House Drama

I’ve been MIA from my blog for a while because we are trying to move and things got a little hairy. We’ve wanted to move for quite some time for a number of reasons. We are blessed to be in a nice home with good neighbors, but the home is NOT kid friendly. First of all, it is on a busy, through street, so playing in the front yard is not an option. The backyard is the size of a postage stamp and backs to a major, major road. It’s impossible to hold a conversation outside at rush hour because it is so loud. We have four bedrooms, but one is so small that it really only holds a bed and nightstand. Almost all of the floors are wood, which is beautiful, but losing its beauty a little more each day. Not thinking about future children and their pull toys when we bought the home, we put in soft, shiny, engineered hard wood. Finally, we only have 2 bathrooms. I know that in some places in the country, this is a luxury. Teenagers and toddlers, however, do not exist well in the same bathroom. Think loose razor blades, spilled nail polish remover, hairdryers in the sink… We would gladly share the master bath with the babies, but the tub ledge is about a foot wide and the tub is a deep soaker tub. Not accessible or safe. With new baby coming, we really would like to have one bathroom devoted to little people.


We’ve had our house on the market for almost two months, and finally got an offer last Monday. It was low, though, and the contingencies and the closing date didn’t work for us, so we started negotiating, and negotiating, and negotiating. We had been looking at homes and had two we liked in mind just in case this offer came in. Unfortunately, one of them decided to lease out their home instead of sell several days before our contract came in, so we had to go with option two. We submitted an offer on house two, which, according to the comps, was priced unreasonably high. The owners would not even counter. They came back saying, “Please submit a reasonable offer.” Really? We resubmitted with what was close to the very most we could do. No dice. They countered (a day later mind you), at about $1000 below their asking price. Our lender warned us that he didn’t even think the house would appraise for that much and our loan was contingent on the house appraising for the sales price. All this time, we had our potential buyers waiting for us to take their offer because we didn’t feel safe taking it without a house to go to. Just when we thought all hope was lost, the lease on house one fell through! We immediately put in an offer and it was accepted after only one round of negotiating. Our buyers were still waiting and are all ready to close with a price and dates that are workable for us. We are soooo thrilled about our new house. Here’s a photo:

We got a wonderful deal, and our interest rate is going to drop a whole percentage point and a half. Also, we will have a shady front yard on a cul-de-sac, a third bathroom, an extra play space, nearly indestructible tile floors, and a huge, covered back patio to protect us from the hot Texas sun. The house is a block from a park, about 12 blocks from the neighborhood pool, and is zoned to great schools. We couldn’t ask for anything more or be more blessed. We also have had a great real estate agent, Renee Tomochek with Realty Associates. We have spent so much time with her that she has begun to feel like family. Several nights ago, I even dreamed that we were in a new home, sitting at the dining table with Renee, and were all in our pajamas, including her.

Even though we will be pretty busy getting ready for the big move, I plan to keep the blog a little better updated. We have a big appointment late this afternoon with the high risk OB. He will be looking at the baby’s heart, and I will let you know how it goes tomorrow morning.