Settlement Day (Friday, May 30th)

It's raining here in Switzerland, I'm waiting for Marion to wake up, and Brian has left for a meeting a work. So here I am, trying to catch up.

Settlement day was, um, interesting. A day where we tried to plan so that everything went smoothly, and then it didn't. I would say that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but we still sold our house. So that wouldn't be true.

Anyway, it started with a 9 am settlement for the house. Except that when Brian and I were on our way to the settlement, we got a call from a realtor who was at the 8 am walkthru at our home.

Apparently the young man who bought our house was upset that we took the full length green dining room curtains. I thought this was odd, considering we excluded them from the contract because they were given to us by my mother when we bought the house. But we decided to see if he would bring it up at settlement.

The second piece of news she had for us was that the guy hadn't gone to the bank the night before but was going that morning. After the walkthru.

So he was going to be late to the settlement. On a day where we had already pushed it back from 8 am to 9 am and Brian and I were tight on time because we had a million errands to run. Wonderful.

We decided to go to settlement anyway to get the seller's paperwork done and try to speed it along. Which helped a bit, but we still ended up waiting for him.

Once he arrived, a bit past 9:30, he had a ton of questions. Which I can understand since he was a first time home buyer. But I found it especially annoying being a seller who was leaving the country in 2 days.

Good news out of the settlement: he never brought up the curtains and we settled. Bad news: we were running late when we left.

Now here's some background for the next bump on our Friday adventure. My realtor and I did some research on the best way to get cash the day of settlement to bring with us over here. She called the title company and I called Wachovia. Wachovia told me a cashiers check was best (even if it was from a different bank) so we decided to get a portion of the settlement that way and the rest would be wired.

So Brian and my next stop was to Wachovia. We arrived, waited in line, and then went to the teller giving her our cashiers check and information.

Oops, can't cash this. It's from a different bank who says they haven't issued it yet (because it wasn't in their system yet). And it isn't scanning properly.

Awesome.

So we told the teller, "We were told this would be fine by this bank last week. We need this cash today."

Response: "Nothing I can do. Try going to the other bank and cashing it."

So we left, visibly frustrated and cursing the bank under our breaths.

We then went to the mall to meet up with Brian's parents who had Marion. We had to give them the key to my sister's car, since Brian had mistakenly brought it with us and she needed it. While at the mall, I got an iPod. I'm slowly inching my way into technology. (I'm the girl who has a cellphone that is 5 years old. Well, had.)

We left the mall and went to the other bank to try and resolve the check issue. They were very nice at the other bank, a world of difference than our experience at Wachovia that morning. Unfortunately though, they couldn't help us. It was already close to afternoon and they didn't have the funds to cash the check. So back we went to Wachovia.

We walked into the Wachovia ready for battle. Asked to see a manager but was told he was out to lunch. So a financial manager (the guys that sit in the booths in suits) met with us. We told him the whole story. And he explained that his teller was doing the right thing by denying cashing of the check but that he would release half of the check to us. We explained that the only reason we were in this predicament was because someone at this branch had given us bad information last week, we had a long relationship with Wachovia, and that we needed the funds now. He agreed to shorten the hold time on the money and take the entire check.

So we ended up getting a satisfactory ending to the money saga. However it took 4 times as long as we should have, was incredibly frustrating, and it pushed all of our other errands from the morning to the afternoon.

Next stop was lunch. Arguing with Wachovia makes you hungry.

Then we went to the jewelers. I had to pick up a ring and get a new battery for my watch. Ring was done (had an engraving polished out of the inside of it), then I waited for my watch. I was promised it would be done in less than 15 minutes.

After about 15 minutes of waiting, I noticed that while they had polished out the engraving, they had also polished out the stamp saying what kind of gold it was. So I went back to the counter to get it stamped. The lady took it back and I waited. When she brought it back it was stamped, but it looked like the stamped had knicked the side of the ring. So she took it back again and I waited again. She finally brought it back, fixed.

I looked up at the clock and realized it had been 25 minutes since I gave them my watch. I went over to the watch counter and waiting in another line to see if it was done, despite my number not being on the done list. And it ended up being done. The guy working the counter had forgotten to put my number on the notification board.

So we left with one more errand completed. Next stop: picking up my car from detailing.

We arrived early and it wasn't done yet. But at this point Brian and I had eaten and had come to expect the waiting so it wasn't nearly as frustrating. Plus it was only going to be 10 more minutes.

After the car was done we took it up to my aunt's house, stopping to fill up the gas tank on the way. The car looked fantastic, they did a great job detailing it. It looked new again! Definitely something I should have done while I had the car so I got to enjoy it.

We went back to my parent's house after dropping off the car to get everything we needed for the afternoon errands. At this point we were so behind we decided to split the errands instead of Brian staying home and getting started on the work we had to get done there. So Brian took the tags to the DMV and I returned to cable box to Comcast.

Comcast. They let you cancel your account fairly quickly, but only because you then have to return your box and remote to the Comcast service center. What a racket.

There were four windows open, but only three windows were accepting equipment. The last one was accepting payments only. Typical. Funny part was that no one in line was there to give a payment, we all were carrying boxes. You'd think that the woman would then change over to help out the line, right? Wrong. She sat back and opened her magazine. That Comcast doesn't want to make you wait to pay up!

When I got there the line wasn't too bad, only 5 people ahead of me. When I got up to the front of the line though, there were 15 people behind me. I definitely go thtere at the right time. Thankfully someone appeared from the back room to elp with the line before I got up to the front though. However, it turned out that this wasn't as big of a help as you would think. A woman at one of the customer service windows was taking forever to do whatever she needed to do. I have no idea what the issue was but at one point TWO of the service reps had to figure it out, meaning that there were only 3 windows available again.

It sounds frustrating, right? But at this point I found our whole day amusing and was amazed at watching the way Comcast worked.

I finally made it to a counter (two reps still helping that woman). It took 2 minutes to drop off the box and remote and get the confirmation slip and I was out of there.

Brian's time at the DMV went a lot smoother than my trip to Comcast did. He even had time to renew his license! Shocking for the DMV on a Friday afternoon.

The rest of the day consisted of packing and cleaning our stuff from every nook and cranny of my parent's house.

I did get to go out for girl time that Friday night. It was a great break with drinks and then to see the Sex and the City movie. Drinks were fun, movie was alright. It was entertaining, but everyone got a happy ending and most of it seemed forced. So unlike SATC. But I had a great time relaxing and went right to sleep when I got home at 2 am. Had to because Saturday was going to be just as busy as Friday.

Interesting fact: this post was saved at 9:01. (Entwurf wurde gespeichert um 09:01) Blogspot is going to help me learn german. Who knew?!

Moving Day

I'm finally getting around to posting about Moving Day 2 days later. Did I mention we've been busy?

Thursday morning, Brian got up to meet the movers at the house. I stayed home with Marion to take her to the doctors. She had/has an ear infection. So we met up with Brian at the house after Marion's doctor appointment and after Brian and the movers got started. On the way to the house, Marion started saying (or maybe it was singing?) "Go see home!" over and over again. My stress level quadrupled in anticipation of the separation anxiety to come.

When we arrived, the movers had already rolled our their red carpet (nice touch!) and packed up most of the house,



in a big truck blocking most of our street.


Marion really could not have cared less. We did the bye-bye thing, or at least tried. Mostly she just swatted in the direction of the house, muttering bye-bye as she ran around and played. So, it appears, I was stressed over nothing. Go figure.

Since most of our things had been packed up in the truck already, we left to run errands and pick up Marion's medicine.



(mover guy pondering if our stuff will fit in this truck. it did.)

The movers were done packing up our house by noon. They left for lunch and met us at my parent's house a little after one.

Everything went smoothly from there. Nothing broken, nothing missing, and everything fit in my parent's basement.


Can't take credit for everything in those pictures, some items to the right in both pictures are not ours. But we did take up a fairly large portion of the basement.

Also, they were done by 4, earlier than expected. And the movers couldn't have been nicer- they did a great job. Brian and I are spoiled now. I can't imagine moving ourselves ever again!

After the move was completed, Brian and I were able to relax (a smidge) before running some errands and heading over to our house (at that time) to do a last run through. The house looked fantastic. Kind of like how I bought it 5 years ago, but a nicer looking sister.

After some quiet walking and reflecting through the house, I locked it up and went with Brian to neighbor's house a couple of doors down, talking to other neighbors along the way. A great way to end the day, having fun with our neighbors. We had great neighbors, they definitely made the block. And we will certainly miss all of them!

BGE & Communication

When I canceled our Baltimore, Gas & Electric service I was told that someone would come on May 29th between 8 and 12 to get our final meter reading. Which was great timing because the movers were at the house then and we would need to be there anyway.

So the movers finished this morning and Brian waited. Thankfully, we are busy so Brian and I decided if BGE hadn't shown up by 12:15 then we weren't going to continue to wait.

But that didn't stop me from calling them.

After a longer wait on the phone than Comcast but not as long as Verizon, I was speaking to a customer service rep. She informed me that because the new owner had requested service at the address after we canceled, BGE did not require a visit to get a meter reading.

Nice, thanks for letting us know.

Busy, busy week

Lots to catch up on!

Last Thursday my work had a going away dinner for Brian and I. We had a lot of fun hanging out and it was a great way to start the long weekend.

Then we packed. No need to discuss the craziness and pain of that. But the weekend was sprinkled with fun in between the packing. Friday night we had dinner with our friends Heather and Tom. Saturday was dinner and crepes with friends Steve and Sarah. And Sunday was a Memorial Day cookout at Steve and Sarah's house.

Memorial Day was spent packing some more. Painful, painful packing. I was so exhausted and sore that I pretty much tapped out by noon. I was useless. I'm sure Brian will say the same (he wasn't very happy with me).

However, the holiday did end on an up note. Crabs with my parents and grandmother! At the end of the night, we moved in with Mom and Dad. Back with the 'rents.

Tuesday after work Brian and I attended a going away happy hour given by Brian's work. Lots of fun with plenty of jokes about Brian killing computers. Apparently he has gone through five laptops in four and a half years? A record for the office I believe. I think it has something to do with his power typing.

Wednesday brought Brian and I our last days of work. Can't believe they came so quickly. That evening we met friends Steve and Jesse for dinner. They return from their travels around the world as we take off for ours. Poor planning.

Today's moving day. Pictures to come later, haven't downloaded them yet. Tonight, haircut, hanging out with neighbors, and my in laws arrive.

Tomorrow's settlement and transfer of my car. And about a million other things. I'll be driving all over Baltimore dropping things off, picking them up, yadda yadda yadda. Hopefully we'll be able to fit in a Ms Julie performance at the mall for Marion. Ms Julie's a local preschool performer and Marion loves her. Evidence of Marion's love: Ms Julie is a popular answer for many different questions.

Example:
Q: Marion, what do you want to buy at the store?
A: Ms Julie!

Q: Marion, who did you see this morning?
A: Ms Julie!

Nope honey, you saw a doctor this morning. A doctor because you have an ear infection. Three days before we leave the country. On a pressurized aircraft. Wonderful.

Saturday, more packing. And hopefully some pool time. That would be nice.

Sunday, I hope we have time for the farmer's market. It's one of my favorite things to do in Baltimore. Then we'll leave for the airport by noon. After that, well, we'll just have to see!

Coming full circle

Brian and I made some great purchases in the past five years we have lived at this house. Two favorites were our big screen TV and sectional couch in our basement.


The TV was purchased the first fall after we bought the house. Brian moved in and immediately began laughing when he saw my 13" TV from college in the basement. Apparently it was not what he envisioned watching football games on. Off we went to Best Buy and purchased a 50" rear projection HDTV. Through some screw ups on Best Buy's end, we ended up getting a 55" model. Football season was glorious.

Unfortunately, we only had a couch I had purchased through eBay to sit on while watching glorious football. So several years ago we went searching for a grown up couch. After a lot of searching, we found a huge comfortable sectional. And our bottoms have been thankful ever since.

But sadly, both had to go. So after our buyer rejected both items (his loss!), we sold both of them and they are now with their new owners. And now we have come full circle for our last month in this house: A 13" TV and Marion size chairs.


I find the familiarity comforting. Brian is thankful it is no longer football season.

All of the ways to get rid of your stuff

We continue to get things in order. We sold our patio set this weekend to a nice couple from Annapolis. I hope they enjoy it! We have several appointments this week with people interested in Brian's Mr. Incredible car. Yep, we are selling the little red focus.

We are also starting to gear up for yard sale #2, currently planned for May 17th. Since our last yard sale I have been introduced to a little thing called Freecycle. This is a fabulous thing. Basically it is a online group similar to Craigslist, but everything is free. So if we have, say, a pile of scrap wood from our deck, used bottles of cleaning products, or used body lotion, we can post about it to this group, get emails from interested people, and then pick someone to come pick it up. I just leave it on our porch when I leave for the day and *POOF!*, it's gone when I return home from work.

Between the yard sale, Craigslist, and Freecycle, I should be able to unload most of our stuff without ever leaving our house. Awesome, right? Well, it's the little things. :-)

And so it actually begins

I met with our realtor this past Friday. We walked from room to room, going over everything we need to do in order to list the house. Mostly our list consists of "clean up, make everything neat, purge". Like I said before, we have ALOT of crap!

Anyway, after the list was compiled we sat down and signed paperwork. After that was all done, we walked outside where our realtor took a picture of the front of our house. While I stood out there with her, looking at this house in the sunlight with all of the work we have done to it, I was overcome with sadness.

I quickly said goodbye to the realtor and made it inside. I picked up the phone, called Brian at work, and cried.

This is not a house, this is our home! I bought this house almost five years ago and since then, we've made it our own. We had to, this place was a dump when I got it. We spent three months cleaning, painting, and fixing the house up before I even moved in. Brian proposed to me in our guestroom the day before I moved in. Friends of ours have visited and stayed with us here. We were married while living here. We brought our daughter home from the hospital to this house and made it through sleepless nights here. We have fantastic neighbors and a fantastic neighborhood.

How do we let all of that go?

Well, we don't have a choice at this point. The papers are signed.

In the meantime, I am focusing on all of the adventures ahead of us and the memories that we will make. And treasuring all those we made here.

So, know of anyone looking to buy a great house?