Thursday, February 19, 2009

Insight

A little insight into the world of buying a home, it involves LOTS of tears, LOTS of pools with no fences, and LOTS of waiting. Apparently we are in a 48 hour window during which we will find out if the bank accepted our offer on Short Sale #1. This would be EXCELLENT turn around time IF we actually hear something in 48 hours, a little under two weeks!

Yesterday, I spent my ENTIRE child-free time going from one slum property to the next. Don't get me wrong, there are NICE properties out there, but the owners are still under the impression that they can get "pre-recession" prices out of buyers, and if the market shows anything, these houses are not selling. If they would bring the price down, the house would be snapped up, but they don't HAVE TO SELL, so the pretty houses continue to sit on the market while I investigate ghetto fabulous homes. I wish I had a picture of the house with the wood scene wallpaper mural that was on the wall when you walked in-if you know me, you know that I don't want the "great outdoors" in my entry way! Needless to say, the rest of the house was RIDICULOUS as well-I think this is the home that is missing the thermostat (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?)! At another house they had painted the doors, cabinets and base boards SILVER! Another home must have had a leak, so the bottom 2 feet of every wall was missing with exposed pipe and the flooring was all pulled up. Almost every home has some sort of "water damage" to the roof, which I can't blame on the economy, just the crazy storms over the past few years and some of the houses are older, so that immediately sends Pat running for the hills. I ended the kid-free time with lots of tears in the car because I am so concerned with where we are going to end up AND a Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Burger King-OFFICIALLY the best spicy chicken sandwich out there, and it is only a $1!!!!!!

In case anyone is looking for a way to cheer me up, I will accept a gift of housekeeper for a year because I HAVE NO TIME TO CLEAN! Not that I have been putting forth much effort because this house will be a GEM to the buyers out there because it is cleaner than most, but I am sick of living with the clutter. Maybe we have too much stuff.

In other news, Jackson has the most amazing sense of humor, which I think we all knew, but I can be seething mad, and moments later, he will make a comment, and I will be laughing for days! Tuesday evening, Obama arrived in Phoenix, so of course it was all over the news. We watched the plane land, the door opened, the stairs rolled over, and suddenly a photographer arrived in the door and was taking a picture of the crowd. Jackson was like, "Mommy, what is she doing?" I tried to explain the concept of the stalkerazzi, and how if people are famous, they have someone go around with them and take lots of pictures of them. He looks at me and says, "Like when we go miniature golfing. You follow Tyler and me around taking lots of pictures of us!" Yep buddy, I am your own personal stalkerazzi!

Trying to reduce the amount I yell based on a book I read called, 1-2-3 Magic. There was just way too much debating, arguing, screaming, threatening, etc. going on in this house, this book suggests that if you don't talk back, they don't have anyone to argue/yell with, so the amount of yelling decreases. I have been pretty overwhelmed with Jackson and Tyler's behavior lately, so I headed to the bookstore, liked this one and went with it. It is not fully implemented yet, but just working on bringing the noise level in the house down. Hoping I can stick with it!

4 comments:

Laurie said...

I can't in good conscience tag someone when I hate tagging now could I?!

Anyways, sorry about the house drama...oh I wish I were sharing it with you! We have looked at a few houses here and there since we moved and boy I totally know what you mean. The forclosures sure are ghetto - if a deal comes up that's too good to be true then you know it's trashed inside.

And finally check out my book blog and check out the review I did on From Difficult to Delightful in 30 days. I also read 123 magic but this book was amazing. It has totally changed the way I parent! I tagged it 'parenting' so you can just click on that on the side bar and it will pop up. I got it at the library and although it is aimed at kids that are much worse than yours or mine, I felt the concepts still totally applied. It really reminds you to look at the positive in your child. I was yelling way too much too and I just really don't yell hardly at all anymore. I have my moments, don't get me wrong, but the book is well worth the read!!!!

Karen said...

That sucks about your house search right now ... we're considering putting our house back on the market, but it's such a pain in the butt to get it ready to show and for open houses ... ugh.

I will have to check out that book ... Brandt is starting to test me more and more and I need to come up with better ways to handle the situations.

Colleen said...

Karen, don't worry, if you put your house back on the market, no one looking for a house right now is expecting it to be show ready. You would have died if you would have seen the status of the house I went in yesterday-wrappers and trash on the floor, laundry piled to the ceiling. She did take the time to vaccuum though! I don't know what goes through people's heads! SMELLED OF SMOKE, it was insane! You wouldn't even need to put toys away or throw away diapers, you could just leave everything out, and people would STILL be impressed! You and Joe should just go house hunting one morning, it is insane!

Relizra said...

Just thought I'd tell you that I was going through the disgusting, smelly forclosed/short sale homes last summer in the scorching hot heat 8 months pregnant. How'd you like to be doing that....

:-)