What an exciting day!

Not to be redundant, but this was an exciting day. Remember the pool with a house from yesterday? There was another open house today. This time, I took Keith along. My friend’s interest had grown, and she wanted Keith’s opinion on how and how expensive some fixes in the house might be done. We toured around the house and Keith investigated gas lines and venting places and attics and storage. I smiled at the backyard. When we finished our initial walkthrough, Keith said, “They should buy our house and we should live here.”

Now, to be clear, our current house is the house that this friend found five years ago while shopping before she remodeled her kitchen. I told her she had to house shop before spending all the time and energy to remodel, because the perfect kitchen might be out there, attached to the perfect house. She found this house but didn’t want to move to our neighborhood because of the particulars of the school boundaries (which changed some months after we moved, making her current house in the same boundaries as our house. Oh, the irony). Skip to the end, we spontaneously bought the house she found (to be clear – she did not want it) (also to be clear – she would like it now).

Sooooo. I just looked at him. “Are you serious?” “What do you think?” “What do you think?” “The backyard is amazing.” “The backyard is so amazing. And so much less maintenance than our yard.” “We’re getting old.” “Are you serious?” “Yes, we are definitely getting old. We get injured sleeping.” “About buying the house.” “Oh. What do you think?” It went on.

Neither of us can make a decision and we both really like to please each other. It’s a bit of a problem sometimes.

We conferred with our friend. She was definitely going to make an offer. Then we learned that offers needed to be in by 7pm tonight. OH. She was in contact with her at-work husband, and we left them to hammer out details. By left, I mean we sat in our car in front of their house and talked about whether we would like to buy a new house and sell ours to them. They said they would rather have our house, so it was a real thing.

We finally drove off, still in deep conversation. Keith started toward Menard’s, which was our destination before we detoured to the open house. We had to turn around and go home, because I said we cannot make a buy-a-new-house decision walking around Menard’s.

Just as we got home, my phone rang. New information had been acquired: multiple offers had been submitted for over $50,000 over the list price. Everyone involved (except me) was stunned and everyone (including me) was out. That was too much money for that house. I wasn’t surprised, because I think houses are bought for their backyards and this backyard was killer. The house was also fine. The excitement was over – but it felt GREAT that some other force beyond us making a decision had made the decision. Phew.

We went to Menard’s. I just kept putting things in the cart. I bought a perennial flower dealie – don’t know what it’s called, don’t know how much it cost (soooo not a me thing to do), don’t even know where I’m going to plant it. I put a red lily in the cart for Keith because he likes red lilies. I suggested we buy a honeycrisp apple tree and some random bushes. Keith finally asked what was going on, because I am NEVER the buyer – I am the stick-in-the-mud. I said, “We just saved over $600,000. This stuff is practically free!”