WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! First time homeowners. As of about 4:30 last night. What a crazy day it was. We were supposed to close yesterday, but our loan agent is an idiot. He could not get anything done on time and was asking us for stuff up to Thursday still. Our real estate agent told me yesterday morning that we had reached the point that there was no way it was happening that day. The loan guy had not sent the documents to the title company. There was no way we could get the papers signed and get the money wired in time to close the same day. Besides, it was Friday and we know how hard people work on Fridays.

Then the title company person called, about 9:30, and said we have the papers and you guys be here by 10 to sign. Um, let me call Brian, who is a teacher, and see if he can drop everything and get across town in less than a half hour. "Yeah, we'll be there." We were, and had the papers signed by 10:20. I have no idea what we signed, but I have a huge stack of papers to read when I can't sleep.

I called my realtor and told her we had signed the docs. She was still pretty convinced that we were working toward closing on Monday, because we still had to wait for the money to be transferred. I told her the lady at the title was buzzing to get this done (seriously, caffeine overload). My realtor called me later and said that the title company lady had 12 home loans to close and she "bound and determined" that one of them would be ours.

All day, I jumped every time the phone rang. And finally, at about 4:30, I got THE call. "Congratulations, you are a homeowners!" My eyes welled up. Was this for real? Finally. Yes. My realtor said she needed to get the keys and we could meet at "my house" about 6:00. And so it was. We met. We walked through. There was no water. At 6:30 on a Friday night. The heater also was not working. But, it's ours!

My agent has a call in to the other agent to find out about the heater. It's probably some quirky thing or a switch that we don't know about. Ah, the joys of getting to know a our new house. And the water will be turned on MONDAY!

So, tonight we are staying at my sister's again for a hot shower and a warm place to sleep. But we are HOMEOWNERS!

It only gets better (sarcasm). So, we finished cleaning out the rental house on Sunday, to turn it over on Monday. Being the oh so organized person (control freak) that I am, I had packed a Ziploc big bag for each family member with clothes and such to get us through the week that we would be "homeless" since our house is not set to close Escrow until Friday. I also packed a bag with my textbooks and notebooks that I needed to finish my finals and assignments this week. They were all to be put in my car.

Monday night, at my mother in laws, I asked Brian to get the bag out of the car. He could not find it. I went to look myself. IT WAS NOT THERE! My brother in law, who had helped us on Sunday, said he saw a bag of books in the POD. It was one of the last things to go in. That was it. The last straw. I'm done. I give up. Just shoot me already!

I had a final paper due on Wednesday (today). I had started it and fortunately it is was saved on my laptop. However, the actual assignment sheet is in the book, which is in the POD, which is in a storage unit WHO KNOWS WHERE, until Friday when it will be delivered to our new house. HYPERVENTILATE!

BREATHE! THINK! FAST! I emailed my professor at 10:30 Monday and told him what happened (everyone is aware of my house woes this semester) and asked him to email me the assignment. He responded in no more than 5 minutes. Dr. H. you rock! Then I spent all day yesterday at the university library with a borrowed copy of the text. But, I got it done. Actually, I finished it this morning and printed it (in the library, since my printer is also in the POD) and made it to class only 5 minutes late. Time to breath? HA!

Only two more papers. One really big! One smaller, which I also do not have the materials for. Fortunately, it is not due until next Wednesday and I will have my stuff on Friday. Guess what I will be doing this weekend? And one in class final next Wednesday. Then I can breathe. In my new house.

Wow, has it really been a week since I posted? The week is gone; the month is gone. Where did they go? Before we know it year will be gone too. Then I will have to learn to write 2008 on my checks, well, not that I use checks very often, but you know how it is.

So lets see what has transpired since my last entry? Packing and writing and packing and writing and packing. Did mention packing and writing? Oy. What a week. I had to call in the big guns for the packing: The mother in law. Now for me packing and moving means sorting and purging. I have gotten rid of a lot of clothes, mine and the kids. And went through their toys; got rid the broken ones and ones not played with. With Christmas coming and Nate's birthday in a couple of weeks, I don't think they will miss anything. Now, however, I have reached the point that I cannot finish going through everything and keep up with my school work (three big final papers due in the next two weeks).

So, enter mother in law, packer extraordinaire. She can pack up the Gates mansion in a weekend, so I know she can handle us. So, today she shows up with her husband and son in law. I showed them what needed to be done. Leave my bedroom and bathroom alone and everything else can be packed. Then I headed off to class. Four hours later, I get home and my house is virtually empty. So empty it echoes (I have four boys in a house that echoes!) Even the garage is empty. And there is enough room in the POD for the rest of our meager belongings. They should start their our moving company!

So what is left for me to do. Packing my bedroom and bathroom. Then it's off to live with the in laws for a week. YAY! (sarcasm) And I have three papers to write. I may not be the best house guest this week. Guess I need to come up with something really good for Christmas.

Hopefully, by the end of next week we will be homeowners. We have had quite the adventure with people along this journey that really do not seem to know what they are doing, but that is a blog for another time. Right now, I am thinking positive thoughts.

We signed the counter offer on house #3. Not any big changes, not really even anything that needed to be countered, but whatever. We have an official, accepted offer again. I am cautiously optimistic that this one is the one. Brian and I had been looking at living room furniture. The house has a long narrow living room space that has an opening in the middle of each long wall. One enters the dining room. The other is the hallway to the bedrooms. It will be interesting to figure out an arrangement for furniture in that space.

I have also been looking at paint colors. This will be our first owned home; the first home that we can paint the walls. We are not wild color crazy people. I am looking at faux treatments in warm neutral colors. We have been stuck in a blue phase for quite a while; I am ready for something new. But, I also do not want to shrink an already small space. Oh, the stress.

I am excited about decorating a room for Jacob. I think I have mentioned this before. I have bought a fleece throw that is purple (his favorite color) with flaming soccer balls. I also saw a purple lava lamp that I'm sure he will find intriguing. I took some pictures at his last soccer game that I plan to make 5x7 and frame them to create a border on one wall. He has one more game and I hope to get a few more good ones. I thought about framing his jersey too, like they do the pros. We'll see.

Nate had his own room here when we first moved here, until Shawn moved in. He will have his own room again. His room is done in Thomas the Tank Engine. So, we will just carry that over to the new house. The has a train table in his room and a Thomas night light (that needs a new bulb). I think it will be fun to have his own room again.

The older boys will share a room. I'm not sure about this decision. I hope they will sleep when they are supposed to. We'll see how it goes. We are getting a bunk bed set for their room. The rooms are kind of small; so I don't think both of their twin beds will fit in there as they are now. I want to get them new dressers and a desk too, so that will take room. I just want it to be more functional for two high school boys. I'm thinking of getting a computer for their room too, for school stuff. We won't connect it to the Internet though. It will just be for typing papers and playing games that we have approved/purchased. Internet access will still have to be in the family room where mom can supervise.

Can you tell I am getting a little excited about the house? Well, I'm not so excited about the moving part. We have started packing stuff this weekend. I hauled out 5 bags of clothes to Goodwill on Saturday. They were from the kids' "change of season" clothes; summer clothes that will not fit anyone anymore. And a ton from my closet that no longer fit, or that I just haven't worn in forever. It is liberating to get rid of stuff while moving. I'm still not enjoying the packing part.

Tomorrow, we will have a POD delivered. Whoever came up with this business idea is a genius. Someone drops off a huge empty box on my driveway. I fill it up with everything I want to move. Then I call them and they come pick it up and move it to my new house, where I unload it. Genius. So, I will be loading my POD during the Thanksgiving holiday "break" (when I am not researching, reading or typing the monster papers I have due next week). If I am not heard from in the next week. I might just be buried in my POD hiding from my responsibilities.

Update on the house drama. It truly doesn't end does it? So, we have had an offer in on a house (the second offer since September if anyone is counting). This house is a "short sale" which I am told is just a step away from foreclosure. The owner is trying to get out from under the house before the bank forecloses and the bank allows them to sell for less to get it sold before they have to foreclose and sell it for the same amount anyway. So in theory, both parties want to move the house, right? Thus the term "short sale." That's what I thought. I was wrong.

So, my (wonderful, amazing, patient) real estate agent contacted the other agent to get an update on offer. Well, apparently what I thought was an accepted offer, as in we made an offer, the owner countered, we agreed, has not been accepted by the bank. And it can take "another month or two or more." WTF? I don't have three months. I need to move in three weeks. My agent's advice it to leave this on the table and continue to look at others houses. ARGH! I am so sick of looking at houses. I just want one to move into.

Ding. Ding. Round three. Saturday we looked at some more houses. We found a really cute little house, with a white picket fence around the front yard. It also has four bedrooms, instead of three, like the one are sitting on. It's smaller in square footage and the living room is much smaller, but doable. And did I mention 4 bedrooms? Jacob is going to be so excited. I haven't told because I don't want to get his hopes up and this one fall through. As you can see, I'm not too optimistic about this whole experience right now. But, I am so excited to "do" Jacob's room.

Oh yeah, we are putting in the offer tomorrow. Our agent and the other agent have been in touch. I hope this works out. We need to move. As it is, we will be living with my mother in law for about a week. And we will be unpacking during Christmas vacation. That will be nice, because the kids can stay with the grandparents. So, they say the third time's the charm right?

It's not all great. It puts all of the kids in new school zones, including the older boys' high school. I plan to transfer them back in. Joshua will be a senior next year. I'm not going make him take his senior year in a new high school where he knows no one. As for the little boys, I will tranport them for the rest of the year and next year we'll see what happens. For now, we'll just wait and see if we get the house. The agent says it could happen by the 14th of Dec. I will believe it when I have the keys in my hands.

Oh yeah, I have a blog. Thanks for the reminder Tracey.

Life has been crazy this past month. I am in house buying hell. Somehow, I thought buying a house would be something like buying a car. You pick one you like. You sign a bunch of papers, that you barely skim over. Then it's yours to drive off the lot, or in this case, move in to. Well, buying a house is nothing like buying a car. It's more like some insane scavenger hunt with a huge prize at the end, but only if you acquire all of the things on the list, in a timely manner. Since we move here just shy of a year ago, there are many things still in boxes in the garage (some of which will not be moving to the new house, because if I haven't needed it in a year, I probably don't need it). Anyway, included in those boxes are important papers, like the last ten years of tax returns, work and bank information, etc. Um, now which box or filing cabinet would that be. Maybe, it would be easier to just request copies from the IRS. Yeah right!

So, it has been a long crazy month. In my efforts to get together our life history of "important papers," I seem to have fallen behind in my school work. Not a good thing or comfortable for such an anal student as me. I am scrambling now to get back on track, as midterms and projects and papers (oh my!) sneak up on me. I have talked to two of my profs and they are understanding; gotta love social work profs. But, I don't like it one bit. The stress has been really getting to me. My husband said to me at one point that he hadn't seen me this unsettled since I was postpartum. That was such an accurate statement. I was losing it. I don't like not being/feeling in control.

Fortunately, it's getting better. We have an accepted offer on a house. This is the second house this month that we have been to this point on though, so I am cautiously optimistic. The home inspection is being done on Monday. The pest inspection should be done sometime this week too, I think. We are kind of in a lull as far as things I have to do. We have an awesome real estate agent. I should be happy and tackling the work I am behind in. But, I am just so tired. I really need to get a grip. This semester is half over and it has totally been a blur. Hoping the next one is better.

Wow, what a pity party that was. But, it felt good to get it out. Now, on to the weekend. Lets see: Soccer, pick up parents from airport, birthday party on Sunday - 3 hours each way! Oy. Breath.

I have taken the day off today. Last night I had a melt down and decided that while I am very behind in my school work right now and anxious about the house stuff, I needed a break. So, I decided last night to give myself a break. I haven't done any homework or reading. I haven't done any laundry. I haven't called the real estate agent or the lender to check progress. The only productive thing I did today was taking the kids to school and picking them up. Oh, and I am not cooking dinner tonight either. Brian doesn't know this yet, but he's taking me to dinner.

If we do eventually get this house (or any house) we may never move again. I was thinking this is a nice starter house. We are planning to move out of this area when I get my MSW. But this thing has been a big ol' pain in the derriere. Not sure I want to do it again any time soon (or ever). Grrr. To those who made this happen NOW. This is really not a good time.

Then there is school. Well, school is ok. I really enjoy being a student, with the exception of homework. Not that I mind the homework, I just don't have time for it. I mean after school, I have four kids to chase, feed, bathe (well, maybe not the oldest two), supervision of homework. There is soccer practice and church. I have to put in hours in Nate's preschool class. Then there's the various school activities, open house, back to school, PTA, etc. Um, no I can't say NO. I've learned there is a technical name for this. It is called "Helium Hand." When someone asks for volunteers, my hand goes up by itself. I need to get control over that.

Lets see, what else. I'm kind of bored. I really haven't done anything today. It's kind of weird. I know I will be playing catch up this weekend. Luckily, the little ones are the grandparents. I guess it's time to get dinner. YUM! I might have to do this more often. I think I'll call it "self care."

One might wonder, why on earth we would be shopping for a home and planning to move in the middle of my first semester of grad school. Well, it certainly wasn't planned this way and it is certainly a big ol' pain in the ass! But, here we are and here is why:

Last summer (2006) we decided that we wanted to buy a house. We were both in college when we got married and had been apartment dwellers for all of our married life (um, yeah that was 7 years, last year). We had two babies while living in the apartment. It was time for a house, with a yard and a dog for the boys. Time to be a grown up with grown up responsibilities. We had been careful with our credit and repairing mine from a nasty divorce. However...

Upon meeting with a lender, just to see what we would qualify for on a single income teacher salary, (I was back in school completing a second degree)... We were hit a credit score of 400-something for Brian. WHAT? There was obviously something wrong, something very wrong. Identity theft? His credit report was loaded with red flags. But, ultimately we had to figure out the stuff before we were going even think about buying a house with a reasonable intrest rate, if anyone would even look at us.

Well, it wasn't identity theft (yet!). Apparently there is another Brian (same last name) living in another city (same state). And a certain credit reporting agency had merged the their credit information. So Brian's credit report contained this other person's social security number and addresses (past and present) and all of his debt. To say the least, he was responsible with his finances. And, because of my Brian's good credit, they kept sending this clown credit cards. So began the process of straightening out what seemed like a careless, but easy to fix mistake. Most of the accounts could be easily attached to their rightful owner by SSN or by address.

It wasn't that easy and after about four months of calling and writing (certified letters) to credit card companies, banks, collection agencies, credit reporting agencies, etc., we realized that we would not be buying a house any time soon. So we decided to look into renting a house. We really needed the space (and a yard for Nate). We found a house that had been on the market for a while, as the market was starting to decline. They knew our situation and were willing to rent to us with the possibility that we would purchase the house when we got things straightened out.

Fast forward about a year. We have things straight, we think... So we go back to the lender and start again. WHAT'S THAT? New accounts? Those are not ours. Remember when we got credit reports with the other person's info, very personal info? Well apparently, he the same access to Brian's info. There was a credit card issued with my Brian's SSN, our local address, oh and will you send the card to this address in another city please? Um, NO. But, they did. Now, it's called identity theft! More phone calls, letters to write, oh, and police reports (locally and in the other city).

We've been in this house now almost a year. Now the owner has decided that he doesn't want to sell the house. Instead, at the end of the year he wants to move his daughter into the house. Fair warning, we appreciate that, but um, I'm a grad student. I think it is because the housing market has swung and they know they cannot get what they want (or need) for this house now. So, we have to move.

Um, I think we got all the credit stuff cleared up and we are in the process of getting qualified... again. Our realtor is a gem and has been with us through all of this. On a positive note, the housing market is much more in our favor than it was a year ago. So here we go again.

I should be doing homework, but I just had to share with you about this house we looked at last night. The owner has been placed in a care home, so I am assuming the family is selling to cover cost (or split the $, I don't know). Anyway, this was the most g*d-awful hideous place I've ever seen. Our realtor was there when we arrived (first of four to see). First we behold wall to wall carpet in the living room and down the hall in a "lovely" chevron pattern of blue, red, orange and goldenrod (?). I step back to catch my breath; the realtor smiles and says you haven't seen anything.

The family room had paneling on one wall with the fireplace (tolerable). But the same wall continued into the dining area where it was covered with a kind of embossed looking gold foil wallpaper! This complemented the lovely PINK linoleum covering both the open kitchen and dining area. Realtor: It gets better (sarcasm).

Down the chevron carpeted hallway to check out the bedrooms. Three of them. They were thoughtfully carpeted to matched the carpet in the hallway. One bedroom was carpeted in a golden mustard yellow, one in red and the master bedroom in orange shag. Oh, but there was one more sight to behold. The master bathroom. Realtor: If you are not a morning person, this will wake you up. It was painted RED, with two walls papered in a red foil patterned wallpaper, this likes of which I have never seen (and pray I never see again).

I am surprised I didn't have nightmares last night. I'm sure there are beautiful hardwood floors under the carpeting, based on the age and builder of the home. The paper can come down and the paneling can be painted. The house had great squared footage and a nice layout. It would totally be a flippers dream at the right price. But, we seriously do not have the time to put into it. So, now we know why there were no pictures listed on the website...