment to do the math on that one.

So there we have it: We have sold our house in less than 3 weeks, and in another 3 weeks we will have no place to live.

So the plans have changed a bit. We are now looking at current houses on the market, hoping that somehow we will find a house that we like as much or more than our new construction, and that somehow we can put a contract and close on this new mystery house in less than a month.

Tomorrow we’re going to hit the house shopping hard-core. I’ve sent our agent a list of like 30 houses to get through, and hopefully by the end of the day we’ll know where we want to be. No problem, right?

Call me an optimist. But everything seems easier once you are no longer shoving toys in the dishwasher and dog food in the dryer every time you leave the house.

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE! WE! SOLD! THE! HOUSE! THE HOUSE IS SOLD! (does Jubilant Happy Dance) WE SOLD THE HOUSE! YAY YAY YAY! WE SOLD THE HOUSE!

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OH CRAP, WE SOLD THE HOUSE! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO??? AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! (does Frantic We-Have-No-Place-to-Live Dance)

Our buyers are firm that they have to close by August 17 (as in, less than a month from now). The new house won’t be ready until November. Uh….

We’ve been painting and cleaning and caulking and clearing out for days, in the effort to make our house look like a model home. Garden Ridge has become my best friend. Despite the fact that it was in the Garden Ridge shopping cart where Little Button suddenly made the discovery that apparently it’s UNBELIEVABLY HILARIOUS to reach out and pinch Mama’s boobs when she’s not paying attention.

I’m having guilt right now because Little Button has been forced to watch an embarrassing amount of television over the past few days. It has rained nonstop for the past 40 days and 40 nights and TV is the only indoor activity that will simultaneously allow me to get stuff done and keep her from tearing apart everything that I JUST NEATLY ORGANIZED FIVE SECONDS AGO.

But lo and behold. The house is officially on the market as of today.

The past few days have been the most exhausting days EVER, but in my personal opinion we’ve done a great job. And we’re hitting ourselves on the head for not doing all this stuff sooner. All the things we’ve wished for since we moved here are now in place - like an actual dining room. With actual dining furniture. And it’s actually quite spectacular. Seriously, if we were looking at this house, we would buy it in an instant because the dining room is THAT COOL.

Hopefully everybody else that views the house will feel the same. Please. Please feel the same.

In the meantime, will somebody please tell my daughter that when we’re in a public restroom and there are other people in there, it is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY to narrate everything Mama is doing? And no, that is NOT “juice in the potty.”

Ok, it appears that I have been called out on my assumptions in the last post. I hereby pronounce that the dining room chairs look GREAT and are the perfect color.

Garden Ridge is having a 50% Off Sale on their baskets, which is great because I’ve found baskets to be my lifesaver in this whole “organize everything and leave nothing on top of any visible horizontal surface” movement we’ve been ordered to undertake. But now I’m out of baskets and have to go back to Garden Ridge (again) to get some more.

But I guess I can do that when I take back the artwork that my dear husband brought home.