closing time...

...you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here...

sorry, 90s one-hit wonder flashback but i couldn't get that song out of my head when i woke up today with the relief and the anxiety that today is closing day.

unfortunately, this means so many things are still in limbo. funding day isn't until tomorrow for whatever reason and the seller's agent is a being a toot and probably won't advise them to give us the keys until the day of funding, even though we were supposed to close two days ago but their title company was two days late with the final numbers, thus delaying the entire thing two days and now, our move-in is delayed one additional day and well, i wouldn't be me if i didn't complain.

but let's back up, first.

i'm thrilled. i'm excited. i went to do a final walk-through at the new house on monday and the seller's had already moved so the place was empty and even more full of promise however, i noticed that it wasn't really clean. not too big an issue, my husband does own a residential housecleaning company, afterall.

but the carpets are kind of gross and since we won't have the keys today and sort of have to be out of here by tomorrow, there's no time to get the carpets cleaned. now, i knew there was one noticeable stain on the carpets the very first time we saw the place....turns out, the furniture was positioned over some other stains and i have no idea if these are dog stains or simply food spills that the previous owners were too lazy or inept to clean properly. i know, that was harsh. i'm feeling bitchy this morning, on top of everything else.

now why do we have to be out of here by tomorrow? because the following day, my husband has scheduled a team to clean our current house and he has also scheduled a carpet cleaning and we can't exactly be moving furniture amidst that chaos. so.

also? we're leaving all the appliances for our renters. it wasn't until monday that i realized we haven't even so much as window-shopped or online-comparison-shopped for a new refrigerator or washer and dryer. my husband wants me to research this the way i research strollers and diaper bags and i told him my mind really doesn't work like that and reading consumer reports on appliances is booooorrrrring. i can do it, but when it comes to this sort of decision, i'm much more useful if i can go and touch and feel and look at the thing, than read somebody else's uninspired opinion. that said, i don't really have time to do either and furthermore, we're most likely going to buy from an appliance liquidator place where they have discontinued or scratch and dent models so any online research i might do would be null and void because it's not like they're guaranteed to have exactly what i might want.

long story short, because trust me, i could keep going on and on about that topic....we're going to be without a refrigerator for several days, likely over the weekend. i can live without the washing machine and dryer, lord knows i do laundry as infrequently as i have to, but no fridge? husband says it's a good thing i'm not uber-crunchy meaning, we can subsist on prepackaged or take-out for a week without causing me or the kids too much distress. fun times.

also, he wanted me to have my preschool setup, like pretty much immediately but we're going to be without internet in the new house until next wednesday. luckily, i have one potential enrollee, but i won't be able to advertise, work on the website, print out necessary forms, or respond to emails until late next week.

now, i've been pretty mum as of late because if there hasn't been one minor crisis or another, i don't know what. it's been nuts, and not just in regards to the house-buying situation, but in general terms.  the past month or so has been full of all sorts of emotions, loss among friends and family, medical scares, crazy-scenarios straight out of law and order: SVU. i haven't had much time to myself, nearly no time to reflect, i complained a lot about every little thing on facebook, but couldn't write about anything at length because it was just too consuming and i needed to process things on a very private level.

i am not going to blame how raw and on-edge i've been for the latest bit of familial drama, because that's just par for the course as long as i'm involved with said family, but the walk-through on monday, was less than ideal because i invited my mother along.

backstory: my fourteen year old may end up in the smallest bedroom which happens to be in the front of the house, not the back of the house where the others are and after my husband and i discussed why this was the best fit, and explained it to my son in all fairness, he was - i won't say, looking forward to the idea, but he was understanding and excited about the possibility of a loft-bed to make the best use of space. he was concerned mostly with whether or not this very elaborate map he's drawn over the course of the last few years would fit on the wall. i assured him that it would and that seemed to be that.

until monday.

i cannot even begin to explain how it went from my son showing my mom the room, to her making a comment about how small it was and about how certainly my son was joking, because that just couldn't possibly his room, i mean, it's right by the front door for chris'sake, to me asking her to why she always has to do that sort of shit (and by that i meant, ruin a good thing with her negative attitude, of which she'd also accuse me of being equally as guilty of, to which i'd roll my eyes and say, "whatever.") to her flipping me off and giving me the death stare. i mean, really, if looks could kill i'd have been dead on the floor with all the hatred spewing from her eyes before i asked her to leave.

mind you, this room isn't ridiculously small, just smaller than the other two. it's actually the same size bedroom i had as a teenager, which i shared with him, my infant son. in a 10' x 10' room i managed to have my bed, desk, bookshelf, dresser as well as a crib and dresser for him. i'm not trying to give him a harry potter closet, you know?

i knew better, but i still called her after i left the house and not nice words were said and no resolution was made because that's the story of our lives. i'm not even concerned with that or the relationship, though, what bothers me is that now i have re-do all of what i had already done to help my son transition back into our home and accept that he might not get everything he wants. i had to defend the reasons my husband and i think that the smaller room should belong to the teenager, while my husband's office should be sandwiched between the bedroom the two littles will share and the master. not only to my son (again), but to my mother - knowing full well that nothing i've ever said to that woman that might seem reasonable to myself and the entire rest of world would be met with any sort of understanding. when she has her mind made up, there is no justifiable position i can take. she demands that i defend my position but it's never good enough. she sees it her way, and god help her, she acts just like her mother when she expects that everyone else not only see it her way, but execute it just the way she'd like. she relentlessly tells me why my choices are wrong, and even if presented with the most logical and valid reasoning, she would disagree. i think i could say this seventeen different ways and still would not be able to convey exactly how contrary she is, almost for the sheer sake of being contrary.

for instance, while we were house hunting, i'd casually mention why one house wasn't up to our standards or how it didn't meet certain criteria that either myself or my husband had and because he's going to be working from home, often, some of his criteria was a bit stronger than that of myself or the average person. if a home was too close to a busy road or if the bedrooms (or room which would be his office) were too close to main living areas or shared a wall with a potentially noisy room, forget it, he wouldn't even consider it despite it's other lovely qualities (like the house that i cried tears over!). no matter our reasons for why one house or another wouldn't work for us, my mother had many fun-filled hours of criticizing and judging, both my husband and i. why couldn't we just hurry and pick a house? why couldn't we just buy that one that we just saw, despite it's 20 year old blue carpeting, lack of shower in the master, and proximity to a busy road where people often sped and could very likely end up in our front yard if they cut the corner wrong? okay, so yeah, i sometimes tend to think "worst-case-scenario" but it was when we were looking at this one, very all wrong for us home, that my mom just couldn't believe we weren't putting in an offer on it immediately. all i can say, in hindsight, is that i'm glad she only saw a few of the many, many homes we looked at before picking the one we did.

after she left, on monday, i started to question whether or not this house was really all that perfect, as i had once thought. i mean, compared to 99% of what we had looked at, in our budget, it met more of our criteria and had a few extra bonuses, like an oversized covered patio with an extended porch and concrete work in the backyard, a three-car garage, enough space to dedicate one living area to the living room and my craft studio, while using the other living area as a quiet family room or in-home preschool. all in all, it's a quaint, perfect-for-me house even if the driveway is a little steep. and even if there was a dried up dead mouse on the back patio that day. and even if the owners didn't clean the carpets (and why did we forget to write that up as a condition of sale in the contract?). so i'm back to feeling resolved in our decision to buy this particular house.

i'm still torn on which bedroom will belong to my fourteen year old, but my husband is pretty sure that if i am going to run an in-home preschool, or if the kids will ever want to watch TV while he's working in his office, that he needs the room in the back of the house to keep noise and distraction to a minimum. he's sort of stubborn, too, and not willing to budge much.

i think i married a nicer version of my mother.

now. to get ready for our big day or more packing, signing closing paperwork and waiting for pest control...