Today was one of those days that I just wanted to go back to bed. (I did take a nap, so technically, I did go back to bed.) I've had that feeling all day. I just want to send up a finger and tell the world to leave me alone.
The day started off with a fog delay. Stephanie, Tyson (when he's here) and I get up at 5 a.m. to get her to seminary. She gets ready and I make school lunches and breakfast.
We have a neighbor that we carpool with and it was their turn to drive. Five minutes until six, Mrs. Peterson called to tell us there was a fog delay. When that happens, school starts two hours late and there's no seminary.
So, we were happy, we could go back to bed. We changed the alarms and laid back down. The boys slept in.
At 8:00, Tyson got up and went to the house we're trying to purchase for an inspection. At 8:30 I got everybody up. At 9:10, Stephi, Ryleigh and I got into the car. The twins had instructions to leave by 9:20 and Ryan to leave at 9:40.
I dropped Stephi off and headed across town to the inspection. When I got there, I received a phone call from the house phone. That shouldn't be happening, everyone should be gone. I answered and it was Devon. Apparently, his school didn't have a fog delay today so the twins went home. That also meant Ryan didn't have one either.
(Explanation, the school districts here are set up weird. The high schools are all combined into a separate district from the elementary and middle or junior high schools. Those are grouped together in districts based on areas of town. So, when Stephi's school district has a fog delay, the other ones may not. This was weird at the beginning of the year. Stephi started school two days after the boys. This was remedied when the boys all had a week off for Thanksgiving, but Stephi didn't.)
So, back to the day. Tyson had been walking around the "new" house with the inspector all morning. They were almost done when Ryleigh and I got there. I made the appropriate calls to schools while they finished.
Inspections are nerve-wracking. There are some minor repairs that Tyson and I could take a few hours and take care of ourselves, but since it's not our house yet.... I know, it's to protect us in case something falls through.... But, there are exterior forces that are pushing us to get this done and we just want to jump in, fix it ourselves and move on!
So let me back up and explain the house. Two weeks ago, even though I didn't realize it at the time, Heavenly Father was prompting me to look at houses. A For whatever reason, around the beginning of the month, we started looking at land to purchase. We miss the open feel of Wyoming. The town is crowded. We found this great piece of land, about 20 acres, about 30 minutes to the north. There were hills and a small creek. We could even see the snowcapped Sierras in the eastern distance. We miss seeing the mountains.
When we called the realtor, she asked us about pre-qualification for a loan. We have been pre-qualified since November. However, that expired, ironically, the day before we found the property. So, we needed to fix that.
Two Fridays ago, we went in and got our pre-approval, reapproved. We were also informed they don't finance for more than 10 acres. (There is either nothing that size around town or it is grossly overpriced.) So, after getting the re-pre-approval I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town, eliminating houses mostly based on neighborhood.
I called the realtor later that day. I had narrowed it down to three, but I my eye on a five bedroom house on the far northeast of town. Five bedroom houses are extremely hard to find, especially in the mid $200's. She needed to make an appointment because the house is rented. She also wanted to do it for a time when Tyson could go, which is difficult. (Tyson is on call 24/7.) But, he's usually done by mid to late afternoon, so we were shooting for early evening. That worked for her too, she had an afternoon open house.
Well, she never go a hold of them. The next morning, I got on the mls to check on one of the other three houses I was watching. (This market is extremely fast with decent houses.) A new house popped up down the street from that one. The price had just been lowered into our price range that morning. I called the realtor.
Tyson and I loved the house. It has four bedrooms with a dining room that can be transformed into a bedroom (5!). Only two baths, but that's workable. 2300 square feet, which is big for this price range. A pool in the back yard, which makes the yard smaller, but not unworkable...at all. It was built in 1976 and is just east of the college in town. The crime rate is comparable to the area we live in, which isn't bad. The schools are okay. We could do worse, I'm told. (I'm also told the schools we're in now are the best ones in town..........that leaves something to be desired, in my opinion.)
Anyway, we weren't sure about an offer. We didn't have the tax return yet so there was no down payment. And it felt like we were jumping really fast. (We actually jump into a lot of things, it seems that's how our life goes.) So, we decided to drive around town and look at numerous other houses that fit some of our criteria and think about it.
Well, the other houses were in our price range for a reason. They were NOT in good areas of town. I mean SCARY. There were a couple worth perhaps considering, but they were ify.
We went home and prayed about it. While we prayed together, we asked if we should put an offer in on the house. I got two distinctive answers of "yes" during the prayer. Tyson still wasn't sure. So, he took a nap. :)
The realtor called us at four, right when her open house was done. As the phone rang, I told Tyson we needed to decide. He was half awake and said his gut said yes.
The realtor told us there was two other offers in since that morning. The sellers were asking $239, so I told her to offer $242 and ask for half of closing. We signed the offer that Saturday evening and sent it off.
Well, the realtor called me the next day and told me she needed a copy of the -pre-qualification letter. I told her I didn't get one so we'll have to call on Monday morning.
It took me until 12:15 to finally get a hold of the guy. He had concerns. Tyson works a lot of overtime and that worried him, especially since his hours (and income) has come down since we've come to California. He needed to see his latest paystubs. I don't know if this guy is new or not, but I had all that information in front of him the previous Friday. Why didn't it come up then?
Well, the 2:00 information call turned into 4:00. Then it turned into 9 a.m. on Tuesday. GAHH.
Tuesday morning (the 10th) I got up and prayed, like normal. I just told Heavenly Father that I was prepared for His will to be done. If we didn't get the house, well, we could stay where we are and pay some things off. It'll be okay. It really didn't make sense to be buying this house yet anyway. We didn't even have the down payment, for the love of Pete.
At 9:10, our realtor called, saying the loan had gone through. The only conclusion I could come up with was Heavenly Father wanted us to buy a house. Now, if the seller of this house accepts our offer.....
Well, the seller had surgery on Wednesday, so they didn't get the offer until Thursday morning. We had a call that evening that we had a counter.
The counter was minor. The seller wanted to use their own geologist and look at the inspection bids so they could put their input in. Uh...okay.
We opened escrow on Friday with a closing date of March 30th.
Oh, here's the plot twist. On the 10th, Tyson received a text from our current landlord. She's apparently buying another house in a different state and needs to sell this house. She hates to sell it out from under us and put us in a bind. But, if we could, please move out asap. Oh, and would you consider buying my house? For $275? (Only three bedrooms and 1800 square feet.)
Now we understand why Heavenly Father was prompting us to look at houses.
So, that brings us back to today. After the inspection, Tyson and I went down to the mortgage brokers to select a loan and put things in motion. There's a few minor fixes, like I said above, but the hitch is we should get them done before the appraisal so we don't have to pay for the appraiser to come out again. The news about the inspection and appraiser isn't necessarily bad news, it just puts us under another time crunch with something that is beyond our control.
We came home and ate lunch. Then I put Ryleigh down for a nap and stayed for about 20 minutes. Then I went and picked Stephi up from school and took her to swimming.
At this point, Tyson and I are on overload and are grumpy. Stephi has been a moody teenager lately. Between 5 am starts, swimming after school and a high school campus the size of a community college, she is tired and grumpy. The two of us in the same car and grumpy didn't mix well.
I came home and got into a hot bath. It didn't help.
Tyson's began working on gathering loan information about his overtime hours. He was stressed.
It's now 4:30 pm and time to pick up Stephi and cook supper. We had a family invitation to a friend's house tonight so I wanted to be eating by 6:30. I didn't plan well and now my time is short. I'm stressed.
Tyson's my go-to when I'm stressed. I can melt into his hugs and feel the stress drain away. Tyson will respond to hugs when he's stressed, but he's more of a fixer. He's not completely stress free until the situation is fixed. My bid for a hug didn't go very far.
So, I leave to go get Steph but I stop at the 7-11. I go straight for the Dr. Pepper, which are 2 for 2.50, and grab a bag of cheese puffcorn. The Dr. Pepper has always been a stress reliever for me. The puffcorn is a newer development.
Well, neither are a good choice when one is trying (barely, it feels like) to loose weight. However, the endorphins that flowed through me as I was eating and drinking felt wonderful. In the 30 minutes I was gone, I polished off both the bag and the bottle. Wham. Like 800 calories in one small binge.
But I didn't feel guilty. I didn't care. I got my endorphins and I didn't feel as stressed. That's what I wanted and that's what I got.
I came home and went to the bedroom. Tyson was sitting on the bed with his laptop on his lap, still trying to figure out everything with his overtime.
I purposefully walked over to him and removed his laptop, with some playful resistance from him, and put it to the side. I gathered his hands up and pulled on his arms so he would get the hint to stand up.
I walked him to the middle of the room and said, "I need my best friend. Not my husband. Not the man I'm buying a house with. My best friend."
His face softened as he realized what I was asking for. He hugged me. A true, focused hug. I felt the remainder of my stress wash away. I could feel him relax. It was good for both of us.
Here's what I learned, or relearned, today (after this huge, long rant):
- One of the best forms of stress relief for me is my relationship with Tyson;
- When Tyson isn't available to help me with my stress, I either deal with it by sleeping (I didn't really talk about this problem) or I turn to sugary, carb-inflated, calorie stuffed junk;
- When I look at the past six years of Tyson being gone for 2/3 of the time, I can see why I've steadily gained weight.
I guess recognizing it is a big part of the battle.
