Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Love and Cookie Cake

You all are so lucky I didn't post yesterday. I was a nervous WRECK. A neurotic, hand-wringing, floor-pacing, mass of nerves. I couldn't focus, couldn't work- couldn't even read my celebrity gossip/fashion blogs. The house we fell in love with got an offer Sunday night. In a frantic flurry of phone calls and emails and little calculations on post-its, we found we were able to make a non-contingent counter-offer (the only kind that would be entertained) by Monday afternoon if I moved up my start date to March 12, closed on March 15, and accepted a generous offer of temporary loan from a family member (should our house not sell in time for closing). In between these phone calls with various agents and lenders (and JP, who was in meetings all morning), the SEC called to request more firmly that I move up my start date. I deflected, saying I just couldn't get my family out there before the end of March, and then had to call 10 minutes later and say, "never mind! I now need to start March 12th, see you then!" And then I waited, a tense ball of nerves, until this morning when we found out that WE WON.

The residential love of my life will be mine (ours) in a month. It is in a fabulous neighborhood, half a mile from the school, five miles from my office. It was built in the 1940's, but has been completely re-done on the inside (including knocking down a few walls to make it more open and adding a master suite, while maintaining the original charm). It has a pool. It's on a third of an acre. It is my single-dwelling soul mate.

Sneak Preview




Now we just need to sell our house in Austin. Lovely as it is, I do not want a vacation house in the Austin suburbs. Our agent expects an offer by the end of the day, so we'll see. I'm hoping we have multiple reasons to pop open the champagne tonight.

Because there will be champagne. I know most people like to harsh on Valentine's Day, but sex, lingerie, and champagne are three of my favorite things, so I'm a fan. Plus, we now share a heart-shaped Mangia's Chicago-style pizza and a heart-shaped cookie cake with the kids, and you know how I feel about pizza and cookies, so really, it's one of my favorite days of the year. Yes it's over-commercialized and it's stupid to make people feel they need to drop a few thousand dollars on diamonds over a Hallmark holiday, but JP left a post-it note with "I love you so much" on my purse this morning when he left the house at 5 a.m. to swim, and a lovely bouquet of flowers just showed up on my desk with an even lovelier note (that I won't embarrass him by sharing), and it's perfect. We say we love each other every day, but I don't mind a day that reminds me to put it in writing and drop it in his swim bag the night before. And taking the kids to pick out their $1.99 store-bought Valentine's, and then spending last night carefully selecting the perfect color power ranger card to give to each kid in Landon's class was surprisingly sweet. I think I'm the only mom that didn't add something homemade, but again, we keep it simple. And Landon thought very hard about which color should be matched to each name. I can't say Claire cared which "Tangled" Valentine went to her friends, but she did enjoy their PJ party this morning.

So it's a good day. I've giving myself exactly a week before I FREAK OUT about not yet selling our Austin house, but for today, I'm just feel loved and overwhelmingly excited about our beautiful future home. And wearing my ruby red shoes (and black dress; an outfit planned last week especially for the holiday because I'm cheesy like that) and looking at JP's post-it note stuck to my computer monitor is just icing on the Valentine's Day cookie cake.

13 comments:

  1. What a perfect day! The house is beautiful. Congratulations!!

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  2. That's your house?? It's BEAUTIFUL. So excited for you!!! Crossing my fingers that someone scoops up your Austin place immediately.

    Have fun tonight. :)

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  3. Totally love the house. Amazing! And I think with all the showings, you'll sell your place. We sold ours after only 3 showings! I'm thinking positive(ly) for you.

    Love the pool - was there ever a family who more could use a pool?

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  4. Beautiful house! I cannot believe how quickly (and perfectly) everything is falling into place. Very happy for you!

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  5. We sold our place in 8 hours(!), but of course it had to be on the market for 2 more weeks after that. Austin is a great place to sell a home, your current one will go fast, and your new one is beautiful! Good luck!!!

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  6. You are totally inspiring me to get going on moving on in life truly. 3.5 years at the firm... time to start looking around.

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  7. Wow, what a beautiful house! Congratulations!

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  8. Congratulations! Can't wait to read the packing, moving and decorating parts of the saga. Maybe I'm a neurotic grandmother, but don't they require pool fences down there?

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  9. Stunning house- you are so lucky. Are you worried about the kids and pool safety at all. We had looked at houses with pools here but ultimately I decided it would stress me out too much. Good luck with the move!

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  10. That house is seriously STUNNING. 15 showings is RIDICULOUS. consider yourself VERY VERY lucky. We had 15 showings, over the time period of 3 months. It finally did sell though. I know how stressful double mortgages thoughts are though.

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  11. Congrats!! Hope everything falls into place - I'm sure it will. Even if your Austin house doesn't sell right away, you'll find a way. Things do seem to have a way of working out.

    Okay - so here's a question for you. I know I missed the Q&A. But what the heck is a cookie cake. Will you post a photo?

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  12. Holy amazing house! Just from the 2 pictures it's better than I imagined. Congrats and I can't wait to see the rest of it!

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  13. I know I posted on FB also, but your new house is gorgeous! Congrats on everything falling into place. Fingers crossed that you get an offer soon for the Austin house!

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