Oxymoron?

On my way home from work yesterday, I was sitting at a red light beside a car that I had just passed.
A little red 4 door car, with 2 window clings screaming "BABY ON BOARD" and 2 sunshades in the rear windows to block the sun from the little ones' eyes.....
Now this in and of itself is not that much of an oddity. I see this all the time. I have yet to figure out what compels new parents to have Baby On Board window clings but I digress...
The real conundrum was that the mother was driving, all the windows rolled up, smoking a cigarette with the kids in the back seat.
Is it just me or does it appear that this mother has mixed up her priorities??

Victory is Mine - Kinda.

After all that stuff with Matterhorn, I figured I should update the plight with Eastland. Remember this one - the one we're trying to buy so we're not homeless forever...
So we're cautiously optimistic that this will actually happen. Our real estate agent, actually the seller's agent, tipped us off about renovation loans. We didn't think banks did this anymore but apparently they do. Yay for us! Bad for Dooze and Lester, and Steve and Lisa, and maybe Sam and Bekah too....
Dooze and Lester, Steve and Lisa, and Sam and Bekah are the wonderful peeps that are letting us couch surf for a couple/few of weeks with our 2 dogs. Since we've had to go this route with financing, the escrow period will be longer plus we still have to renovate a couple things like electrical and HVAC before we can move in....thus more time spent couch surfing.
Matterhorn close date - August 14th (Shit, that's only 2 weekends away)
Eastland latest close date - September 9th (We've made sad, little, puppy dog faces at our new mortgage guru to hopefully speed up this process.)
3 1/2 weeks homeless....or at least until we can move our stuff in. Um yea, where the hell do you store a doggie mansion for a month??
Prolly 4 1/2 weeks until we can move in. We're counting on the kindness of our friends....hopefully they'll still be our friends after this is all over.

The Difference Between Us and Everyone Else

We're masochistic.
We must be. Otherwise why in God's name would be dying to buy a house with no kitchen and only 1 functional bathroom of the 4 in the house.
This didn't really seem that weird to me until I saw the list of fixes the buyers of Matterhorn wanted done before closing.

1. New roof. Ok so maybe there was more hail damage than we thought....but a whole new roof when this one doesn't leak or look f-ed up at all. Really?!

I'm no roofer but if it doesn't leak...where's the problem??

2. Replace all gutters and downspouts. No. Nuh-uh. Not ever gonna happen. That is cosmetic and all the gutters function just fine. They have been blown out every year nevermind that Matt spent about 4 hours with a Magic Eraser and Power Paste scrubbing the dang things clean before we went on the market.

Sparkling Clean.

3. Fix the float switch on catch pan in attic. What IS that? Never heard of it but apparently ours is broken - sounds serious enough that we should have noticed, right?

4. Fix outlet at right rear kitchen wall. This one is so vague, we don't even know which outlet they're talking about. The right rear kitchen wall? With a walk through kitchen - Which end of the kitchen were you standing on to say right. Nevermind that all the outlets work in the kitchen. Apparently the one "on the right rear kitchen wall" has the negative and positive switched....?

Which right is wrong in this picture? There's an outlet on every wall.

5. Level the heating/cooling thermostat in the upper hallway. This one is the most ridiculous to me and the one that will give me the most satisfaction when it's all said and done. Little do the new home owners know that our hallway was RED. Leveling that thermostat will leave a lovely red outline around the new one. I haven't decided yet whether a brand new nice, ROUND thermostat is just too mean.

Imagine a nice new round thermostat with a eye catching rectangle of red around it. How's that for level?

Dog House vs. Fence

The Dog House.

The Only Gate.


Since the contract on Matterhorn does NOT include our pimpin' dog house, we have to figure out just how to get this mansion out of the back yard.
Uh oh Shaggy.

The Saga Continues...

Really, stupid complicated home buying process, really.
We're good people, we have stellar credit,and unfortunately a love for the ever elusive diamond in the rough. Loan underwriters don't have that same love.
Seems that even if the home appraises for the value of the loan or more, you still have to worry about the underwriters grinding the process to a halt b/c they won't release the loan.
It was NOT our fault all those a-holes passed out loans like candy back in the day and now we're in this huge mess. But we sure are paying the price.
This is getting f-ing ridiculous.

August 13. Ouch.

The good news is we sold our house in one day. For that, we are extrememly thankful. There is something to be said for Matt's obssesive cleaning, painting, organizing, staging, etc. Cinderella can relax now....




Except the close date on Matterhorn is August 14. Which means, we gotta be out by the 13th.
Oh my God, we're really homeless now. This is not a joke or a drill, we gotta find a house and QUICK!

Everything But the Kitchen Sink

Apparently banks don't like to loan money when it will be used to buy a house that doesn't have a kitchen....
I guess I left that lovely detail out of my last housing update. Eastland doesn't have a kitchen. Our plan is to put in a cheap one and then save some cash to PIMP out a new one, knock down some walls, etc, etc, etc.
Appraisers don't see potential, they only see what's there in the right now. If we can't work out the details with the seller to get past the appraisal, then this one is a no-go too and I'll truly believe that we aren't meant to move to Nashville.
Aw, cwap.

This Might Actually Happen - What?!

I have to admit, I never really thought the Stratton house would work out which is why I wasn't extremely upset that it didn't. I was only waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it did I wasn't that shocked.
We just got word this morning that the sellers of Eastland are more willing to work with us than we expected....this is so stupidly exciting!
I'm in shock now.

Lazy Sunday

I cannot remember the last time we had a lazy Sunday. Between:

• getting ready to sell our house (just call me Cinderella),
• trying to buy another one (damn Stratton Ave. - fingers crossed for Eastland),
• our trip to California (met the entire bunch of step in-laws for the first time),
• work life in general (Thank God 3rd/4th Q is placed now),
• and beginning to plan a wedding

we've been pretty busy. The biggest item on our agenda today is laundry folding and dog baths....maybe some dinner and a couple of beergaritas before bed.

Ahhh - lazy Sundays. Love them.

And the winner is...

The first house we fell for was 1407 Stratton Ave. in East Nashville. Turns out the house was hiding a number of issues from us.

What an asshole thing to do.

We must have a thing for houses at 1407 Any Street, Nashville TN. This is the 2nd one.
1407 Eastland.

Cross your fingers - Nashville, here we come.

Tree Hugger

Yep - I'm a tree hugger...not the smelly, Jebus sandals, dreads, and arm pit hair kind but the kind that showers, typically smells good, and tries to recycle. I also LOVE trees...like it upsets me when subdivisions level all the trees on a block.
So you can imagine how glad I was to see the Sequoia trees in California....

Not to mention the elation I felt to be out of the car and safe from plummeting over a cliff because Ronnie likes to sight see while driving.

One "W"

Why?
Why in God's name would I start a blog? Good question.
I figure for now, some people may want to know information about our upcoming party with a side of wedding.
I also figure there's a lot of stuff going on that I need out of my head and somewhere else....
Dear Diary -
Stay tuned for the details of my little life.