So much to write about...so much procrastination.
Guess I'll start with the selling of and then the non-selling of our house.
We decided to sell our house a couple of months ago. There were several reasons for us wanting to do that, one of which included getting JP closer to his job. Another reason was that we bought this house because it brought us closer to family and friends while still being reasonably commutable for JP. We wanted our house to be a hub; a place where everyone could gather. The giant pool in the yard was just the bonus scene in the visions of family and friends get-togethers we had dancing in our silly idealistic heads.
And so we moved into our new home two years ago with high hopes. Tragic, naive high hopes.
All of those "we wish you lived closer" comments that we heard on a regular basis when we did not live closer were mysteriously forgotten as we sat alone together weekend after weekend, holiday after holiday, birthday after birthday...no visits from family and friends in site.
On average we are 80 miles away from all those people who said "we wished you lived closer" which is not really all that far to travel at least once or twice in the two-year time period that we've lived here.
But maybe it is...when you realize
...you're not a priority.
Ahem.
Anyway, so that stuff made us reconsider our location and take action that was best for us.
So the house went up for sale.
Within a month we had a buyer.
And our potential buyers wanted us to pay for everything and they also wanted us to throw in my beloved gazebo and - wait for it - JP's leaf blower. Who asks for a leaf blower? Granted, it's a fine leaf blower but, ya know, they sell them at Home Depot.
They also wanted my refrigerator even though we said in the disclosure that we were not sure if we were taking or leaving it based on what our needs would be in our new house. But Oh No, they wanted that refrigerator and they wanted it bad. Never underestimate the passion that could be ignited when a potential house buyer comes across a used refrigerator that is seven years old and was originally purchased at the Sears Scratch & Dent store.
You can't make any of this up, by the way.
Also within that same month we also found and contracted a house and then afterwards were informed of some stuff and realized some stuff, like:
a. the state we were wanting to move to charges 4x as much as NJ to close + also charges something called an "entrance tax" and a bunch of other fees which amounts to a lot more money output ($10,000+!) than we had figured on and could pull off.
b. we kinda really liked our house even if it was just us enjoying its charm and our own hospitality.
Our home is warm and cozy and inviting. It has a giant fireplace and a big pool and tons of privacy. It's really really quiet here, there is no traffic on our street or neighborhood and the whole area is kind of slow-paced and unstressful. We don't have traffic jams anywhere near here and the grocery stores are never crowded. We're surrounded by tall, majestic, beautiful trees that are filled year-round with birds that sing all the time which makes my heart ridiculously happy. I have a large flock of wild turkeys that come looking for me to feed them each day. People around here still go to church each Sunday and the churches have bazaars and bake sales and free Thanksgiving dinners for those in need. Farmland is everywhere and within 5 minutes from my driveway I can be on a meandering backroad that soothes and calms as I drive past pastures filled with horses and cows and everything in between. Yes, it is New Jersey. No, it is not the New Jersey that is well known. We live in the most poor and rural county in the state and you know what?
It's good here.
Not convenient to much, but very, very nice. We are not the types who need a mall around the corner. I hate the mall. I hate
We took the house off the market last week and decided to stay put, at least for a while.
In the meantime, we've already started doing some renovations to make the house even more awesome than it already is.
An example of one of those renovations was to immediately march myself into the master bedroom and tear down the god-awful wallpaper border that the previous owners had put up.
This picture of the god-awful wallpaper border is really bad because probably I convulse every time I looked at or came near it but you can sort of tell how spectacularly terrible it is. Doesn't it look like there was some kind of fire all along the ceiling line?
This picture shows the atrocity better. I think the actual name of the border is Repetition Of Stone Bridges Akin To A Dystopian Nightmare or maybe Scenes From A Victorian Purgatory.
I'm stuck with the yellow and white stripes for now because we can't even deal with the idea of steaming off all that wallpaper let along doing the actual work. Sadly but not surprisingly considering some of the other "creative" ways the previous owners did things, the striped wallpaper does not go all the way to the ceiling and in some places it is 4" from the ceiling and in other places it is 8" from the ceiling. Uh oh, someone seems to have been drinking on the wallpaper job!
Because of their ineptitude, I may be forced to put up another border unless we can figure something else out. If you have any ideas, please send them my way as I have developed a very strong aversion to all things wallpaper-ish.
Stay tuned for tales of even more
