We Have a House!

And it is filthy! But it is ours!

We had our first "final walkthrough" yesterday, where we found piles of junk left in the house and especially the backyard. There was a huge metal desk left in the basement and the pool was literally black with mosquitoes (I bet this is a big hit with the neighbors). We contacted our attorney, and the seller hired a "We-Haul-It" type company to remove his 3 lawnmowers and other seriously nasty junk this morning. We tried to have a FINAL final walk-through this afternoon, but the gentleman had deadbolted the front door, and we couldn't get in. We were able to verify that most of the problematic stuff was removed from the backyard.

Most of the stuff in the house we could live with, assuming he didn't do something truly dasterdly, so the fact that we couldn't walk through it isn't quite so problematic. He did, for some obscure reason, decide to repaint the dining room and living room, including over the beautiful hardwood baseboard and chair railings. I was told to use mineral spirits and lineseed oil to remove the paint. The seller couldn't be bothered to remove the cat-pee soaked area rug, but he felt the need to slop paint onto one of the house's main selling points the day before he moved out.

HOWEVER, the important point is:








We Have a House! (ok, so the bank owns the house and they are letting us pay rent, but work with me here.)

Fried Green Got-Yer-Goat at the Just Desserts Cafe

A Free Stater has proposed that Justice David Souter's house be seized for a hotel, called the "Lost Liberty."

"The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare," Logan Darrow Clements of California wrote in a letter faxed to town officials in Weare on Tuesday...
Clements is the CEO of Los Angeles-based Freestar Media that fights "abusive" government through a Web site and cable show. He plans to move to New Hampshire soon as part of the Free State Project, a group that supports limiting government powers...

Closing Woes

We still don’t have a closing date on our house. We had commitment weeks ago, but the seller’s attorney didn’t bother to read our attorney’s letter, which reminded them that they needed an updated survey on the property for our first-time homebuyer’s loan. So here we sit three days over the contract date. The only consolation (if you can call it that), is that the seller was counting on closing this week and took this week off from work. I am not happy that this poor guy sat around for nothing, but I did hear from the grapevine that he raised a royal ruckus with his attorney, and that makes a difference. We, the buyers, can complain until we are blue in the face and it would make no difference in this case. Them’s that writes the check do have some power, and I hope that the house seller gave that attorney of his what-for.

Raising Tomatoes

I should have been blogging about this all along, but I was afraid that it would do nothing but document my failures, and boy, was I right!

Well, not really, since I am learning ninety-nine ways not to grow tomatoes, right? Right?

We live in a duplex, and I currently have nine plants in containers, planted with basil that was started from seed. The plants shot up fast and spindly, and now have a yucky yellowish cast. My neighbor has container tomatoes as well, and her plants are GORGEOUS-- deep green and healthy. I don’t know if I am over-watering or under-watering or if the water isn’t any good to begin with (we have problems with the well in other areas, too).

The plants have fruit, and I hope that they can recover from whatever ails them.