We're Movin' on Up!

Things have been busy for Rose the past couple of weeks.  I can't recall if I've mentioned this before, but I made a comment to mom at one point over the summer, while we were working out in the yard, that at some point she was going to have to accept that she's almost 70 and isn't/ won't be able to maintain the place and I'm lazy and I have no desire to.  I pointed out that if she wasn't ready yet, it was fine, but surely it would be better to make the decision to move/sell the place on her own terms rather than out of necessity.  She nodded and said "yep," and I went on trimming the forsythia bush.   Like a week or so later, she brings home a "for sale by owner" magazine from the grocery store just to see what is out there.  Says she thinks we can aim to put the house on the market come springtime.   A Sunday about a week later, we see that the condo association across the road from our church has an open house that afternoon, so we go.  I LOVED it.  Hard wood floors, three nice bedrooms, a 2-car garage.  But mom said, probably correctly, that it was too much – money and room – for us.  Besides, we need to wait until the spring.  So we drove home.   A couple of weeks later, she comes home from a Tuesday morning bible study telling me that there's another, smaller condo, in the same place having an open house Sunday.  So we go.  This condo is in a building containing eight units, and is on the second floor with a "bonus" room (i.e. 3rd bedroom) on the third floor.  It has a balcony overlooking the woods and the lake.  It is marvelous!  I LOVED it on sight.  I figure the cats will fully enjoy chasing each other up and down the stairs to the 3rd floor.  The price is better, but…   Also, in that Sunday's paper, there's a condo for sale by owner listed... we go.  It had its niceties, but I preferred the first one of the day.  By the end of the evening, mom is having a "heavy feeling" in her chest and thinks we should wait until spring.  Ok.    The next weekend, Haley comes down ready to look at condos.  But we're waiting, so all she gets to see is the outside of both of them.    Mom has me print off all the info from the county assessor and treasurer websites about the condo, but she still has questions about buying real estate that I can't answer, so I hook her up with Jennifer, my mentor in all things legal, and she has a nice phone conversation while I watch Glee on Tuesday.  After she's done talking to Jennifer, she tells me to contact the bank about getting pre-approval on a loan and Mom'll make an appointment for the weekend to see the condo.  We be back on!  So I called Holly, (Haley having just been down I didn't figure she'd want to come back the next weekend), to see if she (Holly) might be interested in coming down to see the condo on Saturday.   Saturday, Mom, Holly and I pack up the party van and go to town to see the condo.  Holly LOVES it and tells us to go for it.  By the time we leave it, we have an appointment to come back in the next afternoon to fill out the papers for an official offer.    Sunday, after church and lunch, we go and make the "official" offer and my headache starts.  (And the headache didn't go away until much drugs, both Rx and OTC, and a good night's sleep later.)  But just a few hours later, we receive the news that the offer was accepted as written!   Monday, my instructions were to find a home inspector and arrange for an inspection AND to call the woman at the bank…. Not OUR bank, mind you, because that woman NEVER (and still has not as of this writing) returned my initial phone call.  I talked to Steve about his recommending an inspector and he tells me to call the guy on the other side of the big arbitration case we had a couple summers ago.  We ended up with an appointment for Friday morning for the inspection and Friday afternoon for the bank to fill out the loan papers.   Saturday, mom and I met with the realtor about asking the sellers to fix the few minor issues the inspector came up with.   So, here it is, Tuesday.  Mom is out of town, gone to San Diego with Aunt Chris to visit their other sister Bonnie for 10 days.  I'm left here herding cats, preparing for our office's bosses day luncheon/celebration, and waiting for word from the bank (re: the pre-approval of the loan) and the realtor (re: sellers' response to inspection).    Home/property ownership seems to be the final hurdle for me to jump before I land squarely in "adulthood."  And I'm not keen on that jump.  I've been happy being a (relatively) obligation free, child-like soul all these years… I figure it's what kept me young at heart.  But now I'm going to have a MORTGAGE!  Yikes!  I can foresee future blogs regarding the property tax issues and zoning questions and filing the LONG form for taxes!  I shudder at the whole idea!  I need a nap and am really missing kindergarten right now. Sigh..