Sunday, November 22, 2009

As I Was Sayin'

I believe my last post mentioned how I felt my life was at a stand still and I was just basically waiting for the ball to drop and for everything to take a downward spiral (but in a good way!) Well, I was definitely right!

We were finally able to close on our house on Friday the 13th! Good thing I'm not superstitious! Closing went without a hitch and by Saturday afternoon we had all of our items that were in storage unloaded into the basement of our house. Did I say basement? I sure did!! I'm a true Okie, and in Oklahoma basements are virtually unheard of. When we first came to Colorado I was fascinated by how many homes had basements. I've always wanted one, and now I have one! The best thing is that our house is a tri-level, so it's not completely underground which I actually like. I love natural sunlight!

Saturday night we spent the first night in our new home. We tossed our mattresses on the floor and that's where we've slept ever since! Thankfully we have lots of good friends here who all pitched in to help us move since I'm in no condition to do any heavy lifting. The next day we moved our fifth wheel to our house. It takes up most of the driveway! We have it for sale now and I'm hoping it sells quick!

The week has basically been a blur since then. I went on a job interview on Monday morning, was informed I had the job on Monday afternoon, and began work the next day. Whew! We also found out that evening that Greg's dad and his girlfriend were for sure coming to help us work on the house and they would be arriving on Wednesday. So, here's everything that has taken place work wise on the house this week: laid new flooring in utility room, painted utility room, installed new hot water tank, wood filled and painted trim in the master bedroom, office, and nursery, patched holes in the master bedroom, painted the master bedroom, shampooed master bedroom carpet, peeled wallpaper in dining room and in living room, hung new cabinets in the kitchen, trimmed out wainscoting in dining room, lots of wood filling and caulking, and as I type hubby is primering and painting all the cabinets and wainscoting in the kitchen and dining room. Whew! That doesn't include the day that Greg, Carl, and Ronda spent going to Garden City, KS to buy appliances and 6 cart loads at Home Depot.

Needless to say, I'm a little tired.

And it doesn't stop there! This week, my sister and her husband and my niece and nephew will be here! And, on Friday I have an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby! Greg was able to put our bed together today so tomorrow night will be the first night to sleep in our "real" bed in our new house! That's always exciting! (Sleeping in the trailer tonight b/c the paint fumes are too much for me!)

I can't say when I'll have before and after pics posted because I know by the end of the week the master bedroom, kitchen, and dining room will all be 3/4 finished and I am a perfectionist and want to wait until they are 100% done before I post....so don't hold your breath!!! Flooring and counter tops aren't cheap!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The calm before the storm

I've been a little MIA in blogger land lately. Mainly, because I don't feel like I have anything to say or write about. Life just seems to be at a stand still. The phrase "hurry up and wait" seems to be what I've been experiencing. The first reason is because of my pregnancy. Yes, I'm excited about the baby. Yes, I'm finally starting to feel a little better (thanks to some different medicine!) No, I haven't bought anything for the baby. That's the question I get asked fairly often and I honestly have no desire to buy anything baby until I know what the sex is. Plus, until we move into our house, I really don't have room to store anything anyway. Right now I feel like the pregnancy is a slow-motion process. I'm almost 17 weeks which means I've almost reached the half-way point. But it still feels like April is so far away....

The other reason is because of our soon-to-be home. We went under contract on a HUD property around the middle of September. And we still don't have a closing date. It's a little annoying. Supposedly we may close this coming Friday, but I'm not going to hold my breath or anything. My husband and I have always bought re-possessed properties. And since I sold real estate for a little over two years, I'm no stranger to this process. However, we have never bought a HUD property, which are foreclosures that are now owned by the government. To say that they don't seem to be in any hurry whatsoever to get those properties off of their paperwork would be an understatement.

I was so excited to finally be a homeowner again after living on the road for two years. And, my husband and I were also very excited to have cash to actually pay for the repairs rather than put them on a credit card and then re-finance like we always did in the past. That was, until the bank informed us that their loan program changed half-way while we were under contract and that we now had to put a down-payment down. We now have very little money to re-model the house with and I hate that we will once again be living in a construction zone rather than getting everything done before we move in. The fact that we want to avoid credit cards as much as possible means it may be several months before the house is able to meet our expectations.

I know that once the day finally does arrive when we can close on the house, things will take a downward spiral from there. Greg's dad and his girlfriend offered to come and spend a week helping us remodel, and hopefully, clean, the house. The week of Thanksgiving my sister and her family will be making the trip up to visit us and help us "work" on the house. I'm excited to have family visit and only hope they like sleeping on air-mattresses and sitting on lawn chairs since we sold our couch when I joined Greg on the road! To be quite honest, buying furniture is pretty low on my list right now!

Another new aspect in my life is that I've been job hunting. It's a little hard for me to come to terms with the fact that this college graduate may have to work at Wal-Mart or be a receptionist since there are no good job opportunities in this little town. I loved selling real estate but you couldn't pay me to sell real estate here. And I'm not blaming the so-called recession either. My Realtor did inform me that she's very busy but upon further prodding I finally got her to admit that she's busy with a lot of sellers. Well, I can work with thirty sellers and be very busy, but if there aren't any buyers I'm not going to get a paycheck. That's just reality.

I haven't had any phone calls or interviews from prospective employers. I have also seen continued ads ran in the newspaper for jobs that I've applied for that I know I'm either perfectly qualified or even over-qualified for. It's a little frustrating. I'm trying very hard to convince myself that it's part of the calm of the storm.

This is what I foresee happening: We close on the house. Carl comes to visit. I get a phone call that I've been offered a job. I can no longer help work on the house or spend time with the visiting family members. It will take me a month to unpack because I'll be so busy. Dinners may start coming out of a bag that I dump into a skillet. Get the picture?

So for now, I'm trying to enjoy the calm before the storm.....