Not Packing, Not Unpacking.

Toward the end of last week, as we dutifully packed the last segment of our first PODS container in preparation for the closings we hoped would take place in roughly two weeks, we received the phone call that no seller of a house ever wants to receive: our buyer had been denied his mortgage application. Now, that is bad news, right? Here we've packed up half of our house, starting (because I am an idiot sometimes) with our kids' rooms and toys, and suddenly we have no hope of selling our house to this guy. Yes, that news stunk. What stinks worse is the fact that our mortgage broker, who later looked at our buyer's numbers, said there is no way any bank would have given the guy any hope of a loan in today's lending market because his debt to loan ratio is off the charts high. He owns a 2 family in a posh little city nearby, which he was trying not to sell while buying our house.

Or was he? As the details unfold, it becomes more and more clear that he and his realtor schemed to get his contract accepted by saying he didn't need to sell; we had a contract with a 48 hour contingency that we bumped in order to accept his offer...you cannot bump a 48 hour contingency contract with another 48 hour contingency contract, so if he really wanted to buy our house he needed to be able to afford it without selling his house. We signed his contract May 18 and he had to apply for his mortgage within 5 business days. His 2 family came on the market the first week of June and we're pretty sure he would have known at that point that he needed to sell. Did he, in good faith, let us know that he would need to sell his house? No, the jerk waited until the mortgage commitment date of June 19, then went so far as to ask for an extension on the commitment date, stating the banks were backed up and needed more time.

He wasted a good month of our time, a month's worth of lost showings, a month's worth of packing, a month's worth of gearing our kids up for a move that might not happen now. A month's worth of our sellers liquidating their belongings and making preparations to move out of the country, based on us buying their house. Preparations like giving notice at jobs, renting living space in the Carribean, and shipping their car. I feel terrible and I am livid, but what can we do?

We've put our house back on the market, we're hoping our sellers will stick with us a little longer, and we're keeping our fingers crossed for a miracle. In the meantime the PODs container sits on the driveway and we've figured out how to drive around it to park in the garage (no small feat). We've pulled the house together with what furniture was left in it and had our first showing today; an open house is scheduled for tomorrow.

This is our new reality and we can only go forward from here.

For News...

It's been a busy few weeks with ups and downs...right now we're on a bit of a down.  For news about our house-selling mis-adventures, go here: http://www.littlecityliving.blogspot.com/

We're hanging in there, but I have to say that a lot of fun has gone out of the process due to recent developments.  The kids have been gracious and funny and lively through all of this and I have some hilarious comments and activities to share...soon.

Aches and Pains

Things are bit sore around here today: backs, arms, and legs all ache from lifting and heaving boxes into our PODS container.  I am afraid to sit for too long lest my muscles seize up and stick me in this chair for good.  I don't even like this chair that much.  Ibuprofen has become a part of our regular nutrition schedule; without it, like the Tin Man himself, we would simply cease to move.

Harrison and Emma are out of sorts.  They understand at a basic level that we are moving.  They get mildly excited and wound up when we pack boxes, seeming almost too enthusiastic to throw in their favorite stuffed bunny (Silly Bob has been rescued from the doom of storage several times), but Emma cried when we took the spare twin bed out of her room.  Elation melts into a puddle, giggles sometimes end in tears, and then the tears float back up into wide smiles and eager anticipation.  This is hard on all of us, but the little ones who have no control feel it in waves.  We have no way of explaining to them, in terms they will understand, that we are making this move for their benefit.  Yes, we'll get the thrill of living in a house we find fantastic, but the real reasons for making the move lie with the futures of our children.  But you can't tell that to a four year old, nor a two year old.

Packing

I just hung up the phone with Brendan, ending a conversation that began with me asking, in a small voice, "Are you sure you do not want to hire the movers?" He chuckled. I did not.

We had, you see, decided that the cost of movers to pack and truck our things on our own dime was ridiculously expensive, to the tune of nearly $4,000 if we did not need storage, but more than $7,000 if we did need storage, and we will likely need storage for a week or so. After much hemming, hawing, and calculating we decided to use PODS to move and we found that the cheapest boxes to buy could be found at U-Haul. The savings is at least $3,000 and at most $6,000, but the work that lies ahead of us is daunting. Remember that 13,000 lbs of stuff? I am working through it, one item at a time, trying to decide what to keep, what to donate, and what is simply trash. We have less than two weeks to pack up, as we need to be out of this house by the 29th in case everything falls together and we close on time. I am a wee bit scared.

We have lots of offers of help which are greatly appreciated, but for this segment of the game we have to go it alone...there is really no one but me who can go through my collection of craft supplies and decide what to keep, you know? It is probably good that we are going to pack it all up because we can take some time to be decisive about what need and what we don't, but if Brendan comes home tonight and says "Let's hire the movers" I will not disagree with him.

See, We're Not Crazy!

Some little cities are projected to fair better than others in the next ten years and we just happened to pick one that has recently received a happy fortune telling. Read more about it here.

Stories: The Garden

I never liked history class.  Dates, places, and important people that did important things have never been able to hold my interest for very long, even though I wish I had more of a palate and memory for such details.  What I do love are stories; the intricate details of one’s everyday life hold endless fascination for me.  I could spend hours reading about how settlers made clothing, how certain tools were used on farms, or what plants were used to treat common ailments.  I am endlessly curious about how people spend their time between the walls of their homes, how they live day to day, where they love to sit for a quiet moment of thinking, or which window’s view captivates their imagination. 

As such, it only feels right to mark, for memory’s sake, some of the places that we have loved while living here.  We’ll begin in the garden:

When we moved into our house there was a gravel driveway leading up to the garage and the rest of the lot up to the trees was a mixture of what looked like beach sand and really tall weeds.  We started, quite literally, from scratch.  We made so many mistakes along the way but we learned a lot of lessons, too.  Once the driveway was paved and the sidewalks were poured our garden changed in shape from a straight line of woeful-looking bushes to a curvy, interactive space that invites you to walk through it. 

I can tell you where each and every plant came from, the story of how we got it, where we first planted it, how we tweaked its location in the garden to give it more sun, more water from the gutter’s downspout, or just to better place it aesthetically.  I placed every stone in that rock wall, and Brendan carefully made the path that meanders through the plants. 

A butterfly bush from my mother’s yard.

A hydrangea bud on the bush that began as a stick with one leaf, purchased for $1.00 at the Farmer’s Market our first spring.  The bush is now so big that we have divided it at least four times and we still have to hack it back every autumn.

What you cannot see in these pictures of our gardening success is our lawn-growing failure.  There is a reason that sandy beaches are sandy: grass cannot grow on them.  We have fought a good fight, but realistically we have too much area designated for grass and not enough time and resources to actually make grass grow.  So our garden is a delight and our lawn is nearly non-existent, more of a headache than anything.  While many people we know think we’re crazy to go from our nearly two acre lot to one just bigger than a postage stamp, we think we’re making a brilliant move.  Because gardening we can handle, but putting in lawns and maintaining their water-sucking, fertilizer hungry, green expanses is just not something we get a lot of joy out of and life is certainly too short to spend a lot of time doing something that brings no joy.

Saying goodbye to this garden, this home, will not be easy.  But a new yard beckons and the lessons we learned here will come with us to the new yard and house.  And that postage stamp lot?  It already has a healthy lawn of grass, but it could use a few lovely gardens. 

Movers

One of the big decisions we’re making this week is whether or not to hire movers.  In the past we have moved using relocation packages through Brendan’s company and there is something to be said for having someone carefully wrap all of your worldly belongings carefully into boxes, load them on a truck and take them to the next location while you sit reading a magazine, sipping a nice cup of coffee.  I have very much enjoyed that in the past.  And let’s face it, there is nothing fun about having to lift and haul boxes and carefully orchestrate the packing of a truck that may or may not be able to contain everything you own when this is not something your body and mind are accustomed to doing.  I will admit that I have been horribly spoiled in the past and there is a part of me that wants, very badly, to be horribly spoiled again.  This time, however, any spoiling will have to be paid for out of our own pockets and the price is, well, pricey.  

We had the first estimate for movers today, a local company that comes highly recommended.  Their estimator was friendly, professional, and didn’t seem to mind at all that she was slowly being mauled by two rambunctious children in bad need of afternoon naps and two dogs that could use several runs around the block to tire them out.  In fact, she handled all of that like a seasoned grandmother would and was able to carry on a conversation above and around the din, making me feel quite at ease.  She wins big points for that.  The estimation came in a little lower than I would have expected based on the moving costs for our last move, but still high enough that I am seriously considering –dare I say it – packing our own boxes and having them just move the packed boxes and furniture.  The most disgusting part of the estimation is the enormity of it all: we own an estimated 13,000 lbs of stuff.  Does that make anyone else’s head swim with nausea? 

If we pack our own boxes, would we be more discerning in our decision making over what to bring and what to donate/recycle/throw out?  Could we save ourselves from piles of crap and save a boatload of money at the same time?  Or does it make more sense to spare ourselves and our children the mental and emotional fallout that several weeks of sorting and packing could very well create?  How much is peace of mind worth?