but wait! there's more!

I warned you, my head was swimming in my previous post, so I've since thought of a few things to add.

I went to the Kanye West concert Tuesday night (which was awesome by the way!) and had a missed call from our realtor. Turns out he was calling because the city was no longer allowing any new occupants in our soon-to-be neighborhood because there weren't sidewalks on the main road outside of the addition. Excuse me? What does that have to do with anything? Luckily, our builder mentioned that since this was likely to put off closing he would let us store our stuff in the garage and he'd put us up in a hotel. This little blip still hasn't been taken care of, but since we can't close tomorrow, hopefully it won't put a kink in our plans with a new closing date. I still can't get over it though... so weird.

Also, up until today, we didn't even know if we were going to be able to close on our house tomorrow anyway. The mortgage company kept telling us that they were "trying their best" to get things done in time, but it could be as late as the 5th when we closed! So, we've luckily had a back up plan this whole time.

Heath FINALLY finished the repairs from the TRR yesterday. We ended up with no hot water for 2 1/2 days, spending a couple hundred on a plumber, and a lot of headache and all because our buyers wanted a drip pan under the hot water heater. Obviously it was not as easy as just laying a freakin' metal pan under the thing. What a mess!

Ya know, I keep saying that this new house is only our "4 year house", but this has been such a nightmare we might just stay there forever. Surely we'll grow out of it, but we'll just slap some additions on and call it good.

On a happy note, Heath and I decided to try to take out a small personal loan to cover the wood floors and new fridge. The builder has agreed to do the floors for an amazing price of $2K! So, hopefully that will work out and we'll have those gorgeous birch cappuccino floors after all!

So, I think that's all. We've almost finished packing. Movers are coming at 2 tomorrow so we should have plenty of time in the morning to finish up. I'm hoping I have nothing else house-related to post any time except that we're in and all is well!

darn you, murphy.

Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong".

I'll elaborate when we get back from signing our house away.



Addendum: Sorry to leave you all in suspense. My head is swimming right now and I don't even know where to start. Basically we aren't closing on "our" house tomorrow. The appraisal was too low and the mortgage company can't approve us for the amount we need to include down payment and closing cost assistance. So, we're trying to work something out. We probably won't get those lovely wood floors I wanted or that fancy fridge we picked out yesterday. We also got about 75% less at closing than we were expecting because our mortgage company charged us a $1,600 early repayment fee. So, today's been a bad day. I'm not sure how much more we can take.

We're moving to Lawton for 5 or 6 days. Hopefully some R&R with the fam will ease my troubled soul. Keep us in your prayers please.

saving Grace.

Rebekah gave birth to my beautiful "niece" Grac(i)e Ann on Wednesday at 6:00pm. She is a perfect 7 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long. I do believe I've not seen a prettier baby in quite some time, if ever. I am in love. I ended up spending the whole week in Dallas because I just couldn't get enough of that beautiful baby and my wonderful friends.

Beka ended up having a C-section after laboring for about 6 hours. Gracie's heart rate dropped a few times and the doc decided to just take her via cesarean. Gracie spent the first night with her amazing parents, but had a few episodes of choking and apnea so she was moved to the NICU to be monitored. Poor Mama is worried sick about her, so keep them in your prayers. Gracie is doing great and will probably go home with her parents on Saturday, but I'm sure Beka and Chris will be too worried about her to sleep.

I am already counting down the days until my next trip. I am so blessed by my friends and their families. I feel like I am overflowing with joy today. God, please hold on to that baby girl tight and keep her safe.

Daddy talking to Gracie a few minutes after she was brought into this world. And probably the only pic this child will ever take without a giant bow on her head ;)


Holding the little princess for the first time.


Miss Gracie Ann.


Seriously, who looks this glamorous two days after a c-section?


Me and my two very best friends : Beka and Courtney.


Courtney and I spotted this sign on our way home from the hospital Wednesday night.

birch cappuccino

I went by the house today to get a drawer to take with me to pick out the wood floors. I think they're going to look amazing. They're the wider 3" planks in birch with a cappuccino stain. I can't wait to see how they turn out. I walked around the house for awhile today while I was there and I've decided that I'm really starting to love it. I think when we get our stuff moved in it will look great.

Heath left again this morning for Chicago. This week won't be so bad because I'm leaving tonight to go to Dallas for Beka's induction. So, I'm planning on spending the whole week down in Dallas with my favorite girls. It should be a blast!

And, since I'm super excited about decorating our new house, check out this amazing guest bedroom I saw on HGTV's Deserving Design:

decisions, decisions.

Which shower curtain do you like? I need to take advantage of my 40% off at Anthropologie. Plus, now that we have two lovely bathrooms, I need a shower curtain!

o.m.g.

I am in love with this sofette from PB. It would look scrumptious in our new office. I must have it. Can someone find me something similar without the PB price tag?

{p.s.} I quit my job at Pier 1 already. :) I was going to have to call in already in order to make it to Gracie's delivery. So, I figured I'd just quit. PB called me for an interview on Thursday. I might try to make that....then I can get this lust-worthy sofette on the cheap!

this one's for you, Leah.

Here are a few pics of the new house.
View of front door. They'll be removing the carpet here and the wood floors in the office (through French doors to right) and replacing them with new wood floors that match the kitchen cabinets.
Granite surround fireplace.
View of kitchen from living room. We are having them put cabinet doors on the open shelving below. You can also see the dining area. There is no formal dining room (which makes me sad) but we have the office instead.
They're throwing in a side-by-side SS fridge...can't beat that!
Guest bedroom #1 with bay window.
Little bar area outside of master bedroom.
Part of the double vanity in the master bath.
Whirlpool tub, of course.So, that's it. Not as exciting as I hoped it would be. But, we'll make it home and we'll love it there. Just wait, in 5 years, I'll buy that beautiful historic house I was hoping for.

all shiny and new.

I think we're finally making some progress. As much as I love #2, we decided that financially it wasn't in our best interest. In other words, they're asking a crap load of money and we don't want to lose money when we try to sell it in 4 years. So, we're putting an offer on the new construction. I don't love it, but it's a nice house and I know we'll be happy in it. They're replacing the carpet in the living room with wood floors and changing out the wood floors in the office to match the living room, throwing in a SS side-by-side fridge, and adding some cabinet doors to some open shelving that I wasn't crazy about. While it may not be the house of my dreams, it will do quite well for the next few years. I'm holding my breath until things are final, but for now, it looks like we have a house! Pics to come soon.

does it ever end?

We're going to look at house #2 today at two. Then, we have a decision to make: new construction vs. house #2. I am in LOVE with house number two. It was built in the 50's and it is just a really cool house. My only reservations are that it backs up to a highway and that it's really only a 2 bed with an office. The new construction is 3 bed with an office. So, we don't have much room to grow into house #2. Not that we have any growing going on at the moment, but we'll probably be in this house for 5 years so I'm hoping our family has expanded a little by then.

We do have a back-up plan now. People keep asking me what we're going to do if things don't work out. Until now, I didn't know. I really don't like back up plans...I feel like it means I'm planning on things failing. But, given we close on our house in 12 days, and the new construction house is the only one that we could move into that quickly, we need a plan B. So, we figure if we have to, we'll move our stuff into storage and just live with my parents for a few weeks. They live an hour away from the city, but Heath is in Chicago every other week for the next year (more on that in a minute) and can work from home when he is home. I just got a job at Pier 1, but hopefully I could do all of my shifts on consecutive days and just stay with a friend. So, that's plan B. Hopefully we won't need plan B, but we've got it just in case.

Yes, you read that right: Heath is scheduled to work in Chicago every other week for the next year. I'm already pushing for him to find another job. I just can't imagine getting settled into a new house AND possibly starting IVF with him halfway across the country. As of now, he'll be gone bi-weekly for the next few months. The location could change to Dallas, which would be better, but it's still not home.

On a happy note, my very bestest best friend is scheduled to be induced on the 22nd! I can't wait to meet my beautiful little niece, Gracie!

And, a shout out to my other very bestest best friend who's decided to give blogging a try. I love you, my dear! Drive safe ;)

Homeless....again.

We had the inspection today and the house was a bust. There was so much wrong with that house,that it will never sell. The genious "well known house flipper" who is selling it didn't even have an inspection on the house when he bought it. He bought it blindly, put some lipstick on it and slapped a price tag on. There was no way we could go through with the deal because we'd be sitting on 1,900 square feet of liability. I guess it's a good thing that I posted on the nest earlier today that "I'm not loving my new house..." since it's not my new house!

We're back at square one. We went and looked at a new construction, and it was just "eh". I'm usually totally against new construction (no offense to those of you that have it, it's lovely, but I'm all for some old house charm) but we're running out of options here. We close on our precious little house in 13 days and we need a house now, damnit! This house was really nice and for a great price, but it's just waaaay on the edge of town. For most of you, a 30 minute commute to work is nothing, but I'm used to the 3 mile drive I have now. So, there is still the 'ol house #2 that we were going to make an offer on, but found out with wasn't worth what they're asking. They have since lowered the price and we're taking another look at it tomorrow.

I took about 50 pics of the house today at the beginning of the inspection and then promptly deleted them.
So, no house pics like I promised because there is no house!

Thanks, sister!

Thanks to my sister being an employee of Urban Outfitters and this being their employee appreciation week, I've got some cool new duds :) Take a look.


Anthropologie's Employee Appreciation starts on the 20th....so I see more shopping in my future :)

workin' woman

Say hello to Pier 1's newest employee.

Hi. I start Monday. I figure even if I don't bring home a dime, I get a 25% discount on some fancy things to fill up our big new house! I'm so excited.

And, new house pics coming soon... The inspection is on Thursday so I'll be going picture crazy.

you've got to have faith.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy spirit. Romans 15:13.

The message this week at church was about hope. The preacher talked about why bad things happen to good people, how to maintain hope when you feel that it is lost, and trying to keep the faith during the hard times. He mentioned that we have to go through hardships in order to maintain hope. After we've endured certain difficulties, we have a renewed sense of hope and a greater faith that God will bring us through the hard times. This was definitely the perfect message for me considering some of the things we've faced recently. At the end, the preacher invited people up to the front to pray. He invited those who had been hoping and praying for something, but it just hadn't come to fruition yet. He encouraged us to give that hope back to God, to lay it entirely in His hands and to rest assured that whatever God had planned would be so much greater than we could imagine. I wasn't quite comfortable going up to the front, but I prayed a prayer for our fertility. I gave the situation to God. Knowing that it wasn't in my hands and that He knew when and how he would give us a baby. The preacher came on the microphone a few minutes later and said that someone had something they wanted to say. A girl, Sarah, grabbed the mic and said "There is a young woman here who has been hoping and praying for a baby for a long time and I'm here if you want me to pray with you"!! I felt like the Holy Spirit reached into my chest and grabbed my heart at that instant. Heath and I went down to the front and Sarah prayed with us. It was such a blessing and I was so amazed that God had laid this on her heart. It was exactly what I needed. I had been feeling discouraged and had lost sight of the fact that God did have a plan for us. He hadn't forgotten about our desires to be parents, he just wasn't ready for His plan to be revealed to us yet. I definitely left church yesterday feeling refreshed and ready to start this journey to have a baby, however we get there.

now I can breathe.

We got the house! They accepted our counter-offer as is, so we're going to go sign the contract today. I am so relieved. We'll have the inspection early next week, so I'll post some before pics of the house. But, I'll go ahead and tell you a little about it: It was built in 1929, 4 bed, 2 bath. It's two story. The bathrooms have been remodeled and the kitchen has white marble counters and black cabinets. We plan to paint the cabinets white, re-finish all the wood floors in a dark stain and paint all of the trim in the house white. It's definitely move-in ready, but there is a lot we can do to jazz it up. I'm so excited!

Today we have a lot to do. Heath is going to start on the list of repairs from the inspection (which has 18 items on it...ugh) and I'm going to start packing. I hadn't started packing yet because I think I was in denial, but now that we actually have somewhere to live, I'm ready to go!

part time.

I'm going to find a job today, much to Heath's dismay (does that rhyme?).
I'll try J.Crew, Pottery Barn and Peir 1.
Working at any of those should be fun!

Ok, I'm done. :)

I'm finished with medical school as of today!!!!! But, I don't start residency for another 2 1/2 months. So, I figured I could use a little part time job to keep me busy. Plus, the employee discount doesn't hurt. I'll let you know how the job hunt goes...it's been awhile since I've had to find a job!

i want off this ride.

So, we found out that house #2 is no where near worth what they're asking. Our realtor called to say that no matter how he spins it, they're going to reject or counter offer and we'll have no choice but to walk away unless we want to actually lose money on this house. I have calmed down now (that glass of wine helped), but I was ::this close:: to having a nervous breakdown. Heath being in Chicago only magnifies the situation. I called him crying so hard I couldn't talk. We will be homeless in 22 days. I had our realtor talked into doing whatever he can to make our buyers back out of their contract so that we could at least keep our little home for now. But Heath, we'll call him the voice of reason, convinced me that we could go back to house #1, remove our original request of re-finishing the hardwood floors (which we were paying for in our offer) and offer what the seller was asking minus the cost of the floors. I'm glad that he can be rational when his wife surely can't.

So, that's the plan for now. We're countering their counter on numero uno.

I can't take this anymore. This has been the most emotional experience of my life. Okay, I'm being dramatic, but this sucks! Never did I think that moving on to a bigger house would be this hard. I thought selling our house so quickly was a blessing. But at this point, it's the worst thing that could have happened. Not only am I emotional about selling our first house together, but I feel like it's being taken away from us and we have no where to go. Hopefully this will work out. We have no where to turn after this. Unless we get a POD, or two, and live in one for a few months. This has been a roller coaster.

Oh, and I'm moving our appointment with the RE back a few weeks. There is no way I could handle that on top of all of this house stuff. Hopefully more on that in a few weeks.

I'm going to go drink one more glass to take the edge off :) .... then off to bed.

let's try that again.

Well, we finally got the counteroffer last night around 11:00 pm, only 6 hours after we told them we needed. And it was crap. They weren't willing to budge on anything, plus since we had a contingency that said this all depended on our house's contract going through, they put a 48-hour kick-out clause on it. Which means, that unless it's only a few days from us closing on our current house, if they get a better offer, we'll lose the house. So, we're telling them to shove it. The house has been on the market 3 months with very few to no offers and they can just keep it on the market. Luckily there is another house that we've also been interested in, and financially is a better choice for us. So, we're putting an offer on it today. Let's hope she accepts it, and that if she does, she can be out in 22 days!

finger foods.

Yesterday evening was quite eventful. We had a softball game, which we lost. I think we should stick to kickball. Then, Heath and I rushed home to cook dinner before meeting with our realtor to sign a lease. We ended up rushing to the emergency room instead! I mistook my finger for an onion (hence the title) and we went to the ER to make sure I didn't need stitches. They ended up just putting some steri-strips on it, giving me a tetanus shot and writing me a Rx for some antibiotics, but my finger is not pretty! I came close to losing the whole pad of my left ring finger. We'll see how it heals up. It's still bleeding, almost 24 hours later, so I might end up having to get it stitched up.

So, after that excitement, we finalized our offer on the house we're hoping to get. We still haven't heard anything, but since we're on a time crunch, we've only given them til 5:00 p.m today to give us an answer of some sort.

It's 3:41. And I'm still waiting. Here's hoping for an update soon!

our first home.

it is finished.

They accepted our counter offer. We close in 27 days. Time to start packing. And most importantly to find a house! On the market Monday, offer on Tuesday, counter offer Wednesday and sold on Thursday! That's got to be a record!
I'll be posting some pics of our lovely home soon. My little heart is kind of breaking because I miss our house already :(

not so yay.

I met our realtor at a house we're interested in and he gave me the offer. 102K. We're asking 110K. And, they want us to leave our curtains (which is standard) AND the breakfast nook cushions. That's a good $1,000 worth of stuff. I'm okay with leaving it, but not when they're offering 8K less than we asked for! We countered back for 107K and now I'm having second thoughts. I kind of wish we would have said "No, we're in no rush to sell and it's only been on the market 2 days. The offer stands at 110K". Plus, my D&R girls have been really encouraging about me sticking to my guns on the offer. So, I am hoping they counter back or say no. That way we can be done with it and see what else comes along. I would love for our house to be open over a weekend and maybe even have an open house....so, we'll see. If they accept, we'll still be getting a little higher than the lowest we agreed to take. I just know if we're getting an offer this soon, we surely have more to come. Keep your fingers crossed!

kickin' nuggets

The Kickin' Nuggets are kicking some major butt this season. We're currently 6-0 and the only team that is undefeated in our league.
For those of you that don't know, yes, it's a kickball team. Yes, I am in an adult kickball league...and I'm the coach! :)
Here's a pic of the team from our first game. How cute are we?

Here's a pic of the guys. It was so cold that they went through a bag of clothes for Goodwill in the back of my car. Most of the guys ended up wearing Heath's old dress pants, and one of them ended up in a skirt.
And, the girls all snuggled up in the car. With our beer, of course.
Goooooooooo Nuggets!

yay!

Our realtor called last night and said they were writing up an offer! He didn't know how much they were offering and said their realtor was kind of balking at the price. Hopefully since the house had been on the market less than 48 hours they won't low-ball it too much. I should be getting a call any minute now with the numbers. Our realtor said these people are ready to move in and want to close in 30 days! Guess I better go find a house!

We're showing the house today at 5! Our realtor called last night to tell us and said that our "cute little house is causing quite the stir!". I'm not sure what that means exactly, but it sounds good! So, after 12 hours on the MLS, we have our first showing....let's hope we keep up with this pace!
I don't think the pics do the house any justice...they're not taken from good angles, they're blurry and squished and they make the rooms look smaller than they are.

Addendum: Just got home after the first showing and the couple was here for an HOUR! I kept driving by thinking surely they had left, but they were still here! I even saw the guy get a camera from his car and start taking pics of the front porch. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but that is a really really long time to look at a house if you aren't seriously interested. I'll keep you posted!