September

I know it's still summer for a few more weeks, and being in the South, it will feel like summer even longer, but it's September and my brain doesn't associate September with summer. So I'm excited.

Ollie is settling in. He's getting more comfortable, so he's more puppy-ish.  We actually left him home alone for a few hours today without crating him and nothing was destroyed or pooped on, so he's getting the hang of things.

Our closing date was this past Monday, but the appraisal report hadn't been turned in, so we had to postpone. When it did arrive, we had a problem. A pretty significant problem. The house appraised $25k lower than the sale price.

I freaked out.  I was sure that was it, it was over.  Everyone told me to relax and see if the seller would come down on the price. Honestly, they had no choice.  VA and FHA appraisals "stick" to a house for 6 months, so it was come down on the price or not relist it for 6 months. But with all we had been through, it was hard for me to be even a little optimistic.

They did come down, though. Which is fantastic. Only they asked us to pay our own closing costs and they were not going to include the hot tub or the air compressor in the shop.  They have offered to sell them to us, and we are going to buy the air compressor, but we didn't really want the hot tub to begin with. Call me crazy, but there's just too much maintenance involved and I doubt it would be used enough to justify having it. I'm not sure how they'll get it out of the screened porch without tearing up the porch, though. I guess we'll find out.

Coming up with the money for all the closing costs worried me though. We weren't expecting that and we were not prepared. But it worked out. We've been able to scrounge it up.

We close on Thursday. I'm hoping for no more bumps. I'm going to be so irritating in the meantime,  making sure everyone has everything they need, making sure we have everything we need...  3 days and this will be OVER.  Please.