Closed!

We closed on the house yesterday! Dani and I are now homeowners! Feel free to congratulate us in the comments, if you're so inclined.

We went into the bank at 3:00. The title agent ran a little late due to a discrepancy between two of our documents (the approval letter for the short-sale said they'd paid 3500, when the contract specified they would pay 4500--we knew about this and had budgeted for 3500). Once we told him that we were fine with the 3500, things got rolling. I felt so bad for a girl named Teresa at the bank. She was responsible for a single crucial document, and three people were closing at the same time. We sat in the room waiting for her to finally get to ours for about 20 minutes.

Anyway, money changed hands, papers were signed, and Dani and I signed a certain percentage of our income over to the bank for the next thirty years. After we had closed, we went over to the house. The previous owner has still not finished moving out, and we understood this. Dani and I went over there with several grocery bags to comb the back yard. We filled three of them with dog crap.

N was happy as a clam running around the back yard. V enjoyed the sun, and Dani and I made plans for today. We also were pleasantly surprised to find out that we have a pear tree, a yellow apple tree, a red apple tree, an apricot, and seven plum trees. Well, the plum trees, according to the neighbor, had always produced sporadically, and were always messy. So, today, I rented a chainsaw from home depot and took out five of them (each 20+ ft tall). I'm covered in scrapes and stuff right now, and very very tired. Anyway, we cleared them out to make room for a proper garden and play ground equipment. Tuesday we'll be renting a wood-shredder and convert all the small limbs and things into mulch for the play-ground area.

So, we're already hard at work on home improvements, and we're hoping to move in on Thursday.