Quotable

"I can't wait to get my voice back. I feel like I've been telling a secret all week." -Kat

But what are they under, while they write?

A house update! A house update!

The appraisal has been completed, and reportedly, the house is worth more than we're buying it for. W00t! I'm sure in the mountain of papers I will be getting at a later point in the process, something will have a number written on it. I likely won't care, though, I'll be too busy rolling around on hardwood floors or skipping through the backyard.

So, our file is now in underwriting. We expect to hear something about the results of that within about a week and a half.

I gotta try that

I overheard what might be a clever parenting trick in Fred Meyer. When your kids are insisting you buy them a gumball, just develop a case of early-onset hearing loss.

"Mom, can I have a gumball?"
"What?"
"Can I have a gumball?"
"What?"
"A gumball?!"
"Huh?"

:)

As an aside

By the way, this is not what my commute view looks like, in case there wasn't any confusion.

I would have to cheat to pass

I'm taking the bus to work this morning, and I'm sitting next to a little old woman who is holding what looks like a shopping list in her hands. I admit, when I get bored on the bus, I look around and read whatever's around (or blog from my phone, apparently.) Glancing at her list, I see notes on who the Chief Justice is, and the purpose of the President's Cabinet, with translations written in what I assume is her native language. (Looks Japanese to me.)

I think someone is going to take her citizenship test soon, and I wish her the best of luck!

Her notes said the President's Cabinet stores the President's Pants. She may struggle on that one...

Inching Forward...

We got word from our real estate agent that the appraisal has happened, and now they're working on writing up their report, which could take up to a week. I much prefer our inspector, who had her report emailed to us that evening, less than 4 hours later. :)

Still Sold

Still Sold
Originally uploaded by urn

We stalked the house again. The neighbors across the street introduced themselves and offered to take our picture in front of the sold sign.

Thanks, Dave and Karen! Nice to meet you!

Inappropriate Use of a Tail

Inappropriate Use of a Tail
Originally uploaded by urn

This stuffed cat was cute, until we saw the tail. Um, ew?

Does that make me one of the "Happy Mutants?"

As some of you know, I'm a reader of BoingBoing.net. Their most recent BoingBoingTV episode makes me want to be a kid again.
(embedding it tiny... you should watch it bigger, or go to BoingBoing and check it out there.)

What's it worth?

The appraisal is being coordinated with the lender and FHA... We should know more by Tuesday.

This is proving worse than waiting on the adoption stuff. Probably because it's overshadowing the adoption stuff.

It ain't over...

It ain't over...
Originally uploaded by urn

..till the fat check sings, but the "sold" sign has been posted in front of what will hopefully be our house. Eep!

Magic 8 Ball says "Signs point to hell yes."

Help, I'm boring

I started writing a post this morning. Half an hour into some brainstorming and writing, I realized I was writing about what I drink at work. What. I. Drink. ZZZZZZZZ... It's official: I'm boring as hell. I was going to describe the wonders and joys of the sodas I choose, and how lately I've been enjoying Earl Gray tea (which I don't think I'd ever had before this year.) Yes, yes, I realize I'm doing exactly that right now, but I'm writing it under the subtext of being boring, so it makes more sense.

Anyway... The house stuff has been bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball. We're off again, on again. It's exhausting. Keep an eye on the news from Seattle about a real estate agent killing her clients or something.

Home is where the heart is. And by heart, I mean money. And by is, I mean spent.

I have tons of eloquent ideas floating around in my head about how to describe the last month or so. Great, big ideas. But if experience has taught me anything, it's that my writing ability is greatly outpaced by my eloquent ideas. So let's try the short version.

If you're going to all the trouble to try and do an adoption, you might as well throw all caution to the wind, and try and buy a house at the same time, right? We thought so, too, so that's what we've been doing for the last month or so. A sweet little house in West Seattle was available, and we decided to pounce on it, so we've been wading through the paperwork, the loans, the ... gah! The EVERYTHING involved in trying to make it happen! It's so much! The adoption stuff sucked, but there weren't really any time constraints, so when you got overwhelmed, you just took a break from filling out forms or requesting documents until you could face it again. Homebuying (negotiation, really) has all these time limits associated with it. So when you need a break you TAKE ONE WHEN YOU'RE DEAD! FILL THIS OUT! DECIDE ON THIS! GO GO GO!

We'd negotiated with the seller on price, and closing costs, and everything was cool, we were just waiting on the inspection. And that was yesterday.

Our inspector was awesome. We walked around the house, inside and out, and she told us about anything and everything, good or bad. The house is good. Solidly built in the 50s, which was a good time for home construction. They had respectable technology, access to solid building materials, and things were made to last. So, the structure of the house is sound. The wiring is a little outdated, but not dangerous, and easily upgraded on a lazy schedule. The plumbing doesn't leak, and water flows in and out the way it should. But...

Oh, the "but." This wasn't what we wanted to hear.

But: The roof is on its last year, probably. And this is the 3rd roof, so the next one has to start from scratch. When you put on a roof, you can just put it on over the old roof, but you can only do that 2 or 3 times, and the current would be number 3. Not a huge deal, but it's a bit more expensive than just tossing on another roof. You tear everything off, rebuild the roof deck, and shingle away.

But: The furnace is original to the house. It's an old oil furnace, and back in the 50s things were built strong. Heavy duty. Massive. That's well and good, but that doesn't change the fact that this was over 50 years ago, and the useful life of one of these oil furnaces is somewhere around 30-40 years. After that, it's just sort of waiting to die.

With a roof OR a furnace needing replacement, we probably wouldn't have worried too much about it, tried to get some of the cost deferred to the seller, and gone ahead happily with our "Little City Farm." (Fun story on that, I'll try to remember to post that one.) With both of them needing attention, we're unsure of what's going to happen in the negotiations. Those are happening now, so we'll see.

If you have fingers, pleased to be crossing them.

Maintain radio silence...

Very big changes are afoot. If you don't already know, you'll find out more tomorrow.