House Update and Labor Day

Today I'm thankful for:
1. Gustav weakening slightly before hitting our coasts. Cuba bore the brunt, unfortunately, and broke it apart a little. It could have been much worse.
2. The next-door neighbor of the house we'd like to purchase. He offered to get his spare key and show us around when we went there without our realtor. He was kind.
3. Getting to spend Sunday afternoon with family and celebrate my mother's birthday
4. The price on that house we want dropping again. Who knows if we'll wind up getting it or not, but if we do, it will be an incredible price
5. Z's diploma finally arriving

am trying my darndest to not get too caught up in thinking about "that house." (It's already difficult to not say "our house." That's bad.) I am an intelligent person, and I know it's not wise to get emotionally attached to any particular house when house hunting, but it's hard not to get attached to this one. I haven't written about it yet, but it's perfect for us. We are so picky when we look at houses, and we've already denied 50 or more. So the fact that we think this one is perfect really means it's an amazing house. We have strict criteria, and this house meets it all. I won't go into the details because chances are good it will sell before we're ready to make an offer on it, but just know that it's beautiful, spacious, has amenities we never thought we could afford, and the price has been falling due to seller's desperation.

It's still 24 days until we get the Bar results back, and clearly we cannot make a move on any home until we know for sure that Z passed. If he passes, he gets a hefty raise (b/c then he will officially be an attorney of course). If he doesn't pass (I highly doubt that) we cannot afford a home right now and will have to wait until he re-takes the Bar in February. As long as the house is still on the market in 24 days, we'll just ask our Realtor to alert us if anyone makes an offer on it. Ideally we would like to be able to move Nov. 1. I'm hoping it will still be on the market because it's been there already for more than 2 months with no offers. I think most other people would have a problem with how far from the interstate/downtown it is, but that's perfect for us.

Believe it or not, there are other things going on besides the house hunt right now. This weekend (hooray for 3-day weekends) we celebrated my mother's birthday with the family. That was fun – we had tacos, cheesecake, and a four-layer chocolate dessert that I made. See Facebook for pictures. I love getting together with my family; they're the greatest. After that, we went to Z's parents' house. The stupid administration at his old school mailed his diploma there instead of to us (even after he called to confirm the correct address.) While there we picked up his undergraduate degree too, and we'll get both framed for his office soon.

Hope you all had a lovely Labor Day!