Transition #3

It's past 10 p.m. and I just got home from driving the whole 5 miles across town to get a drink.  I needed to get out of the house. I needed to just roll down the windows, turn up the music and drive. What I really wanted was to get in the car and just run away. And never come back.

Of course I really wouldn't do that.

Because I didn't have much money on me and half a tank will only get you so far...

But seriously. I did consider it for like a nanosecond.

I am overwhelmed.

Partly because I had a hell of a day at work but mostly because we have a contract on our house.

That really wasn't how I intended to share that news. I had thought it would be more like Awesome news! We SOLD OUR HOUSE!

Except that I waited just long enough to share it that the reality and complications have begun to kick in.

Don't get me wrong - I am really happy. Beyond happy.  This is such a good thing for us and I'm super glad it happened so quick. 43 days on the market - not too bad for our little town.

So it's good, not just financially but also getting our life back. Not to gripe about it too much but oh. my. God. that whole keeping the house spotless and having to drop everything for a showing was getting old.

The buyers wanted to move quickly so we're scheduled to close on the 25th. We had the home inspection Monday and everything looks good on that end but anything can happen. You just never know what can pop up.  Which makes it difficult to move forward with plans.

I've been looking for rental property in our new house school district since we put our house on the market. The bad thing about moving to a little bitty town is that there is nothing there. Literally, there's not even a post office. So there aren't a whole lot of rental options.   I found one house - a small little 3 bedroom brick home that looked like most our rentals....except that guy was charging $1150 per month for his.

So either we're just way off with our pricing or it's a racket. And we're not way off with our pricing.

We drove around our new area one night - hoping to find something. We were about to head back home when we found it...a trailer. I never in my life imagined living in a trailer. I know it sounds snobby but I just...didn't.  It's funny because if anyone else told me that's where they live, I wouldn't think anything. No judgement, no negativity, nothing. Yet I find it embarrassing for myself.

But desperate times call for desperate measures and I wrote down the number.  When you have no options, you forget about being embarrassed and you write that dang number down.

So looks like life is having the last laugh because I'm officially moving into a trailer. And not just a trailer - a trailer in a trailer park. Just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

And in case you're wondering - no, we couldn't just get a trailer and put it on our property. City ordinances don't allow it - which is great if you're worried about people putting up trailers next to your house but sucks if you need a place to live while you build that house.

We're nervous about signing a lease until we know for certain that everything is going to go through because we certainly don't want to be stuck paying rent and a mortgage. The park manager won't let us do a month to month so our only option was to pay a deposit and first months rent to hold the place.  We don't get keys, however, until we sign a lease.

Don't ask me how that's right, since we've already paid for September.  How do we not have access to a place that we've paid for? But we don't which means we can't move anything in yet.  And since the trailer is about 1/4 of the size of our current home, we'll actually be moving three times.  One time to take all our current storage crap to the new storage building, another time to take some of our home crap to the new storage building and finally to take the rest of our home crap to the new home. It's going to be a lot of work.

Hubby doesn't want to sign the lease until the day before or day of our closing. But there is no way that will work. We've been bickering about when to sign it. I wanted to get it scheduled for this weekend so I could start cleaning and moving things over, especially since it's a holiday and I would have an extra day.  He thought that was too soon. I'm trying to figure out his timeline, but I just don't see it. I have a conference in two weeks - I'm doing some pre-conference stuff so it's an extra long trip. I'll fly out early Monday morning and won't get back until late Saturday.  We're scheduled to close the next Friday.  So when exactly are we supposed to move again?

I just think we're going to have to take a leap of faith. We need to make a calculated decision and just do it. If the house sell falls through (which it won't), we'll deal with it.  He wants the sure thing and isn't willing to take the risk. That pretty much sums up our personalities. I'm more inclined to take risk and deal with the blows if they come while mostly believing they never will.  He wants to play it safe and is always strategizing to avoid the blows that he is certain are coming.

I have a request in to the buyer that they allow us an extra weekend - that would solve everything. So keep your fingers crossed and wish us luck - we're gonna need it!