No matter how much help you get or how far you are
traveling, moving is stressful.
I am very pleased to finally be able to share that we have
successfully moved to our new home in “the big city” from our little town of
Arena. I’m going to try to make a
conscious effort not to reveal too much information about precisely where we live because I still want to be able to show you
pictures of the house as we work on transforming it and making it our own, but
I don’t want to have to worry about creepy blog stalkers showing up on my
doorstep with a bucket on a string and a bottle of lotion. Not that over-sharing hasn’t paid dividends
in the past (I’m looking at you, Julie!).
In fact, I’ve found some pretty incredible friends and neighbors through
the blogosphere! I’m just trying to play
things a little closer to the vest his time around.
Anywho…..where the heck have I been for the last couple
weeks?
Gracious, friends. I
want you to know how badly I have
wanted to be blogging. We ran into some
difficulties with getting our Internet and cable service set up because the
previous owners didn’t terminate their account at our address until after we had moved in. It’s a complicated situation that involved a
bunch of phone calls to real estate agents, local cable provider offices, and a
lovely girl in customer service named Leah, but in the end we did finally get
plugged back in and online.
Hallelujah! So, here I am. Finally.
But let’s rewind, shall we?
When last we spoke, we were squatting at my in-laws’ house,
sleeping in their basement and using their beautiful kitchen as our own while
we were in between houses. We were only
supposed to be there for a couple days, but we had some issues that delayed
us. Remember how this whole move was a
result of Evan’s job being transferred?
Well, that brought in a bunch of circumstances that complicated the
closing process for us. We had issues
with acquiring the authorization we needed to get our loan to purchase our new
home because of some “questionable deposits” in our checking account. We operate almost exclusively on a “cash
only” basis. We try to stick to the Dave
Ramsey budget method of using envelopes and saving up for large purchases, like
(for example) a down payment on a house.
After we found out about this job transfer, we started squirreling away
money to save up for this purchase and for the expenses that tend to come up
with a new home (i.e. washer and dryer).
Well, apparently the underwriters at the bank that got our mortgage
aren’t really familiar with this “saving up cash” concept and wanted to know
exactly where the heck this money was coming from that we were depositing into
our account. We jumped through hoop
after hoop, usually with at least 48 hours in between each hoop. Eventually, we ended up with a severe case of
frustration and a delayed closing. We
were supposed to close on our previous home at 9 am on Monday the 27th
and on our new home at 3:00 pm on Monday the 27th. Instead, our closing in the morning went off
without a hitch and we had to drive back to Evan’s parents’
basement…..officially homeless. We kept
getting delay after delay from underwriting, but the good news was that the
sellers of our new home allowed us to move into our house via a “pre-closing
occupancy agreement.” Long story short:
We moved in before it was officially ours.
Yay! Our moving truck arrived on
Wednesday and we’ve been working on setting things up ever since. Of course, this whole “no closing” thing
created some road-blocks in that I couldn’t register Isaiah for school until
closing officially happened, nor could I order my cable or Internet services,
and other such things. But, that’s a
blog post for another day. In the end,
closing on our new home finally took
place a mere 8 DAYS later than was
originally scheduled. I’m sure our
sellers got more than tired of signing amendment after amendment about the
closing date, so we are very grateful for their patience. We certainly needed our fair share of patience during this process as well, including during a closing session that took more than two hours with all three kids along!
We are settling in pretty well here, I’d say. Within only a couple days of being here, we
had met several of our neighbors, all of which have been absolutely
lovely. There is a little 3 year old
girl next door who is just charming, a 14 year old babysitter across the street
(YAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!), and a 5 year old boy on the other side of the street who
enjoys impromptu light saber fights.
Just today, two boys from our street came over and played football with
the kids. Score. We’ve been taking walks almost every day
after supper to get to know the neighborhood better and I just can’t get over
how nice it is here. The people are
nice, the homes are beautiful, and people really seem to be invested in making
sure this neighborhood stays pleasant.
They take their landscaping seriously, they know everyone and their kids
by name, they welcome you with a big smile and an invitation to come over and
borrow anything if needed, and there is just a really great sense of community
here.
And Target is just down the street.
Yup, we’re going to fit in here just fine.
More to come soon!
