May! And putting the house on the market...

May was the big month we had been waiting for.  The month where we finally put the house on the market.  We had filled up the storage unit with all sorts of treasures, donated truckloads of stuff to local charities, and cleaned and spackled and painted the house.  All personal pictures were put away, kids' artwork was taken down, the house was clean, and perhaps a touch sterile even!  We put the house on the market after Mac left for a humanitarian medical mission in Honduras, so the kids and I had the pleasure of keeping the house pristine through showings and one open house.  After about a week and several showings (usually during dinner time, ugh) we had an offer.  Our realtor said it wasn't a good enough offer, and we could "do better".  At the same time as I was considering this offer (Mac was pretty much out of the loop, being out of the country), another offer came in.  This offer was better, but the realtor was a little bit insane.  So we went with the insane realtor, since it was Mo Money.  I was in fact happier with this offer because they were flexible with the closing date, allowing the kids and me to stay in our Maryland house through most of the summer which meant we could finish up the neighborhood swim season and have more time to prepare for the move. 

As it turned out, the offer we accepted was a lot better than the final price we were paid...  Our inspection was fine, but the inspector used a lot of "wishy washy" words that Insane Realtor interpreted to mean the house was likely to flood, and the deck was likely to lift the entire house off the ground by 3 or 4 inches over time...  She was a little bit hysterical.  So, after giving them just about everything they wanted off of the inspection sheet (which really wasn't much, since there was no water damage in the house and the roof, and even though Insane Realtor thought there must be water damage, there was no need to repair anything based on her hunch...), in comes the Appraisal Death March. 

But we have to back up a bit...  Our next door neighbor was a landlord renting out the house to some neighbors we didn't like at all.  We were happy to see these people move out, but a little worried about the "for sale" sign that came up when the terrible neighbors left.  This was all in late April, while we were getting ready to put our own "for sale" sign up.  Anyway, the landlords inexplicably put the house up for sale for a HUGE loss!  HUGE!  And also way below what comparable houses were going for!  It was insane!  The house went under contract within a day, and was sold before our appraisal was performed...  And it was sold for significantly less than our house's contract price.  So our house, although fairly priced compared to other comps in our zip code and area, was appraised low due to the very low price of the house next door.  We had to renegotiate with Insane Realtor, and finally the deal went through.  I was really ready to just say "forget it" when they were hemming and hawing about it, but eventually they came around to accept the new contract even though we gave them less closing money AND we refused to fix the deck "issue".  In the process, Insane Realtor called our realtor names, accused him of being "sneaky", and basically made a total fool of herself!  Crazy lady!

So, Mac was back during a lot of the negotiations and for many of the inspection repairs.  He got to experience his share of the real estate negotiations!

I'm attaching some pictures of our house all cleaned up and ready for sale.  These are my pictures, so not as good as our realtor's with the wide angle lens, but they do serve the purpose of walking us all down Memory Lane.  The kids miss the house. 

The first house we owned...  Where we lived for 9 years!

What you see when you walk through the front door.

What you see when you walk to the front door.

The eat-in kitchen

The view from the kitchen

Our living room



The back yard.  Very small but about twice the size of our yard now.  What fun our puppy would have had with all the plants!  But alas we did not have him when we lived in Maryland!  And that is why there were plants in the backyard in Maryland...



The master bedroom.  It was large but narrow- we had a seating area even!



The boys' room

The girls' room

The play room. 

Another view of the play room.

The teen's room.

The room where I spent entirely too many hours of my life.

May wasn't just about selling the house though.  We also had a series of track meets,  some swim meets, and Luke brought home Pancakes the hamster to visit us for a weekend.  (This was actually before the house was on the market!)

Luke and Pancakes:  very good friends!

He loved that little rodent...

Izzy thinks he's so cute!



Steven actually prefers the ipod.

In May, we also had some Big Cub Scout events, like the promotion of Luke from a Wolf to a Bear.  I think.  We aren't doing Cub Scouts this year so I lose track...



Luke is in the back row, middle scout, with a yellow cap and a big smile!

Josie also had many Special Events at preschool, including Muffins for Mom, where the 3 year old preschool class made muffins (yum) to share with their moms.  Josie cracks me up at these events because there are always 2 muffins to be served-- a mini muffin (for the preschooler) and a big muffin (for the adult.)  Josie always takes the bigger muffin for herself!  Haha!!  She did the same thing at Donuts for Dads (which happened earlier in the preschool year, but of course Mac was working at 9:00 AM on a Friday, strangely, so I had to go in his place to that one too...  Where I ate the tiny donut...).

Here she is in her classroom showing me two little toys that were very meaningful to her I'm sure.

So that was May.  A busy month with lots of Major Changes.  We survived, but barely. Mac had a good time in Honduras and learned a lot, and the kids all were good sports about vacating our house on a moment's notice to let complete strangers come and take a look.  (Even when that meant staying out of our house one school night from 5 pm until 9:30 pm!  I was the mom with 5 kids walking the aisles at Safeway way past bedtime...  Fun times.)  Needless to say, I'm really glad that it should be years and years until I have to put a house on the market again!!!