Liberated

Freedom feels so so SO good.

We sold our house in Kentucky last month. It took 1.5 years and every last dollar we've ever known but it's GONE! I literally lost a few tons of weight off my shoulders. What a relief!

AND, to add to the fun....2 days after we signed the papers on the house, we moved. After 6 months of living in a two-bedroom, 800 square foot, so-ridiculously-small-with-3-kids apartment, we were able to bust outta there and move on. SO LIBERATING!!

We had to move to the apartment last summer after our house, which was under contract, fell through at the last minute. When we got that offer last summer, it seemed like perfect timing. Our lease was up on the house we were renting and we could seamlessly move on with our lives. We had our eye on a fantastic house in Incline Village with a view of Lake Tahoe on one side and Diamond Peak ski resort on the other. We were so excited to experience the life of the Tahoe ski bum for a year or so before we came back to the valley and settled down for good. I had actually hired a babysitter and was driving to sign the contract to rent that house when we got a call from our realtor. The buyer backed out at the last minute. The info we had was that she decided to move to Africa. WHA....? Who does that? And how she wouldn't have known that a month prior when she made the offer, I'll never understand.

We called our landlord right away to find out if we could keep renting the house we were in. Unfortunately, he had already signed a contract to rent it to someone else. Total Bummer. So, with only days before we had to move, we frantically found our tiny townhouse. It was clean, although small, and we could rent it on a monthly basis without signing a lease. "The house will sell soon. I'm sure we won't be here long"

A few weeks turned into a month. A month turned into six. We were all going crazy--especially once winter hit. Our backyard was a concrete pad--not even big enough to set up our patio table and chairs. Our front yard was the parking lot. Our one-car garage was packed literally to the hilt with everything we owned. We put only the bare minimum inside the house so we could at least move around. Beds, clothes, only a few toys, our table and a loveseat. The kitchen was so small that there wasn't enough cabinet space for food. Our food was in plastic bins on top of our washer and dryer. It was a struggle. But the house will sell soon. It HAS too.

We thought we hit the jackpot when, in a desperate move, I sent an email to the TODAY show to try to get our house featured in their real estate segment. I'm not joking when I say this house was awesome. It was beyond awesome! A total dream house. So when I got a response the very next day, I knew this was our ticket out. We had to go back and forth with some info but they said our house would be featured in mid-November. I told everyone I knew and my realtor made fliers which she sent to hundreds of people. The morning of the show...some stupid celebrity couple breaks up and the segment isn't on. I got calls and emails all day. What happened??

According to the show, our segment was bumped due to "breaking news" but we were put back into the lineup a couple weeks down the road. Cautiously optimistic, we told everyone to watch and our realtor again plugged it far and wide. When we tuned in that morning....it wasn't us. They had a real estate segment but it wasn't our house.

Totally deflated this time, we gave up. I called my realtor and said we were done. After a year and a half of making a substantial mortgage payment and living a life elsewhere, we were sinking. We were going to find a renter and move on. It was that or just quit paying the mortgage and foreclose. We were desperate to get on with our lives and get that burden off our backs.

My realtor panicked when I told her this. After all the work she had done, she did not want our house to go off the market for a year or more since it would mean she would never make a dime. She contacted everyone that had ever been interested in the house and told them it was time to make a move or kiss it goodbye.

A few days later, we had an offer. It was the worst offer we had ever imagined. We never EVER would have thought we would have to sink so low. It meant a total loss. Every last dime we had ever made and saved in the last decade would be on the table with this offer. It would obliterate us. But it also meant no more mortgage payment every month. No extra set of utility bills every month. No more paying for lawn care or a cleaning lady for a house I didn't live in. No more trips to Kentucky every few months to check on the pipes or the yard or the roof or all those things a responsible homeowner needs to care about.

We took the offer.

A week before closing, I got an email from the Today Show. Our house was getting featured--5 days before closing. What timing. The segment aired and Al Roker was oohing and ahhing over our house. My realtors phone rang off the hook that day. A painfully classic case of "a day late and a dollar short."

Two days after closing, we moved out of our tiny apartment. We are renting again and are much more comfortable in our new house. Plenty of space, a nice backyard, a normal kitchen, my kitchen appliances and the kids toys are all enjoying daylight again. Renting is pretty nice. When something doesn't work, we make a phone call and it's someone else's problem. Although I expect this experience to be something like childbirth. Once the pain of our last house wears off, we'll be anxious to own a home again but for now, we're in recovery.

If you felt a crazy wind lately, that was just me breathing many, many sighs of relief.