Nasty habit of the day

Frances just will not. stop. eating. dog. food.

Apparently, she likes the taste. Allison used to put it in her mouth--yes, she ate dog food, too--and then she'd come crying to me, hands in her mouth, trying to scrape it off her tongue. Frances jams her face full and then runs away from me so I don't take it away from her. I always catch her, of course. She's short. Once I get to her, she obediently spits it into my hand. Which is nasty, friends. Really nasty.

The dog just finds the whole thing bewildering but you know, she's not real bright.

That's my story for the day. It's starting to be a big mess in here. I'll take a picture.

Brief house update

We had the inspection yesterday. The buyer couldn't make it, so she sent her entourage in her place: her mother, her father, her younger brother, and her grandpa. Makes sense since her parents and her grandparents are buying the house. I can see why they'd want to check it out.

We got the word today. They were very happy with everything. They'd like us to take care of some mold on the inside of the closet doors, which we'll do just before we move out, by priming it. They'd also like us to have the furnace and AC serviced, which we did before we listed.

We also got word regarding financing. They've decided to pay the full sum in cash.

In practical terms, that means we're done here. There are no banks involved, so we don't need to get an appraisal. No, all we have left to do is move out and close.

How to sell your house

Receive Ridicuously Low Offer

Counteroffer

Receive no longer ridiculously low but still pretty fricking low and not much higher than the original ridiculously low counter counter offer

Verbally counter offer and float the idea that if they take it, we'd consider paying closing costs.

Receive buyer's final verbal offer.

Agree verbally, making sure she realizes that at this price, we are not fixing anything that turns up in the inspection.

All parties agree.

Wait for paperwork.

UPDATED: okay, we're all signed and sealed and bound. Inspection is Tuesday and we'll close in a month. I can now mess up my house and start packing stuff. Woohoo!

Hi Ian

I didn't tell Rob about the blog. He saw it on my facebook page. Why aren't you on facebook?

Hi Clare.

Love and Jazz,

Annie.

Okay, now we have an offer

It's low but it's a place to start. We'll make a counteroffer this afternoon.

No offer

Not yet, anyway. After waiting most of the day for the offer, I finally heard from our realtor. Our prospective buyer wanted to check out the neighborhood first and she discovered that the house next door sold for a very, very low price--it was actually about to be foreclosed, so it was a distressed sale--and she inferred from this that it was a rental property. She drove by and saw that our neighbors have a pink mattress propped up against the window in their living room and now she's not so sure about buying our house. Not because our neighbor's house looks bad. Because they have a pink mattress in the window.

She did actually mention that it was pink. Because that's tacky. And tacky people drag property values down. I guess.

First time buyer. Who needs to get a grip, I might add. She's making all sorts of assumptions. First, that we live next door to a rental property. We don't. Second, that a mattress in the window is a sign of....what exactly? I have no idea what she thinks. She has somehow inferred from this that the people next door are unfit neighbors and probably don't take care of their house.

In my experience, they are very nice neighbors. They are quiet. They keep to themselves. I don't love their dogs but you know, they aren't a nuisance. In all, you hardly know they're there.

In addition to that, we've seem them bring fixtures and cabinets, and trash, and empty paint cans and goodness knows what all in and out of that house. If there's a mattress in the front room, I'd wager it's because of one of two things: either they bought a new one and they're looking for a way to dispose of the old one or they're doing work in that room and needed to get it out of the way temporarily.

Either way, I feel like throwing things at them for their ill-timed mattress. Then again, the buyer is the one who is being ridiculous.

Anyway. I spoke to our realtor, who already told them it wasn't a rental, and I told her they are great neighbors and they've been doing a lot of work over there and I have to think that house is being better maintained now than it has since we moved into this neighborhood.

She promised to relay that to the buyer. And now we wait and see what she decides.

You heard it here first

we're expecting an offer in the morning. good vibes, prayers, fingers crossed. I'll let you know.

Raising the intellectual level of this blog

Allison wants you to know that this is the funniest thing you've ever seen in your whole life. This is so so funny that she wants you to watch. This means you.

On Sale: one house, slightly used.

If you talk to Allison, she'll tell you our house is on sale in the market. I think this is cute. She also informed me today while we were driving that if we wanted to go to the Brick Store, we should turn here. The Brewhouse, she continued, is farther away. So she knows the relative location of more than one pub. Lovely.

This isn't really about Allison. This is a real estate update. So how's it going? Hmmm, yeah...not swell. You heard all about this housing crash and the whole subprime mortgage thing? Yeah, not such a great time to be selling the house. And yet, what choice do we have? That's right: none!

The frustrating thing here lately is that we just haven't had a lot of showings. We had a few early on but the initial price was too high. We lowered it but then there was the holiday weekend just after we changed the price. Things just haven't fallen into place. I haven't been very optimistic given how few people have seen the house.

We have three weeks left before we move. Plan B is to lease it--anybody want to lease a lovely 3/1.5?--which would be fine but it would still be a lot better if we could unload it and just cut ties with the ATL. We're going to talk to our realtor about strategy for the last few weeks here but I don't know. She doesn't seem very aggressive. I don't know what she's going to do for us.

Meanwhile, in the interest of generating a few more showings, I put the house on craigslist. Yes, I know what I said about craigslist. Shuddup. That seems to have generated one phone call so far--a buyer's agent who wants to preview for her clients this weekend. This is good.

Just after she called, I heard from another agent whose client saw the house last week and wanted to see it again. She seems to be interested...at least interested enough to show her parents. I've got another showing this afternoon. Hopefully we'll sell soon and I can quit keeping it show ready all the time because that sucks, yo.

Sassy!

Want to see something sassy?

It's Allison on a bike! You can't see it but the bike says "Sassy" on the side.










She's riding it around. I'm getting her a helmet later today.
















Why didn't I get a helmet when I got the bike? That's easy! I didn't buy this bike. The neighborhood cat lady pulled this out of a pile of junk in someone's front yard and then she gave it to Joe for Allison when he was out walking the dog past her house.





















She's very happy about it.





















Frances is also happy. Which is to say, she couldn't care less.





















Bonus Shot:

I totally burned my arm making dinner.

I'm a nerd

Most of the time, I read academic books and I hate them because they are lame and badly written. Yesterday, I was working on a book that is the best thing I've read in a very long time. A representative quote:

Sacred centers are the foci of religious identity. They are the places on the surface of the earth that express most clearly a relation between cosmology and private experience. A journey to one of these centers is a discovery of one's identity in relation to the other world and to the community of believers--a ritual construction of self that not only integrates the believers but also places a symbolic boundary between them and "outsiders." This is not an unambiguous boundary, however, but a contested and negotiated one. It allows negotiation, revision, and reinterpretation, signaled in the study of religion, by such terms as conversion, syncretism, or reform. The ambiguities of these terms are those of the social process of boundary maintenance.

That is as good as my field gets, I think.

Park day afternoon

I took the kids and the dog to the park today so someone could look at the house no they don't want to buy it.

Just after I got there, I saw a little boy wander over to one of the benches, take his pants and underpants down to his ankles, arch his back to aim, and pee in the grass.

Um.

I did the lame yet classic stand there like a goon and look around at the other mothers wearing the lame yet classic "whose child *is* that" expression on my face. Just then, a mother looked from reading and yelled, "Evan!" She stood up and walked toward him. She lowered her voice a little--but only a little--and said, "next time go a little farther."

Nice.

Allison has a new hobby

Chasing the dog around the patio on her tricycle. The poor dog.

Frances wants to play, too. Too bad she can't reach the pedals.

Frances Speaks!

Frances has acquired a few more words, although I don't think anyone else can probably decode her right now. She is getting much better at communicating.

Dog was her official first word. She still says it. To that we add Mama and Dada.

She now has several words for Allison:

Da = Allison
See See = Allison
DA! = Allison
Ahhh wwl = Allison

Took us a while to work that out but it seems to be the case.

She's also acquired a discernible word for Tillie, her little pink bear. Tee tee.

So with all of those bases covered, she's now working on ways to get her point across. She can say no (and mean it). For yes, she shakes her head. In English, that means no but in Francesese it means yes. It's brilliant. Frances, are you finished with your dinner? No! Would you like some more? *Shakes head*. We're communicating! Without screeching! At the top of our lungs! O happy day!

Fall plans

Most obviously, we're moving to Austin. That's going to be exciting.

Less obviously, we have some others plans--stuff I'm pretty excited about. Let's have a list.

1. Allison will attend fine arts preschool! I realize I mention this every three minutes or so but I'm just happy for her. I think she'll enjoy it.

2. We'll find a new church. There's one that looks really great from the website. Barring any weirdness not represented there--you know, an impromptu goat sacrifice--we'll probably make that our new home. I'm excited. It's a bigger church than we attend now, with a big children's program and a big 20's and 30's group.

3. Speaking of children's activities, Allison will start Awana in the fall. Or, if you ask her, iguana. Mostly, she's looking forward to the Awana grand prix--sort of a pinewood derby event. She wants her entry to be pink with flowers and butterflies and a princess with a crown. Sigh.

4. I'm getting a wagon for the kids. I want to pull them down to the park. Which is only a mile away!

5. I'm teaching a world religions class. Should be fun. Just me and thirty 18 years olds who know nothing.

6. We're planning some road trips. Flying is beyond our budget, which is beside the fact that our kids don't travel well by plane. We discovered recently that they're great in the car and since we're closer to the west coast, we're going to make some trips. At Christmas, we'll drive to California. We'll see some friends and family in the bay area, then on to redding for the holiday. Then, over the summer, we'll drive to Spokane. I can't wait to show Allison where I grew up, let her ride the carousel and feed the garbage goat. Oh oh! And visit the campbell house! That's not to mention let my family actually meet Frances. The next Christmas, we're talking about PA.

7. We were talking about including a camping trip to Priest Lake on our Spokane trip but I'm not sure. It all depends. On what? On whether we have the third baby by then. We'll see...we're going to start trying to get pregnant in September. It took a whole year to get pregnant with Frances, so we'll just have to see how it turns out.

Those are the basics.

Picture pages

A sorry episode

Allison got a kite for her birthday. We decided to fly it, so we went to Peidmont Park.



















Pretty. Except. Is that a haze hanging over the city? Yes. It is.


















The big child insisted we stop at the playground, so we took a detour and they ran around screaming for a few minutes. Frances especially liked the big orange tube. She's fond of tubes.




























































Eventually we meandered over to the field, where we provided entertainment for a couple of loadie guys who were taking a break from playing frisbee. This consisted of me trying to throw the kite in the air and Joe running back and forth trying to get it to fly.

It wasn't very windy. That's our excuse. Also, we suck at kite flying.

















The children continued to run around and scream. It is their own particular idiom.





















The big one was getting a little disappointed, though, at the lack of kite flyingness because she was excited about her kite.

Here, meet the kite. This is Emily. Emily the dragon.




















Emily has arms and legs and everything. She looks pretty cool in flight.















Which is to say, we did actually get her in the sky!

I took this picture approximately 9 seconds before Emily took a nose dive straight into the ground.

















And this one, another 12 seconds before yet another nose dive.





















Allison didn't mind. She knows nothing about kite flying. She was just happy she got to hold the string.
















Then we went home.