I don't normally use all caps...

OUR OFFER GOT ACCEPTED!!

Here we go again

We have decided to make an offer on the condo we saw last week!  I'm feeling really good about this - I actually tried to get Paul-John to look at a different condo in this building more than six months ago.  I have always been pro-condo: for our first owning experience, there is a lot less responsibility.  And yardwork.  Of course, that changed when I saw dream house incarnate, and now I'm back to condo.

I have been really picky when looking for houses because I have this need for personality.  The house has to have the right vibe.  These condos definitely have a vibe.  Old converted brick schoolhouse with clocktower?  14 foot ceilings and enormous windows?  Yup.  It also has the practical things we want - a dishwasher, a bath and a half, and lots of closets.  I like that it has a large living room and no formal dining room.  Right now the dining room is the largest room in our apartment, and we never use it.  

This was the first place we've looked at that has been lived in, so that makes it slightly harder to really picture our stuff inside.  This isn't a bad thing, because I'm nervous about get too excited about it.  But that hasn't stopped me from looking for things we might need if we move.  I saw the coolest coat rack on etsy, except it was $3,000.    

What's new

Lots of minor things happening around here lately, so I thought I would share.

First of all, chicken salad.  I had chicken salad for the first time just last week - unbelievable, I know.  Not only is it delicious, it is super quick and super easy to make.  Win-win-win.  I think this will be my go to lunch for some time.  

After I discovered chicken salad, I discovered a sweet bicycle.  A pink and purple Huffy.  Even better, it was free.  After watching it for two days sitting on the curb, I finally walked it home (the tires were totally flat).  It's going to need some fixing up, but it's not quite yet bicycling season so I have some time.  

As for knitting, I finished a  cardigan last week.  I think it will fit slightly better once blocked, but I don't want to not wear it for that many days yet.  

House hunting is still going.  We set up an appointment last week to see a house, but before we got a chance to see it, the house went under deposit.  We were supposed to look at a couple condos today, but no one got back to our real estate agent in time, so I think we might go tomorrow after work.  

Today is Paul-John's mother's birthday AND my dad's big 50th birthday.

A revelation

I was doing some reading on the Ravelry forums when someone had mentioned Norwegian purling.  Since I had never heard of this technique, I opened a new tab, googled it, and of course knittinghelp.com came up first. (I love this site!)  After watching a short video, I clicked on the video for combination purling, since I had never heard of that either.

Lo and behold, I am a combination purler.  After watching the video about five times, I watched the continental purling video (since I knit continental) and then went back to the combination video.  Yup, it is true.  I purl combinationally.  An excerpt from the website on the combination purl:

"... the resulting stitch is oriented differently on the needle, and must then be worked slightly differently on the following round than would a knit stitch."

I always thought that was one of the defining aspects of purling - it's a backwards knit stitch, so on the following row one would enter the needle into a knit and purl stitch differently.  It just made sense.  

While this is pretty trivial, it sort of blew my mind at the time.  

Things that have happened today

1.  We found out that there is probably extensive freeze damage in dream house - yesterday we found out it had some, today it turned out to be much more than we thought.

2.  We found out that even if our offer got accepted, the type of loan we got pre-qualified for probably wouldn't let us buy a house with that much damage

3.  We found out the bank officially accepted the other offer.  This didn't bum us out too much, considering #1 and 2.

4.  We looked at two other houses... meh

5.  Around 10pm, we found out that all the water from the load of laundry I did at 9 ended up on our basement floor.  

oh yeah, awesome day.

And the plot thickens

Yesterday Paul-John and I put in an offer on a house.  Today, we found out that we were not the only people who did so.  This means that we had until the end of business today to submit our "best offer" and they had the same.   (Because both parties submitted offers at the same time, we don't know what they offered, if it was more or less than we offered.)  So, now we wait... fun.  

Freaking Out

I am currently incredibly anxious.  First thing tomorrow morning, Paul-John and I are making an offer on a house.  This is HUGE.  Crazy.  Unbelievable.  Overwhelming, et cetera.  My anxieties about this are:

1.  Our offer isn't accepted or someone outbids us.  

2.  Our offer is accepted, but when we do the house inspection we find a really big problem.

3.  We buy the house and regret it - even if nothing huge comes up in the inspection, we know that this house needs more work than we were initially looking for, but just everything else about this house is right.  But I am nervous that we will be overwhelmed.  

That being said, this is also very exciting.  Not only is this pretty much my dream house, it's an affordable house right in the middle of a great and expensive neighborhood.  Seems way too good to be true.  

This is also happening faster than I expected.  We have been looking online for about six months and nothing has really struck us.  I saw this house on Thursday night, the same day it was listed.  I loved everything about it instantly.  Within ten minutes, we set up a viewing for Saturday.  And tomorrow, our offer gets submitted.

We might not know for up to a week if our offer gets accepted or not, but I am hoping we find out ASAP.