off topic

But, really, it IS the current topic: the sale/the move. This has become such a nightmare, such a roller coaster drive. There are 2 real estate closing pending: the sale of the acreage that our house sits on, and the purchase of the home we plan to move into once this property does sale.

The ‘acreage’ is 30+ acres owned by Jim’s father, his 3 nieces, one nephew and our 1 acre. Getting the family together to agree to the sale terms was a huge hurtle which was accomplished about 3 years ago. Then there have been many hurtles getting the legal changes required to allow commercial development here. We expected the closing on this property to occur early in October, but it was postponed to early November, then to the end of November.

The sellers of the house we found in August agreed to a contingency contract to be closed by early November. We had to renegotiate that closing to the end of November, which the sellers were not happy about but reluctantly agreed to do. I guess the down-turn in real estate has worked in out favor. However, the new delay is not a happy situation.

Last week, the buyers of the acreage sent out a notice that they could not close before December 7th. That threw Jim and me into a tail spin. We are the only ones hanging on the closing of this sale to move forward—all others are already out of here! Jim has managed to get the buyer to agree to close on our one acre part of the sale on November 28 as we expected, allowing us to close on the house purchase on the 30th as planned. That was a great relief—but an uncertain one since there have been so many proposals and so many changes.

That is the short version of the last couple of months. The uncertain conditions of our life have left me bewildered, discouraged and unhappy. I have wished I could escape into the studio and ignore all this around me—but I have not been able to manage that escape.