Happy New Year

With the holidays coming to a close, things are beginning to settle down into our normal routine. The weight of house hunting has been lifted off our shoulders and now we can look ahead to the arrival of little CanCan and all the many blessings 2009 is sure to hold. Pictures of the house and more blogging is coming soon. Happy New Year, y'all.

Packing

With the re-inspection scheduled for Monday and the closing a little over a week away, the packing has finally begun. I'm so thankful Jamie will be in town this time! For the past two moves, he's been traveling, leaving me to pack up our whole apartment! He made a comment last night saying how most of our stuff was already packed up... little does he know, it grows. I can't wait to see the look on his face when we're finally done. You know, that look of utter amazement paired with total exhaustion? Then, we have the actual move... :) But it's worth it! In a week and a half, we'll have the keys to our new house!

Moving Wisdom

With another move quickly approaching, I thought I'd share some of the wisdom I've learned over the years. After all, I have moved once a year, sometimes twice a year, for the past seven years.

1. Always help your friends. You will need their help. Especially when it involves lugging a washing machine down 3 flights of stairs.
2. Always label. And label well. You will forget where you put that oven mit.
3. Always keep up with your laundry and dishes in the weeks before a move. Trust me, you don't want to pack up dirty clothes. There's a chance you'll forget which tub they're in (see #2).
4. Never ignore the weight of a box. It may be small but it can weigh upwards of 40 pounds... if you pack it full of books or dishes.
5. Always utilize towels and blankets to wrap breakables. This way you're filling precious box space with things that need to be moved, not things like packing peanuts that you'll just throw out when you get to the new place.
6. Always wait until after you move to purchase new things for your new home.
7. Never underestimate how much junk you have. It multiplies as you pack. Trust me.
8. Always be prepared - with a hand truck and a utility dolly, no matter how much it costs to rent them. It's worth it.
9. Always start the purge early. If you forgot you had it, you don't need to move it.
10. Always have a game plan. Know how you're going to pack the truck and do not deviate from the plan, no matter how much advice you get. This will make things move quicker, something that will please everyone.
11. Pack an overnight bag with a change of clothes, your toothbrush, toothpaste and soap. Put it in your car - this part is key.
12. Dust off that air mattress - After moving everything you own, you are not gonna feel like setting up your bed.

Remembering all this is tough, I'll admit. For past 3 years, our moves have looked a little more like this:

Negotiating

Things were going so smoothly... too smoothly apparently. Suddenly, out of no where, we are dealing with an antagonistic listing agent who blatantly misrepresents her sellers and is sabotaging our plans! Yes. I'm not exaggerating.

I'm done playing nice. We're under contract, people. You have agreed to sell us your house. We have agreed to buy your house. Are you really going to let repairs disrupt the process? Come on. It's called negotiating. We request X repairs... you counter with half of X repairs. End of story. Done.

Will this ever be over? Will we ever get our keys?

Inspection update

So, inspections went well and we now have a $395 binder that includes all the faults of our new home.
How lucky are we?!

In all seriousness, the inspector found only minor fixes, so we are very relieved! We've got the HVAC inspector coming out on Monday, which is also when our Radon canister test results will be available.

Now, we just have to see if the sellers are willing to fix everything we asked for...

Stay tuned!

Go, go, gadget... checkbook!

So, after searching for 4 months, we've finally found the right house. Our house. It IS true that you know the minute you walk in that it's the right house. Knowing it was THE ONE, we put in an offer, reading every word of the offer to purchase before signing it, wrote a chunky check for earnest money to show we were serious, entered into negotiations lasting 3 days and, finally, went under contract. We've gone to the bank, been approved for the loan, ordered and paid for the appraisal, too.

But tomorrow begins the next step of our home-buying journey: the inspections. Expensive, yes. Daunting, I know. Between the general home inspection, the termite inspection and the radon inspection, I'm wondering if we shouldn't be hiring an inspector to inspect the inspections. Oh, wait... that's us.

So, Mr. Checkbook, be prepared because you're getting a work out tomorrow. And don't think it's going to let up anytime soon. This is just the beginning of your go-go-gadget-ness. Over the next 20 years, you'll need to bend and stretch in unimaginable ways, performing magical feats of flexible greatness. Because, you see, we're also having a baby.

Quote Book

We've decided to spice up the blog with a few quotes from our crazy, silly, serious, hectic, and blessed daily life. Here are a few to start:

While watching the Chinese gymnasts prepare to follow the US team's stellar uneven bar performance:
Jamie: "Wow, they are small!"
Allison: "Yeah. They're wee little tiny people" (laughter)
Jamie: "Oh, now they're all lining up and getting ready to go!"
Allison, dead serious: "I bet their wee little tiny people hearts are racing..."

In the car today, after almost hitting a girl who was too busy texting to look both ways in the Kohl's parking lot:
Jamie: "Girl, that's how you get rolled up on a hood..."

While looking at the very first house on our Realtor's tour:
Realtor: "Well, golly, there is tile every where."
Jamie: "Ugh. wow. That's a lot of tile"
(Silence in awe of the floor-to-ceiling mismatched tile)
Allison: "Huh. That's interesting."
(More wandering through the kitchen)
Allison: "Is that a Hello Kitty tile?!?!"
Realtor: "Well, yes... (pause) ...it certainly looks that way."
Allison: "Yep, that's a Hello Kitty tile... How much are they asking?!?!"

Exiting the dressing room wearing a pair of newly hemmed jeans:
Allison: "They're too short!"
Jamie: "Wow."
Allison: "Well, thanks honey. I love you too."

In DC, enjoying the air conditioning on the metro:
Jamie: "We should just ride the metro back and forth all night."
Allison: "What? Like the homeless people?"