Holy House Hunting ... We are Home owners

I am shocked ... stunned ... unable to speak ...

WE GOT THE HOUSE ...

It is crazy ... but Tom just called and said "Congratulations!!!!!" ...

The house is ours ... it is so awesome I am not even sure how to describe it ... it is a huge house in a great neighborhood ... there are projects galore ... and so much work to be done ... but it is all so exciting I can hardly believe it ...

wow ... wow ... wow ...

I think I'm going to go dance around for a bit ... :)

nervous nervous nervous

Our agent just called me and said that there were 3 contracts on the house but that the agent remembers meeting me and really liked me ... that we have the best contract and even though she doesn't usually include letters when she submits contracts she is going to include ours because she really wants to push for us ... she believes we will fix up the house and stay there a long time ...

the only downfall is that we can't escalate above the asking price ... and that might be the downfall ...

keeping my fingers crossed ... (which is making it hard to type)

Waiting game portion of the show

Well we signed about 100 places on our bid ... checked out the disclosures ... wrote a heartfelt letter to the people deciding about the house since they have a somewhat attachment to it (even though money talks louder than words) and submitted our bid at 5 PM this evening ...

and now we have come to the waiting game portion of the show ...

ahhh ... the joys of trying to buy a house in the greater DC area ...

I did get an email from our agent around 5:50 ... the selling agent had emailed him to see if we had an escalation clause ... unfortunately the asking price is our price cap ... which means our offer could get thrown out first thing tomorrow when they sit down to review contracts ...

I'm just going to be a wreck till Tom calls me tomorrow to tell me what happened ... even though I am guessing the place will go to someone else ...

House Hunting

OK I only skimmed the first line of my last post in March ... and I am just all over the work stress ... ya know it is just a job ... it is how I made money to do the things I love in life ... for as much as I actually care all the sales reps can hate me ... makes no difference to me ...

What has really been going on is we have been looking for a house for-ev-er ... it is such a draining task I can hardly believe it ... and anyone who tells you it is fun is either A) lying or B) crazy ... there is nothing fun about it ...

My time throughout the week is spent looking at listings online ... Saturday morning I got to Starbucks ... get a huge coffee and the Sunday Washington Post ... then I read the open house section ... after I circle the ones that sound promising I try and look them up online see if there are any pictures or descriptions and price ... then I look up the addresses online ... if the picture /description/price looks good I map out our route ... usually sometime on Saturday we try and drive by the ones we plan to see during the open house on Sunday cause the street the house is on can knock it out of the running ... sometimes we meet our agent at the empty ones so we can go ahead and look at them ... then I come home and change up our route according to how we liked them or didn't like them on the drive-by ...

Then Sunday we go and get coffee and are sitting in front of the first open house by 1 PM when they open ... and spend the next 4 hours driving around looking at houses ... if we are lucky enough to find one we think we can fix up we then start talking to the agent about writing the contract ... on the hot sellers the contracts go in sometime during the week and on the day they decide which one they will accept we are a nervous wreck waiting to find out if finally ours was the best bid ...

so far we haven't been the best bid ... we've had the best contract ... but never the most money ...

The first house we bid on we were actually pretty disappointed when we didn't get it ... I think we both thought somehow it would happen ... turns out we were 4th out of 12 ... the house was in a shambles ... but it followed our rule ... the crappiest house in the best neighborhood we can hardly afford ...

This weekend we found another house we like ... it again is in a neighborhood we can't really afford but the house needs a ton of work so the selling price is lower than those in good condition ... we have to submit our contract by Tuesday at 5:00 PM ... they are meeting on Wednesday at 8:00 AM to decide ... I am learning to not get my hopes up too high ...

We saw this one on Saturday with our agent and my dad ... the house is empty so we could really hang out and check everything out ... then today while David was golfing I went around and saw 5 houses and finished the day with seeing this one again and to get a look at how many people had signed in to check this one out ... there weren't as many people looking at the house as the first one we bid on but that doesn't mean anything ... contracts could come out of the woodwork ...

see in the DC area there is an asking price but it is rare the seller gets that ... they usually get more than they are asking ... the open house is the first weekend it is on the market ... then the selling agent usually takes contracts (if there is a lot of interest) on the Tuesday after the open house ... when you write your contract you put in your starting bid and then how far up you will escalate that bid to against other contracts ... the seller checks out the terms of each contract and then escalates the bids till they reach the highest price for each of the contracts they are interested in and then they decide which bid they will accept ... the seller can make one counter offer to one bidder and if the bidder accepts the counter the house is theirs ...

having the least amount of contingencies is the best way to go ... our contract has none ... we don't have to sell our current place to buy this one ... we don't need an inspector to come out ... we'll take the place "as-is" ... we don't care what it appraises for ... we'll close in 14 days ... and we are offering cash ... you would think with all that someone would pick us even if we weren't offering as much money ... but alas that hasn't been so ...

So again ... this Wednesday ... I'll be a wreck waiting to hear what happens ... and how many people bid ... we never know what the highest offer is until the sale of the house is complete

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed again cause this house has tremendous potential ... but I am not going to start planning what I'll do to it until they accept my bid ... :)

It has been so long ...

is this even working anymore?

Driving me out ...

I know I have written very little lately ... not sure why ... I didn't even write about my 35th birthday ... but i'll do that later ... the thoughts i need to get off my chest now are all about work ...

as paranoid as this is going to sound ... i think our sales reps are trying to drive me out of the company ... to find a new job ... over the past month+ anything they are supposed to send to me they send to someone else ... and that person [whomever it may be] has to forward it to me ... and it is a group wide effort ... if it were just one of 5 of them I could almost understand ... but when all 28 are doing it ... on a consistant basis ... it fucking hurts ...

i am aware that none of them like me ... and i am fine with that ... i am not at work to make friends ... and i am the boss' kid but i pull more than my own in my job ... and i work hard for our reps ... i go above and beyond anyone who has been in this position ...

they are just fucking assholes ... and it makes me not want to be here anymore ... i never get a simple thank you ... from any of them ... they are bypassing me on purpose so my job isn't complete on time ... stuff gets lost because it didn't come to me and people assume they were just copied on stuff so i never get it ... it just hurts ...

if i were lazy and got away with shit and didn't do a good job ... well then fine ... that would be the price i pay ... but i am just the opposite ... i am a hard worker and have had a job since I was 14 years old ... so i am not new to working hard ... and i am also not new to people at work not liking me ... it has happened at many jobs because i don't accept anything less than what i would do myself ...

but honestly they can all kiss my ass ...

In Love With Death

PEGGY NOONAN

In Love With Death
The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people.

Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

God made the world or he didn't.

God made you or he didn't.

If he did, your little human life is, and has been, touched by the divine. If this is true, it would be true of all humans, not only some. And so--again, if it is true--each human life is precious, of infinite value, worthy of great respect.

Most--not all, but probably most--of those who support Terri Schiavo's right to live believe the above. This explains their passion and emotionalism. They believe they are fighting for an invaluable and irreplaceable human life. They are like the mother who is famously said to have lifted the back of a small car off the ground to save a child caught under a tire. You're desperate to save a life, you're shot through with adrenaline, your strength is for half a second superhuman, you do the impossible.

That is what they are trying to do.

They do not want an innocent human life ended for what appear to be primarily practical and worldly reasons--e.g., Mrs. Schiavo's quality of life is low, her life is pointless. They say: Who is to say it is pointless? And what does pointless even mean? Maybe life itself is the point.

I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are. If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."

Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.

Why are they so committed to this woman's death?

They seem to have fallen half in love with death.

What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?

Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not.

I do not understand their certainty. I don't "know" that any degree of progress or healing is possible for Terri Schiavo; I only hope they are. We can't know, but we can "err on the side of life." How do the pro-death forces "know" there is no possibility of progress, healing, miracles? They seem to think they know. They seem to love the phrases they bandy about: "vegetative state," "brain dead," "liquefied cortex."

I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people. The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.

I do not understand why the don't-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don't-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.

I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing--an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law--are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.

There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband's chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being.

The pull-the-tube people say, "She must hate being brain-damaged." Well, yes, she must. (This line of argument presumes she is to some degree or in some way thinking or experiencing emotions.) Who wouldn't feel extreme sadness at being extremely disabled? I'd weep every day, wouldn't you? But consider your life. Are there not facets of it, or facts of it, that make you feel extremely sad, pained, frustrated, angry? But you're still glad you're alive, aren't you? Me too. No one enjoys a deathbed. Very few want to leave.

Terri Schiavo may well die. No good will come of it. Those who are half in love with death will only become more red-fanged and ravenous. And those who are still learning--our children--oh, what terrible lessons they're learning. What terrible stories are shaping them. They're witnessing the Schiavo drama on television and hearing it on radio. They are seeing a society--their society, their people--on the verge of famously accepting, even embracing, the idea that a damaged life is a throwaway life.

Our children have been reared in the age of abortion, and are coming of age in a time when seemingly respectable people are enthusiastic for euthanasia. It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you "know" that--that human life is not so special after all--then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz. Today that road runs through Pinellas Park, Fla.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), a collection of post-Sept. 11 columns, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.