"Oops!"

This is what Charlie said when he accidentally dropped Swiper down the stairs last night, necessitating a 3 hour trip to the vet on Mike's part. $400 later Swiper was diagnosed with only a sprained leg instead of the fracture we initially feared. Here he is with his pricey pain meds...

In The Most Amazing Coincidence Of This Century...

This afternoon I came home from work and washed down all of Charlie's reptile stuff -- the terrarium, lights, food & water bowls and accessories, because a girl from New Hampshire was driving down to buy it from us for $60, in response to the craigslist ad I had posted earlier in the week. 

While I waited upstairs for her to arrive, Mike went down to the basement to clean out some more of the unfinished closets down there. I told him I'd help him as soon as the girl came to get the stuff. 

Mike had only been down in the basement for a couple minutes when he called to me, "Come down here, I found something I really think you should see!"

He met me halfway up the stairs holding a paint can on top of which was perched -- you guessed it, Curious Checkers, Charlie's long lost snake! Checkers, who by this point had disappeared in the wall a full six months ago, was not only alive but seemed remarkably none the worse for wear. 

Charlie, who had gotten up and followed me to see what the fuss was about, was ecstatic, yelling "Curious Checkers, I knew you'd come back to me!!" Which meant that letting the snake go in the woods wasn't a viable option. 

We were literally still standing in the living room dumbfounded when the doorbell rang -- the girl coming to buy all our snake stuff!! She fortunately didn't need everything, since she was getting a lizard & we had had a lizard and a snake so had a lot of extra stuff. So after she left Mike took the $60 to PetCo and bought a new terrarium for Checkers , and between that and the stuff we still had we made him a new home. 

Charlie is thrilled. ("I can't believe I have TWO pets!!") and mom and dad are less so, thinking of the two day drive to Charlotte with a ferret AND a snake?? OMG. 

Here he is:

It's Official!

We signed the Purchase & Sale agreement today! Closing May 21!

Easter 2014

We spent Easter Sunday up in New Hampshire, enjoying the day with Grammy, Grampy, Uncle Phil, Kyle, Dave and Deb. 

The kids both enjoyed their ham dinner, with Amelia chowing down on meat, veggies, potatoes and gravy like she never does at home and of course we all had tons of candy and an ice cream cake to boot!

Here are a few pictures of the kiddos:

Day Out With Daddy

Since Charlie had off for Good Friday Mike took the day off. Amelia went to pre-school in the morning and then Mike picked her up in the afternoon and took the kids to monster mini golfing. Here are a couple pics:

Really, Mother Nature?

Really??

Clifford Marshall Star of the Month

Charlie was voted the "star of the month" by his classmates this month. The criterion for this award is unclear, but we're proud nonetheless! Good job, Charlie!

First Time Bowling

We took the kids bowling this afternoon -- it was Amelia's first time actually playing, since I think the last time we went she was ohhh maybe 10 months old. The kids had fun; here is a picture of Amelia showing off her bowling shoes , which she was very disappointed that she couldn't take home:

Home Inspection

Our buyers completed the home inspection yesterday and left us wondering how it went for a full 24 hours, seeing as even though our realtor was present for the inspection, he had no idea how it went because it was conducted entirely in Chinese. 

Their realtor finally emailed our realtor this afternoon, saying that the major issue with the inspection (aside from the previously mentioned roof, back decks, back walkway and driveway) was the compressor, which is original to the unit and going to go any time now. This, I'm sure, is true because our neighbors had to replace theirs last year and I remember it cost them an arm and a leg. The home inspector said it would probably cost $5,000. They also asked the inspector for a guesstimate as to how much the roof & other projects would cost and he said $8,000 per unit for the roof, several thousand for the decks and another several thousand for the walkway. This is also probably correct because our neighbors got the first estimate for the roof and it came back at $25,000 for the complex, which is slightly over the inspector's guess of $8,000 a piece. And remember, we have just shy of $20,000 in the association budget.

The buyers requested that we knock off an additional $5,000 from the purchase price (bringing it to $322,000) and stated they would not require us to make any repairs prior to closing. Since it is abundantly clear that in the next few months this house will become a HUGE MONEY PIT we have decided to take the offer and RUN!!!

Charlotte here we come!!

Are We Coming Or Going ??

I don't know, but my head is spinning!! 

After the weekends' house selling debacle in which we discovered that our neighbors simultaneously sabotaged our sale and decreased their property value by writing in the budget that we had to hand over, "It is anticipated that the condo association fee will need to increase in the spring of 2014 due to ? New roof ? Back decks ? Back walk ? Driveway", we are back to the lucky number people who's lucky number is now $327,000 (this is the price at which we were expecting to sell anyway, before the higher offers started coming in) with a closing date of 5/21. The home inspection is scheduled for Friday at 1 pm and in the meantime Mike and I have started the job search, but we 're not holding our breath :-P

New Recipe Monday (4/7)

Pasta bolognese. Which in itself is not a new recipe -- but this particular one, which cooks in the crockpot all day and calls for a mixture of pork and beef, as well as garlic , onion, celery, carrots, red wine, cream, thyme and nutmeg, was new. Yummy, and plenty to freeze for another day!

And Buyers #2 Back Out

Apparently lots of offers doesn't equal an easy sale, that's for sure!

Our buyers, who were supposed to schedule a home inspection for Tuesday, instead decided that the roof, back decks, back walkway and driveway were "in the preliminary phases" of needing to be replaced, and backed out fearing an assessment. Now where they came up with this, I don't know, but we are back to square one and missed a prime weekend of showings because of it. 

Coincidentally these buyers were with the same realtor as the last buyers, so we are DONE dealing with that realtor, ugh!! 

Meanwhile our realtor is checking back with the other buyer who offered on Friday to see if they are still interested and we 'll go from there. 

An Offer Signed!

This afternoon we had not one but TWO more offers on the house, one all cash for $332,000 and one for full asking price of $339,900 with the buyer putting $239,900 down and financing 100k. Both buyers were agreeable to a 90 day close and I'm hoping that neither have any hang ups about numbers because we accepted the full price offer!! The buyer plans to schedule a home inspection for Tuesday and WE ARE SO EXCITED!!! 

More updates to follow!

Numerology Nightmare

Late Sunday night our buyers came back that $3k over asking and a close date of April 25 was their final offer so we agreed to that and they were supposed to come back to us Monday with the new offer letter to that effect and proof of the rest of their funds  (they had sent over a bank statement that showed only $259,000 and this was supposed to be an all cash deal.)

Well, instead their realtor called our realtor Monday afternoon to say that the buyers, being Chinese and apparently EXTREMELY hung up on superstition, felt that the agreed upon price -- $342,900 -- was not, in fact, a lucky number. To which our realtor replied "Well then they better come up with a higher number that IS lucky!" After belatedly doing some research we learned that the Chinese are extremely hung up on lucky/ unlucky numbers with "4" in particular being very unlucky and "8" being very lucky. 

So it went until Monday night when we heard back that the number the buyers were hung up on now was $341,800. Well, while we were rather annoyed, this was still over asking price. We asked that if they were dropping their offer price and still insisting on the less than 30 day close they take the dishwasher as is (it's broken) instead of us fixing or replacing it. 

And then we waited all day Tuesday to hear back from them, at which point we were very annoyed because seeing as they were insisting on closing 3 weeks from Friday it would be expedient to get a move on things. 

We finally heard back Tuesday evening, in an email that our realtor forwarded to us from their realtor, that after consulting with many friends and family they had come up with a new offer price of $331,800 and a long list of demands including not only the condo docs & budget but also minutes from association meetings, proof that permits were pulled when the basement was finished and a whole slew of things I can't even remember. Then they reiterated that they needed to close on April 25 because "it was an auspicious date on the Chinese lunar calendar". Meanwhile they had still not actually come up with an offer letter OR proof of funds. Mike & I finally decided we had had enough -- I mean if it was taking them 2 days and counting to come up with another offer letter all the while making the price lower and lower, what would be next? Surely purchase and sale would have to be an auspicious number as well...? And the fact that they were asking us to pack up and essentially be jobless and homeless in three weeks for no reason whatsoever except that April 25th was an auspicious date?? No way!!

Here's to hoping we have an offer from a NOT TOTALLY CRAZY buyer real soon!! We have lucky showing number 14 tomorrow ;-)