Merry Maids have nothing on us!

After over a year of waiting for my own home, I finally got my keys to the lovely house on Orchid at 6:00pm Friday!  Given how late everything went through, we weren't able to start tearing into the house as much as we wanted to.  I was able to show my mom the house, and we exterminated the property.

Yesterday was the first real day of terror.  We spent over 10 hours cleaning and disinfecting this house, because it was absolutely filthy.  The master bathroom took almost 3 hours in and of itself, and we still have to finish taping the baseboards to paint!  After all day, we only got through both bathrooms and the master bedroom!  The bright side is Cox came and installed the cable and internet, and he even put an extra cable outlet in my living room for me for free; this is awesome because now I can rearrange a few different ways.  Even better, ADT screwed up my install date and came yesterday, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone!

Today will be the remaining cleaning and taping, and we have a full day ahead of us.  I'm very much crossing my fingers that we can begin painting first thing in the morning tomorrow, but it will be a close call.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: a picture of yourself and a family member...

I have the coolest little brothers in the world

phone calls and such...

Today I got my carpet cleaning scheduled, appliance delivery for my washer/dryer changed to a few days earlier, AND got my utilities set-up to change to my name this Friday!  I can't believe how many "one-time fees" and "deposits" there are for all this crap!  Definitely expenses that I am glad I found out about now...

This week is going to be very exciting, stressful, chaotic, etc, etc, etc... but I can't wait!

DAY TWENTY-THREE: a picture of your favorite book...

the perks of being a wallflower...dark but amazing!

10 DAYS!

Quite a bit happened today, and I'm starting to feel the stress!  I called around to two cable companies and carpet cleaning companies today, and decided who I am going to use (Cox and Stanley Steemer in case anyone was really interested...).  I also spent about 45 minutes on the phone with my home warranty company trying to get the policy transferred and renewed; unfortunately almost every person that works there is an utter idiot, so it was pretty complicated process (plus, this is the third time I've called in a week!).  Either way, everything got squared away; now just have to find an alarm guy and get the utilities switched over...

I also turned in my massive amount of credit card points in for a $50 Home Depot gift card (for paint, etc.) and a $50 Kohl's gift card (for kitchen/bath stuff...or clothes haha).  $100 isn't much, but it will help!

I keep going back and forth with the bedroom furniture and new bed; this is something I want, but not something that I need to move in.  My mom keeps urging me to wait at least a month before forking over a grand for all this stuff, and she is probably right, but I WANT IT NOW!  Anyone who knows me well knows that I: 1) have an impulse purchasing problem 2) have zero patience to "wait" for things I want and 3) do not want to put anything off, especially with this house.  However, I need to be careful, because money does and will go quickly if I'm not careful...  I really need to make a priorities list, but it just seems so hard to figure out what is more important that something else...

DAY SEVENTEEN: a picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently...

my little piece of real estate...

I think we all saw this one coming, right?

burning a hole in my pocket...

Purchased my new washer/dryer from Home Depot tonight, and got another smoking deal!  All that I really "need" to make the house livable now is a new King bed; trust me, a full is definitely not enough room for myself and 2 puppies!  I was contemplating a Queen mattress, but a King isn't that much more and appears more worth it...we shall see!

DAY TEN: the person you do the most effed up stuff with...

Mr. Jaren Longmire... don't know what it is, but he brings out the "cray cray" in me!

thank god for president's day...

A big shout out to George, Abe, Thomas and the others; thanks to you fine men I found myself a smoking deal on some kick ass appliances!  Will be headed back to Home TV & Appliance (formerly The Maytag Store) to purchase my GE fridge, range, microwave and dishwasher; then, over to Home Depot to buy my washer/dryer--also by GE.  Life is good right now, especially since both do layaway and can hold off delivery until move-in!

DAY EIGHT: a picture that makes you laugh...

diddles for jefferson! 

getting used to this...

I promise there will be more interesting topics this weekend, as I tackle the President's Day sales in search of a mattress, kitchen appliances and a washer/dryer!  Also on this weekend's list, is hitting up Kohl's to round off kitchen necessities and possibly bathroom accessories... oh, and a Shark steamer mop!

DAY FOUR: a picture of your night...

tonight was my mom's birthday! we celebrated at the cheesecake factory!

second time around...

So I met with my wonderful friend Tom tonight to sign my loan paperwork (again!) for my lovely little house on Orchid at my favorite little sports bar--Zipps.  I signed all of the remaining real estate paperwork yesterday, and scheduled my home inspection for Valentine's Day!!!

When reviewing the SPDS report--which is basically a full disclosure from the seller about the property--I was very pleased at what I found.  First and foremost, no reported scorpions! Now, this doesn't mean I don't have them, but at least they haven't made their way inside the house or have been seen!  Also, I found out why the carpet was in such good shape...a flood!  Apparently, the fridge broke back in late 2009 and flooded the entire house; therefore, all the carpet and tile were replaced, plus drywall repair!  Very nice for me...

they want me to pay WHAT?

...mid September 2010...
After a few weeks of waiting, we finally heard a response from Webster.  Tom called me up and let me know that Chase and Webster were negotiating the offer, and that Webster was wanting more money than Chase was willing to give them.  It came down to the fact that Webster wanted me to pay about $2300 more out of pocket to make up for the money Chase would not give them.

Well, this was just ridiculous to me given that I had been waiting almost 5 months for this, and they refused to tack on the extra money to my purchase price.  Tom didn't sound optimistic that this would be resolved in a timely fashion, and I agreed the banks were being extremely difficult.  Now I was thinking about the tax credit, as well as the possibility that this was not going to work out; if the banks didn't come to an agreement, there would be no deal.

I called Jim and spoke to him about it as well; he told me that he was going to negotiate my out-of-pocket cost cost down from $2300 to $1250.  This was something I could stomach a little bit more...

The wait continued on, but I asked Jim to send me new listings for Gilbert, just to see what was out there.  I hadn't looked in over 5 months, and the market had continued to fall during that time.  Not kidding, there were 123 homes for sale in my price range; it was ridiculous. I had Jim check on one home, because based on the pictures it was the only one that was on the lower end of my price and looked awesome; it already had a few offers on it, so we decided to stick it out with Wanda...