Sold!

Our house is officially no longer our house. Our buyer signed papers this morning. We had an odd signing schedule due to some deed recording legality which I don't really understand, nor do I care about it. The upshot was that our closing was moved to today from this past Friday, but we pre-signed on Friday. Our buyer began moving in at 9am on Friday (with our permission, of course!), but she did not sign papers until today. But living in the house for three days apparently did not scare her off, b/c she went through with it. It helps that she, too, was homeless as she sold her house (and papers were signed on Friday).

Our brains, or at least mine, are fried. Last week was truly the most stressful moving week we've ever had. If it could go wrong, it did. Even little stuff. And it was one of those weeks where you just keep thinking that something has got to just go right, even something little, but nope. Even our closing wasn't issue free as the settlement company forgot to have us sign two documents, and they remembered after we were an hour down the road towards the beach - at rush hour. Our awesome realtor worked it out for us to continue on to the beach, though, and made arrangements with a local realty office for us to sign out here. It's so nice to be out at the beach handling such tragic issues as one twin taking the toy truck away from the other one, or the three year old standing on the beach screaming b/c she doesn't want to walk, while staring at the three adults holding: two babies, three beach chairs, beach umbrella, inflatable pool, three beach bags, four towels, and one bag of sand toys. Truly tragic issues going on.

I'm confounded at how difficult this move has been. Since I'm on a list kick, I've been thinking about how many times we've moved. This move will be, in our 14 years of marriage, our 7th military move (this includes two military moves in Key West as we moved in, moved out due to hurricane damage to govt house, moved back in to govt house, moved out of govt house to Blacksburg, VA), and we've lived in 9 houses (including three apartments in San Diego / Coronado, and the hotel suite we lived in for six months in Key West - if it's more than three months, it counts as a house!). Nine houses in 14 years - that is just plain crazy! When we get our stuff in Italy, it will probably be ruined. Our moving company did not send enough crates for our load day, and told the crew they'd send out another truck later in the day. That didn't happen. So with the rest of our stuff sitting in the front yard, one of the movers had to make a three hour roundtrip (beginning at 5pm) to trade in the full crates for some empty ones. Thirty minutes before the truck returned at 8pm, the pretty, blue skies opened up and rained all over the stuff in our yard. It was so torrential, and accompanied with horrific, close-striking lightning, that we could not even move it inside. Nathan watched with complete glee, I'm positive, as the sofa he detests sat in the rain. It was covered with a tarp and sitting at the end of our neighbor's front pathway, which she had just had redone, complete with a concrete pour that afternoon. We watched as all the concrete washed out of her pathway right to our sofa. I think I heard Nathan actually chortling. He really, really hates that sofa. And when the new crates arrived, and the crew informed us that there wasn't enough room for the rest of the stuff and the sofa, meaning the sofa would have to go on the back of the flatbed (it's still raining at this point), I think Nathan might have actually laughed out loud. Meanwhile, the mover who went to get the fresh, new crates didn't think to cover their sides, so our wet stuff was loaded onto wet crates at 9pm, too late for me to call the military office who handles these types of issues. An inspector went out to the warehouse the next day for me and confirmed that yes, indeed, our stuff was "slightly" wet. The moving company assured him they would repack it, call me to let me know they'd done it, and then I could send out a new inspector. They didn't call me, so I talked to the head inspector today, and he said, "If they said they were going to do it, then they'll do it." I was astonished as in our week long dealings with this company, they did absolutely nothing they said they were going to do. I shared this information with him, but he assured me they would have done it and who I needed to call today at the company to talk to. I called, left a voicemail at 9am this morning, and surprise, surprise, did not get a call back today. I'm shocked, really. The written word may not be conveying the heavy sarcasm I feel.

I'm off now to see if the local bookstore is still open. I don't really know why as I brought about 20 books with me, but I did notice they're having a book signing this Thursday. I'd like to see the book and get the details. Then I'll spend the next five days going to the beach, riding by bike around this adorable, beach town, and playing with my niece and nephews.