Langer Loksh

Great Minds?

Just the other day I told Jeff and Alissa that if we had another baby and it was a boy, I'd consider the name Oscar. (No, I'm not trying to tell you anything.)

Today I received a Pottery Barn Kids catalog that featured Oscar on personalized sheets, which means Oscar has jumped the shark. But I will also point out that PBK has bedding named Charlie and bedding named Summer.

Waiting

Seller has yet to respond. We gave them 48  hours. Realtor Peggy says the septic system is from 1962. Title V inspection is Thursday. A septic mound is a dealbreaker for moi.

In fact, I have been having buyer's remorse all day. Peggy says this is normal. Alicia is having anxiety dreams.

And yet... it's so purty.

Go Peggy Go

Went to the open house yesterday with a grrl posse (Paula, Maya, Maya's neighbor Laurie) and everyone agreed the house was jaw-dropping. Jeff came, and then we left and went to meet Realtor Peggy about making an offer. Apparently Jim and Greg went to the open house after we'd left.

All day long I was back and forth. I would never sleep again if I didn't buy that house. I would never sleep again if I bought that house. But after the open house, I was sure: we had to try.

Peggy printed out information about all the houses that have sold in our town this year. They all sold much closer to valuation. Peggy insisted that while Big Blue is beautiful and special, it's just not worth what they're asking. We put in an offer of $1,000 above valuation and left for the Celtics game.

While we were at the game, Peggy left a message on my cell. She said she'd called the owners with the offer and they said they were too tired, could she fax it? And she said no, she had to present. She marched herself over there and sat them down at their kitchen table and showed them our offer.

The first thing they said was, "Is this the whole offer?" As if there were tens of thousands of dollars hiding on page two. Then they said "We want to close on July 1." Which is fantastic, because that would give us time to sell our house. Peggy said, "They were numb." They didn't know how to react. She had to show them her printouts and explain how the market is right now. They said they'd send the offer to their lawyer.

Last night I barely slept, again going both ways. I mentally furnished my big new house. I agonized over leaving Alicia and Mia. I mentally renovated the attic above the new house's kitchen into the coolest playroom ever. I mourned walking to school.

Whatever happens happens!

Going For It

We're going to make an offer on Big Blue. We've figured out what the most we'd pay for it is. Now we have to figure out how low to come in on the offer, and when to make it. Jump too soon and we'll pay more; wait too long and we could lose our chance.

Speak of the Devil

Guess what I just found on my leg?

Can you guess?

I'll give you a hint: it's round!

Cranky Old Man?

After her bath, Summer sat at the kitchen table in her robe, hair in braids, eating ice cream. It didn't quite fit when the following came out of her mouth: "All I want is some underwear and a nice cup of coffee."

Master of the Universe

Charlie wrote on the mahogany built-in bookcase.

"Thank heaven for washable markers!" I said as I wiped off the scribbles easily with a damp paper towel.

"You're welcome!" said Charlie.

My Blue Heaven

The offer that Big Blue's owners were expecting this week never came in.

Today I took Alissa M. there. She loved it. I paid special attention to the kitchen and bathrooms. The kitchen is really totally fine. The bathrooms are super tiny but not hideous.

Still stuck on walking to school though. Little Summer is so cute walking home from school and she can't wait to do it all by herself. This would not be possible from Big Blue. But I checked the bus route for Big Blue and it's not bad--a little longer in the a.m. and a little shorter in the p.m. than Summer's current ride.

By now this has become about as exciting as the ringworm, so I'll forgive you if you've lost interest.

Where Everyone is At

Jeff has fallen asleep on the couch with a copy of Homes for Sale in [Our Town].

Summer is learning to read. The other day she saw a Babar book on her bed and said, "Mom, I know how to spell Babar: B-A-B-A-R." Today she wrote "Summer Dad Mom Movie" on a sticky note and put it on my laptop; she says she wants a family movie night. (She copied the word movie from a "Disney Channel Original Movie" icon on the American Girl movie she was watching.

Charlie's speech pathologist came today for his weekly session, but we ended up ignoring Charlie and spent the whole time discussing the upcoming IEP meeting. I asked her point blank if she believes Charlie needs speech. "Well...." she hesitated. "If he didn't have hearing loss, and if he wasn't just about to transition, I would have discharged him. But only in the past couple of weeks." In other words, his speech is now age appropriate, but because he has hearing loss, he is at risk for difficulties, and she didn't want to drop him right before the town took over. Our plan is now to ask for half an hour a week, but the more important part is to ask for the hearing loss consultant to monitor him once a month, at least for a little while. We'll see what the evil despotic pupil services coordinator thinks of that.

The chicks are doing well. They are now all together again, in a guinea pig cage. Annie, the biggest one, is roosting on a stick, while the other four still splay out in the pine shavings like rubber chickens when they sleep.

Neither my sinuses or my house situation has cleared up, except to say that I do not want the Pottery Barn Schoolhouse at all, and never did, and only posted about it because Jeff was so dazzled by it. Today I walked down to my realtor's office and picked up some paperwork including an accounting of oil usage in Big Blue over the past three years; it really doesn't seem bad.

I think it's down to this: can I leave my neighborhood, and how fabulous do my bathrooms need to be? I would think the answers to those questions are no and not very.

While on that walk I ran into my yoga teacher, who told me she bought a house and then could not sell her condo for six months and then finally rented it for a year. "That's a cautionary tale," I said. "Yes," she said, "But my friend put her house on the market and it sold in like two weeks." I said, "Are you talking about the one-room schoolhouse house?" and she said "Yes!" I guess she hadn't heard that offer fell through. Nutty market.

This afternoon I put off the kooky builder but made an appointment with Crazy Dave about the bathroom.

Summer had a bad day at school. She didn't have her boots so she wasn't allowed to leave the blacktop at recess, and then she had to go to the reading specialist during snack and could not finish her pudding. I thought that actually sounded pretty bad too, so I took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who to turn Summer's day around, and it worked. I didn't even have to pay for Charlie.

Then we walked (as you can see, we have a theme here) to the market for a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

Tough, tough call. I'm thinking someone else is going to buy Big Blue while I dither.

Always Ups and Downs

Pottery Barn Schoolhouse is back on the market. Owner of Sunny Blue "really likes" us, has another offer coming today, and is still holding an open house on Sunday.

Pros and Cons.

PBS:
Pros:
Meticulous interior. Two great rooms.
Cons:
No storage. No garage. On a curve of a country road (no walking). Walk in to front door with muddy boots and you are in a fancy foyer. Bedroom layouts undesirable (fabulous to die for master suite, fabulous to die for kid room, and then a very whatever third bedroom on second floor; fourth bedroom is really basement crash pad for teenager, and we don't have a teenager). Also, different town, different school. School is perfectly fine but we love our school.

Sunny Blue:
Pros:
Character with space. Dead end street walking distance to library and one pizza shop (but nothing like our little mini Manhattan here). Two car garage and  mudroom.
Cons:
Dated (but fully functioning) bathrooms and kitchen that we will never upgrade because we will have spent our last nickel. Potentially a heating nightmare b/c it's old with old windows, but owner claims she's used only 1,000-1,200 gallons this year, which is not much worse than here.

Door number three is still adding on to our house. I'm having a builder come this p.m., but I looked at his web site after making the appointment and frankly his stuff is a little kooky.