Divine Intervention

I promised Susan a blog explaining what I meant by a recent Facebook status...so here goes...

If you remotely know what's going on in my life, you know that big changes lie ahead! Although we love our home, it creates alot of stress for us. For starters, it's 4750 square feet! After alot of heart to hearts, and realizing that patience is a virtue with which neither Dan nor I have been blessed with, we decided to only have one child. When we first built our home that we're in now, we were planning on at least 2 kids...after nearly 10 years of marriage, we admit that we're impatient, perfectionists, and we enjoy having the flexibility and freedom that having one child gives us. With just Drew, we will be able to give him so many more opportunities.

With just the three of us, there's close to half of our house that never really gets used...yet, we still clean it and pay the utilities to maintain it. With so much space, we've accumulated STUFF...way too much of it. So, about a year ago, we decided to pursue selling our home and buying a much smaller one. When our realtor took us through some other much smaller styles of homes, we were a bit befuddled, and with the real estate market where it was...the only action on our house was a nosey realtor that lives down the street!

That was last summer. In early fall of last year, Dan secured a position with the FDIC that has had him on the road nearly every week since. With him only being home a handful of days per month, I had more of a burden on me to take care of things. That ony top of EVERYTHING else I already do...many days of near meltdowns, I can assure you. I just pray that Drew is young enough that he won't have much recollection of the many mornings I battled with him to rush him out the door. The raising .f my voice in sheer frustration of it all...

During the fall, winter and spring, Dan pursued other positions, and although he eventually landed a different job within the FDIC, he still traveled, and it still was taking it's toll on all of us. He recently applied for a position with the Treasury Dept. in NW Washington DC. Pending the results of his background check, he's been given a tentative job offer! :) No more travel, but in facing a commute from Hagerstown to DC everyday...moving is no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.

So for the past few weeks, we've searched and searched the internet, had many back and forths with our realtor, and last Sunday, landed (again) in the Villages of Urbana. I say again, because 5 years ago, when we were looking to build our current home, we went to VoU to check out some of the model homes. We absolutely fell in love with it all. Back then, real estate was huge, and those prices were no where near what we could afford. So Hagerstown it was.

So there we were last Sunday, with a listing of homes to go through...saw some stuff we didn't like, kinda liked, and really liked...but mostly still not really knowing what to do... After leaving one model and being en route to another, Bob the Realtor hit an unmarked manhole cover and messed up the tire on his car...trip ended then...back home we went.

Although we were leaning in the townhouse direction, we were really impressed with one of the single family home builders, but the house was too small, and the price too big. Me being the constant internet person, noticed that the single family builder also did townhomes...rather larege ones at that. I was intrigued, gave the sales office a call...only to be told that everything they currently has was spoken for, and their next delivery was set of Jan 2010. Not happy with it, but we still wanted to check them out.

We get to the TH model Sunday...liking what we see on the outside. We were going into wanting to talk about end units, brick fronts, bumpouts...

We walk in ans start talking to the sales guy. Ironically enough, he mentions that in their next available building (Oct delivery) they have a brick fronted, bumped out end unit that just became available...within the past hour. Knowing that, and seeing traffic pick up in the model, I started getting really nervous! Then he mentioned that there was another couple interested in the same end unit, but they were away at a funeral service, and were powerless if anyone came in and could put money down to hold it.

Thanks to our realtor, he initiated a conversation with the sales office and expressed our intent to put a hold on it...GOTTA LOVE BOB! After a few minutes of talking and forms, we got the point that they needed some earnest money, in the form of a check. Dan was caught off guard...we don't carry a checkbook...well, he doesn't, but the constantly frazzled wife that writes the checks and pays the bills while stopped at traffic lights...SHE had the checkbook! SCORE ONE FOR ME! The house is being held for us until Friday...at noon we go to contract and get started! :)

Had we not had tire issues the week before, we would've gone to that model and been told that the earliest house they had would be done in January...not what we wanted at all. We would've left there really not knowing what to do, as other houses that we liked were too small, priced too high, or were no longer available. In seven days timer, there were a collection of little things, that had any one of them gone any differently, we wouldn't be going back to Urbana Friday to start a contract on a house...

Another great part of it all...the backyard backs into a shared common area with a totlot playground...Drew's favorite!

Some would call it luck, some would call it chance, but I'd like to think of it as divine intervention! :)