Great adventures in house hunting

Well, we've had some interesting house hunting experiences. We have seen it all - backyards that have jagged rocks and slope down 45 degrees, pink tile, basements that have been "partially finished" by the owner . . . okay I have to rant for a while about this one. I blame stores like Home Depot - with a slogan like "You can do it - we can help", they are empowering people that really can't do it to just go ahead and give it a try. And then where is the help when they need it?! Wow - we have seen some BAD stuff!

This ties in to what happened to us this week with a house we were looking at in Evanston. We were hoping to find a place in Panorama, but as our search goes on, we have broadened our search area to include some of the outlying suburbs. We loved this house - it was a nicely finished house, nice layout, quiet street, nice deck and reasonably big backyard (that was flat) . . . it was looking more and more like a great house for us.

Important point - these people did not have their own Realtor (apparently trying to save on fees, although they claimed that they had adjusted the house price accordingly . . . then why not get a Realtor if you're not saving any money?? Suspicious.)

Anyway, on Wednesday night, our Realtor came over and we drew up an offer. One of the downsides to the house was that they had "partially finished" their basement and hadn't gotten the proper permits from the city (why do people have to be so stupid!). So one of the clauses in the contract was that they had to get the proper permits and pass inspection or else we would withhold $5000. We weren't sure if the walls would pass inspection because they hadn't put vapour barrier down under them, and it would have been an expense and a hassle to tear them down and start again. I thought this was reasonable. There were a few other clauses about minor repairs around the house, but other than that, it was a straight-forward offer sheet. We gave them until 6pm the next day to respond with a counter. When we got an offer on our house, our Realtor came over that night and our house was sold an hour later. I thought 6 the next day was a lot of time!

Apparently, this couple disagreed.

They kept trying to stall us, making excuses for why they wanted more time. We need a house - we can't sit around and twiddle our thumbs while they are off trying to get other offers to play against ours. So we pushed them to decide. The woman was ticked. It was probably a combination of not trusting our Realtor (thinking he was trying to pull a fast one on the sellers with no one to advise them), being pushed into making a decision, being annoyed about the basement condition (although they never actually addressed it, I imagine it didn't make them like us any more!), and just simply not knowing what they were doing and how things go when people buy houses.

They did end up countering before the deadline (along with a rant about how they are used to people working together and thought they were being reasonable asking for more time blah blah) and added a clause that they wanted TWO WEEKS to have a lawyer look over the offer before they accepted it. We tried one more time to counter and get them to be reasonable, but they wouldn't drop that clause. What she was essentially asking us to do is to give them two weeks where at any time they could just say "Our lawyer didn't approve it" and we'd have wasted a bunch of our time. So we had to walk away. I was pretty disappointed about the whole thing - why would anyone agree to such a ridiculous term?? The buyer has no power! Does she think it's back in 2007 or something?? The fact that they didn't want to pay a Realtor but were supposedly going to pay a LAWYER to look over a standard real estate offer sheet is totally ridiculous - she was probably hoping to collect some more offers. Moral of the story?? I will never deal with someone without a Realtor again. They do get paid a lot, but it's not for nothing!!

Luckily, this story does not end with me in the depths of despair because some crazy people didn't want to sell us their house:). I was pretty down yesterday morning, but we went to look at a house in Panorama yesterday that was BEAUTIFUL!! Amazing house! The backyard wasn't huge, but it was flat and would be a fine backyard for little kids. Ideally it would be bigger, but we have seen enough to know that finding EVERYTHING you want in a house is near impossible. We're looking at another one today that is also a good possibility, but if that one doesn't pan out, we are likely going to make an offer on the one we saw yesterday. Here's hoping they actually WANT to sell it to us haha!

House hunting aside, the kids are doing well:). I feel bad that we have to drag them from house to house and I know they feel some of the stress and distraction that we are feeling right now. Here's hoping we can be done with all this this weekend! Adam brought me a book the other day and started whining. I picked him up and read it to him and he was happy:). So cute! He started saying "no" this week. I think he might be more of a no-sayer than Lynsey ever was, but I guess we'll have to wait and see! Lynsey has been showing signs that she is learning a little bit about God and Jesus, which is great to see:). I prayed the other night before she went to bed that she wouldn't have nightmares and she said she wished Jesus was here. I told her that Jesus WAS here, that we just couldn't see him etc. (so hard to explain to a three year old!) and she paused a bit . . . and says, "I wish the REAL Jesus was here". She is clearly listening closely to the Bible stories that she gets told, because she's catching on that there is something pretty special about this Jesus she keeps hearing about:). She was at the pediatric dentist yesterday - she has three cavities that need to be filled:(. The good news is she did GREAT at the dentist! She does so well at adjusting to social situations! Not that she's always behaving perfectly or anything, but as a general rule, she does very well at gauging what is expected of her and complying. My special girl!

As previously mentioned, I'm taking a photography course at SAIT, so I included a few night pictures that I took on Thursday. I was pretty uninspired to take pictures this week (hence the small amount of pictures!) but hopefully I'll be more inspired this week:)

SOLD! And we're homeless come July 15th!:)

17 days on the market, and we sold our house! Last Sunday night, our Realtor came over with an offer sheet and an hour later, the deal was done. We are happy with the price we got and the possession - we have until July 15th to find a new place. I'm a little nervous about that, but it should be achievable. We're looking at 4 houses in Panorama tomorrow, so I'm crossing my fingers that at least one of them at least becomes a possibility, if not a clear cut winner! What a relief to be done with showings. My house is a disaster today. To be honest, I can hardly stand it because I'm so used to everything being clean and put away, but I'm not doing anything about it. We were in Edmonton for Easter weekend, so I'm kind of taking today off to catch up again after being gone all weekend.

What to say about my children . . . nothing hugely new to report. Adam is getting some more molars, which he's actually been handling really well up until this past weekend in Edmonton. He had a bit of a rough day on Sunday. In general, though, he is handling it very well and is becoming lower and lower maintenance all the time. He wanders and wanders, gets mad when something doesn't work out and eventually moves on, wanders some more. He still gets a bit mad at Lynsey, but this continues to get better as he gets older. I really wonder about his musical abilities - when he was playing with the piano at Brian's parents' house, it almost sounded at times like he was really trying to make music! He wasn't just banging away mindlessly, but one note at a time often! So cute! I'll be keeping an eye on that:). Lynsey is Lynsey - she is such a sweet, sensitive little girl. If she is trying to get your attention to show you something and you don't notice right away, it is not unusual for her to go upstairs to her room to cry in disappointment. Heartbreaking! She gets so excited about things and wants you to share in her excitement, and if your reaction isn't exactly what she was hoping for it just devastates her. I hope life doesn't jade her and steal that quality from her, but I do hope she builds her self-confidence to the point where she's more assertive and doesn't let other peoples' reactions affect her so much. I know she's only three, but this is a quality that she's inherited from me and I know the ups and downs of having a sensitive spirit!

I've been taking a photography course for a few weeks now and I LOVE it! I am learning so much about how to use my camera! I was getting so frustrated with the auto setting, and hopefully with all my new knowledge, I will never have to use it again:). I have a lot of pictures this post because of all my experimentation - hopefully you will see them get progressively better over the next several weeks!

Cleaning, more cleaning . . .

Well, the last week and a half has been filled with cleaning and showings and more cleaning and more showings . . . hoping this is over soon! We have an open house this weekend, so I'm hoping that a bunch of people that want to see the house come then. I'm trying not to get discouraged that we haven't gotten an offer yet, but it's hard. Our realtor seems to think we are doing well so I shouldn't be discouraged, and I am trying to listen since he's the professional. Praying for at least an offer sometime soon!

The kids are doing well! Adam has been pretty happy, and has even started playing with Lynsey a bit more the last little while! There has been more and more giggling on his part when Lynsey has tried to engage him in running games, so I'm hoping this is a sign of things to come. He just learned to open and close closet doors, so he was doing that a lot today. When the doorbell rings, he makes a "da-dong" sound that seems to be mimicking the doorbell! I'm hoping this means he has an ear for music . . . time will tell:). Lynsey is just becoming a pre-schooler - no other way to say it! She counts everything, wants to draw things (although she wants us to help her because she doesn't know how and doesn't want to try for some reason) and is trying to work out more and more letter sounds etc. She has some teenage attitude sometimes as well, especially with me. Daddy can do no wrong, but when I tell her to eat her spaghetti, watch out! I am going to have to really be purposeful about not overreacting to her defiance and just being firm and consistent - hopefully it's just a phase.

Just over a month until my race in Canmore! My last run was 6K in 36:07, so my goal of doing it in 35 minutes remains achievable. I think the hills in Canmore will be a bit worse than what I'm running here, but I'm hoping raceday adrenaline can make up for that. It's supposed to snow again tonight (grrr!!) so I'm not sure if I'll be able to run outside this week, but I'm upping the intensity on my elliptical all the time to try and prepare me for the hills. It's hard work, but I like working towards a goal! And I'm slowly losing more weight still - down about another pound or two in the last few months. Slowly but surely I'll make it back to my pre-wedding weight:).