By now you would think we've been in our house for a couple weeks. That is not the case.
When I wrote my last post at the end of January, we thought that moving everything into storage was a slight bump in the road on the way to having keys to our house in a day or two. We packed enough to hold us over while we lived out a hotel for a few days and we were both embracing the relaxation of being homeless in a hotel.
Things did not go exactly as planned.
It turns out that all that relief I felt over having everything that could go wrong actually happen to us and knowing that we were fine still was taken to a whole new level of eating my words, because the best was yet to come. Apparently the bank negotiator, the guy who represents the bank that currently owns the house in the sale, didn't exactly do his job flawlessly. In fact, as it turns out, there were a whole slew of problems that were made by him in the documents for the sale of our house. And of course because of all these problems, that lovely bank approval paper that we've waited since November for and FINALLY got at the end of January ended up being INVALID--kinda like we never really got it at all. But of course, none of this came to light until after we'd already signed 200 pages of closing documents and become homeless. :(
So for the last 2 weeks, a new bank negotiator (our realtor says they usually fire negotiators after 1 mistake and our original guy made MANY mistakes so she thinks he probably got fired--which makes me feel awful and wish even more that none of this had happened!!!) has been working out all the problems and taking care of the major issue, which was that the bank appraisal had expired and needed to be redone before they would grant us approval again. That lovely bank approval takes 2 weeks to have done and processed, so needless to say we've been hotel hopping for more than a couple days.
Regardless of the drama, we feel very blessed in many, many ways.
First, that I have absolutely amazing parents that let us crash with them on weekends to avoid as many days in the hotel as possible. Along with my dear mother making us homemade dinner every night, regardless of whether we want her to or not.
Second, that staying in Woodruff on weekends means lots of family time and getting to go to church at Woodruff Ward on Sundays which I LOVE and have missed SO much!! Our last ward wasn't exactly our favorite place to be.
Third, that my mom gets a stellar discount through work at a whole slew of hotels, so apart from spending a day crying after finding out we were going to be homeless a little longer than planned, we're not paying too much more than rent at our previous place and I LOVE continental breakfast every morning and not having to worry about cleaning or cooking after work each day.
Fourth, that the BPO (bank appraisal) came back at the same price as before. There were a lot of terrible possibilities for what could have happened here (anything from paying more money, to waiting a few more months for our house to close and paying even more extension fees, to calling it quits on our house all together) and we are extremely blessed that this went our way. We are especially blessed because these houses are selling for quite a bit more now, and in another couple of months this would undoubtedly have come back higher.
Fifth, that we got our new and completely valid bank approval letters yesterday, signed our closing documents AGAIN last night, and and should be getting keys at least by next week. HOPEFULLY TOMORROW!!
Lastly, that in spite of all the drama we've been dealt in the last couple of weeks and even months, we're completely fine and actually feel pretty good about how things are right now. I've been really worried about moving into a new ward again after having a less than stellar experience at our last ward, and this extra couple weeks have been incredibly essential in making us feel ready, prepared, and even a little excited for our new ward. Also, it's been so nice to take things like grocery shopping and cleaning off of the list of to dos for the last couple weeks, and just get to spent time together after work each day going out to eat or watching movies/tv.
The eating out part has surprisingly been one of our least favorite parts. We're looking forward to having a kitchen and eating healthy again, and so are our bodies. The other least favorite has been that we didn't exactly know we would be displaced for weeks rather than days, so we're sorely missing the rest of our wardrobe that is extremely inaccessible at the moment, along with some other things that you would never realize how much you miss until they're gone--or in the back of a storage unit for weeks.
So needless to say, we're still homeless but doing just fine!
The last couple of weeks have been filled with MANY awkward conversations about the status of our new house. These moments tend to sneak up on us during meeting rooms full of doctors, or church where my mother voluntarily tells everyone how we'll be around for a couple weeks because we're living in a hotel. These obviously lead to the painfully embarrassing moment where people realize that technically living in a hotel means you are a transient, much like Bob the mentally unstable man who lives in Liberty Park. Yup, that's us. Not exactly a fact that you love having all of your superiors know. I should point out that NEVER have WE been the ones to bring this conversation up and voluntarily admit that we're "between houses" at the moment. But there is always some wonderful co-worker around who says something awesome like "guess what, Andrew's homeless" or "Hey Megan are you coming to my going away party Saturday?" to which some other awesome co-worker replies "Oh, don't you know Megan's homeless and staying with her parents on weekends so she won't be here Saturday". It's awesome.
We just keeping reminding each other that eventually it will all just be a really good story, that we can tell our kids one night around the dining table in our house.
Hopefully we'll have keys tomorrow and officially be homeowners!!! But if not, then we'll enjoy another great weekend in Woodruff, where I will snuggle new baby Rowen all weekend long. That would be okay too.
