Really though, my actual emotions are far from ecstatic, although I really am happy that everything is finally coming together. I'm just keeping myself calm because I know when we leave, it's gonna hurt. Ooh man, it's going to HURT. WHAAAAA!!!!
I know my last few blogs have been teasers, always saying that "it's a long story, I'll explain later". Well, I guess now would be as good of a time as ever to do the explaining, and trust me, I wasn't lying when I said it would be long.
We'll start at the beginning. Last May, to be exact. A long time ago...seems to me, anyway. :p
Late May: Through some roundabout haphazard way that we're used to, we somehow decide that we're moving to Chicago. I'd only heard this even suggested at Christmas, and actual rumors for what, a month? I knew we'd be doing something drastic eventually, but I had never thought Chicago. My goodness, that's nearly on the other end of the country, for pities sake!
June 8th: We decide to put our house on the market in preparation for a move before winter. The day before the realtor was to come look at our house, my Uncle James died of a heart attack. Naturally, plans got put on hold for a few weeks. My parents flew down to Arkansas for the funeral, and then taking advantage of an opportunity to get our Chicago plans moving, took a side trip to Chicago before coming back to California. They went a-looking, found a nice housing development that would build a house for us, thought, hmm, this is nice, and put a passel of earnest money down on it. It was a nice house, it really was. Big backyard, customised (to some extend) furnishings, etc.
Late June: Our house goes on the market. The market was (and still is) lousy...we had to drop the price several times before we could get bites. Naturally anything we sold the house for was going to be a profit because when we bought it seven years ago, it was a bank repo and dirt cheap.
July - Most of August: No bites on the house yet. We get a little nervous, and start wondering what will happen if we can't get this house sold by the time we can move into the Chicago house, which would be the middle of December. Do we own two houses? Nah. We just get more aggressive with the price, and sadly watch those extra ten thousands blow away in the wind. We receive word that building of our Chicago home has NOT commenced yet, even though it needs to be, if they're to hit their deadline. But it's not a real problem...is it?
End of August: Finally, we get an offer! We counter-offer, he accepts our counter-offer...the house is in escrow! Hallelujah! At least that problem is solved. Unfortunately, things aren't exactly a bed of roses...building on our Chicago home has still not commenced yet. This might be an issue.
September: Drama ensues. Escrow plans on our house go normally (if you can consider anything in this housing market nowadays normal!!!), but we receive the stunning news that due to financial difficulties, building on our Chicago house has been delayed and we can't move in until March, at the earliest. Um....how what? We're going to be kicked out of this house at the end of October! We weigh our options, and decide to stick it out down here in California while we wait. We broadcast the news, we start looking for a house to rent that wouldn't put us in the poorhouse, and then we make the the ultimate move that proves we're down here for the long haul...we buy Disneyland passes for all the kids who still don't have them ( a.k.a. me). YESSSS!!!!!!!!!
Early October: Things are going nicely along their merry way when we receive the distressing news that the housing situation in Chicago is in fact MUCH worse than we originally thought. This particular company, unbeknownst to us, was bankrupt just the year before, and it looked as if they were fast on their way to repeating the same sad story. Occupancy dates were being pushed back to July...this was just getting ridiculous. No way were we doing that! With heavy hearts, we decide to walk away from that particular house. Enough of the drama already! That was the good news, if you could call it good. The bad news was that since we no longer were going to be waiting for the house in March, we were going to try and be moved to Chicago as absolutely soon as possible. Poor Disneyland pass. *sniff*
October : We're standing in line for the Casey Jr. Train ride when dad a phone call saying that lone docs on our California house has been delivered, and we're as good as sold. Did I not mention that we experienced a bit of a mini-drama concerning the sale of this house? Anyway, mom and dad leave the next day for Chicago. They look at houses, find one they like, but the negotiations are iffy so they ditch it. They find another house, and to their surprise, it's actually selling for less than we sold this house for!!!! I smelled a rat, I really did...they're not honestly selling that beautiful house for that price!?!?!
Well, they are. And we're buying it...final papers should be signed on Wednesday and then we can move in whenever we want. I think the plan is to stay out here until the very last possible minute, which would be the day after Thanksgiving.
So, there's the story in a nutshell...all the sarcasm aside, it really has been a roller-coaster and although I am sad to realize that my time here in California is fast drawing to a close, I am very relieved that things have worked out so well and am excited to get into a new house.
When the whole housing thing fell through earlier and we knew we wouldn't be getting that house, it was a really stressful time...I couldn't help but ask, "Lord, what was the reason behind that particular plan? It was so nice and we dreamed and planned around it for so long, but it's gone...why?".
Well, my dad made a comment the other day that really made sense. You see, when we committed to buying that particular home, there was no contingency offer, meaning that there wasn't really way out of buying it, even if we couldn't get our house sold. This caused us to get really aggressive with the selling of this house...it was a really important thing to get it sold, no ifs or buts. What with the way the market was and still is, if we had taken the more leisurely route, there is a good chance the market would have collapsed on us completely and we would have been stuck out here for another few years. And who knows what could happen in that time?
So...there you have it. I am disappointed we won't be spending the winter here, but I am glad that we'll be able to move fairly soon and just get this whole business behind us...my life has been in limbo all year, and it will be nice to get it back in order again!
I'll be sure to do a picture post as soon as I get some good ones. :-) The date of our being unceremoniously kicked out of this house is November 23rd, in case anyone was planning on throwing some wild and amazing good-bye parties for our behalf. ;-) Yeah, I can see it now...the second we cross the state line, people will start going into mass celebration mode and will be making bonfires, burning us in effigy...yeah. ;-)
Anyway, in the very unlikely event that anyone was planning on mailing anything to this house, I wouldn't unless you absolutely had to...to those on my email list, I'll send you my new address and phone number as soon as I get them verified. Well, I have the address already, but not the phone number. I'm phone-paranoid anyway, so maybe we can just skip that part altogether. ;-)
I love y'all! I'm going to miss being in California so much! Well, not the fires so much. Speaking of which, it's been really weird this week...I'm about 45 minutes from the closest fire, but until yesterday we were having perfect weather; a bit hot and windy, but blue skies...the wind was blowing all the smoke and ash away from us. It was really weird to be reading all this stuff about the fires and not even being able to see smoke, lol. Anyway, the wind died down yesterday, so I can assure you we've been getting smoke a-plenty and it's made the outdoors pretty miserable...the entire sky is clouded, so today when the sun was shining through it the whole world had a red glow.
But, it's been a lot worse...I remember four years ago, at the last big fire, it was like that for at least two weeks and it was raining ashes and the whole nine yards. It sure was fascinating stuff though, going outside and catching bits of ash that still was in the shape of pine needles and leaves.
Anyway, it's getting late and this has been long enough. God bless, and don't forget to pray for those who have been affected by the fires...it's been really, really devastating to a lot of people. Fire is NOT one thing I will be missing about sunny California, I can tell you that much!
September: Drama ensues. Escrow plans on our house go normally (if you can consider anything in this housing market nowadays normal!!!), but we receive the stunning news that due to financial difficulties, building on our Chicago house has been delayed and we can't move in until March, at the earliest. Um....how what? We're going to be kicked out of this house at the end of October! We weigh our options, and decide to stick it out down here in California while we wait. We broadcast the news, we start looking for a house to rent that wouldn't put us in the poorhouse, and then we make the the ultimate move that proves we're down here for the long haul...we buy Disneyland passes for all the kids who still don't have them ( a.k.a. me). YESSSS!!!!!!!!!
Early October: Things are going nicely along their merry way when we receive the distressing news that the housing situation in Chicago is in fact MUCH worse than we originally thought. This particular company, unbeknownst to us, was bankrupt just the year before, and it looked as if they were fast on their way to repeating the same sad story. Occupancy dates were being pushed back to July...this was just getting ridiculous. No way were we doing that! With heavy hearts, we decide to walk away from that particular house. Enough of the drama already! That was the good news, if you could call it good. The bad news was that since we no longer were going to be waiting for the house in March, we were going to try and be moved to Chicago as absolutely soon as possible. Poor Disneyland pass. *sniff*
October : We're standing in line for the Casey Jr. Train ride when dad a phone call saying that lone docs on our California house has been delivered, and we're as good as sold. Did I not mention that we experienced a bit of a mini-drama concerning the sale of this house? Anyway, mom and dad leave the next day for Chicago. They look at houses, find one they like, but the negotiations are iffy so they ditch it. They find another house, and to their surprise, it's actually selling for less than we sold this house for!!!! I smelled a rat, I really did...they're not honestly selling that beautiful house for that price!?!?!
Well, they are. And we're buying it...final papers should be signed on Wednesday and then we can move in whenever we want. I think the plan is to stay out here until the very last possible minute, which would be the day after Thanksgiving.
So, there's the story in a nutshell...all the sarcasm aside, it really has been a roller-coaster and although I am sad to realize that my time here in California is fast drawing to a close, I am very relieved that things have worked out so well and am excited to get into a new house.
When the whole housing thing fell through earlier and we knew we wouldn't be getting that house, it was a really stressful time...I couldn't help but ask, "Lord, what was the reason behind that particular plan? It was so nice and we dreamed and planned around it for so long, but it's gone...why?".
Well, my dad made a comment the other day that really made sense. You see, when we committed to buying that particular home, there was no contingency offer, meaning that there wasn't really way out of buying it, even if we couldn't get our house sold. This caused us to get really aggressive with the selling of this house...it was a really important thing to get it sold, no ifs or buts. What with the way the market was and still is, if we had taken the more leisurely route, there is a good chance the market would have collapsed on us completely and we would have been stuck out here for another few years. And who knows what could happen in that time?
So...there you have it. I am disappointed we won't be spending the winter here, but I am glad that we'll be able to move fairly soon and just get this whole business behind us...my life has been in limbo all year, and it will be nice to get it back in order again!
I'll be sure to do a picture post as soon as I get some good ones. :-) The date of our being unceremoniously kicked out of this house is November 23rd, in case anyone was planning on throwing some wild and amazing good-bye parties for our behalf. ;-) Yeah, I can see it now...the second we cross the state line, people will start going into mass celebration mode and will be making bonfires, burning us in effigy...yeah. ;-)
Anyway, in the very unlikely event that anyone was planning on mailing anything to this house, I wouldn't unless you absolutely had to...to those on my email list, I'll send you my new address and phone number as soon as I get them verified. Well, I have the address already, but not the phone number. I'm phone-paranoid anyway, so maybe we can just skip that part altogether. ;-)
I love y'all! I'm going to miss being in California so much! Well, not the fires so much. Speaking of which, it's been really weird this week...I'm about 45 minutes from the closest fire, but until yesterday we were having perfect weather; a bit hot and windy, but blue skies...the wind was blowing all the smoke and ash away from us. It was really weird to be reading all this stuff about the fires and not even being able to see smoke, lol. Anyway, the wind died down yesterday, so I can assure you we've been getting smoke a-plenty and it's made the outdoors pretty miserable...the entire sky is clouded, so today when the sun was shining through it the whole world had a red glow.
But, it's been a lot worse...I remember four years ago, at the last big fire, it was like that for at least two weeks and it was raining ashes and the whole nine yards. It sure was fascinating stuff though, going outside and catching bits of ash that still was in the shape of pine needles and leaves.
Anyway, it's getting late and this has been long enough. God bless, and don't forget to pray for those who have been affected by the fires...it's been really, really devastating to a lot of people. Fire is NOT one thing I will be missing about sunny California, I can tell you that much!
