Busy Busy

Things are crazy! Wm is having a sleepover tonight, so I am picking him and his friend up after school. As soon as his friend leaves tomorrow, we are going shopping to buy the new sectional for the family room. Which is EXCITING! On Sunday, we have to clean and prepare for our home inspection, which is Tuesday. I have to have Flip (and us!) out of the house for the whole afternoon. It's taken some major fancy footwork, but I think we have a plan. I am going to be exhausted after Tuesday!! But that should be the last time we (and Flip) need to be out of the house! This is also one of my busiest times at work, so, basically, I'm about to drop.

Wm, however, is rocking on. He's actually been doing amazing. He's been super cool about the move, the craziness it has wrought, and dealing with everything. On top of that, he is really handling his biz in a big time way!! I realized the other day that I no longer ask if he has homework, check his homework, ask him if he has tests, tell him to study for the tests, or, basically, do anything other than say, "what did you do at school today?" And listen to his antics. He just handles everything. And handles it beautifully. I do login and check his grades and progress report daily. Wm has high 90's in every single class. With ZERO intervention from me. He's acing his tests, doing all his homework, and, pretty much, knocking it out!! 4.0 City!! It is a HUGE relief not to have to harass him or nag him to get stuff done. I just know he's doing his homework, he's studying, he's on it.

Last week, I logged in and saw he suddenly had an 84 in American Lit. When I clicked, I discovered he had a 0 on an assignment. When he got to my office that day, I was like, "dude - what's going on in American Lit?" And he goes, "Oh, yeah, I tried to submit an assignment online, but it didn't submit right so Ms. Anthony just got a blank document. I already talked with her about it, resubmitted, and she said she'd grade it tonight." The next day his grade was back at a 98. He was on top of that action before I even saw it!! 

Wm wasn't understanding a math concept, so he asked Steve for help. The next day, he went to his teacher's office hours and got help. I asked him how it went and he goes, "Oh, I TOTALLY understand it now. Mr. Amergis is a much better teacher than Pop. Pop gets grumpy and impatient. But Mr. Amergis just explained it and did problems with me until I nailed it." HA! And, it worked! Wm got a 97% on the test! (And I know from experience the joys of Steve trying to teach you something!! I always tell him that if I worked for him, he'd fire me!)

And, for fun...

Me: I can't wait to stretch out in our new king sized bed!

Steve: Maybe we don't need a king sized bed. That's a lot of space.

Me: REALLY?

Steve: Yeah...why?

Me:

Case closed.

In Contract

It's official! We are in contract!! It has been a CRAZY weekend. Here are the stats...

Showings: 64
Open House Attendees: 100+
Offers: 19
Sold: $41,000 OVER LIST!!!!

All that happened in 3 days. THREE. DAYS. Here's how it went down.

We had about 35 showings on Friday. 5 or 6 at a time. We had to be out of the house from 9:30am until 8:30pm. We spent a lot of the day and the whole evening bunking at Suzanne's. She is a magical unicorn of goodness and light and I can never repay her. She even let Flip on the furniture!

Wm, too, was allowed to make himself right at home:

After we got home, we basically crashed. But then we had to wake up on Saturday, to about 20 showings. These went from 9:30am-6:30pm. Even though she wasn't at home most of the day, Suzanne let us squat at her place the whole time! Wm and Flip continued to make themselves at home:

THEN, after they were gone all day, Suzanne and Graham got home and cooked us dinner!! YES. They cooked us dinner on top of everything! Magic unicorn.

After we got home Saturday, we watched a movie and immediately went to bed. Sunday, we had to do lots of re-cleaning and sprucing for the open house. Our realtor said, at one point, she had to tell people that the house was full and no one else could come in! So there was a line out the door, down the walk, and onto the sidewalk of people waiting to get into the house!

While all this was going on, we took Flip to the park while we had a picnic lunch. Then, we took him to the actual dog park, where he got to run around like a maniac. After that, we took a walk around our new neighborhood to kill some time.  When we tried to come home, there were lingerers!! So we had to make an emergency pit stop at Mimi and Guy's. When we FINALLY got home, they were STILL there! So I told Steve to take a loop around the block and then I was kicking them out. Luckily, they were gone after that!

And now we are the most exhausted people ever. And also the happiest! This was so far above our expectations that it's crazy!!! We are THRILLED. If anyone needs a real estate agent, ours pretty much kicked ass!! In our dreams, we hoped for $15k over list. We spoke of it in whispers. It was The Number That Shall Not Be Named. But to go for $41k over list is AMAZING!!!!!  I don't think we're going to be able to sleep tonight from excitement! Or maybe we will...

Everyone is exhausted.

SOLD!

Big news!! Our house listed on Thursday and showings started today. We already have more than 50 showings scheduled just today and tomorrow. AND, an offer. A GREAT offer. Our realtor thinks we may be able to do even better, so we have to keep doing these showings, which is a huge drag. There are often 5+ happening at one time solidly from 10am-8pm today and tomorrow. But, we got our DREAM offer!! It's $15k over list and includes closing/possession whenever we want, no inspection remediation, and double earnest money to "show they're serious." I'd call it a day now, but, apparently, that's not cool.
Sadly, things are not going as well for Flip. He's very weirded out by the fact that all traces of him have been wiped from the house. Then, on top of that, when I went to take him to doggie daycare today, they wouldn't take him since he hasn't had the flu vaccine. So, he had to go immediately to the vet for a shot and then back to daycare. It has been a very traumatic day for him!! We pick him up in about a half hour and then head to Suzanne's for the evening. We can finally go home at 8pm. Then I will unearth his bed and bones and he can sleep in his usual spot. Hopefully that helps!!

Pretty sure he likes Steve a little.

Wm is thrilled with life because I told him if we hit a certain number on the offer, we'd use some of the extra cash to get a new computer. And we hit it!!! It's helping him deal with the fact that he, too, has been displaced for the weekend. But, he's had it pretty good! We were on spring break all this week and he got lots of hanging out time and screen time and fun times. AND, he has a friend coming for a sleep over next weekend to celebrate not having to keep the house nice anymore.

We spent an afternoon volunteering at the Shelter Shop. Wm saw this:

and screamed, "PENILE SUPPORT!!!"

Hurdle #2

It's been an exciting week! But, after a bit of back and forth, we've crossed House Hurdle #2. We had the inspection on the new place and worked out what is being done by who. Now, our current house lists on Thursday, showings start on Friday, open house on Sunday, and hopefully a bunch of offers in by Sunday evening! It will make for a real awkward weekend as we try to keep kid and dog out of the house pretty much the entire weekend!! Suzanne has agreed to let us squat at her house. THANK GOD. I don't know what we'd do, otherwise!

We realized that the biggest expenses of this move will be furniture. Since we are, literally, doubling the size of our house, we have get some stuff to fill it! If anyone has unused furniture lingering in your basement, attic, garage - we'll take it! ;-) Once we acquire said furniture, it will be REALLY nice to have a king size bed and a soft couch to lay in front of the fire! We'll get there!!

In other news this week, Wm had a bad fall at recess and bummed up his knee. He keeps limping around like he broke his leg. But, here is what he did:

Major Wound

Wm had a big pizza party at school because he and perfect attendance last semester. He had Little Caesar's pizza and LOVED it. He hasn't stopped talking about it. So Steve is all in a lather because he may now have to eat Little Caesar's pizza! Wm and I are on spring break this week. WOOOOT!!! We're going to party like rock stars!! (By mostly cleaning and staging the house.)

Mimi came over to visit today. Mimi is Flip's most favorite visitor. He knows her car and starts whining and crying the minute he sees it. Then, when she walks in, he tries to lick her entire face off. When he's finished with that, he likes to sit, pressing his entire body up against her. Look at his face:

Happiest dog alive

A friend came and dropped off some moving boxes and Captain Psycho scared her with his insane barking, jumping, and finger nibbling. I gotta work with him on his excitement level. He's still a puppy, really!! But he looks like a maniac.

Steve has been working really hard in the basement and it looks AMAZING. His weekend is pretty much going to be using things known to cause cancer in the state of California to clean and paint and spackle up the basement. But, it will be a showplace!! Steve is a master!

House!!

Well, there is big news up in here. I've been quiet as things have been all touch-and-go. But, we found out tonight (FINALLY) that we are in contract on a new house!! If you'd like to check it out, you can CLICK HERE to see the listing. (You'll need to ignore some old furniture and odd billiard table in the living room.) It's twice the size of our current home! And is on a cul-de-sac in a really quiet, gorgeous neighborhood near a really nice lake/park. It's a pretty big upgrade! The owners are older (and have lived there the last 30 years!) so there is a bit of updating to do - but all cosmetic stuff (I'm talking to you, bathrooms!) The bones are great and the important stuff (HVAC, roof, windows, etc) are all new. The neighborhood has its own, very active, HOA. We will have access to a private community pool, park, and snow removal via the membership in the HOA. We're pretty much big time adults now. 

Wm is really excited!! He will now have his own bathroom and a much bigger bedroom. Wm had his own "must have list" and he said this place "checked all the boxes." Some fun items on Wm's list are: a microwave mounted over the stove, stainless steel appliances, a wood burning fireplace, his own bathroom, and a finished basement, and 2 car garage. I'm not sure why most of those things matter to him, but he was intense about it. He's a weird little dude. 

And, the 2 most important things: the HOA does not have a breed ban, so Flip is welcome AND Flip will have his own room! If you're looking at the pictures, the office, with sliding glass door access to the large backyard, is Flip's room. We are having a doggie door put in the sliding glass doors and he will stay in there while I am at work. I won't be able to come home for lunch anymore since this place a bit farther form work (should only add 5-10 minutes on to my commute, but just enough to make going home every day a bit of a nuisance) so, Flip will have more room, access to the backyard for doing his doggie business - but will NOT have access to the whole house!

On that note, here are some pictures of fun stuff:

Me at a Paint Your Pet class!

Me and my friend Mel with our finished products!

Yeah. Cutest. 

Fatly lounging on Steve in the morning

Guess who his favorite guy is

And now we have to go get ready to sell our house!! It should sell quickly, but it's always a pain to deal with selling a house. The last time we sold, Wm was a baby! At least we don't have an infant this time!!