It's finally happening!

Tomorrow, at 10:00 am on 12/31/12, we will be signing paperwork to be homeowners. I can't believe it's finally happening after waiting so long! God has really come through for us on this house, so it must be the one for us.

After all the junk with the qualifying incomes and homeownership counseling program, the inspection and appraisal, the counter-offers and haggling, the packing and more packing, we've finally come to the time where the house will be ours. Tomorrow, after we get the keys, I will take lots of pictures with my new camera so everyone who's not here can see what a great house it is for us. We won't have internet until the 4th, but I will hopefully be using that time to unpack and get settled so I can upload the pictures the minute we get online again. :-)

About that new camera...

Yesterday, while I was closing up the branch at work, I got a text message from our credit card company. They asked if I had authorized a $296.79 charge for BestBuy. I almost texted and told them no, but I decided to call Nat and see if he had done it, and if so why he had bought something that expensive. So I called and asked. This was roughly the conversation that followed:

Did you buy something for around $300 at BestBuy?

Yes.

What did you get?

A TV.

What?? Why did you get a $300 TV when we have a perfectly good one??

I can return it.

But why did you get one? We'll talk about it when I get home.

There were a few more exchanges of "I can take it back" and "Whatever, we'll talk about it later" after this, but since I was fuming, I didn't really think it would be good to continue the conversation. So I texted our CC company back and told them that it wasn't fraud and went home.

Nat was sheepish. And rightfully so, if I do say so myself. We have been scrimping and saving every penny over the last 6 months because we have student loans to pay and we were trying to buy a house. When we got the actual amount that we would need to pay at closing, it was a few thousand less than we were planning. Apparently, Nat had told me that he didn't mind spending money now because we had some extra. I missed that statement, but apparently he was okay with purchasing a new TV because it was on sale. After more exchanging of "I can take it back" and "why because we don't want TV's in the bedrooms" (personal choice which he misunderstood because he thought I did want one in our bedroom), he said that the TV was actually small in comparison to the other thing he bought.

What other thing?

Are you sure you want to know? It was supposed to be a surprise for our new house, along with the TV.

What other thing did you buy?

Okay. I bought you a camera.

You got me a camera?

Yes. It's almost exactly like the one you had on your amazon wish list, but better. Do you want me to tell you how much it cost?

No... How much?

Anyway, we have been discussing the fact that I want a new camera, a nice camera that I can use to pick up as a photography hobby. He was right, the TV was small in comparison. They were supposed to both be presents that would have bows on them in the new house, a bigger TV and my camera. Our CC company spoiled the surprise by the fraud alert (Nat's fault because he tried to do them in 2 separate transactions back to back), but it was probably better that way. I'm not a huge fan of financially large surprises, but this time it was okay. We've been talking about getting me a camera for a long time, but it was always one of those 'wait until after we...' kind of deals.

It was done from a good place, but he was in the dog-house for a while after that. It took me a while to wrap my head around how much he spent on my camera and the TV, as well as a wireless router for the house (ours is awful and slowly cratering).

................................

Now we're almost completely packed (and by we, I mean I packed everything), and ready to go to settlement. It's been a long and harrowing process, but will be worth it! I'm ready to have  more room and not have to share a bathroom with company! Very ready for that last bit. Pictures will be coming soon (hopefully).

It's been a while...

... so much for my aspiration of writing at least weekly.

Things have been crazy lately. In the biggest news, we lost the house we had been waiting on for 4 months. They wouldn't budge on their price by more than $2000, which was way out of our price range. The house is now listed for the price that the bank has approved and it's way more than the house is worth in my opinion.

So we continued looking at other houses to see if we could find something else. We saw a few houses online that were worth looking at, one of them being a brand new house in a developing area. When our realtor showed us the house, I had to try really hard not to fall in love with it. I didn't want to get my hopes up again and then be let down. Although there were 2 houses that we really liked on that look, we decided to get more information about the new construction house.

The only reason the house was still on the market (since it was brand new and really well priced) was because it is owned by Arundel Community Development Services, or ACDS. They are a government group that's run by the county which helps mid to low income first-time home buyers purchase quality housing. For us, that pretty much just means lots of paperwork and hoops to jump through. To put an offer in on this house, we had to apply for a program that has an income cap and requires HUD-certified housing counseling for each participant. After they wiggled our income down to fit the requirements, we haggled about the offer a bit. But now, we have a contract!!

We're supposed to go to settlement before the end of the year, but it's looking like it's going to be the 31st of December. We had to put in a 30 day intent to vacate at our apartment complex, so it's going to be tight. We didn't want to pay any additional rent, so our move out date is the 31st. If we close that day, it's going to be a rough day! Oh, and did I mention that my inlaws are going to be here that whole week? Crazy (or as a friend would put it: cray-cray!).

I'm looking forward to Christmas because we will get to see family, but I'm also pretty sad. My family can't travel up here (since my dad's surgery... more on that later), and I can't take off work to go down there so we won't get to visit my family during the holidays. After some periods of introspection, I have discovered that this really upsets me. This will be the first time ever that I won't get to see my family during the holidays. I'm very glad that Nat's family is coming up, stressed, but glad. It will be really nice to see them and have them over for a little while, and we'll get to go down to Virginia to see additional family as well. Unfortunately, I still have to work. :(

Back to my family not being able to travel: my dad had some pretty invasive neck surgery in mid-November. He had narrowing of the spinal column, 3 bulging disks, and was beginning to have some nerve damage from the difficulties he was experiencing. So, the doctors decided that he needed to have the surgery sooner rather than later, so they had it set in less than 3 weeks from when the decision was made. Fast turn around, and a several weeks later, he is doing well. From what they tell me, it has been a long recovery for Dad as well as for Mom because she is the caretaker. For a few weeks, he wasn't allowed to do anything other than get up and go to the bathroom on his own. Anyway, he's doing MUCH better now.

Hate to be a downer during Christmas time, but I really want to go home! *insert sappy country song here*

I'll end on a happy note: I beat my sister at Words with Friends, and here's a picture of our house!