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Lenore_Happenstance reminded me that I haven't updated enough about the housing situation we're in.  And Twitter just doesn't allow enough characters for a proper explanation 

I'll skip a lot of the boring details and simply say that we're crossing our fingers again for a closing on the condo that's supposed to happen in 16 days.  The buyer only left us a little over 30 days to find a new place to live and we didn't want to push it because we didn't want to scare him away.  SO... we looked at quite a few houses in just a few days.

NONE of them were as good as the previous house with the orange shag carpet.    Seriously.  Mostly because it's almost impossible to find a house in the area with a TWO car garage and big closets (at least in our price point).

BUT, we found something that's very charming and cute.  It does feel like we're settling a bit but it's not like we're unhappy with it at all.  It's a colonial revival that was built in the 1930's and has been updated along the way.  The bathrooms are tiny and only 1 is original to the house.  The "half" bathroom on the main floor was once a coat closet so it's tiny.  So tiny, in fact, that Mike wouldn't be able to sit on the toilet without knocking his knees on the wall.  But it's okay because HIS throne will be the one in the basement... hahahaha.  I might make him shower down there too 

I have pictures of the interior from the listing... but I'll hold off on posting those since it has someone else's decor.  Plus, I still have a bunch of pessimism going on in my heart.  Once someone breaks your heart completely... it's tough to give yourself completely to a new one.  We have the inspection scheduled for Friday and I think I'll feel better if that goes well.  You just never know what you'll find in an 80 y.o. house, ya know?

The neighborhood is amazing, though.  Well... amazing for families, that is.  To the right of the garage, there's a walking path that leads out to a park and then it all connects to playgrounds and a pool.  We have to pay association fees to belong to this area of the town and I hope it's worth it.  Supposedly there are summer camps for the kids that are all included in those fees, too.  So whenever I do decide to have kids... and when they're old enough... I wouldn't have to worry about them ever crossing a street to go out and play.  That's kinda cool.

Big downer is that there's only a narrow patio in the back.  And it's just big enough to fit a table and grill.  From the picture above, you can sort of see the neighbor's roof.... that's how close we are to neighbors.  There's also another one to the right of the garage.  It's a corner lot though, so we get the other side completely open to a yard.

Like I said, it's charming.  AND it's more money than the previous house that we loved.

We're hoping to close on this house 1 week after the condo.  Luckily for us, my sister is going on vacation for that week and we volunteered to watch her dog and house    So we'll be squatters for a bit!

3rd Cake Results

Now that I have another second of down-time... here are pictures of my 3rd kid's cake:

I tried a new buttercream recipe and I'll never use it again.  It was ridiculously sweet (12 cups of sugar) and way too thin so the cake started melting a bit.  But I do love how the elephant turned out!

I got lazy and didn't make a tall cake.  So to compensate for that and still make sure there was enough for everyone... I made some cupcakes.  I'm in love with my new decorator tip that makes the icing look like grass.

I might attempt a real, grown-up cake one of these days.  Especially since my sister has now requested one for HER birthday.  LOL.  At least I can stick with a small one and not have to worry about layering a sheet cake (hell).

Another Cake Idea

So I am now known as the cake-maker in my family.  I've produced 2 kids' cakes so now I'm an expert or something.  LOL.  I love it though.

This year, my oldest nephew is turning 5 (O-M-G) and he's having his party at a zoo.  So my thought was to have a zoo theme with maybe monkeys and/or giraffes.  Since my nephew is now old enough to understand most things (he's a genius), I approached him with the idea.  Well, he turned it down and told me that he wanted an elephant instead. Hmph. FINE!

So I looked up cartoonish looking elephants that I could design on a cake.  I toyed with the idea of having Dumbo (since nephew likes him)... but then thought that was more circus-themed instead of a zoo.  I found a nice, simple outline graphic that I might go with.  And it'll be fairly easy to cut it out of fondant and then pipe a black outline.  Then I slapped on a banner with the number 5 to make it a little more dressed up.

Add some grass border (have to buy a new decorating tip!) and you've got a pretty plain cake.

What are your thoughts????

I might pipe more grass on the bottom edge of the cake, too.  And I'm toying with the idea of making the sides look like a cage or something with brown lines.  Too much?

Nutshell

While a lot may have happened in the weeks since my last update... not much has changed.  Right now we're in attorney review with someone who's purchasing our condo.  I'm crossing my fingers and praying that this one works out.  If it does, the guy wants the closing to happen on July 24th.

The house we were going to purchase previously is now under contract with someone else.  SO, we've been pretty busy with looking at some other houses lately.  There's one out there that we really like, but Mike wants to look at other options before sending in an offer.  So, hopefully today our realtor can line up some others to look at and then we'll have it all settled.

I really need for this all to be sorted out before we head off to Corea (Aug 9th)!

So yeah, that's my life lately in a nutshell.    Just trucking along and hoping for the best (while expecting the worst).  Heh.

Now I shall spend the week catching up on my subscriptions!!

PS - Can someone make this rain stop?  Please??

Currently The Namesake: A Novel see related

Seriously?!

Well the poop just hit the fan, people! 

I got a call this morning from my realtor telling me that the buyers couldn't secure PMI insurance and so they couldn't secure a mortgage.  AND, this entitles them to a refund of their down payment.

We're SEVEN days away from the closing date!!

AND... if that weren't enough... they knew since Friday but decided not to notify us until this morning.

Seriously, I want to drop kick that bitch right now.  I don't even know how to drop kick someone, but I bet I could figure it out based on the pure fury that is running through my veins right now.

...........

Mike's trying to get a hold of our attorney to see if we can back out of the house we're purchasing.... even though I don't WANT to back out!!!  WE put a nice down payment on that one so I am NOT losing that right now.

Our other course of action if that doesn't work out is to rent out the unit and also put it back on the market.  That just sucks donkey balls because we didn't want to become landlords in the first place!  I can't handle 2 mortgages if we can't find renters!!

UPDATE:  We're backing out of the house that we wanted to purchase.  Mike doesn't feel comfortable carrying two mortgages so that's what we have decided to do.  So basically now another family is getting screwed.  I'm on the verge of crying... AT WORK.  WTF.