Will Winter Please Leave the Building?

I’m so sick of winter that I could scream. Last year, winter was so much more wintery in terms of cold temperatures, precipitation, and early onset. But this has been such a stressful last few weeks and months for us, that it’s been “just one more thing” to deal with. And I’m so over it. 

The house sale and condo purchase saga continues. It’s been up and down, not bad but sometimes not good. I’ll save the details for the end of the post so that if you’re here for the sewing-related content, you won’t have to listen to me whine. :-) But in a nutshell, we got a good offer on our home that we’ve accepted and we have made an offer on a condo to purchase that’s been accepted. Both are set to close on - are you ready? March 22. Yikes!!!

Suffice it to say that I didn’t get much sewing time this week, and when I did, it was primarily focused on finishing up the secret sewing that will be revealed on Wednesday. A special mid-week blogpost!! But I do have a couple minor things to show you.

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC), Angela at So Scrappy has called purple in all its variations as the March RSC color of the month. All I’ve done so far is sort my purple scraps into strips, chunks (blue purples and red purples) squares/shapes (like HSTs) and miscellaneous. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the RSC. 

That’s really exciting, isn’t it? (That’s sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch that)!

I finished up a column of scraps and strips in red for February. Since I never showed my green column for January, I’m showing both now. They’ll finish at about 3” wide (and 62” long), so I’ll not only be doing our usual 9-10 RSC colors, but likely will add gray, brown and black as well. And possibly divide the yellows into a yellow and a gold column. 

Seeing that picture above reminds me that the design board is coming down this week so I’ll have time to patch and paint the wall behind it before we move.

And through all the chaos that has been our life for the last couple months, I’ve managed to keep up with the Stay at Home Round Robin (SAHRR). But this week, I just couldn’t do it. I did cut out the pieces and began sewing the triangles, but that’s it. The rest of this, the final border, will be sewn next week, come hell or high water. But in the meantime, I do have a photo to share. The outer components are just pinned or slapped up on the design wall, so please disregard the wonkiness. 

White fabric will fill in between the corner groupings. This week’s hostess, Kathleen, called for us to use a letter or number in our border. Not necessarily literally, although a literal interpretation was certainly valid. I chose the triangle block because it consists of three pieces (2 white side borders and the blue triangle) And because it looks like the letter V. Additionally, I grouped them in threes, so I think I met the challenge. Or I WILL meet the challenge when it’s all sewn. We have until March 18 when the final finished quilts will be revealed. In the meantime, I’m linking up to the Round 6 SAHRR linky party  HERE. There are some really lovely quilts being constructed that you can check out at that link. 

So this is where I begin my Tale of Stressful “Woes of Moving” diatribe. If you’re not interested, (and who could blame you?) this is where you take the exit ramp. No hard feelings! 

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This week, the builders who are building the townhouse complex behind us, legally recorded their quitclaim deeds to the residents on our side of the street. Basically, they gifted us with an additional 252 square feet at the rear of our property, which the county officials have now incorporated into our lot. But we had to chase down a copy of the recorded deed so the prospective owners’ title company could have the documentation. OK, that was easy enough. Then the title company asked us to provide them with the copy of our Kizerian Family Trust, because that’s how our land ownership is held. Luckily I had all the documents on a thumb drive, so that easy enough to locate and get emailed to them. But between the two issues, a half day was killed, never to be recaptured. 

The new owners had their appraiser out to appraise the property (for their mortgage loan), and we had to clear out for a couple hours for that to take place.

And then on Thursday afternoon - all afternoon - we had to leave the premises while the buyers’ inspectors crawled all over every detail of this house. Roof, plumbing, electrical, appliances, etc.  At the same time (yes, it was planned that way), our inspector was doing the same thing on the condo we want to purchase. So far, so good, right? But this is where things began to get a bit stressful.

When we got home that night, the microwave didn’t work, and neither did the lights in my studio. What had they done? Well, Bruce checked the electrical panels, and one of the kitchen circuit breaker blocks had not been snapped in all the way by an inspector who apparently had to take them out to do his thing. OK, so Bruce snapped it in and the microwave worked just fine. The lights in my studio, it turned out, had been, well, turned out. There’s a master switch that controls all the lights and power in the room (don’t ask me why, it was that way when we moved here 21 years ago), and they had just flipped the switch off. So we just flipped it back on. And let me just say here that Bruce was flipping more than that, too, if you catch my drift. 

So the next morning, we get a text message from our agent saying their inspector said our air conditioning unit was not operational. What?!? Bruce went outside to the A/C unit’s fuse box and low and behold, the inspector had put the fuse block in UPSIDE DOWN, which is the normal “off” position. It wasn’t making contact. Bruce put it in correctly, and then we had to test the A/C. Yep, cold, windy weather outside, and here we are with the A/C on. It worked like a champ, and soon the house was 60 degrees. I have frostbitten toes to prove it! (Just kidding). So we called our agent and explained everything and ranted a bit about their incompetent inspectors. But apparently, not taking our word for it, the buyers have an electrical inspector coming on Monday. Luckily, we don’t have to leave the premises, and Bruce will have the opportunity to show them what happened. 

As if all that weren’t enough, an issue came up with the condo we’re purchasing as well. When it rains, it pours. In one of the hall closets, the water softener unit, the hot water tank, the furnace and main water shut-off valve (to the entire condo) are all situated. Apparently the water softener was leaking (not badly, but leaking nonetheless). When inspecting these items before we arrived, the inspector decided the smart thing to do was shut off the water valves to the softener to bypass it altogether. But apparently the valves “seized” (his words) and he ended up having to shut off the main water valve to the entire condo. We were told it would need to be addressed before the water could be safely turned back on. The condo seller balked; they had a backup offer to ours and said they were not going to address it. We talked to our family plumber (Cousin Kim’s son Nick). We sent him a copy of the inspection report and the pictures. Nick said the inspector, likely erring on the side of caution, probably could’ve unstuck the water softener valves. Nick offered to do it for us. When we talked to our agent to get permission for us to bring our plumber to the premises to try that, we learned that the sellers were getting a plumber in this weekend after all to try that themselves. So, we’ll hear the results once it’s accomplished. We don’t even want the dang water softener! 

And all the while, we’re packing our belongings. I know no home sale is without glitches, but man, the stress keeps ratcheting up. I really need a day to just sit and sew while listening to music. Who’s with me?