1. Discovered different loan people who like hubby & myself more.....more enough to give us full pre-approval and the possibility of closing on a house by July 15th. So....
2. We made another offer on the adorable yellow house that we are now fully obsessed with. And somehow ended up under contract after a week of back and forth.....
3. And then started doing some digging on the septic system the house is on, and whether we would be legally required to hook up to the sewer system, and then how much that would cost exactly. You all probably know how hard it is to gather information from that from a city...the engineer sends us to the sewer guy who is on vacation, who then sends us to the health department....
4. We weren't getting info on the septic from the owners......and then we were offered 5k to NOT do a septic inspection. Hmmm...
5. It became clear to us from the LACK of info (either from the owners or Health dept) that the septic was the original from...wait for it....1942. As in there is no way it would meet modern standards, and would be at high risk of complete failure at any moment (and I've got some clear memories of helping my dad replace to top of the old metal septic tank on the island after it rusted through.....ugh).
6. We also found out 'bout the same time that the sewer connection could cost anywhere from $12,000 to $25,000. This probably seems expensive, but it's because the city sewer line would have to be extended up the road to the house, then the lateral line put in to the house, then whatever indoor plumbing was involved AND the septic would have to be decommissioned. We couldn't get an itemized estimate from the city for the line extension (which is the lion's share of the cost) and thus the wide margin for cost.
7. So, with only 14 days before our planned "move" the contract was cancelled and we were once again without housing. Nobody better accuse me of not being spontaneous ever again!!!!
8. In the last 10 days, we have :
- gone to B'burg 3 times
- had my horse transportation completely cancel 24hrs before they were to move Dax
- nailed down a small 2bedroom apt as temp housing (although it's a year lease...more on that later)
- got a moving truck at the last minute
- found a storage unit for most of our crap
- I finished up in my lab, leaving Friday night at 10:30pm on my last day.
- have boxed up about 3/4 of our crap
- have said more times than we can count "why do we have this much crap??"
- celebrated our 2 year anniversary
- begged farrier's wife to trailer Dax to B'burg, who had to travel 300miles round trip (and I got to pay for)
- finally moved pony-butt to her new digs....after sitting on I81 for 45mins when they stopped traffic to "blast"
- watched an amazing Blue Ridge sunset over the now empty field
- completely freaked our dogs and cats out (poor blind Haley keeps running into all the boxes!)
- begged some really good friends for help both packing and moving some large appliances
- gotten hubby shipped back to b'burg for his first day of his new job tomorrow!! (he's sleeping on two camping mattresses and a sleeping bag in our empty apt)
(Sorry for the cheesy lists, but for some reason it helps me organize my thoughts and forces me to be succinct. We'd be on page 9 of the story if not for the list! I'm going to blame it on too much lab influence.)
So yeah, that's what's going on. I know I complained a lot about planning the wedding, doing classes and working full time while applying to vet school but....this takes the cake.
It's too crazy to be either excited or sad...I'm just, kind of, shell-shocked. And I'm REALLY tired of all the planning and decision making. And I thought orchestrating a caterer and rentals and photos was tricky....it stinks when I've got to call 4 different storage places to find one that has the right sized unit available now, can fit a 24ft moving truck and doesn't charge and arm and a leg....that's after spending 45mins online doing research. Then our truck rental turns out not to be available.
I had to sacrifice a precious day of packing to go with Dax on our trailering odyssey....seriously, my farrier and his wife and WONDERFUL people. But between me forgetting some critical paperwork and getting stuck on 81 (pony was sitting in a big, brown metal "oven" essentially) then finally getting to the barn only to have Dax melt-down over the site of the resident mini-horse....yeah, it was an odyssey. By the way, mini-horses and tiny ponies are Dax's cryptonite - no prob with fire trucks or polo balls whizzing by her head, but show her a mini and she turns into a quivering 1300lb shotgun ready to go off at the end of the lead rope. Of course she had the melt down in front of the barn owner/her new caretaker. So much for my assurances that she's easy to handle.....
Horsibal-Lector fears nothing....except her own kind.
(Old picture, in her old pasture before the move with fly mask and grazing muzzle....notice the gut?)
SO tomorrow is the last day of packing, hubby picks up the rental truck Sat, we're planning on loading all day then heading to B'burg first thing Sunday. Truck goes back Monday morning, we unpack and I head to my new lab Tuesday morning!
We are lucky we have a super chill landlord in Crozet who is letting us keep the place until July 17th, so we'll be back to pick up odds and ends, clean the place spotless (or better yet, hair-less!) and mow one last time. I guess from then on, we'll officially be Blacksburgers, instead of Crozetians. Mmmm, burgers....
On a completely different note, in an effort to use as little stuff in the kitchen as possible while packing, I discovered a secret of the universe.
Have you ever considered grilling....bacon?
WELL, not only did I consider it, I did it and it is DAMN GOOD!!! And not only is the bacon smoky-crispy-yummy, my house is also grease free and there's not splatter or dishes! Now I realize that one must have the right equipment....We've got a small Weber with a heavy duty grate (think wide metal slats to support the bacon). And it does cook faster than one might expect....I had a few extra-crispy specimens that went to the dogs while I was perfecting my bacon-grill timing. But talk about easy and tasty!! I'll have to admit that the high point for me was not having my towels smell like bacon for the next two days. Current home has no vent over the stove what-so-ever, so every time I've cooked bacon, the entire place smells like cold grease for days. It's nasty. But now....oh, it's a whole new world of bacon-inspired cooking!! I don't know, maybe everybody else has heard of this, but I hadn't and I think it was a stroke of brilliance!
Well, I've wasted enough packing time....this was supposed to be my dinner break, but it got slightly extended. Please be patient with me, as it'll probably be more than a week before I post again.
Since this experience has taken the cake for craziest of my life, I leave you with.....cake. Technically it's the cake I left my lab with, but...whatever. So much for witty word-play :-P
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