Wet Weekend

Overnight on Thursday night, the remnants of Ivan came north and dumped some rain on us. It rained from Friday morning until early morning Saturday. I had to run out for bread and milk on Friday afternoon, and we were probably lucky we got done when we did. I decided to try Levi out in my sling for the first time; I figured he'd stay drier than trying to carry the infant seat into the store. I think I was right, but we were still pretty wet. Yuck. We got home just at dark. By then it was raining pretty hard and the water was all over the roads. I am really glad that Chris had decided to clean the gutters earlier this summer, we had no water in our basement! Most of our neighbors were not so lucky. When we woke up Saturday morning, our neighbor to the right side of us had water in their yard all the way up to their front steps. Their back yard usually has water in it after a rain, but I had never seen it come up around the front of the house. The side road was washed out on either side of the culvert. It is just a gravel road, not paved, so all the stones were washed downstream. Our neighbor to the left has a gravel driveway that is parallel to the stream, and the stones had all been washed into the grass last week during Frances; this rain just took them further down the yard, lol. Our yard didn't have any water in it :-). I think we got about 6.5 inches of water or so, at least that is how much was in our pool, which we had emptied before the rain.

Chris took the boys to church and I had intended to follow him about an hour later with Levi, but I got a call from a friend who said Chris didn't want me to come after all. (Our church has no phone at the moment, so our friend had to go to a nearby house to call; Chris didn't call because he was busy cleaning the church basement of all the water down there) It turned out that he had to try several different ways to get to church, and all had roads closed from rising streams. He finally found a way in, but he had the big van; he didn't think I should chance it with the car. Wow, I was tempted to go out just to see lol. The water really didn't go down again until this morning. The weather was a bit deceptive, because it was bright and sunny all day; it seemed odd to be trapped at home when it was so nice out.

Today was even nicer, more sun, and it was much warmer. We had real estate agent #3 come over this morning. #2 had come over on Thursday. She was definitely not in the running. I could practically see her skin crawling as she walked through the house. She kept looking at the walls and such and wrinkling her nose, lol. She was very critical and not helpful with suggestions. Then she gave me a very low number for the house. I think she just didn't want to be chosen to show it, lol. No problem, there was definitely NOT a good match of personalities. She is the type more suited to list the expensive houses.

On Friday I was feeling pretty low after the numbers she had given me, and I decided to try one more agency. I called and set up an appointment for today. It turned out that the agent coming over lives just a mile down the road from me. She seemed excited to come over and see the house. As it turns out, she grew up in this neighborhood, and had often played in this house as a child! It was fun to walk her through, she was telling me what was different and what had changed. She recognized the wallpaper, LOL.

I think she ended up being a very good match for us. She likes older farmhouses and properties; she loves this area; and best of all, she said she knew at least 2 young couples who are searching our area for a house just like this right now, plus another person who is looking for houses to buy as rentals. Being in a college community, it is a very good market for renting. She was fun to talk with, had great suggestions, and came in with a number that sounded right to both me and Chris. What a relief, after realtor #2! So it looks like everything is a go, we will make an appointment to sign with her this week. It looks like our house may not even make it onto the market at all! Now we just have to find a place to move to......