Lately I have felt like we have been in the midst of an epic marathon-style cross-country ski trek. We've been working our way up the mountain for the past few months (or many months - if you count from when we found out we were expecting baby #2 back in August), but we are nearly at the top and once we start the downward slope it's going to be a blurringly fast-paced trip down and we need to still have the energy to bring our A-game (and do our best to enjoy the intense ride!)
While we have shared our big news about baby #2 (who is still healthy and thriving and quickly reaching the "no more room at the inn" point), there's so much more going on! We put an offer in on a property in the area on the eve of the intense snowstorm that inundated the DC Metro area in January and quickly plunged into the exciting "under contract" phase. We have been working our full time jobs all day, playing with Hannah in the late afternoons and spending our evenings full of gathering documents, scanning things to pdf, endless docusign items, and our weekends have been full of the ever daunting task of sorting through our lives and packing. It's been a very busy seven weeks and we are nearing the finish! It has not been all smooth sailing - there have been plenty of snags and uncertainty - but we have survived the inspection, negotiation for corrective actions, handled appraisals in which the square footage was calculated incorrectly and almost cost us the property, switched lenders, renegotiated with sellers, debated a two month rent back, spent hours on the phone setting up insurance policies, showed our current rental home four times in six days, found renters so that we are not paying Maryland-priced-rent along with a Maryland-priced-mortgage, you name it - and we are finally in what we hope will be the homestretch! (So we threw Hannah a birthday party to celebrate her second year with us, just to keep things tame this weekend, lol). The uncertainty of all of it has been particularly challenging at a time when my natural inclination is to nest and decorate a corner of our home for our sweet soon-to-join-our-family daughter...but I have had to continually cope with a lack of knowledge of which zip code I would be bringing my daughter home to! I don't want to jinx us either - there's still things that could go wrong, but the major hurdles have been cleared and we are finally, finally in the home stretch. And...even if something did fall through - there are people who have signed a lease to move into our current home - so we will be moving regardless - we might just be moving somewhere else at the last minute!
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| Hannah enjoying the Easter egg hunt at her birthday party! |
Why move? We love the location of our single family home rental in Silver Spring and the nearby paved trail that winds through the woods is breathtaking and a slice of heaven to all of us, but there is one epic flaw - we really really, fervently hate pretty much every single thing about this house. Nothing about it fits our lifestyle, furniture, heights or shoulder widths, or general functionality in any way. The cape cod style bedroom barely fits our king bed - it's off centered so that when we each stand up we don't hit our heads. Daniel has to lean sideways to get his clothes from the built in drawers and closet in the eaves. My dresser doesn't fit in the same room as our bedroom, so it's downstairs with some of my clothes and the worst closet ever. The rest of my clothes are in boxes or a rack in the basement. It's old and no matter how much I clean, the stained, scratched up kitchen sink never looks clean. The linoleum is a dingy brown, the baseboards and tub always look grungy, etc. etc, etc. We can't walk through any part of the house in opposing directions at the same time. Daniel has to turn his shoulders sideways to walk through the doorways and getting a plastic laundry basket down the tight turns stairs from the top level down to the basement without ripping some skin off your knuckles? forget it. It's best perks? A nice, fenced yard, some nice built in storage, and Hannah's room has a special charm about it....but with a fireplace in the center of it...furniture placement is limited...and the cape cod ceilings mean we can't hang much of anything on the walls. But, it was a good location for us when we rented, we loved the trail, and...it's time to move on!
So what about this new place? We are super excited about it! While we have not been aggressively house hunting, I have been looking online and staying "up" on the real estate listings since we thought we might be moving to Maryland during the summer of 2013. We've always had a pretty good handle on what type of place works for us (in terms of layout), but now we have a much better understanding of where we wanted to live and where we would feel comfortable/confident enough investing in a property. When I came across this place, the pieces just kinda fell into place. It is more of a starter home than the beautiful home we built in Florida, but it is a significant improvement from where we are currently living in every major way. Additionally, the things that we would want to change - we can! We don't have the time or money to change them just yet, but certainly would like to in a few more years once we aren't paying for infant daycare. And all of them will be great investments to the property. Some of the best perks? It is in a great area and within the limits of the coveted Columbia covenance within Howard County. It is two miles from Daniel's work and Hannah and Lily's daycare, has very easy access to 29 and I-95 (which will make my commute manageable - it will be longer, but doable), and is districted for one of the top ten elementary schools in the state of Maryland! It is just less than twenty years old, so it has a much more contemporary layout - we can't just reach up and touch all the ceilings! It has three bedrooms and the laundry room is ON THE SAME LEVEL!!! The living room is much more open and our style, the kitchen has an island and is a much friendlier layout, and the unfinished basement below is huge and has endless possibilities! The greatest drawback is that the yard isn't fenced and there isn't a paved walking trail as accessible, but there are options and we will still find ways to walk the puppies and get them exercise. Our backyard turns into a mud pit and is only semi usable half of the year in the rental as it is anyway.
So the timeline? Yikes! We are supposed to close in less than a week, will move the next day (a week from today), I'll go into work for a day, and then I have a five day weekend for Easter break to unpack and settle in as much as we can! I will also be 35 weeks tomorrow and my doctor doesn't plan on me going much past 39 weeks! It's go time around here! We're so excited, continually trying to keep things cool and not get overwhelmed, and the to-do lists are everywhere - for work each day, for the class I teach, for before I start maternity leave, for when I return, for packing, for Hannah's birthday (tomorrow), things to do before Lily arrives, to properly transition everything for the move etc, etc, etc. And in the back of our minds is the knowledge that if something doesn't go right between now and the closing, we will be scrambling to find a rental and will then be moving anyway! Fingers and toes crossed!
But we love a good challenge - and this has been an epic one!
And at the end of each long, busy day right now, I can't help but to remind myself with the fullest of grateful hearts that not only do I have a sweet, beautiful, healthy family, but all of this craziness is incredibly positive and will be awesome changes for us all. Allllmost time to start that downward slope and enjoy the ride!
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