"Ummmm Babe... We're buying a HOUSE..."

As I am sure that anyone who has ever bought a house - particularly a not-exactly-new house - already knows, there is a dip in excitement in the homebuyer timeline between having a ratified contract and, well, having a ratified contract that takes into account all of the little things that the home inspector pointed out. Things that make the Perfect House seem a little bit less Perfect.

That's the part of the timeline where we sat for the better part of this week, following our inspection last Saturday.

However, after some compromises on our end with regard to what we could do ourselves (let's be clear that "ourselves" = me and Bret and both sets of parents) and what we should/could ask the sellers to do, and after some waiting to find out what the sellers WOULD do... we now have a ratified contract and a ratified contract addendum.

We are pretty pleased with the results of our negotiations, and we are hopeful that we are in the home stretch towards closing on April 13th!! That leaves six weekends to:
- Pack
- Look for furniture to furnish at least twice our current living space
- Pick out paint
- Pack
- Purchase wallpaper remover
- Buy a lawnmower
- Read up on fence building (so that our new neighbors aren't introduced to Elsa and Otter with us chasing after them frantically)
- Paaaaaack....

And oh so much more. Things that we are excited to do, and things that are tedious, like figuring out who our new utility providers will be and making those calls (this is for Bret.... NOT IT!).

We had been holding back on starting any of this until we got past the inspection stage. Now it feels as though the flood gates have opened. Every so often, we catch ourselves turning to each other, wide-eyed, and saying...

UMMMM... WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!!!