Category: Home Life

We closed on the new house earlier today and our first task was to move the sectional that was left from the basement to the family room. Susan and I successfully moved the two smaller pieces, but were defeated when we tried to move the bigger piece.

Nate came over after Neighborhood Sports and we were determined to get the piece out. We took down the railing, took two doors off of their hinges, and took down the hallway light. After over an hour we were about to give up and were preparing to take the couch back downstairs when all of a sudden a corner of it slipped through the door and we were able to force it out.

As of this morning, our current house and the house we want to buy are under contract. Here is how it went down. This past Wednesday someone came to look at our house a second time. It was Alexis, a college student at Drake, and her dad. She had 6 more years in the pre-pharmacy program at Drake and rather than renting and losing money for 6 years they decided to buy a house that she could live in with some roommates. We received their offer on Thursday. It was good enough for us to accept,which meant that our house was under contract.

I think it is also worth mentioning that at this point we were already under a contingent contract. Some acquaintances of ours had already made an offer on our house, subject to the sale of their house. When the new offer came in they signed-off pretty quickly, indicating that they were releasing their contract.

So now it was time for us to make a move. We had had our eyes on a house, Clive I, for a while. In fact, seeing this house was what spurred me to put our house on the market. We knew they had a contingent offer on that house. We made an offer right away, hoping that their contingent offer would be released. Our Realtor, Sharon, told us that the people with a contingent offer on that house could perform without actually selling their house, so we were not very optimistic. The house was in a weird circumstance and their Realtor was going to meet with the decider at 10:30 on Friday morning.

At 9:05 on Friday morning, when I was getting settled in at guitar lessons, Sharon called and said that she was at another house she wanted us to come see. At 9:35 I picked up Susan, the kids, and Adrienne, who was in town visiting. We all headed over to the house and immediately loved it. It was right down the street from Clive I and it has a finished basement where Susan could operate her program. It had just gone on the market two days ago. We immediately knew we wanted it and made a good offer. By dinnertime we heard back from the buyers with a small counter offer, which we accepted.

In Mid-December we decided to sell our house and look for something a little different. We spent the last couple of weeks getting everything ready and tomorrow we sign with a Realtor. We contemplated FSBO, but decided we have enough going on and would like some help this time around. We actually had a showing today to a potential FSBO buyer, but they were not interested, so we are back to the Realtor.

Last night, for the first time since she was born, I gave Lucia a bath. The funny thing is that I didn’t even have to do anything! I had her in the bath with Mari who rather enjoyed playing with her and getting her all washed up. All I had to do was take her out and get her dressed.

Lucia has been in a funk ever since the time change, about six weeks ago. She has been sleeping oddly, fussy, and generally not content. All of a sudden she appears to be back to her normal self. She has been on a better schedule and is playing by herself more frequently. On top of that she has been crawling instead of scooting and she has also been eating like crazy. She has never taken too much of an interest in food, but lately she can’t get enough. Hopefully the good times will stick around.