Saturday, April 23, 2016

Waiting to Hurry Up

The home buying process is so crazy!  We put our house on the market in late May 2015.  Oh how I prayed that someone would buy it! And oh how I got so discouraged as the months ticked by.  I lost hope many a time, and Aaron had to remind me that God had a plan for our family.

Nearly ten months from when we listed our house, we received a full price offer. The buyers wanted to close in 28 days. We were able to accommodate that short time line because we knew we could stay with my parents.  We began the painstaking process of packing up a whole house.  Oh why do we feel so consumed with stuff?!?

The whole "sit around and wait for a family to like our house enough to buy it" was so tedious.  Once a family decided to buy it, though, the process sped into overdrive.  We had waited so long to hurry up!

We were not super concerned with finding a house right away because we knew we had a landing place.  My parents were gracious to offer their spare room to us (Aaron, me, our boys, and our 2 dogs!), despite them already having a house filled with my younger brother, three foster children, and a dog.  I love being at my parents' house, so it almost felt like a mini vacation.  We weren't planning to move in with them until Thursday April 14th, for a closing on the 18th.  However, it became evident each day that this moving process was taking a toll on Michael. Noah, not so much. He was content as long as he had his peeps (read: as long as he could see me aka "mom-mom."), but Michael was another story.  He was certain that I was throwing away our stuff! We had planned to have our family help us move out our big furniture (couches, entertainment center, dining table, dressers, etc) on Saturday the 9th.  I knew that living in a furniture-less house from Saturday the 9th through Thursday the 14th would be too much for Michael.  So I asked my parents if we could move in with them on Sunday the 10th.  They said "of course" and we made adjustments to do so.  It actually worked out quite well.  It allowed us to go back to the house to pack up the final things each day during the week, and it gave the boys stability of being in their grandparents' house for a week. 

We had the carpets cleaned on Friday the 15th.  We were super impressed with the price and the professionalism.  On Saturday morning the 16th, I had a cleaning lady come in to do a "deep clean" as the buyers requested.  Let's just say that both myself and the buyers were disappointed with the results of this deep cleaning upon their walk through.  They actually doubted that I had anyone come in and clean at all.  So I retrieved a receipt showing that I really did pay someone to come in and clean, and although it didn't meet my standards or the standards of the buyers, I still upheld my part of the contract by having someone come in and "clean." Note to self, or to all future home buyers, make a specific list of things you want to have cleaned.  These buyers did so- they specified "ceiling fans, blinds, baseboards." So, although were unhappy with the results of the "cleaning", the baseboards, ceiling fans, and blinds were cleaned... and that's all we could be held responsible for.  Just a bad situation overall, and I told my friend who recommended the cleaning lady about the outcome so that she's aware for future purposes. 

On Monday the 18th, we did a simul-close.  We closed on our home to sell it at 10:00 and we closed on a home to buy at 10:30. To say that the first half of April was a busy month is quite the understatement! We knew it would be busy, but BOY are we tired! We are now roughly 97% settled into our new house, and Michael is much more at ease.  I will dedicate the entire next post to explaining how we found our new house and how it's the epitome of God's faithfulness, and I'll include pictures! So, let me get off of this post now so I can go take some pictures!

Until next time,
Much love, Reba

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