And on it goes...

After some soul searching and number crunching, I decided to drop the price of my house to the amount that a buyer had offered.  This was a day after I had said no to that same offer.  It took a lot of justification to make me do it.  I can handle living in a two bedroom apartment for a while to make up the difference.  So with high hopes, I've been waiting to hear back from the prospective buyer.  It has been the longest two days I can remember.

Finally, today, we got the news.  They decided that their offer was too high and the price had to be an additional $2,000 lower.  $2,000!  At this point I feel like we are fighting over pennies and I'm starting to get pissed off.  Not only that, but in a week or two or even a month from now, if they came back and accepted, I may not sell it to them on principal.  I hate dickering, but I hate assholes even more.  You, buyer, are an asshole.

After spending the last two days preparing myself to spend the next six months in an apartment, I'm now preparing to spend the next 5 years trying to sell my house.  Maybe come Spring time the market will have changed and things will start moving again.  Until then, we'll keep loving our lives and planning our next step.  Keep praying and we'll see what happens.  It all happens in God's time.

How to destroy an easy up gazebo...

Easy answer, leave it out in a thunderstorm.  I had planned on taking down our gazebo because I knew there was a batch of thunderstorms rolling through our area last night.  I started taking down the curtains after work, but then we had to go get my car from the auto shop and we decided to have a pizza at Monelli's in Byron Center.  When we got home it was time to bathe the boys and put them to bed.  By the time we were saying prayers and good night to the boys, you could see a good amount of lightning and hear the thunder rolling across the sky.  I quickly went out to finish taking down the gazebo.  I got the screws that were securing it to the deck removed and started to lower it when the storm front hit.  I held on to the frame tightly and at one point the whole thing was pulling me upward.  I tried desperately to get it to fold into itself but it would not move.  After about 30 seconds a big gust of wind blew in and the gazebo broke in half folding over the top of me.  During that  time Beth had been frantically running through the house closing windows and realized that I was out on the deck.  As I made my way out from under the tent, Beth had just closed the sliding door.  When she saw me, she opened it to let me in and I saw the whole kitchen floor covered in water.  The wind was blowing so hard we had water almost to the living room.  The news reported that there were recorded 70+ mile per hour gusts.  After seeing what it did to the gazebo, I don't doubt it for a minute.

Hello Again...

If you’ve ever tried to sell a house, you know how busy and difficult it can be just to live life each day. Over the past month, we’ve had a few showings and open houses. We’ve had one offer, counter offer and rejection. Emotions have been up and down along the way too. I haven’t slept well in a while and I wake often and can’t get back to sleep. I guess it is the stress of the situation on top of life’s other responsibilities. There is so much in limbo right now that I’ve lost track of everything, especially blogging. It has been last on my list.

So, here we are. Our house is as clean as it ever has been. We are still on the market. This week we had our first offer, which was $20K below asking price. Since I am not desperate like many other home sellers, I countered with what I believe is reasonable for our house. I don’t know if the buyer is trying to play hardball or what, but they rejected the counter offer and held with their original offer. Well, sorry Charlie, I won’t drop my pants for you. We have worked too hard to keep this house for me to throw away all that work and money just because there is a perception that the value of my house has decreased. This thinking may mean that we’ll never sell this house. That’s OK with me…

On a brighter note, the school year has started and Magnus is happily attending 2nd grade. He loves his school very much and is excited to start doing homework. (I was the same way in 2nd grade. This will all change in middle school) The fall session of karate has started too. Magnus tested for his Green Belt on Monday and passed. I love watching him kick and break boards. He is getting a lot better at sparring too. We’re 1 month and 2 days from his 8th birthday. The time is just flying…

This weekend, Beth and I are heading to the Michigan Irish Music Festival in Muskegon. We’re meeting up with some friends that we met when we attended the fest back in 2007. It is always a good time and the music is great. A night out is needed for so many reasons. I’ll be happy to spend some time with Beth away from our daily grind.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading my ramblings.