CLOSED!

...and just like that, we finally got our new house!

Just kidding.  When does it ever happen "just like that"???  No, of course we had a million setbacks.  It was probably just a few, but felt like a million. Here's the short version of the story:

The Positives

• We only had to stay with my parents for a month.  When you move in for an undetermined amount of time, just a month is pretty dang good.
• Despite the inconvenience, I think my parents had it pretty good.  My mom joked that she had a personal chef.  They got hot dinner on the table every night!  I did my own laundry, dishes, vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms, even gave mom a manicure.  Plus we paid them some rent.  I tried very hard to lessen the blow, so to speak.
• The loan finally funded and closed the DAY BEFORE we had planned to move.  Just in the nick, what a huge relief.
• Moving day was BEAUUUUTIFUL.  We left all the doors open in the new house (as everyone was coming and going quite a bit) and a lovely breeze blew through the entire time.  We had lots of helpers, had muffins and water bottles for them, and it was pretty hard to hide the excitement that was oozing out of us.

The Negatives

• We were really squashed into mom & dad's house.  Mitch had to sleep out in the open where we threw down a mattress in the corner of the loft.  Noise from the entire house and evening activities made it hard for him to sleep.  We took up every square inch of their free space, messes and piles of our belongings everywhere.  Jason and I shared a full-size mattress that was 40 (?) years old.  Remember my husband?  Ohhhhh sleep was horrible.
• I had to drive the kids to their old schools but we were no longer living in the boundaries.  This would not be so bad except that they go to 2 different schools at 2 completely different times.  That equated to 4 passes each day and about 2+ hours in the car.  A small sacrifice to make, but seriously rough on this mom, and the gas tank!!!
• Right near the end of the whole buying process, the new house appraised too low.  As in, $7,000 too low.  It was a little scary when we heard that the sellers weren't going to budge on their price, but after an entire day of negotiations, we were able to split that amount.  Trouble was, we had to come up with the $3,500 in cash - not the loan.  We barely had enough to cover that, but ended up having to finance our new appliances instead to make it happen.  Another WHEW!
• On moving day, the appliance guys came to deliver and I asked them if they would hook the water line back up to the fridge for us.  (It was the ONE appliance we did not have to buy, but it seemed as if the seller had just shoved it into place and never really hooked it up.)  It was soon discovered that the water line was never correctly turned OFF when it was last disconnected, and it had sat back there dripping for months while the house had been unoccupied.  You know what that means... moldy wall.  Grrrrrrr.  Not the news you want to hear when you have been in the house for only, oh, 3 hours. 

So there you have it.  We are finally IN and it's OVER!  We are truly happy despite all else.  I'm doing my best to resist the urge to buy ALLLL new stuff and "use what we have" to decorate and get things all set up.  It will be a work in progress for quite some time :)

A most pleasant surprise?  I didn't realize how much I would love the open view I have out the back windows.  I can watch the sunrise each morning and the sunset each evening.  Both unobstructed... how cool is that?  

(some not-great-quality captures from my phone)

Jason got one of those UV blacklight flashlights for Christmas, so we took it out the other day to hunt for scorpions.  This is scary business.  I'd almost rather NOT know... because they are everywhere.  It's just a "given" for desert dwelling.  We searched high and low, through all the house, yard, landscaping, and surrounding walls.  Guess how many we found?  

Zero.

YAHOO!