Selling and Buying

 On Sunday, November 22, there was a showing at our house, originally scheduled for 8:30 am. We managed to get it bumped up to 9 am. We did most of the house prep on Saturday, so that there was just a few things to do on Sunday morning. Then we put Gracie in the cat carrier, and in the car with us, to go to church. When the showing got scheduled, I asked our realtor, "Who schedules a showing at 8:30 am on a Sunday?" haha. She replied, "Maybe the buyer". She was correct. The next week, which was Thanksgiving... things kicked into high gear on getting a contract on our house and beginning to figure out "where" we were going to move. Audrey helped Ron get online and start to apply for a home loan. The week after Thanksgiving, we started to look for another house. I think Ron thought I was crazy, wanting to start that... but it was exactly what we needed to do. We went into San Antonio twice that week, spending most of two days looking at houses. I thought we were still trying to "pick a neighborhood", when at the end of that week, Ron walked into my office and suggested that we make an offer on one that we had looked at. (At that point, I was trying to come up with a new list of houses for us to look at, the next week. But I agreed that we should make an offer.) We probably jumped too quick... but the market was crazy, and homes were selling fast. A day or two before we started looking I had made a list of possibilities and half of those were gone, when the realtor started scheduling showings for us. A couple of the houses that we looked at required us to wear a face mask... Ron went into the first one with his mask on, but only lasted a few minutes and then he went back outside. He didn't even see the entire house. The next one... he didn't even get out of the car. So probably it was better that we didn't spend too much time "looking"- lol. By mid December we had a signed contract on our house and a signed contract on a new house. The month of December was a whirlwind of applications, sign this, send this, schedule this, pay for this, order this, revise this, scan this...etc. But we finally made it to Christmas with everything in the final stages. Here is what I wrote in our Christmas letter-

And at our house, we like to add crazy on top of crazy. We are selling our home and purchasing another one. We LOVE our neighborhood, and we love our yard full of animals, but we have too much house, too much yard, too much driving, and too much expense. So, we are “downsizing” our life. The house we are moving into is half as big as what we have now, and twice as big as what I expected we would get. It is a normal “suburbia” San Antonio house … which means we may not stay put there very long, but it seems like the correct choice for now. You can still come and visit us; we will have a guest bedroom. 

The house is bigger than what I expected we would get, and half as big as what we have. I have been purging and "downsizing" our stuff for a couple of years. I have put in tons of work getting ready for us to move. I am to the point now, where it will only take me a couple of days to "pack". (the only problem area left is the garage.) I am hoping to be able to hire some movers to actually load, move, and unload. If things go as planned... Daniel will have about a week and a half to do some new flooring and baseboards in the new house, before we actually move in. I am also going to purchase some new kitchen appliances. We are hoping to close on both houses mid January and move Jan.29.