This is the story of Lemony Snicket's and a series of unfortunate events.
I was about half way through my first year of teaching I got pregnant with Audrey. I am not a daycare person. I can not let them have my baby or trust them to care for them like I would...I can let go a little when they are bigger, but they are mine when they are wee babes. I nurse them and have no desire to pump. Because of this, Mr. TSL and I decided I would stay home until baby was around 2 and we would have to move near where he got a new job. Moving whilst pregnant, plus in July/August is awesome. Awesome. Not to mention she was born in September, so I was that pregnant.
Moving on. I get long winded. This is a hell of a story though. You'll be like no freakin' way a lot, but yes way.
We found a house in late June, it wasn't what we wanted, but it was acceptable. I could work with it and it had enough space outside and in the garage for MR. TSL. I just didn't like it. He was sold. I was not. It was the only house near his school district that wasn't total crap and in our price range.
It was at the high end of our price range. So, we undercut them by a lot hoping to settle in the middle. We settled and I wasn't happy, but it was again, okay. I was already redoing things in my head and rearranging things. Planning family stuff in my head, etc.
This is where it gets shitty, literally. The older couple we were buying the house from were the loveliest people. They were so nice and genuinely nice people. Which was great! We paid for a bunch of inspections and decided what we would have them fix/fix ourselves. When we got the report back from the well. The septic had been leaking into the well. They must have known something was up-ish (suspected it enough to know not to drink the well water.) We went to visit after signing the contract and the older lady told me not to drink the water and handed a very very pregnant me a bottle of water.
This was the beginning of a rolling ball of bullshit. They had to put in a new septic system on their dime (like $10k) They wanted to cheap out and get the smallest system, perfect for an elderly couple, not for a family with 4 girls and a dad. They wanted us to pay the difference for the upgrade, I wasn't having it. We had some in savings, but I didn't want to blow it on fixing their shitter. Awesome.
At this point, I was out. Mr. TSL still in. Then we visit again, while they are having the septic fixer survey. Mr. TSL even helped dig some of the holes, while the elderly lady insisted I sit in the shade with water (well over 100 degrees outside).
Then the surveyor said it, they would have to put in a mound system. Basically a tank above ground to fill with our nasties and such. It would be covered with a thin layer of dirt and sod. It was going in right where we had plans to put up a large shop, taking a huge amount of our yard. Plus, they would have to cut all the fruit trees down to install it. I darted Mr. TSL a look and he knew we were super out. Plus, we had pissed a few hundred dollars in inspections right out the window. Suckola.
We went to have a meeting with their Realtor. They were trying to get us to buy the property next to the place to put a shop for an extra $25,000. I said nope, we don't have/aren't spending more money on that place. They just kept pushing. Mr. TSL is very nice and has a hard time letting people down...not me, oh no, no problem at all. She just kept trying to convince us. I looked right at her and said, "I am not buying that house, go get my $500 earnest money. Thank you."
This sucked. Like big fat donkey balls. We were now sort of homeless. We were sleeping at Mr. TSL's parents. It's small for them and tiny with the 4 of us, me pregnant and our dog....did I mention Harley had 6 new puppies. Yep. Puppies. Our stuff was on trailers at families houses.
Then my mom emailed me a house from Craigslist. It had no pics, a small description and a super cheap price tag. I figured it was crap, but worth a look. I called and talked to the man. He was very nice. He had built the house and his kids had stayed with him while he had custody, then he told me they where they went to high school. My high school, weird because his place was 45 min from there and near a lake. Ironically enough his son had been in my class and his older son had been in my mom's 7th grade math class. He called his son and he sang my mother's praises. She really is phenomenal! :) He said that we must be good people and if we wanted it after we came to look, it was ours.
We drove out to check it out. (In this time span, Mr. TSL turned 30 and needed a new license, they wouldn't let him renew because we had no proof of address, except at our old house-3 hours away...expired license by 2 days) He got a ticket. Bad. Crap.
We got to the house and the skies opened. Thank God! It was great and priced around $50,000 under what it was worth in it's current state. We'll take it. Since their were no realtors, no fees. Awesome. Still had to pay all the inspections again, but that's okay. But, we could close in a week, we thought.
We went about 4 more days and I couldn't sleep on a freaking air mattress any more. We took some money from savings and stayed at a hotel for a week. It sucked. Mr. TSL had started work and was driving from our hotel 25 minutes to work with both kids. Me in a hotel all day with the dog and 6 puppies. Blah.
It gets worse, so much worse.
Like I said above, our stuff was everywhere. My brother's, his brother's. He started school and on his first day his truck, that he spent the entire summer and a lot of time before building, to be exactly what he wanted was stolen. By meth head fuckers, stolen. It threw everything into a tailspin. They walked onto his brother's property, broke in and stole it. Broad daylight. Assholes. Mr. TSL was cracked.
I told the owner of the house he said he was sorry and that he would pray for us. I will never understand how much it crushed Mr. TSL, he had poured so much time into that truck and had only driven it 25 miles and onto the car hauler to bring it here...it was gone.
We drove around like crazy in shitty areas of town, looking for it, his brothers drove around looking for it. We chased down leads and nothing. We were out one day looking for it on some dirt roads and I thought I saw it parked in the trees. I yelled to back up and he slammed my Jeep in reverse and a huge truck rear-ended us. We had both kids, huge pregnant me, our dog and all 6 puppies in the car. FUCK FUCK FUCK. The girl was going to beat Mr. TSL (she was a big girl) and then she saw me a started freaking out to see if I was okay. I was fine, just crying from the shock. (It was a minivan by the way, not his truck)
This is sucked. Super sucked. While we were waiting for the police, we got all the puppies out and everyone had a puppy :) The owner of the house called to tell me their was a problem and we couldn't close in a week. When he called I was still crying and hyperventilating from everything and he told me we could just move in. He said he'd be up that weekend to move stuff out of it and to help us move our things in.
Yep, all that shit and then he says we can move in, no rent, haven't closed, he'll help. We moved in 1 week before I had Audrey 1 week. We didn't even end up closing until December, so we had no house payment or rent for 4 months. It was lovely.
Mr. TSL's truck was torn apart and taken to a salvage yard and anything that was worth money was sold or they still have. That still sucks for us. But, we got the house.
Outside Pictures
1. I have painted the railing and garage door Dusty Mountain Gray.
2. I planted the front garden full of flowers and random plants.
3. We also put new outdoor lights.
4. I also repainted a vintage mailbox and Mr. TSL hung it and a chalkboard for me on the porch. The mailbox has sidewalk chalk in it for the kids to play with on the porch. I would give you a close up of those, but we need to power wash the house again because of the enormous amounts of spiderwebs.
It's been 3 adventurous years and I have done a ton of projects around here and have many more planned!
xoxo,
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