Our House Is Under Contract!

This is a Thankful on Thursday post even though I couldn’t post it until today.

If you didn’t know about our “crazy” prayer request you can read about it here.  I wrote “crazy” because everyone else thought it was crazy.  I thought it was a perfectly valid request because it’s what we needed to happen. 

So, for follow-up… We put the house on the market on Thursday, June 9, 2011.  The first and second showings were Monday, June 13.  We received two offers on that day, so highest and best offers were due on Tuesday, June 14 by 8 p.m.  By Thursday we had all the counter offers agreed upon and by Friday, June 17 we were under contract.  It was one week and one day after the house went on the market!  Thank you for helping us pray for this!!!

Another fun thing (not!) is that, because of our schedules (which never matched up), I had to go pick out a house in Ohio all by myself.  So, last Thursday I got home from being gone for a week.  I had two girl-friends stay with me while their guys and Jason were at a bachelor party.  The next day we all went to North Oklahoma City and spent the weekend in hotel rooms that our friends had bought us for their wedding.  It was a really fun weekend.  They are an awesome couple.  Sunday morning I woke up and left the hotel early.  I stopped at home to grab a few things and then headed to Dallas to catch a flight to Ohio.  I arrived in Columbus around midnight so I stayed the night in Columbus. 

I was in the middle of working on an upcoming work trip overseas.  I had been having a TERRIBLE time getting a hold of a caterer because of the weekend and the time change.  So, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Monday morning to try and catch a caterer during their work morning.  No luck.  I set my alarm and went to bed.  I woke up on my own at 8:30 a.m. and panicked because my alarm had not gone off!  I checked my phone and realized that I hadn’t changed the time to accommodate the Eastern Time Zone.  Ugh.  I stayed in bed and dialed another caterer.  No answer.  I dialed the FBO (Fixed-Base Operator – where we park the aircraft) for the fifth day in about five days.  Someone answered!  I actually talked to a human and he gave me the name of a hotel that could do our catering.  I called the hotel and the nice lady gave me the email address of the man who does the catering.  I composed and email, pressed send and then waited.  I got a clock symbol, which means that it’s not sending.  It’s been an hour since I woke up an hour late.  I knew that I wasn’t doing so good on time at this point, but I had to get this order in.  I walked to the window in my room to see if I could get a better signal.  Nothing.  So, I take out the phone battery and then turn the phone back on to reset it to the tower in Columbus.  The phone comes back to life and I was immediately bombarded with emails.  My trip has been canceled.  AHHHH!!!  Why is this happening??? And of all days??  Thank God that even though I had planned to meet the realtor at 10:30 a.m. she didn’t schedule the first showing until 12:30 p.m.  (She must work with people or something.)  At 10:30 a.m. I jump in the shower.  I put in my eyes (contacts), brushed my teeth and threw my hair up wet.  By 11:00 a.m.  I was on the road headed toward our new hometown.  I got there right at 12:30 p.m. and the afternoon of searching began.   

Here is a picture of my drive.  Does the terrain look familiar?

I recorded voice memos about each house and took pictures of the ones that I thought were promising.  It was exhausting because there is no AT&T cell phone reception there, so I couldn’t talk to Jason at all.  We got calls through every now and then, but they didn’t last long.  Once the realtor and I finished looking at the all the houses and then revisiting the first one again I drove to Lima for the night.  I unwound with Texas Roadhouse take-out and The Time Traveler’s Wife on HBO.

Finally around 9 p.m. Ohio time Jason and I sat down and talked about all the houses.  I had already sent him all the voice memos so we just had to discuss the finalists.  During the process Jason kept going to the one house he really wanted and I kept saying, “That house isn’t an option.  I thought so little of it that it was the only one I didn’t record a voice memo for.”  He kept saying, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with it.” To which I would respond, “I don’t remember.”  The one I wanted was one of the most expensive ones we looked at, which is par for the course with me.  But, because my trip had canceled I was rudely reminded that a house isn’t everything.  Not worrying about bills is worth everything you sacrifice when you give up a nice house.  So, Jason and I re-evaluated what we were looking for.  At 9:40 p.m. Eastern time I texted the realtor and asked to see 3 more houses and to once again see the one that I had previously discounted.  She said she would see what she could do.  We had until 11 a.m. the next morning to put an offer on a house.  She was only able to get us into Jason’s first choice house/my reject house, so I met her there at 9 a.m.  Amazingly enough I walked through the house again and fell in love with it.  It has a brand new kitchen and laundry room, and the rest of the house needs some of our magic touch, but it’s nothing that we can’t make beautiful. 

As you guessed it, by 10:40 a.m. we had a offer in on the house.  I left and drove back to Columbus.  As I was getting ready to board the plane the realtor called back with the counter offer and we accepted.  We were under contract.  We are closing on our house in Norman on July 18 and closing on our new house on July 25. 

Praise the Lord and thank you so much for your prayers!