General all-'round update
For some reason, I woke up in a really bad mood this morning, and I've been sitting here the last hour or so trying not to cry. I think the stress of the last month is finally hitting me. "What stress?" you ask. Let me tell you.
I think it started back before Thanksgiving when we decided to buy the new house in Corona. The stress of this is of course escrow - making sure that our mortgage was approved, having all the inspections to ensure our house was not going to be a money pit. The hardest part of this was timing the close of escrow so that we could do what we needed to do to the house (namely, finishing the garage, painting and scraping some cottage cheese off a ceiling) before we moved in. We decided to move in the last week of December so that the kids could start their new school on January 2. Otherwise, we would have had to hire a sitter for the whole week since their old daycare decided to take 12/22 through 1/8 OFF.
So the sellers of this house, who had pushed for a short escrow, 30 days OR LESS, which was fine with us, suddenly have a change of heart in the middle of the process. They didn't know that our credit was so fantastic that it would only take 2 weeks (with no paperwork mind you) to get our loan approved and funded. I mean literally. The lender did it in 15 days, which is nearly unheard of. Suddenly the sellers have to find a place to live (duh) and plan a move. When we did our walk through, which was the day escrow was supposed to close, we found that they had not done any of the repairs they had agreed to on the contract. And the thing is, it wasn't much. For some reason they thought they had until the moved (they had asked for an extra three days after close of escrow and we granted it to them since we wanted them to accept our offer) to do it. The thing is, if we had let it slide, then technically we would be responsible for the repairs. So, we put in an order to escrow to stop, and withhold $500 from the seller's proceeds for the repairs. Well, the seller agreed verbally but couldn't sign the paperwork for another day - she was in New York. (Ok, why do you fly to New York 3 days before you're supposed to move?) So that pushed us back a day. And the sellers wouldn't allow our contractor into the house until they were moved to do the repairs.
I'm hearing the clock running down. This is the week before Christmas. We were finally allowed access to the property on Saturday. This gave our contractor 3 days to do everything. It turned out to be enough because he worked on Sunday. (This guy is a piece of work, but I'll save that for another day.)
While all that was going on, we had Mel's birthday (who is now a big boy of 3) and Christmas. We went to my folks house and wound up having to miss the family gathering on the 30th because we were actually moving that day. My step mother was really guilting me about it but there was nothing I could do. On Friday the 29th the moving packers came and packed us all up. Saturday we moved. We spent New Years Eve and Day unpacking and wrangling children.
That was the other really stressful thing: we had the kids almost nonstop from 12/22 through 1/2. That's the longest we've ever had them non-stop. We did have a sitter come on the 26th and 27th so I could get some work done (like paying work) but they were in the house and constantly needed something from me. (the sitters were kind of the pits - they couldn't do a thing without asking me first.)
Oh, and I was writing an article that will be published in the Spring. It was actually due the second week of December, but I didn't have it done, and the editor was going on vacation, so I finally turned it in yesterday. That weighed on me a lot, especially as it was a featured article and was a pretty hefty topic. When it gets published, I'll post a link.
Oh, and I was elected to the board of my professional organization's state chapter. While I was very flattered and happy to have won, it means now that I have additional responsibilities: I'm going to be managing the website and publishing the newsletter. It also means a 2 day board retreat at the end of January.
I'm feeling just a tad bit of release and pressure at the same time. Also, our fluffy gray outside cat has gone missing. She didn't come home two nights in a row. She never did this at the old house, and I'm afraid she's been eaten (there are coyotes up here.) She almost always stayed in the yard, meowing at the back door most of the time. Or, someone decided to take her in. Or she's at the shelter. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to start calling around in case she just got lost and makes it home tonight. We were just talking about putting her collar back on her (her old one broke and we got a new one, but didn't get it on her before the move.) She is very friendly and was getting handouts at the old place from neighbors (once she brought home a steak) so I'm hoping some kind soul thinks she's a stray.
Anyway that's about it for now...
I think it started back before Thanksgiving when we decided to buy the new house in Corona. The stress of this is of course escrow - making sure that our mortgage was approved, having all the inspections to ensure our house was not going to be a money pit. The hardest part of this was timing the close of escrow so that we could do what we needed to do to the house (namely, finishing the garage, painting and scraping some cottage cheese off a ceiling) before we moved in. We decided to move in the last week of December so that the kids could start their new school on January 2. Otherwise, we would have had to hire a sitter for the whole week since their old daycare decided to take 12/22 through 1/8 OFF.
So the sellers of this house, who had pushed for a short escrow, 30 days OR LESS, which was fine with us, suddenly have a change of heart in the middle of the process. They didn't know that our credit was so fantastic that it would only take 2 weeks (with no paperwork mind you) to get our loan approved and funded. I mean literally. The lender did it in 15 days, which is nearly unheard of. Suddenly the sellers have to find a place to live (duh) and plan a move. When we did our walk through, which was the day escrow was supposed to close, we found that they had not done any of the repairs they had agreed to on the contract. And the thing is, it wasn't much. For some reason they thought they had until the moved (they had asked for an extra three days after close of escrow and we granted it to them since we wanted them to accept our offer) to do it. The thing is, if we had let it slide, then technically we would be responsible for the repairs. So, we put in an order to escrow to stop, and withhold $500 from the seller's proceeds for the repairs. Well, the seller agreed verbally but couldn't sign the paperwork for another day - she was in New York. (Ok, why do you fly to New York 3 days before you're supposed to move?) So that pushed us back a day. And the sellers wouldn't allow our contractor into the house until they were moved to do the repairs.
I'm hearing the clock running down. This is the week before Christmas. We were finally allowed access to the property on Saturday. This gave our contractor 3 days to do everything. It turned out to be enough because he worked on Sunday. (This guy is a piece of work, but I'll save that for another day.)
While all that was going on, we had Mel's birthday (who is now a big boy of 3) and Christmas. We went to my folks house and wound up having to miss the family gathering on the 30th because we were actually moving that day. My step mother was really guilting me about it but there was nothing I could do. On Friday the 29th the moving packers came and packed us all up. Saturday we moved. We spent New Years Eve and Day unpacking and wrangling children.
That was the other really stressful thing: we had the kids almost nonstop from 12/22 through 1/2. That's the longest we've ever had them non-stop. We did have a sitter come on the 26th and 27th so I could get some work done (like paying work) but they were in the house and constantly needed something from me. (the sitters were kind of the pits - they couldn't do a thing without asking me first.)
Oh, and I was writing an article that will be published in the Spring. It was actually due the second week of December, but I didn't have it done, and the editor was going on vacation, so I finally turned it in yesterday. That weighed on me a lot, especially as it was a featured article and was a pretty hefty topic. When it gets published, I'll post a link.
Oh, and I was elected to the board of my professional organization's state chapter. While I was very flattered and happy to have won, it means now that I have additional responsibilities: I'm going to be managing the website and publishing the newsletter. It also means a 2 day board retreat at the end of January.
I'm feeling just a tad bit of release and pressure at the same time. Also, our fluffy gray outside cat has gone missing. She didn't come home two nights in a row. She never did this at the old house, and I'm afraid she's been eaten (there are coyotes up here.) She almost always stayed in the yard, meowing at the back door most of the time. Or, someone decided to take her in. Or she's at the shelter. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to start calling around in case she just got lost and makes it home tonight. We were just talking about putting her collar back on her (her old one broke and we got a new one, but didn't get it on her before the move.) She is very friendly and was getting handouts at the old place from neighbors (once she brought home a steak) so I'm hoping some kind soul thinks she's a stray.
Anyway that's about it for now...