The little house that would not sell.

Little children, gather 'round.
I have a story to tell...

This one is about a little house, a cute little bungalow, that just would not sell.
The good people who lived there were sad.
The beautiful lady who lived there had panic attacks every day because the little house
would not sell.

They placed a listing in the newspaper to tell all the people of the land that the little house was for sale.

A smelly man and woman came to visit the house.
They smelled like cigarettes.
They looked through the house without saying a word, taunted the little baby who lived there, and left.

A man with tatoos and piercings came to visit the house.
He said, "Wow, isn't this neat?!"
He asked if his wife could come see the little house, too.
He left, never to be heard from again.

A man and wife came to visit the little house.
They said, "We love it! Let's buy it!"
The woman who lived there talked with her mother, who said, "No, no.
That man and woman cannot buy the little house.
They will not have enough money.
They will lose this house and we will lose good friends.
Wait until we can help you sell the little house when we are back from our carefree life, free of worries about paying for a little house that will not sell."

The woman there was very confused.
"My house must love my family," she thought.
And so ended the saga of trying to sell the little house that would not sell.
And possibly the beautiful woman's sanity.

****

Okay, so we're not really DONE trying to sell the house. But I thought it was a dramatic ending, don't you think?

RE: Va-cay

So we went to Florida for a week. The weather was really, truly, unbelievably nice.... no rain, no cold days, really very little clouds in the sky most of the time. We spent much time hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa, and eating at some fabulous restaurants (Pippins TWICE, mmmm, and Sir George & the Dragon). We walked the beach once, swam three days out of 7 (Mr. William is not a pool fanatic as am I). We even ventured to the insanity that is DisneyWorld for 2-1/2 days. I even got to do some serious reading; by the time we got home, I had read 2-1/2 Dean Koontz novels plus my daily devotional. We visited King Richard's (putt-putt/go-cart place), where I proceeded to stomp my husband in putt-putt; he was setting a horrible example for the children behind us. Heh. All in all, it was a nice time.

I was hoping to get to know my husband a little better, or vice versa, since it's been a while since we've spent much time together.... I wouldn't really say that's what happened, sadly. I can't explain it, but I don't feel reconnected just yet. I wish I could go into details, but I'm just going to leave it at that.

We were sad to return to the nastiness here, and when we got back to Detroit (an hour late) we had a surprise waiting: the battery on the Suburban was dead (some person--who shall remain nameless and is not me--left the dome light on). It took close to another 30-45 minutes to get the thing jumped. Luckily we were in the parking structure and not outside, because it was pretty chilly out and neither of us had our winter jackets. Maybe if our return hadn't been so strained, I'd still be feeling a bit more rested.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Well, I'm back from vacation and I'm already cheesed off. I think the day after we got home I was already ready to just go somewhere else. It just goes to show that you can't run from your problems. ;)

I think I'm in such an angry mood right now because I just vacuumed the entire house, and housework just makes me angry. But as I'm zooming around my house, getting tangled in the hose of my vacuum cleaner and bumping the canister into everything in the room because canister vacuums are dumb that way, I'm composing hate mail for my builder and--simultaneously, I might add--rehearsing what I might say if I ever get to be in the same room with him again. All this fury because they sent us a letter in the mail stating that the balance for our house was $7600 or something like that, minus $1500 for the home warranty that the supervisor is taking off to offset costs. That would bring us to approximately $5200. Excuse me for a moment..... I must go pray for some serious forgiveness because a steady stream of profanities is blazing through my head as I type.

Okay.

THERE IS NO WAY IN THE WORLD HE IS TAKING OFF THAT HOME WARRANTY. To cut costs????? So if our basement starts leaking this spring, what? We're up a creek (in our basement)?? If we're $7600 over budget, so be it. But let me put it this way.... The last time I saw the guy (the night we moved in) he was physically figuring out numbers right in front of us, even though he had time to do this elsewhere before meeting with us. His original figure was around $8k, and by the time he left us at that meeting the figure was down close to $2500. Now why is it back at $7600 (or 5200)? I was angry with him then, and I stalked off to my closet to get away from the man.... So he sends me a letter through his secretary stating this is what he owes?

I feel like they should write this off because, frankly, I've been ticked off at them the whole time we've been building the house. Is this a good reason to have a balance written off? Well, I think so, for the sheer fact that I guarantee our supervisor got his full cut and the company got their full cut. They haven't even done a full walk-through with us like I would think should be pretty darn standard. We're still missing the crown molding over the stove. We've got trim pieces laying in our bedroom that belong upstairs in our bathroom. And the kickplates for two of our cabinets aren't there, and it's pretty ugly. Not to mention the glass door missing from my mullion door in the kitchen. Also, the heating and cooling guy was supposed to come out a month ago to readjust the balance in our house because the upstairs is cold and the downstairs isn't (hmm). And, after all, their sign is still in MY yard. I'm gonna go burn the thing cuz there ain't no way in *a bad place* I'm recommending them to anyone else. If I was iffy before, I'm not anymore

I know when I see the dude in person, I won't have the gall to say this to him. I let these thoughts seethe in my head until they make my chest tight and my head hurt, but when I see the supervisor I'll weenie out because deep down somewhere, I'm still overly polite..... and, sheesh, most of the times I really hate that attribute because I really could use it in situations like this.

It wouldn't be so bad if we had been informed along the way. "John, how we doing on the budget? I have to pick out *blank* today, and want to know if I'm over." The reply: "We're looking okay." Does that cut it? I also never got a selection sheet from them stating where to go and what to pick out. He plays dead, giving me this incredulous look like, "Why should that matter?" and apologizes for not giving me a sheet.... after everything's been picked out by yours truly. The justification was that no one is perfect--I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, yadda yadda yadda--but I'M NOT GETTING PAID $20k TO BE PERFECT.

I'm gonna go thud my head into the wall for a little while. Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!