I still want to plant a tree ...

I spoke to my sister last night. They're all ... there. Various shows of sorrow in their home range from pretending everything is normal to out right anger. Everyone handling it in their own way while the earth keeps spinning and the sun continues to rise.

We cancelled the viewing we scheduled for last night. One of my co-workers said "that area is known as drive-by Eastside" and that was all I needed to hear.

Our realtor drove us all over North Knox and Halls today, though. I think we saw a total of 5 houses.

One house didn't have a back door - it had a door next to the garage door, downstairs. I was like - I'm so not going to walk up and down 2 flights of stairs (it's a split foyer so you have to either go up or down from the front door) to let dogs in and out. One house has been completely redone and is really nice, but it has absolutely no storage and the backyard was tiny and mostly uphill.

There was one house we were amazed is scheduled for a showing tomorrow. It's empty and being painted and such, but it's really not in a show condition. That one was chopped up pretty strangely, too.

Patrick really liked the last one we saw - it has a huge lot and a lot of it has been redone, including a new A/C unit that was kicking the heat's ass. But while he was seeing the extra room, the full unfinished basement, and the huge lot that's already mostly fenced in, I was seeing the weird layout, the tiny bedrooms, and the extra work we'd need to do to make sure the fence is smaller dog safe. That and it's right off the interstate and is generally noisy.

The first house, though, is what we kept going back to. Figuratively, that is. It's on the smallish side, but it's move-in ready. It has 3 beds, 1 1/2 baths, a nice kitchen, new carpet, new paint, a 1 car garage with more space that's a workshop type area, and a full sized laundry room in the basement. Plus it's a large corner lot with a fully fenced in back yard, back deck, and a shed. It also has a large, 1 yr old A/C unit and new vinyl siding. And it's in a great neighborhood with really nice houses and well kept lawns. We arrived a bit early and drove around, impressed the entire time.

So we've made an offer.

I really do adore our realtor. He's so funny. He bought us lunch while filling out the paperwork and I had a good laugh at his Superman wallet. Really. The guy has a Superman wallet!

And now we wait. We did lowball it a bit, but we'll see. Our main concern has to do with the closing costs. We're trying to be careful, though - they've already come down 10,000 on their original asking price, 5 grand of that in just the last few days.