Not One, but Two Offers!

While Nancy was out shopping today, the realtor called me to tell us we had gotten two offers on our house today. They are both pretty similar offers, and both acceptable to us. The only thing we want to change is the closing date. If we can bump that back a few weeks, we can move straight into our new house, without having to find somewhere to live for 3 weeks.

I called Nancy to tell her the good news. I went through the main points of each offer, and she was really excited. I then told her that I was only joking. We hadn't really gotten any offers. She was very mad at me that I would play such a cruel joke on her. But she knows me well, and knows I am certainly capable of such things. Plus, the realtor usually calls her, not me...so that made it possible that I made the whole thing up. I finally told her that I was just messing with her, and that we really had gotten two offers. Then she was really mad that I would do that to her, and she still didn't really believe me until I showed the offers to her.

Our house showed three times yesterday (twice to the same person) and once today, so we were hoping something would come of the showings. Little did we expect two offers! Now we'll keep our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly from here, because we are still a long way from signing on the dotted line.

We are expecting them to finish the brick work tomorrow, so expect some more pictures.

Better to be pissed off than pissed on

I am at work. We just laid a dog on his back to do an ultrasound of his abdomen. He got nervous and decided to pee. Only, since he was on his back, his 'water gun' was aimed right at me. Perfect shot, right in my mouth. I can't wait to give Nancy a big kiss when I get home. Good thing I love my job, huh?

Radiology 101

Ever since I have known Nancy, she has randomly had a nagging pain in her right ankle. It would appear at random times and cause her a lot of discomfort. In fact, she has had this random recurring pain since college. Well recently it began hurting worse, so I checked it out to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. We determined that the pain was confined to the medial malleolus of her right tibia (the knobby bone on the inner part of the ankle). It didn't seem to hurt to flex or extend the ankle, but it hurts when pressure is applied to that bone.

So, since I own an x-ray machine, we set out to x-ray her ankle to see if anything would show up. The first picture is the x-rays (2 views) of her right ankle. The next picture is of her non-painful left ankle on the left, and her painful right ankle on the right. For comparison purposes, the right picture is flipped so that the inner part of the ankle faces to the right in both pictures.

See anything?

After looking at the x-rays, I could definitely see a radiolucent (dark area) circular area, surrounded by sclerotic bone (whiter, denser bone) in the medial malleolus, which is where she is painful. This resembles a cystic bone lesion that some animals get, but since I went to veterinary medical school, and not Homo sapien medical school, we did some research. It turns out that this is a common place to develop bone cysts in teenagers and young adults. So that is what we think this is. Here are some pictures where I have labeled the cyst, since it is kind of hard to see.

She went to see an orthopedic surgeon on Thursday, and he is seeing the same cystic lesion. She didn't take her x-rays that I took with her, or even tell him about them, since it is technically illegal for me to "practice medicine" on a person. She now has to go have a contrast MRI done next week, to see if they will need to biopsy the cyst. Sometimes, they have to drill a hole into the cyst and put in a bone graft. So we'll see how it turns out. She is supposed to be on crutches to keep pressure off of it, but of course she isn't using them at all.

I know this has nothing to do with the house, but Nancy wanted me to post the pictures a) so her parents could see them, since she was telling them about it last night, and b) so that if any of you saw her limping or on crutches, she wouldn't have to try to explain why.

And I know I am a nerd, but this is alot more interesting than bricks and drywall.

You Ain't Got No Alibi, You Ugly

***Disclaimer: If you are reading this blog, and you happen to be the person(s) who is/are buying the house below, we think your selection of exterior is beautiful and unique... a bold and stunning combination of style and good taste. We are proud and excited to have you and your beautiful home as part of our fledgling neighborhood***

For everyone else...

This is the house I referred to in yesterday's blog. Unfortunately, the pictures don't give it's ugliness the credit it deserves.

And here are a couple of The Fitz as of today. Almost finished with the brick.

And if you happen to like the "ugly" house's exterior better than ours, again, keep it to yourself. Ahem...Pit of Doom...cough.

She's a Brick House

Ever since we picked out our brick in Mike’s office, we have been a little nervous about whether we would still like it once it was attached to our house and there was no turning back. It is really hard to know for sure what a house will look like covered in bricks when you are picking from groups of three bricks on a piece of cardboard in an office. To add to our apprehension, there is a new house down the street that has a stone/ brick combination that I’m sure looked wonderful in Mike’s office, but looks absolutely hideous on the house. And those poor people are stuck with it. And when I say hideous, that is giving it way too much credit. Seriously, if it were my house, I would get some really good insurance and set it on fire, before we even moved in of course. I think I will take a picture of it tomorrow and post it here so you can see what I mean.

Anyway, we have been a little nervous about what our brick would look like, but even if it didn’t look as good as we had hoped, at least we wouldn’t have the ugliest house in the neighborhood. They are about 2/3 done with the brick work, and I am pleased to report that we are very happy with our choice. We both love it. So now we drive around and Nancy says, as we pass each house, “Their brick doesn’t look as good as ours” or “that brick looks sorta like ours, only not as pretty”. She’s very entertaining, and not at all humble about her excellent taste in home decor. I say her taste, because I remember thinking that all the bricks looked pretty much the same, and telling her to hurry up so we could get back in the car and I could listen to the Aggie basketball game on the radio.

And if you visit our house and do not think that every faucet, fixture, and color is absolutely the most beautiful thing you have ever laid eyes on, do not dare tell Nancy. If you do, she will cast you into the Pit of Doom that she is having specially installed for just that purpose:

Okay, so that is just the view of our front entryway from upstairs, but I would still recommend keeping any negative opinions to yourself. Believe me when I tell you that the figurative Pit of Doom is much, much worse than the real thing.

Here are some pictures:

Just Kidding

Yes, it was just an April Fool’s Day joke. Nancy has been bugging me all day to post that. Those idiots are still going to loan us enough money to buy The Fitz, at least as far as we know. I hope Karma doesn’t come back to bite me, because none of you will believe me if it really does fall through. I just couldn’t let AFD go by without having a little fun. Judging by the number of phone calls we got, more people read this blog than I thought. And I got called some pretty colorful names by Nancy’s mom. Remind me to let her in on the next joke I pull. I even fooled my own mother. Of course, like any good mother, she repaid me with the guilt of her “worrying all day long” about us. And Nancy’s brother was ready to go kick the mortgage lender in the teeth. It is good to know we have several co-signors and potential connections in the mortgage industry if we need them. LOL

Those boys are really working hard on the house these days. The brick is on its way up the walls, and as of this evening, all the sheetrock is finished, and 75% of the taping and floating has been finished. We ran into our construction manager tonight, and he thinks they will have all the brick done and the walls textured by the end of the week. Seriously, anybody know someone who wants to buy nice 3-2-2 in Katy? We need to get this house sold.

We are already planning our housewarming party. Well, by planning, I mean we mentioned once that we ought to have one. You’re all invited, of course. If you’ll forgive me for my little joke.

Here are the latest pics, as of last night:

%@#*%@

Our mortgage lender called this evening, and apparently, since I have been self-employed for less than a year, they cannot consider my income for a mortgage loan. We already knew that part. The kicker is, with Nancy's income being the only one considered, and despite her excellent credit, we cannot get a loan without what would amount to a 43% down payment (they can only loan us a total of 57% of the price of the house)...although we were already pre-approved. The guy says, "Well, the way the industry is going right now, we have changed our guidelines somewhat, and we are loaning more conservatively." What a bunch of BS.

To make a long story short, we are taking our house off the market tomorrow. The Fitz will be shown to other buyers. The only way we can still get it is to reapply in September, after I have been self-employed for one year. The chances of it not being sold by then...zero.

So we have to start this whole damn process over in the fall. Needless to say, this blog won't be about our house building experience any time soon.