The Mystery

Tags

divorce, life

My blog title might be too mysterious.  Dramatic.  Pretentious?

*insert your cool sounding word here*

The house is sold, sort of.  We accepted an offer a week ago last Saturday, am in what must be one of the most frustrating holding patterns,.. and it’s a literal hold.  What is crazy is that I know that the people who made the offer need a house, need to be moved out of their house by the end of March.  Yet they spent over three hours scouring my house for defects with a home inspector this past Saturday.  For anyone who has experienced the tension of anticipation, the agony of waiting, you know what I am experiencing.  My house is 32 years old.  It’s not perfect.  I have been the person responsible for maintaining the place for the last 23 years.  I know what they should be asking me to fix or credit them for.

Or do I?  Three hours is a long time for an inspection.

It’s almost terrifying, this wait, this wondering what they are going to request.  Are they going to make a request that I can’t or won’t agree to?  Are they going to ask for too much of a credit?

I know the windows, except for the windows already replaced recently, are at the end of their useful life.  They work, but they are old.  I am already prepared to say yes if the buyers ask for a $5000 credit.  The roof was new last year, the driveway asphalt replaced in 2015, the furnace new in 2014, the air conditioner new in 2013.  Honestly, there is not much left except for a possibility of the mold that always occurs on the north facing side of a house in northern Illinois.

The numbskulls focused on the drywall I replaced myself last year in the garage.  It was an extremely amateur job, but it was adequate.  It was replaced for two reasons — the hose bib inside the garage was replaced, and there had been a leak in the roof between the front porch roof and the garage roof a few years ago, necessitating that the drywall in the front corner of the garage be replaced.  I heard the male part of the couple that is buying the house obsessing about it as I snooped while they were looking at the house.  My guess is that he thinks it will be a gold mine.

I hate this.  I hate the waiting.  Their requests have to be submitted to my lawyer, who will review and report.  I did not hear anything today.

In the meantime, I have taken action to move along and prepare for where I will live if the house closes March 31 (like it should).  There is a condo development close to where I live now that I have focused on.  The prices are reasonable, the condos, although close to forty years old, are very nice.  There is a very strong, active, condominium association there.  The condo models that I am interested in are a 1024 sq ft, two bedroom, one bath layout with two large patio doors across the front, access to an awesome patio.  Each model has a large wood burning fireplace.  The kitchen is a galley kitchen, eat in , with another patio door that opens out to the deck/patio.  Each condo has a private one car garage.  It has been tough finding a place there.  The prices are great and the location is incredible.  When a condo comes available, it gets snatched up.

Except for one.  One solitary condo at the back of the complex.  It has been listed as a short sale for 82 days, enough that the asking price came down another $5000 last week.  That was enough to cause me to take a look.

The location alone is worth it.  It’s at the back of the complex, overlooks a meadow that borders the DuPage river.  The view from the deck will be beautiful and unobstructed, no chance that anything will ever be built behind the building.  That alone is worth buying the condo.

And that is what I am banking on.  The price is around $30,000 less that any of the condos that have been sold there, because it is an absolute pit.  All flooring, all windows, even the patio doors will need to be replaced.  It’s bad.  The furnace looks to be original, barely functional.  My best estimate is around $16,000 to make the place inhabitable.

This crazy man made an offer, one that is being considered.  I figure that working on the place will keep me occupied enough to dull the pain of the final separation before divorce.  When the condo is done, it will be beautiful.. but it will take a lot of work.

Mysteries.  Unknown.  A part of me wants to know what is going to happen, a large part of me doesn’t want to know.  I want to be surprised and I hope it will be pleasant!

 

Cat Pee Condos

Tags

lessons learned, life

I used to ride a bicycle event in the Carolinas called The Assault on Mount Mitchell.  The event is a lottery only ride, so in order to participate one has to sign up, then wait to see if you get a ticket for the ride.  There are reasons for limiting the number of participants — road congestion on the Blue Ridge Parkway, transportation from the summit back to the starting point, making sure all participants are accounted for on the difficult and demanding ride.  All riders wear a chipped ankle bracelet which records the time from start to finish and confirms that the rider has finished.  I miss the event, one I completed twice out of the three times attempted.  Each attempt is a story in itself, with challenges both similar and unique to the other attempts.

The Assault, at least when I used to ride it, was in May, early in the riding season and difficult for a northern USA flatlander such as myself to train for.  That just made surviving the ride even more special when I did finish.  There is more than 10,000 feet of vertical ascent over the 102 mile course, most of it at the last part of the ride, the last eight miles usually completed in the freezing cold and rain, on a grade that feels like it is practically straight up.   That part of the ride, the summit, is actually above the clouds.

I think that I ride tours like the Assault for the memories that remind me of who I am.  Each memory blends with pain, persistence, and incredible joy — joy that can only be experienced by accepting the pain.  Even on the ride that I couldn’t complete, the ride where I sat in the middle of the road five miles from the summit, mentally fried, freezing water rushing past me as the rain poured down, I relish the memory.  I learned a lot from that defeat, proud that I made it as far as I made it, even more proud that I learned a little more about overcoming my pain that day.  The following years, instead of dropping to the road in resignation, I got back on the bike and kept the pedals turning until I reached the goal.

That’s the key, keep the pedals turning.  The Assault turns up the Blue Ridge Parkway after the 80 mile mark at Marion, NC and gets difficult very quickly.  There is a switchback section that precedes the climb to the Parkway where the riders behind you can be viewed below you.  It’s tough.  Once on the Parkway, 10 miles or so from the top, there is a place where you can stop, see where you have been and see the summit — the goal.  What preceded is a mere speck, truly a long ways off, and the summit seems so close.  Yet the most difficult part of the ride is yet to come and it can take a long time to reach, especially if you are not ready for a steep and gut wrenching climb.

The parallel to life is obvious.  Do I need to say more?  I feel right now like I am at that point where I can see where I have been, a long way behind me, and I can get a glimpse of where I am going.  I know that in order to make it, it’s going to be accomplished one step, one pedal stroke at a time.

Today’s blog is an example of why one should not write the title before the blog.

By the way, I put my favorite pair of shoes on this morning in the dark.  My left shoe had these funny hard white spots on them.  What the heck?  Where did they come from?  In the light, I realized what happened.  When I made the onion gravy for my pork chops last night, some of the flour/milk mix from the plastic container dripped on my shoes.  Oops.

Moving On

Tags

cats, dogs, lessons learned, life, neighbors, relationships

Patience and perseverance combined with sweat.  Life often requires all three, even when it seems like there are those who have everything handed to them.  Those more often than not learn that lesson the hard way.  Whether it be a task, a relationship, a car, or your body, in order to make it through it’s going to take the willingness to push through what seems too difficult, unbearably hard.  More often than not, you are going to make it.

After working my tail off since this first week of November on my house, it finally was ready to list for sale.  This past Wednesday evening, the listing went live (click the link to see the details).  There was a showing Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, and yesterday morning (Saturday).

Yesterday’s showing started at 10 AM.  It was a gorgeous day, perfect for a singletrack ride, so I went out early, planning to get home a little after 11.  When I pulled around the corner at 11:15, there were still cars parked in front of the cars, so I drove around the block, parked in front of my neighbor’s house and joined him in his man cave garage to listen to the young couple touring the outside of my house with a realtor.

Man :  The porch roof must be hollow? 

Realtor:  I assume so.  It says here that the roof was new in 2016.  Driveway was new in 2015.

Woman:  Yeah, it looks really good.

I smiled as I listened.  The young couple had met the realtor at my house, arrived in separate cars (relatively new compact Chevrolets).  They were there specifically to look at my house.  They stayed until almost noon.  This early thirties couple was seriously looking at my house.

Miriam and I were in our early thirties when we bought the house.  Childless at the time.. just like this young couple.  When the report came back from our realtor, I found out that the couple was preapproved for an FHA mortgage, so our house would be their first house.  They are currently renting a house, were just informed by their landlord that the house they are renting is under foreclosure.  Our house is in a quiet neighborhood, bustling with active and friendly families, in one of the most desirable school districts in the west suburbs of Chicago.  As it was for us, our house will be perfect for the young couple.

Our realtor sent an email to me around 2:30 PM.. with congratulations and a formal offer included as an email attachment.  The couple had extended an offer, close to our asking price, with a request for closing cost credit and a home warranty.  Miriam and I sat down to discuss the offer, go over our thoughts together, one of the things we actually do well as a couple.  She didn’t like that the closing cost credit was potentially $5000 and that the offer was $5000 less than our asking price.  I simply wanted to know the details of the home warranty.

I put my phone on speaker when our realtor called, so Miriam could participate in the call.  He answered our questions, explained that the home warranty was $500 and for a year, basically insurance that would insure that things like the water heater or furnace or windows would be replaced by the policy if they needed to be replaced.  He suggested a counter offer, accepting the closing cost credit but only if the asking price was accepted, and requesting an additional $1000 of earnest money.

They accepted.  The closing is March 31.

Our discussion moved to the next step — when would we start the divorce?  Logically, it should start after March 31, when we each would have money from the sale of the house to retain a lawyer.

Miriam left to take care of some business shortly after the phone call with the realtor.  Nate was playing golf.  I stood in the freshly painted living room of my house, the afternoon sun casting a glow on the harvest gold walls of the living and dining room.  These people were going to get a nice house, one that I know I have worked hard to maintain over the years (not just the past few months).  I stood there for a while, memories washing over me as I thought of everything that had happened in that room alone.  We made at least one of our children in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace.  Our children crawled on the carpet at my feet.  I laughed as I remembered interviewing my little red head, melted chocolate chips smeared across her face, as I tested our new video camera, then a few years later as she lovingly cuddled her first kitten in that same chair.  Nate building blanket forts using the cushions of the couch and love seat.  Family dinners, the dining room and living room and kitchen full of warmth.  Her sisters gathered around the dining room table, singing songs in Portugeuse as they reminisced their childhood.  My brothers in law and I sat around that same table, teaching our missionary father in law to play cards, much to the shock of our pious spouses.  There were those times chasing our first dog child around that table, trying to get him in house cage so we could leave the house, or the time when I came home as that same dog child sprang up on that table and took a defiant dump in the middle of the table (he was a terrier, so any terrier owner probably has similar memories).  I pictured that same terrier patiently being dressed up by our toddler daughter, complete with a bonnet, placed in a doll stroller, and being pushed like a baby around the house.

Almost 23 years of memories are in that house.

I hope those memories stay in that house, greet the new owners, live on as they create new memories of their own.

March 31 will be here soon.  My life is changing.  It’s getting real.

 

 

Quick Update

I’m alive.  Barely.  After burning the candle at both ends, working at my regular job during the day then going home to work around the house, I am wiped out.  My boss told me to go home early yesterday, get some rest.  Funny thing is that I went home, napped for ten minutes, then packed up stuff to get ready for a meeting with the realtor.

Yes, you heard that right.  Realtor.  After nearly three months, the house is about ready to sell.

I think the realtor was happy with what he saw.  When the photographer comes to take the pictures for the listing, I will post some of the pictures, let you decide.  The house is small, 1400 square feet, and not updated with the latest popular upgrades, but it’s nice and cozy.  In Chicago’s western suburbs right now, there is a shortage of house inventory, so I am hoping that helps the house to sell.  It is a seller’s market.

My realtor is encouraging me to list the house at a price a little below the target price that I had in my mind, but it’s close.  The CMA that he brought with him showed the houses in my neighborhood that have sold in the last six months, a good gauge to use since an appraiser will do the same thing.  My neighborhood has four models of houses that were sold, with only a few variations, so it’s fairly easy to compare and determine a price.

Selling the house is the last step.  It’s beginning to feel final.  Interestingly, my wife was happy and buoyant during the meeting with the realtor.  We even went out to dinner together after the meeting, looking at the condos online that each of us are considering to buy when the house sells.  I am more anxious right now than I have been in the past few months.  This whole divorce thing is becoming more of a reality, a change that I am ready for, yet I am not.  I step back, look at the comfortable house that I have lived in for the last 22 years, think about the small and not as private condo life that I have ahead of me.  Strange, but change is good and it will be good for me.

So, there you go.  Alive.  Life changing.  House about to (hopefully) sell.