...and we're back

Whew. We're back from the beach and no worse for wear or tear. We had lots of fun and I have lots of pictures and I'll tell you all about it and share the pics with those of you who are on Facebook with me, just not right now because I'm wiped out from the driving, the unpacking, and all the rest of it.


I'll be around to your blogs later to read the fabulous stuff you wrote but right now, I want to have some supper and relax.

Monkey love to you all my peeps.

Inside the monkey house

It's time to take a peek inside the new house!

Come on in and I'll show you the new furniture we got for the living/dining room. It's a long ass room, I was joking around with Sparky and I told her that we could have installed a bowling alley in it. At one end we have a sitting area with some new furniture. The chair on the left came today and the love seat we got last week. The trunk in the center Sparky has had for years. The other chair matches the love seat and we got it all in a deal at a locally owned furniture store. It's comfortable and stylish at the same time. Topping the room off is the new to us dining room table that was given to us by our friends from Knoxville, Todd and Donna. The table with all the leaves it is fecking huge, which is a good thing because we now have a house where we can have scads of people over at once, unlike our old condo where we could only have one couple at a time over.

The room is still a work in progress, we're on the hunt for a rug that will match the furniture and for some chairs for the table, but we're happy with everything so far.

This last picture is to show our friend Donna that she can stop her search for a set of acceptable glasses for us. I found this set at TJ Maxx for $12. They're heavy glasses Donna, just like I said I liked and they have a bit of style to them. That pattern is called "Window Pane." Stay tuned for more peeks inside the new Monkey Central as events warrant.

A "fond" look back at moving week

Monday Sept. 29th-The day before we close on selling our condo and buying our new to us house: It finally seems real that we're going to move out of the condo where we've lived for the past 10 years. We're both excited to be leaving that nest of craziness with it's compliment of nosy religious right wing neighbors and to be out from under the do nothing condo management company that did nothing for us. It hits me as I pack my truck for the last time that I won't ever have to see any of those people again unless I run into them in the grocery store or something.

Later that evening as we watched the news reports about the first attempt to get the House to bail out the rich I can tell Sparky is getting antsy. I don't let her see that I'm concerned that something might go wrong the next day because of all the instability in the financial markets. I do my best to calm her down and to reassure her that we're doing the right thing.

I got about three hours sleep before the alarm went off at 6 AM.

Tuesday Sept. 30th-Closing and moving day:
We get up at the butt crack of dawn and we begin the final assault on getting ready to move. I break down the bed, after a quick trip to the hated Wal-Mart for a pair of pliers, and then Sparky gets ready to go close on selling our condo.

The movers show up at 8:30 and they tell me since they are one man short they're going to knock ten bucks an hour off their rate. I nod and show them what they've got ahead of them. They seem non plussed and they dive right in to work.

I get a call from Sparky after she closes on selling our condo and she tells me it went well. The relief that we sold our place washes over me as I watch the movers packing all the boxes we spent the last few weeks packing up. Sparky tells me our realtor is leaving the key to the new house in the mailbox so when we finish loading we can take it straight over and start to unload.

At 10 AM my friend Keith and his son Cameron show up and we load all our electronics and my "art" in his van. Being the generous guy I am I offer them bananas and bottled water for their hard work. Only Keith takes a banana, both have some water.

At 11:15ish I get a call from Sparky and she tells me the closing on buying our new place went smoothly. A tidal wave of relief hit me. The movers get the last box in the truck and I give them directions to our new house and they take off. Keith and Cameron and I then set out for it as well.

At 11:30ish we arrive and the movers do so as well. For the next two hours we unload all the trucks, vans, and other vehicles. Sparky shows up and I can tell she's excited to be finally moving in. Happy day!

After Keith and Cameron leave to go home at 1PM the movers get everything off the truck by about 1:30. I pay them and since I didn't have to lift one stick of heavy furniture or too many boxes I gladly write them a check and thank them for their hard work.

The next few hours we start unpacking and setting up the new place.

Our friend Snad shows up about 6 PM and she starts raving about the new place. It turns out it's her birthday as well as our moving day and she invites us to have dinner with her, her husband, her brother, and his kids at a local chain restaurant in about an hour. Despite having eaten out for the past four days in a row, we had packed all our kitchen stuff, we agreed because we were bone tired and we had yet to unpack our kitchen stuff.

Dinner was, despite being at a chain restaurant, very good. And the company was amusing and delightful, especially Sand's nephews. When we get home I hook up the TV and the DVD player and we watch an episode and a half of the Vicar of Dibley before we pass out from exhaustion and from eating too much pasta and salad.

Wednesday October 1-Unpacking and setting up:
I got up around 9:30 and I stumble down stairs. I took one look at the mountain of boxes left to unpack and I shriek like a school girl. It looked like they had multiplied overnight.

We spend all day unpacking, hauling broken down boxes and the newspaper we packed fragile stuff in to the recycling bins, and muttering to ourselves about how much shit we own. Sometime during the day I remember breaking out and going to the grocery store and getting food. I also vaguely remember cooking supper for the first time in days, it was quite a treat to eat food that wasn't laden with too much salt and fat again. I also remember sucking down a few beers. Mmmm, beers.

Thursday October 2-More unpacking and setting up:
The mountain of boxes seemed a little smaller and we dove right in and unpacked them when we got up. We also set up a few more rooms as the day wore on and the feeling that the house was really ours sunk further in as the day wore on.

We worked about 12 hours unpacking and setting up. As the sun began to set we finally remembered to shower and have some supper.

Friday October 3-Unpacked and cable ready:
I hauled off the fifth or sixth load of boxes and newspaper first thing yesterday morning and Sparky began going about doing more setting up and furniture arranging.

The cable guy got here around 1PM and when I told him what I wanted. him and his partner got to work. For the next three hours they worked to install our cable, our high speed internet, and our phone service. When they got done we had digital cable again, but sadly no more free HBO, phone service, and my beloved internet was back.

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The past few days have flown by and I'm sure I left out some great blog worthy stories but to be honest my brain is mush right now. I'm tired from all the days of non stop packing, unpacking, and setting things up.

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We're very grateful to the movers, to our friends Keith and Cameron for all their help, and to Sand for coing by and making sure we were still alive and taking us out for dinner on her birthday last Tuesday. We're also grateful for your kind words, well wishes, and comments on here. We've got more work to do to make our house a home but we've got the rest of our lives to work on it.

Third time is the charm

The first offer we made on a new to us house was an offer that was contingent on us selling our condo and the offer had a 24 hour bump clause which said that if someone made a cash offer or an offer that was not contingent on them selling their house then we had 24 hours to match that offer or we'd lose the house. Wouldn't you know it, we lost that house because someone made an offer that was not contingent on them selling their place so we lost the first place we made an offer on about a month and a half ago.

The second place we made an offer on was the place with the nice hardwood floors and the French doors. I posted a bunch of pictures of it after we made the offer. We both really liked the house and the neighborhood but we had issues with the small galley style kitchen. So we planned to move the kitchen into another room and knock out a wall and make the living/dining room a lot bigger, but all that was predicated on whether the house would pass inspection or not. It turns out it didn't pass inspection. The house had some big cracks in the foundation and some other major problems that I won't go into, so we didn't buy the house.

We got that bad news over a week ago and since we have sold our condo and we are due to close on it the 30th of this month we had to get our asses in gear and find something or face the choice of putting most of our stuff into storage and renting a place while we looked further.

Thankfully our realtor kept plugging away and showing us house after house and finally she showed us one that Sparky had seen but had thought would be too expensive for us. It turns out that this house, which is in a great neighborhood which will always stay residential, had had it's price reduced. So we went and looked at it. We both loved it. It's got plenty of room for us, it's in a good section of town, and it was built in a time when craftsmanship meant something and when houses were built to last.

So we bit the bullet and made an offer. Then the owner countered our offer. We then countered her counter and she accepted. Of course we were happy but once again the offer was predicated on the house passing inspection. So we called the same guy who inspected the other house for us, we liked his honesty, and he set yesterday as the day for his inspection.

We waited all day long for him to finish. We were tense and jittery all day as we waited to hear from him. If it didn't pass then I'm sure my head would have exploded and Sparky's might have as well. But finally he called us, we met, and the long and short of it is that the house passed. There is nothing wrong with the roof, the foundation, or the heat pump. There a a few minor repairs we need to make but there is nothing earth shatteringly wrong with the house. So after tying up all of our summer with the selling of our condo and the buying of a house, it looks like we've found a new to us house. Yay!

Next up is closing on selling our condo and then closing on buying the new house and then we can move in and make it ours. Both of us feel a huge sense of relief, especially Sparky, and we're looking forward to moving in to our new place. Thank you to those of you who wished us well and for your words of encouragement when the last house didn't work out.

Oh yeah, D Cup, before you ask, there's plenty of room for the Spawn, and for you and Mathman as well, if you want to leave them at home and come up for a visit after we get settled in.

Spend a little, save a lot

Without going too much into it, the house we made an offer on did not pass inspection. It turns out that the money we spent on getting it inspected may well be the best investment we ever made.

Better homes and gardens

After being guardedly optimistic I am now pretty excited because it looks like we've got ourselves a new Monkey Central on our hands.

We saw a house on Sunday and we both liked it very much. So we went back and looked at it again yesterday for about an hour and a half. Then we decided that the price, the house, and the neighborhood was right so we decided to make the owners an offer.

We had been holding off making offers until we found out if the people buying our place had a buyer for their place and we found out this Monday that they did, so we decided to jump in and start negotiating on houses we liked. And we liked the house we saw on Sunday and saw again yesterday. Sure, it's not perfect and we'll have to do some remodeling to get it the way we want it but the potential on this place is huge. It's in a solid neighborhood and it's a sturdy house that was built in the late '60's and it has a modern retro feel to it.

The dining room.

We knew the owners were motivated to sell so we offered a bit less than they were asking, but we didn't low ball them. They made a counter offer that was slightly higher than our offer and yet still below their original asking price and we accepted their counter offer. We have not officially closed yet and we still have to get a home inspection done but if it passes inspection and there are no termites, then it looks like we'll be moving soon.

A view of the sun porch that's off the dining room.

Sparky is super excited about the new to us place. She's been dreaming of getting a real house almost since the day we moved into this condo. I'm excited as well because I can put in a garden in the backyard and the lawn upkeep doesn't look like it's going to be too much of a problem.

There's a ton of stuff to do to, packing, hiring a moving company, filling out paper work, switching the cable, the electricity, etc, so we'll be pretty busy for the next few weeks. If everything goes smoothly maybe we can be in the new to us house by the end of September. Keep those finger, toes, and prehensile tails crossed for us as we navigate this process.

Guardedly Optimistic

I don't want to say too much about our search for a new place but I'm feeling guardedly optimistic today after the events of the past few days.

Good news for modern monkeys

I'm pleased to report that we've accepted an offer from another couple to buy our condo.  Nothing has been signed yet but we have accepted their offer which is contingent on them selling their place.  They're buying our place for just a smidgen under what we were asking.  

Now that we have accepted their offer we're going back to look at the house that Sparky really really wants.  We're going to go over it with a fine tooth comb and then make that couple an offer which will be contingent on us selling our place to the couple who's offer we already accepted.

With a little luck all this business will be behind us soon and we'll be on our way to moving into a nice three bedroom/two bath house with a big back yard that's across town and across the street from some friends of ours.  It's a nice older ranch style home that is "move in-able" now.  The basement we can work on as we move along.  It's finished in the sense it has electricity, concrete floors, plumbing, and a fire place and as time goes on we're going to add some walls and divide it up into a laundry area, a den, and a small kitchenette.  We also plan to make a patio outside off the basement door.  Of course all this is predicated on whether or not they decide to accept our offer.  If they don't then we have some back up houses in mind.  

Anyway, I'm glad we've got our place sold as quickly as we did.

I'm back

I'm back from blog-livion.

Thanks to all those of you who followed me over to Monkey Muck 2.0.  I'll be keeping that blog but not posting to it unless something like this spam blog bullshit happens again.  

Funnily enough, as soon as I finished transferring most all of your blogs to the new style blog roll Internet Explorer has decided it can't load this blog anymore on my PC.  So I switched to Safari and I've had no problems.  Holy shit though, for a moment there if it wasn't one thing it was another.

It's good to be home.

It must be going around

I guarantee you I won't look this good while it's going on, but one thing is for sure, it is going on. Finally. The "it" I speak of is the home improvement projects we decided to get done in advance of putting our place on the market. The guy who is going to do the minor repairs is busy bringing all his various tools and sundries in and then he'll be off to buy the ceiling and wall paints. So while he's here and working I'll probably be forced to move stuff to get it out of his way. And one of the things I'll be moving at some point is my computer and that means blogging and the reading or your blogs might be a little light this week and part of the next.

And after the repairs and painting come the carpet installation and the new countertop in the kitchen.

So don't think I've left you, I'll just be around a little less for the next few weeks.

Be very very quiet, we're hunting houses

The search for a new abode goes on. We've been perusing some of the homes for sale in the neighborhoods on our list and we've seen some good places, some bad places, and some places where the previous owners should be beaten for having such wildly horrible taste. But this time around, unlike when we first got our current condo, we're not rushed and every month we stay here our equity goes up, so basically we can take our time and look around until we find a place we like, like this place:Awww, who am I kidding? We could win a $300 million Powerball Jackpot and that still wouldn't be enough to buy Biltmore House. It might however get us a few thousand of those cute little nearly naked cherubs. Nothing classes up a joint like nearly naked cherubs, well that and maybe a statue of blind justice with her tits covered up, at least that what John Ashcroft says anyway.

Until we win the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot, or both while I'm dreaming, we'll keep looking at houses in our price range. We'll keep looking at fixer uppers:
At cottage-esque bungalows:
And maybe, just maybe, if we keep our fingers crossed and if we're living right, we might find a nice three bedroom two bath home that doesn't need a shitload of work right away and has a level backyard so I can put in a garden. And maybe it'll be on a tree lined street close to Sparky's work so she can come home for lunch during the week. Maybe we'll find a house like that and maybe it will look like this:
While we're looking for a house like that one we're in the process of fixing up our condo so it will sell quickly and get us the figure we want for it. We're getting new carpet in two thirds of our place and we're replacing the counter tops and the faucet in the kitchen. We've also hired a guy to repaint the whole place, from the ceilings on down to the baseboards, and do some minor repairs to some other stuff around here. He starts next Tuesday or Wednesday, so there may be days when I don't post as much, especially on the days when he repaints the room where I keep my computer.

We're both excited about finding a bigger place and having a house instead of a condo but like I said before, we're in no hurry and we can take our time. And if we don't find anything that we both like, and more importantly, can afford, then we can just stay here in our current place and with all the repairs and the new paint job, kitchen counter tops, and carpet, it'll seem like a new place to us.

All apologies

If you've noticed my usual torrid posting pace has slowed a little and that I have been e-stalking your blogs a bit less than I usually do then you guessed right.  It's not because I don't like you all anymore or because I have writers block or anything (that's something that I promise will never happen to me because I'm a fat bastard with an opinion on most everything), it's because big changes are in the works here at Monkey Central.  

Sparky has been wanting to sell our condo and find a regular house for some time now and it looks like we're all in on doing so finally.  Financing is a go and we've been looking at more houses than you can shake a stick at, some good, some bad, some right but not quite there.  So that's been occupying my time that I usually devote to blog stalking you and writing my usual cornucopia of insanity on here and on my other blogs.

The flip side to looking for and buying a new place is getting our current place fixed up and since I'm the one who can be home all day if needs be then it falls to me to set up the meetings with the painters, carpet installers, plumbers, etc who will help us get our condo in tip top resale shape.  So I've been doing just that lately, meeting with and getting estimates from home improvement people.  It's a laborious process but since we need to repaint the whole place, do some minor cosmetic repairs, and replace some carpet, it must be done.

Don't worry, I haven't left you all.  I'll still be up late at night doing a post or three way past midnight and I'll still be checking out your blogs but I'll be doing it with a little less frequency until we get the current Monkey Central ready to put on the market.

Thanks for your understanding and thanks once again for reading me as often as you do.