The crazies

My mortgage loan officer said to me the other day “If you haven’t bought a house in the past 2 years, you haven’t bought a house.” Meaning that the entire experience has changed dramatically – and it’s really not all about the bank! It’s more about what sellers are expecting, what banks are requiring, disclosures due to changes in laws, etc. The end result is a lot more paperwork going back and forth, and a lot more leg work for the buyer (at least in my experience). It’s been crazy. My to do list is insane – it’s color coded and I force myself to do 5 things per day off the moving list and 3 per day off the work list. And then I go to my mom’s. Hoo boy!

Also, I don’t think this is particular to my family, trying to organize anything is akin to launching the D-Day invasion. We’re juggling getting 5 dogs, 3 people, and 3 vehicles to Florida, getting my step brother to come down and help us paint the new house, hopefully come up and help my mom with a few things on her house, and squeeze in the fact that at some as-yet-to-be-determined time in the very near future, my ex stepdad is buying a new houseboat (he has a buyer for his who wants to take possession in 2 weeks). The wrinkle to my plans is the fact that he will need both the boy and my step brother to crew the boat from Florida to Wilmington. Last time they did this (when he bought the boat he has now) it took a week to get to Wilmington from Coccoa Beach. Schools starts pretty soon and the boy needs to be back home for that!

So things are pretty hectic. Also, I promised to paint an entire wall of aboriginal dot art on one wall in the boy’s bedroom – he was seriously in love with the tiki bar I made a couple of years back. But that won’t be done immediately.

I’ve picked colors for the 2 bathrooms, and I know I want a pale grey in the main living areas – when we get down there I am going to buy a few samples and paint swatches to see how they look.

I have to get our stuff re-packed and ready for the move down.

Gah.