Glory to the newborn King.

Merry Christmas! It seems like a good day to catch up this darned blog, since we are home alone [insert McCauley Culkin-type hands-on-face expression here] on Christmas Day, with nothing much to do.

So many fun and crazy things have happened in the past six weeks, it's almost too much to type out, which is why I've let this blog fall behind. We took a week-long trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, and I took a four-day to trip to Memphis two weeks ago for a girlfriends get-together.

The big news is that we finally bought a house and will be closing on it the day after tomorrow. It's actually the house I mentioned in my previous post, way back in mid-November.

The house had been sold by the time I got to look at it, which was really disappointing. The following weekend, I took Todd over to see it just for a lark. We walked through the yard. I called our realtors to see if that sake was indeed going through, and theygot back to me a couple days before Thanksgiving to say that, indeed, the sale was solid. So I just put the whole thing out of my mind.

On December 5, our realtor Pat called us and said that the sale had fallen through. Amazing! We went over and looked at the house again, made an offer that night and had it accepted. All was well!

But then the appraisal came back...at $12,000 less than the sale price. We couldn't make up that shortfall (not would we have, even if we could have) and neither could the seller, as they were selling it after only just buying the place in August.

We really thought the whole thing had just fallen through. And we were okay with that. The thought of doing all that painting, packing, and moving over Christmas was daunting. And we realized there would be some real storage challenges with this house, too.

But last Wednesday the word came down that the agents had worked it out between them to take a commission cut, and the seller was able to come up with the rest of the shortfall. So we got the house, at $12,000 less than we planned. A nice Christmas gift!
I'm sad to be leaving this condo...we've been happy here and I was really feeling ensconced and contented after I got my few Christmas decorations up in late November. Love the neighborhood, love the community, but we'll have some great times in our new house, too, I really feel it.

So we're here all by ourselves for Christmas...the first time in ten years that we haven't traveled to be with family for the holidays. I miss seeing everyone, but it's a relief not to have to travel, especially since this house thing popped up, and since I've been sick with a cold for a week, and still feeling under the weather.

We opened presents this morning...I got Todd a bunch of supplies for building his RC airplanes, plus a book on tablesaws and one on...what else, RC airplanes. He got me a book on herb gardening, the Back to the Future trilogy on DVD, and The Sound of Music on DVD, and two pairs of earrings from Super Hero Designs, which is a site my friend Suzanne stumbled across and got me interested in. Plus, some lavender soap and the loveliest garnet and freshwater pearl necklace/earrings set, both of which he picked up at the Newport News Fall Festival in October. Very nice indeed!
This evening we'll feast on roast chicken if I can bestir myself from the computer long enough to go down and get it started. Tomorrow the packing begins, and Tuesday we do our walk-through and closing. Wednesday will be the beginning of the taping and painting extravaganza...ugh! But how wonderful everything will look when it's all done.
I'll write up the rest of our doings in a couple more posts.