The reason for the lack of posts is the fact that I suddenly got very, very, insanely busy, completely apart from the fact that I was opening my Thirsty Robots website and etching like a madman in preparation for Winterfest (which is now almost two weeks ago).
So where have I been -slash- what have I been doing? Let's see what all I can remember now:
Halfway through November an unfortunate confluence of factors resulted in several bad things. The main thrust was that our pipe out to the sewer got blocked up and it was raining very hard at the time. And for some reason, when my landlady's brother hooked up a sump pump in the basement for her several years ago (before Carrie & I occupied the house), he hooked it so that it went into the plumbing system instead of just dumping the water outside the house somewhere. Bad design. 'Cause when the pipe to the sewer got blocked up, the sump pump started pumping all the water threatening the basement... started pumping it right up through the toilet and the shower. After thrice flooding the bathroom in the span of less than an hour, I was forced to unplug the sump pump. Which, of course, caused the basement to flood.
And, in the meanwhile while everyone was trying to get the plumbing cleaned out, Carrie and I were unable to A) Do Laundry, B) Wash Dishes, and C) Take Showers. We also had to be very sparing in our use of the toilet.
Thankfully over the weekend we were allowed to take a handful of showers over at the Tarbet house. Carrie also did a couple of loads of laundry at the Gouker house. Everyone was extremely sympathetic, especially since it took A WEEK AND A HALF to get all the plumbing issues resolved. At one point during the process we were allowed to use the shower and toilet with the understanding that they were just draining directly into a big hole dug by the side of the house, due to the fact that part of a pipe had been removed.
We were so busy trying to cope with a house with such water woes that I didn't really have time (nor was I much in the mood) to write in this here blog.
And then, only a couple of days after we again had permission to do laundry, the dryer died. But not before Carrie washed a load of laundry and managed to include my iPod Shuffle in it! Needless to say, I no longer have an iPod shuffle.
Not to worry, though. Carrie wasn't the only one to do stuff like that. At one point I dropped my dark glasses into the toilet. I also dropped my keys in the driveway, and they all fell off the key ring. I put my water bottle on top of the car as I searched for all my keys, then I drove off with the water bottle still on top of the car. Things like that.
Sometime around this time Winterfest happened. Carrie/Lisa had their booth right next to mine, so we set it up like it was just one big booth instead of two separate ones. My stuff was on the right, their stuff was on the left. It was a pretty fun show! A couple of Bead Babes came (Carly even brought cookies), as well as some other family and friends. I did pretty well. I didn't recoup my investment, but I didn't expect to; new businesses never break even right away. But now that I've made all of the initial investments, next year will be much cheaper for me, and make my profit margin much higher. In that I'll actually make a profit.
But anyway. I notice that in my piddly little posts that I've been making recently that I keep on threatening to tell y'all some big, big, huge news. Well, here it is (after a bit of backstory).
In the midst of all of the water woes that were going on, our landlady off-handedly mentioned that she might have to sell the house in October 2007. We've always had the agreement that if she does sell the house, Carrie & I get first dibs on it. Well, October 2007 was a little bit sooner than we had planned to be ready to buy a house, but Carrie & I talked through it and decided that we could be ready by then if we worked very, very hard at it.
Ha! The Monday before Thanksgiving, as all the water woes were being finished up, the landlady abruptly stopped by the house while Carri was at work. She said she'd talked to her accountant and real estate agent and all them types of people, and it turns out she has to sell the house BEFORE THE END OF 2006. And we have basically FOUR DAYS to decide whether we want to buy it or not.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT (pardon my French)
Carrie and I were in no way financially where we wanted to be in order to buy a house. We still have a tonne of debt, mostly from the time I was in the hospital and was unable to work for basically three months of the year (though I was only in the hospital for one month, there were some unhealthy times on both ends of it).
The only other option was that our landlady was going to sell it to the guy who owns a couple of other houses on the block. We would then probably be able to rent the house from him... but our rent would be increased so much that we might as well just buy the danged thing.
So we decided to do just that.
So for the past week and a half I have been running around like a chicken sans tête trying, somehow to get a mortgage while Carrie tries to work as much as possible so that we can somehow afford to buy this $200,000 house, and gathering such things as a letter from my CPA saying that, yes, I have actually been self-employed for the past two years, and 12 months of canceled rent cheques.
And we're pretty danged sure we can make it work.
So guess what Carrie & I are getting for Christmas!
OUR OWN HOUSE
But let me just warn you right now: These first couple of years are gonna be difficult. We're gonna have to tighten our belts and not spend a single penny more than absolutely necessary. Because the mortgage (even though we ended up getting a really good one) is significantly higher than what our rent was.
Yesterday at 4:00 (after spending the afternoon borrowing as much money as humanly possible from various family members due to the fact that the lending company needs us to have a specific amount in the bank before they'll approve the loan, but then we can just give that money back to those from whom we borrowed it... well, we might keep some of it) Carrie & I went down to Fred Manetti's office and signed the "Purchase & Sale" agreement. So, yes, it is official. Some time around the 28th of December I will officially become:
CHRISTOPHER GRANT HARRIS: HOMEOWNER
Oh, and also, just a few days ago my printer died. Y'know, the printer that I need to do ALL of my business stuff? As well as print out earring card and tags for ALL of Carrie's jewelry stuff? Yeah. Phut. Broken. So I bought another one for $65 that I really shouldn't have been spending, considering we're buying a $200,000 house. But I can write the new printer off as a business expense come tax time, so it'll work out.
Oh, and Carrie and Lisa also did TideFest last weekend (my stuff wasn't deemed good enough to get me in), and a woman there was very impressed with their jewelry. She also happened to be the owner of Red, a cute little shop in Gig Harbor. So now you can find Carrie & Lisa's jewelry for sale at that shop.
Whew! I think that's about it. I have a few glasses to etch for gifts/orders and some other Christmas gifts to gather (Carrie & I are doing a much smaller Christmas this year due to budgetary reasons), but since we signed the Purchase & Sale agreement yesterday, things are going to slow down quite a bit for me personally. I might actually have time to hang out with people again! I'm going to Tia's birthday party on Friday, so I'll see some of you there, no doubt.
