Contract Pending

Yesterday the Realtor called with TWO offers on the house. Both offers were for about the same ... less than the asking price, $$$ for closing costs, closing dates in May and one wanted home insurance. I have to say this was discouraging, that we got two offers wasn't discouraging, but that they were asking for SO much. We worked so hard on that house, putting a lot of time and money in it, and then we were very careful in how we priced it. We did not over price the home because of the work we put into it. We priced it dead on, to sell quickly, and yet no one has offered full price, and everyone is asking US to pay for lots of additional costs.

Our Realtor told us not to feel like we had to settle. Counter with what was best for us. And so we countered, and countered hard to both parties telling them whoever responded first would get the contract. We countered with full price, 1/2 their request for closing costs, no home insurance, and upped the closing date to April 1st. Very quickly we got an acceptance to our terms and last night we signed the papers to make it official!!

What a blessing. The house is going to a really nice couple from NE with three boys. They are all older (college aged) which I'm sad about (really changes the dynamics of that little end of our street), but hopefully that will mean grandchildren in the coming years.

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Some of you asked if I had before pictures of the house ... I don't really, other than pictures we've taken of the kids in the house. You should be able to just browse through the blog to find pictures of the 2 red accent walls in the dining room, the pale sun yellow on the rest of the walls on the main floor, the horrid gray carpeting, the bluish gray tile in the entry way and around the fireplace, the old whitish cream counter tops in the kitchen and the white, stained cream vinyl flooring in the kitchen. It was a cute house, that was well loved and worn by out little family that nearly doubled in our 7 years there.

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Yesterday afternoon Alexander christened the new house with our first accident. The kids were playing a rousing game of hide and seek in my bedroom. All of a sudden Alex comes running to me in the kitchen holding his palm and screaming. He had tripped and his hand ran down the edge of an unfinished square of colored glass used in stained glass work. It had been left behind by Grandma and Grandpa, and not knowing if they needed it or intended it for something specific, I moved it out of the general path of daily activity until I could ask and "deal with it." The glass did not break, it was not jagged, but the cut was deep and ugly (be grateful I didn't photograph it - :).

Poor kid, he wasn't doing anything wrong, he wasn't being silly or making poor decisions, he just tripped, and his hand touched the wrong then when trying to brace his fall. Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of blood! Monday night we couldn't tell if it needed stitches or not, so clean it, and bandage it ourselves ... this morning when GR was helping Alex get ready and the cut broke open and started bleeding again. GR took him to work for a couple of stitches to keep the skin flaps together, and insure the cut would heal correctly. Anna and I were right behind him, meeting up with them at the ER just before the stitches. He was so brave!

So his left hand (his dominate hand) is pretty thoroughly bandaged in an effort to keep the stitches covered and clean, nearly impossible when you're a 3.5 year old who now lives in the land of mud and shovels. We also discovered a good sized wart on his right pinky during all of this yesterday. So like his left hand, his pinky is also bandaged ... it all looks so much worse than it really is! He's getting lots of sympathy from people at the store!

ETA 4/6: Alex's hand took a while, but it's finally healed. We had the stitches taken out a week later during Sam's quarterly ENT check-up. It still wasn't completely healed, but the skin was getting irritated by the stitches, so they definitely had to come out. We kept it bandaged for an additional week using the sticky ace bandage type stuff -- that is fantastic stuff! So wish we'd had something like that with the stitches. Instead we were using masking tape - such a nuance for Alex and after a week, it started to really irritate his skin. The other stuff is now permanently in our first aid kit! The wart ... well we're going to start a second round of treatment. We didn't get all of it the first time, so it's come back.

And the closure on the green house went off without a hitch on Friday!! GR's had a couple of conversations with the couple who bought the house and really likes them ... so much so he invited them to Easter dinner. They ended up declining, but it feels good knowing we're passing on that home to good people.