My Bubble has Burst

Because I'm married to a pessimist, I can't help being one myself. When things go really well, like they did last week, a part of me waits for the other shoe to drop. I try not to voice my fears out loud and I’m always sure to not “count my chickens before they hatch.” Last week, I got so carried away by our good fortune of selling one house and closing on another within the week that I thought perhaps our luck was changing. I was excited and refused to let Chicken Little convince me of the million things that would go wrong.

I didn’t allude to any of this in my last post, but things seemed to get a little shaky during the buyer’s inspection of our current house. They found some rotten wood near an entrance that they want replaced. They want an outlet in the kitchen repaired. They want the furnace serviced. Their inspector told them that the septic was going to back into the house ANY MINUTE and we should have it serviced immediately. Our realtor assured them that we were having that done this week. He was adamant that it get done IMMEDIATELY. So we had that done Friday. The septic guys laughed and said that we could have gone another six months without any problems like that. Great.

Then Saturday, we were notified that the buyers want to do an additional inspection on the foundation with a structural engineer. Part of me thinks, “Ok, their inspector was pretty conservative. They are just playing it safe.” But the other part of me thinks, “OMFG, what if there’s a HUGE problem and they back out?” Then what?

Meanwhile, here it is October and we get a huge snowstorm. We measured the snowfall in our yard in FEET (two) not inches. That much snow landing on trees filled with leaves that haven’t fallen yet equals disaster. Trees are down everywhere, the roads look like the end of the world is near. Our internet and cable service went out around 10 pm on Saturday, electricity went out at midnight. Just our luck, EN had moved the generator over to the new house on Friday! Thankfully, we have a gas fireplace to keep us warm.

On Sunday morning, the snow has stopped so EN goes out to snow blow the driveway and the snowblower is dead. A neighbor came through for us and let us borrow his to clear the driveway and path from the basement door, so EN could continue loading up the UHaul he rented for the weekend.

Meanwhile, his mother starts texting, saying she needs to come over because she doesn’t have power. He informed her that we didn’t have power either and she starts in about “Where’s the generator?” and “Well, you better get on the stick.” Really? Thank you. Your concern for anyone but yourself is overwhelming. Here’s an idea, why don’t you go visit your daughter, who is off in another state with electricity AND a wood stove? I should stop being so hard on Sissy. It’s obvious she was concerned about her mother. She put up a post on Facebook saying so.

The girls love the snow and ran outside to play and sled on Sunday. They stayed out for a few hours, but Spice came back in disgruntled that the snow was too deep and she couldn’t sled because she kept sinking. School was canceled for today, as was trick or treat. The chicks had reached their time limit on liking each other early yesterday.

I spent much of yesterday at my parents’ house. I finished up some laundry, showered and bathed the girls. They were thrilled to have us there, it seemed like they wanted to be needed. I was glad that the girls kept their fighting down to a dull roar.

As the day wound down, power came back on at our current house and EN took one more load to the new house. While he was there, he went into the basement to look at the furnace to see if the generator was big enough to get everything going. Suddenly he hears someone from upstairs shouting “Hello?” Then multiple voices… EN came up the stairs to find three police officers in the kitchen. They were concerned that someone was in the house after it was vacant so long. Huh, nice to see they’re on top of things, but where the hell were they when someone stole the entire interior of the house? Oh, probably that was the weekend they were at my house giving me a summons for not registering my dogs.

Sugar asked her dad if he peed his pants when he heard people running through the house. This entire weekend made me want to pee my pants. 

xoxo

Ice Princess