march 26 - closing day

well, i have to say first that i am sorry for the length of time between posts. if you knew (1) how nuts it has been for both of us at work and (2) how stressful this whole situation has been you would understand. also dave asked that i not "speak of the house" because, well, we could jinx things.

i promise to go back and write some posts that explain the last two months with more detail. but the end has come. today, dave and i went to closing on our first home. the home that was once known as buff's place is now OUR place. and it feels soooo good!


of course today wasn't without its adventures. it all started at 3:45am when our obnoxious neighbors upstairs alarm went off and woke us up. the alarm is new -- it both beeps loudly and bangs against whatever the heck they have up there. you have to understand that since these neighbors have moved in, we have not had a good nights sleep...it is either the alarm (before the banging alarm, they had one that would buzz for 15 minutes before someone would turn it off!!), or them playing guitar hero full blast on their surround sound until 2am, or them vacuuming at 2am, or them walking loudly -- which we can't figure out because combined, the two people upstairs probably weigh all of 100lbs!!!! we hate them....so our morning started off with us realizing again how great things are going to be once we close on our first home.

we hit dunkin donuts...and then headed over to office depot to get pens. we wanted to have special pens for the closing. seriously. dave's idea. we purchased pens (after looking for 10 minutes and debating the different options) and then started driving to buff's place for our final walk through. as we were making the turn, coffee in hand, some idiot driver rear-ended us. coffee went all over (me and the car). i got out of the car ready to fight, when this lady gets out of her mini-van and says she slipped on the wet roads and didn't realize how slippery it was. no damage to our car, more damage to her car, coffee spilled. we continued on our way.


i can't make this stuff up.


we arrived at the townhome, all excited and just wanting to make sure that all appliances were still there (we had done a longer walk through a couple of days earlier). everything was there. and we headed off to breakfast with marge.


at 12:45pm we were at the title office ready to close on our first home. it was crazy. i couldn't believe that we had made it to this point. i mean, we started really looking in january and we had seen some interesting places and already had our hearts broken with area 51, and the other day the settlement processor (??) told dave that "sometimes when people come to the table, something happens and everyone takes their barbie's back and goes home"...meaning, we could still lose the house at the table.


but we were excited. and ready. and when the seller's walked in, we started to realize this was really going to happen. and they were nice. we spoke to them about the community, the orioles, and neighbors...and how much we enjoyed visiting with their cat - buff - when we would come to the house. they told us buff was happy in his new home, but seriously the cat ruled!

so the paperwork started...signatures, explanations, more signatures -- oh, by the way we didn't use the pens that we purchase earlier that morning..lol... -- more signatures, and conversation. when it was all said and done, it was 1:55pm when closing was over and we were the proud owners of our first home!!!


first thing we did was stop at a the wine store to buy a bottle of sparkling wine. then we stopped a the local store that sold t-shirts with our new town's name on it (yay!!). then we headed up to our new home.


check out pictures here


when we arrived, i got on the phone and lined up air duct cleaners, appointments with people to replace the carpet upstairs, and then dave and i just stretched out on the wood floors and listened to the quiet. there was no one stomping around above us. there was no vacuuming. there was no noise. it was just silence. and it was our new home.

now the fun begins.


unfortunately we are in the apartment tonight. we have a lot of things that we want to get done on the house before we officially move in, but we plan on staying at the house this weekend (air mattress, tv, folding chairs) to just experience the feeling of being in our new home. but i wanted to update this quickly, even though i am exhausted (remember we have been up since 3:45am). there will be more posts in the coming weeks. there is a lot to be done on the house (carpet, painting, buying furniture, oh and moving!!) so more stories to tell. and i promise that i will give you some of the back-story on how we got to purchasing our first home.


committed for 30 years,
doreen