Samantha loves it!  She has so much space in her room (and oh, what a fun closet) and the backyard is endless enjoyment.  She has already fallen down the stairs once.  Maybe we’ve gotten that out of the way.  She makes “chocolate milk” outside which consists of lots and lots of dirt thrown into water.  She picks up big sticks and bangs around with them.  She finds giant leaves, and they really are big!

I see signs of spring and I’m loving being in the trees!

We closed on our house (selling) this morning, and we’re closing on our house (buying) this afternoon. We’ll be moving all week, so if anyone wants to stop by, feel free! We’d love the extra help!

Brian had the idea to write the date on the filter so you can always see when you changed it last. With the cheaper filters, we changed it about every 3 months. They were gross after 3 months, but not horrible. After a few weeks, the new expensive filter was disgusting. Really. I waited until a month had gone by, and then I went ahead and changed it. I can’t tell you the grossness that it had become. Ew. Just. Ew.

After having changed it, I looked at the new one that afternoon, and within an hour, it too had already turned from white to gray. It wasn’t severely gross yet, but definitely on its way.

So my question is: are we (Brian, me, Samantha, Molly and Maddie) THAT disgusting? Do I not dust frequently enough? Do I open the back porch door too often? Is the new filter just that good? What’s the deal? Should I use the new filters and change weekly until we get the house to a decent level of dustiness?

Samantha, of course, loves anything outside. She just itches to get outside in the afternoons after her nap. She’s pretty happy on the porch, but would rather be outside in the backyard eating dirt, spreading mulch or picking azaleas.

Not so recently, the spline came off the bottom of the door that holds the screen in. Also, some bugs ate through some of the screen. And Brian put a hole in it doing something. Our door was needing some repair. One day last week, I opened the back door so Samantha could go onto the porch. Brian came home from work shortly after that. He asked where she was, and I told him. But, wait, she wasn’t back there. She was in the backyard. She apparently learned to crawl through the bottom part of the door where the screen wasn’t attached! I don’t really care about her being back there by herself, because she comes back into the house every few minutes. But, I didn’t realize we needed to smarty-proof our falling apart door. Silly girl.

This past Saturday, we looked at a house on Shades Crest. It was a Short Sale and a Foreclosure, so it was a really good price. As we looked around, both Brian and I had a feeling of this-is-it. Could we have actually found what we were looking for? It was surreal and scary, but it was the closest we have come to moving. I guess the engineer in me came out a little bit because I kept thinking, What’s wrong with this house? Why is it still on the market? It’s such a great deal! We told our realtor that we were interested in making an offer but needed to do some research first (go to the bank, talk to our neighbors about selling our house, talk to the new house neighbors about the new house, etc).

I had finally come to grips with moving. I started “thinning out” our house in order to get it on the market. Granted, I didn’t get much done, because we got a call from our realtor on Sunday night. She said there are currently 4 offers on the house. We could certainly put in our offer as well, but it was not likely that we’d get it. And just like that, crash. WOW. All that grief about what to do, and now the decision is made for us. It wasn’t meant to be – I know that. But now at least we know (and our realtor knows) what we are looking for: a $410K house that we can afford. Good luck with that. We’ll keep on searching.

Next week, we visit with the decorator!  More decisions!