She called me back...

We officially have a realtor.

Here we go, folks.

Anyone house buying advice you can share would be much appreciated.

Saturday F**k Off

The answer was no.

Their counteroffer was $10,000 over asking plus lots of cash up front, in other words, F**K OFF, we don't want to sell to you.  Or anyone else, evidently.

Done deal

Pending escrow, we've got a house!

I know I haven't posted about it much, but that's because it has been BEYOND stressful, including some nasty negotiations, 7 counteroffers, and a lot of threats to walk away from the deal.

Here's hoping the rest of the deal goes smoother than the contract negotiations.

Escrow opens tomorrow!

Since you asked so nicely...

For Ken S. and others. Some pictures of the house (ripped from the original MLS) below the fold.

BTW, that's THEIR furniture still in the house.

The back patio:


The current dining room, soon to be part of the kitchen:


The future dining room:


The other side of the front room, featuring a lovely fireplace:


The kitchen:


The upstairs (3rd) bedroom:


The future den/ TV room (current 2nd bedroom):


The Master Bedroom:

« Hide "Since you asked so nicely..."

Mentally exhausted. Ready to snap.

See today's Friday F**k Off for details.

Movin' on up.....

Well, we finally closed on the house on Thursday.

According to the contract, they had to be out at 5 pm that day.  We arrive at 5:05 with a pile of new locks and a bottle of champagne.

By 8 pm ALL the locks had been changed.

Anyway, we arrived at 5:05.  To find that the MOTHERFUCKERS had had the power turned off.  And the water, too.  This is POST 5  pm on Thursday before Memorial Day.  My choices are get it turned on Friday or go camping in my new house til Tuesday.

8:00 am Friday, I called our friends at Pasadena Water and Power.  I explained my plight and told her that we had been TOLD.  EXPLICITLY. that the services would be on, and that we would merely have to call.  And what was I supposed to do with nowhere else to go before Tuesday? (we are in the process of furniture moving, and we will be actually living there starting tomorrow night).

She took pity on me, charged me a small fee for same day service (they usually will not do same-day on Friday or the day before a holiday) and told me it would be on by 7pm.

A lovely gentleman was there by noon.

He, it turns out, is the dude responsible for our service area, and was ALSO the dude who turned the power and water OFF the previous afternoon.  He told us a very interesting story.  Seems Pasadena removes the actual water and power meters from a residence if it is to be vacant more than a couple of days to prevent meter theft.  His paperwork actually asked him to remove both meters because the house was supposedly going to be empty for quite a while.

However, as he is frequently in the neighborhood, he had seen the "For Sale" sign and had seen it being taken down, so he decided to save himself some work, and left the meters behind, as he assumed (correctly) that removal of the sign meant the house had been sold.

So when he got the call from dispatch he said "I knew it" and drove right over and turned us back on.  Took him 3 minutes.

Best $40 I ever spent.  Thanks Pasadena Water and Power.

Fucking cocksuckers.  Trying to screw me over again.  I hope they rot in hell.

Just an update....

The house looks like a box tornado hit it.  Seriously.

And my brain is SO not functioning.

More after we get the internet working in the house tomorrow morning.

At the Crossroads

As some of you know I am at a decision point in my life.

My current job has gone to hell in a handbasket in more ways than I can count and all I can do right now is try to keep my own head above water and not get fired.  The administration is making what seem to be arbitrary decisions and striking out at vulnerable faculty and programs in the name of doing business better,  but the evidence (and I'll admit I am a bit biased) seems to point out the fact these decisions have been at best short-sighted, and at worst, disastrous.  Day by day it becomes clear that I can not count on having a job much longer, through no fault of my own.

So I have been looking around.

I July I applied for a local job, similar to what I am doing now, teaching the same kinds of classes, working with small groups of students, and being able to have a place where I can keep a small lab and give undergrads a chance to have some lab experience.  As a bonus, it would be a short "reverse" commute.  I didn't hear back right away, and I figured they didn't want me.  We'll call this Job #1.  They did eventually call me for a phone interview 'round about October 1, but I haven't heard from them since.

In August, I applied for another job, this one at a major research university in a VERY SMALL TOWN in another state.  Job #2 is a unique position, non-tenure track, but only because it focuses on teaching and student advising, rather than research.  I think it would be a great opportunity to use the skills and experiences that I have developed over the past 15 years to give students useful help as they navigate their college experience.  So I applied, despite the great potential for upheaval in my life.

Job #2 called me a week after the position solicitation closed and invited me to come for an interview.  Which I evidently nailed, because I am sitting in a hotel room in that same small town today.  Two weeks after my initial interview, they offered me the position, and after some back and forth, they invited BOTH of us up here for a weekend look-see.  We've been here since Friday afternoon, bumming around.  We've visited the campus, toured all of the neighborhoods, found the Co-Op in the next town over and even drove an hour out to the Costco.  Which we totally found by accident, although we were looking for it.

When I was here initially, they asked a realtor to drive me around town, and so I asked her to show us inside a few houses, so we could a real sense of what a house we would WANT to live in would cost, and how we would have to work it.  Because see, if we move here, we would have to rent out our house.  There's no way we could sell it, the market in LA being what it is, and so we needed to know what the numbers would be, and if we could afford to buy a house here, since rent and mortgage payments here are about the same.  Might as well get the benefit of the equity.  Not to mention that I'm not uprooting my life to live in a shack somewhere else when I have a house I love.

So we talked.  And gave her our list of needs, wants, and likes.  And of course, dammit, the first house we walked into we fell in love with.  It's quirky and has a huge yard and more storage space than we can fill right now, and of course, it would be long gone by the time we would be ready to move, should I decide to take the job.

And I stepped out on to the deck, and I saw my dogs running on the lawn, and a swingset and plenty of room for a garden, and all of the things  I would want in my life.  And I felt like I could be happy here.  Snow, small town and all.

It's a million years away from my life. But then again, there are so many things I want to change about my life.  I want to have time to focus on ME.  On getting me healthy again.  On my marriage, which is good, but won't stay that way if I just let it go.  On my puppies.  They need Mommy back.  I want to be able to go walking and work out and be able to cook dinner everynight without being bone-weary from a day from hell followed by a commute from hell.  I want to open my computer at night and not have to worry about discovering yet another pissing contest that I have to mop up.

And let's face it, I ain't getting any younger.... tick tick tick....

My biggest concerns are my husband and my family.  Who knows whether he can even FIND a job here?  There are fewer opportunities, even though most districts look for a science teacher more often than other disciplines.  And our families will be nearly impossible to reach, now.  Disappointing after reaching a detente with my inlaws and beginning to build a relationship with my nieces and nephew now that they're older. And of course my Mom and Dad aren't getting any younger, though they are both in reasonably good health now.

So many things are really positive: There's a heated, indoor therapy pool (!!!!) and an Arby's and a Wendy's and a DQ (none of which I have now).  Super Walmart just opened, and it is nicer than our current Target (at least this week) and you can even find a parking place.

Side item: the house we love faces the Walmart directly, though it is a few blocks away, and because both are on hills, you can see the Walmart from the kitchen window and vice versa.  Amusing as hell.

Traffic is a joke, though some people clearly don't know how to drive, and I shudder to think what most of these people would do with an LA freeway.

I am conflicted and I don't know what to do.  It's hard. Can I give up what has become comfortable and close to home for something entirely different, though not altogether bad? 

Alright y'all, weigh in.  I want to hear your thoughts....