What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Since I didn't post for many, many months I thought I would try and give you a synopsis of what has occurred since last July.

Just because we FINALLY got an offer on our house in Austin didn't mean things went smoothly. Our buyers getting approved for their financing left us sweating through the whole freaking process. Thank God for our buyers because our house sat on the market for 7 long months but damn, we weren't 100% sure their loan was going to go through until they were actually sitting at the table in the title company in Austin. The closing kept getting delayed and considering we don't have WADS OF CASH LAYING AROUND, we couldn't close on the new house until we closed on the old one. The close in Austin was scheduled for the 8th so I had all of our worldly possessions packed on 2 moving trucks on that day with the plan they would bring it to Houston the next day after our close there. Well, our buyers didn't close on the 8th. Or the 9th. Or the 10th. They didn't close until late Thursday, September 11th (like that date isn't dire enough). This whole time I am having to tell my movers in Austin don't bring my stuff until I don't know when, having to tell the builder in Houston we are postponing our close until we don't know when all the while trying to find and stock up on bottled water, batteries and canned tuna since Hurricane Ike was roaring straight towards Galveston. I was worried we were going to close before the Hurricane and our new house would be blown down before I cut the tape off of one box and I was also worried we wouldn't close before the Hurricane and we would be screwed over by some sort of penalties. Bottom line, we didn't close on the house before the hurricane. So we went to look at the place after the storm and it had water through the roof, onto hardwood floors etc. Although the hurricane caused part of this, it also revealed that the house was not properly sealed and had mold already growing in it from water getting in BEFORE the storm. We told the builder "no thanks" we weren't going to buy his leaky, mold-infested house. Although this time period was more stressful than I can really express, it turns out that all of the delays in closing and Hurricane Ike saved our butts. We would have bought a house that would have had continual problems. Who needs that? We ended up getting stuck in a one-bedroom corporate apartment with two dogs and no clothes or shoes to speak of (it was a dire, dire fashion meltdown) for two months but did end up getting a much better home that was less money to boot. Here is a photo montage:

Sold this:
Thought we were going to by this:

Then this:
And this happened: So we saw this:
And bought this instead:And not to confuse the issue too much. We may move here for a year:

And hoping we won't have too much of this: