First Blogiversary

Today is my mom's birthday (Happy b-day, Mommy!), which means that it is also my first blogiversary! It's amazing what we've been through over the past year. In fact, the last few years just feel chock full of so many big events, both happy and sad. It's astounding what life can throw at you.

But I'm also struck by the little details, some of which I never recorded here in the blog. There have been quite a few dinner parties that never got mentioned in here. And that time that Tim and I drove out to the beach and watched the kite surfer. And even the Sundays that we've spent at Mark's watching Formula One races. So many little things. Maybe I'll try to be better about that in the coming year.

Of course, I have been very open about the whole house hunting situation and I'm SOOOO happy about that because it means that you, dear reader, will appreciate my news.

We got the house.

WE GOT THE HOOOOUUUUSE!!!!!!!!

But which house? Could it be .... this house?

No. Cute, but no.

How about ... this house?

No, not quite. A little too ... crowded. Heh.

How about ...
THIS house?

Yeah! That's the one! That's our house! As you can probably guess, I did not take this photo. This is the only pic of the house available on the internet. It looks like it was taken in late winter because the trees are still missing their leaves. If you look closely, you can see that there's a plum tree right smack in the middle of this pic. See? LOTS of trees. And a cute little porch. And you can even see the scullery there on the side (which other people might call a mud room or laundry room or utility room, but Tim calls it The Scullery, so there ya go). And ... well, I could go on for a loooong time! You'll hear more about this house in the coming months, I'm sure.

Here's how the deal went down.

Remember how yesterday I was so full of woe because I was sure that the other people would out-bid us? Well, I was right. They offered more money than we did. Ya see, our original offer was for the asking price, but 2.5% of that was supposed to go to our realtor for his commission. So even though we were offering the full asking price, the sellers would not have gotten that full price in their pockets. So after they got the 2nd offer, they called our realtor, Jim. And Jim called to tell us the hard news. And we talked. And we negotiated. Because Jim didn't want us to lose this house just because of him. Within 15 minutes, we worked out a really fair deal. Jim called the sellers & told them about our counter-offer. They told him that they would like to "sleep on it".

The waiting began AGAIN.

This was awful. We didn't know what to think. We said that this would be our final offer, so we feared that the sellers would contact the other party & they would counter-offer again and it would all fall apart and I would slip into a horrendous depression & refuse to bathe for weeks. Heavy drugs were considered, as well as various methods of self-mutilation.

Luckily, all of that horrendously terrible waiting lasted for about 10 minutes. The sellers called Jim. They told him that after they spoke to him, they sat down to watch a movie & realized that they couldn't focus on it. They didn't need time to make their decision. They decided that they really like me & Tim & they want us to have the house. No more counter-offers, no bidding wars. They picked us.

When Jim gave me the news, I broke down crying. I'm still surprised by that. Maybe the squeals of glee & bouncing around will come at the closing. For now I just feel shock. And relief. And peace. And surprise. And a subtle tingling of excitement underneath it all.

Our house.
Our first house.
Amazing what can happen in a year, isn't it?