Timeline for buying a house

We're buying a house.

This is the long tedious re-telling of the last month in home-buying, but I'm just putting it all out there before I forget. I'll write more later about all the emotional observations I've made about this process. If you're not into realty/home improvement stuff, you can just look at the pictures above and skip to the time line at the bottom.

It's just funny how things fall into place. Back at the beginning of March, Rich and I were driving back from his grandfather's funeral in South Carolina and were discussing our plans to find a larger house soon. We said we would start looking seriously when we got home. At that very same time, my father e-mailed us that he noticed a "for sale" sign in the yard of a house near them.

We called the number and walked through the house. It was listed at $310,000 and the owner (brother-in-law of the agent) was out of town getting treatment for lung cancer in Maryland. The house was built by the owner's father in 1947 and has some upgrades but still needs some others. We were intrigued and went home to discuss.

I called the agent Anne back and told her we'd like to come back the following weekend to take measurements and look at some construction ideas with my parents. Unfortunately, Anne called me back later that week to say that Barry had come home from Maryland because his doctor told him that they couldn't do anything else for him and he should make his peace and go home. A month before, he was so excited to sell the house when he thought he was going to get better and could get the money and move on. But when he pulled into the driveway and saw the for sale sign in the yard, all he could think was people would be tromping through his house and he just wanted to be left alone to die.

I told Anne that we totally understood and that we were interested in the house but didn't want to seem like vultures so we just hoped that things worked out for Barry and the family. That was Thursday the 13th and Barry died on Tuesday the 18th. We found out when my parents' neighbor asked them if they knew anyone who died on that street and mentioned his name. So we knew only because of the obituary and the network of old people in the area that read obituaries on a daily basis.

Unsure of what the protocol is for waiting to call back the sister-in-law/agent of the man who just died about buying his house, we decided to wait two weeks. On the day before two weeks, Anne called me to tell me they wanted to put the house back on the market. We made arrangements to come back and look at the house again on Wednesday (3 days ago).

That evening we went back to look around and measure. We brought my parents along as well to look at the house from a construction standpoint. While standing in the kitchen of the house, Anne asked that we let her know something by Friday. We went home to figure out how much we wanted to pay for the house.

On Friday, we decided to offer $270,000 and see what she would say. By that evening, Anne called back and told us all about how they had thought a lot about the pricing and blah blah blah and they wanted to counter $287,000. So then we went back and tried to decide how much we wanted to counter to that. The short story is that was painful and I felt nauseated for most of the evening. We countered with $280,000 and Anne gave me some line about them being "disappointed" that we didn't jump on the $287,000. But a few hours later she called back and split the difference with us.

So long story short (HA!), we just signed a contract for $283,500 this evening and will be closing within 30 days.

The room that in the diagram says family room is actually Barry's bedroom right now with a closet on that middle wall between it and the dining room. But we don't need a 5 bedroom 2 bath house if we have hardly any living space. So that's one major step is to move some doorways around down there to make the rooms flow a bit better. The upstairs will be more pricey as we need to create a master bath so that we never have to share our bathroom with anyone else and we can have two sinks. The other major drawback to upstairs is that it has knee walls (4.5 feet high) on the front and back of the house and that means a 6'5" man can't stand up straight while peeing in the toilet upstairs. So we'll be raising the roof (I make the Bobby Flay arms every time I say that) across the back to accommodate that.

The scary part is figuring out how much all this will cost and how fast it can be done. The short version of all this is in the time line below:

Monday, 3/3 - Rich and I are driving home from a funeral in South Carolina. Meanwhile, Dad sends an email that there's a sign out for a house near them. Thursday, 3/6 - We first look at the house - it's listed at $310,000. Monday, 3/10 - We schedule a walk-through for Saturday 3/15 Wednesday, 3/12 - Barry comes home and the "for sale" sign comes down. Thursday, 3/13 - Anne calls and cancels because Barry came home. Tuesday, 3/18 - Barry dies (we find out on the 20th when we see the obituary). Monday, 3/31 - Anne calls to tell us Barry died.

Wednesday, 4/2 - We go to walk-through the house again, measure and show my parents. Friday, 4/4 - We offer $270,000. That afternoon they counter with $287,000. Saturday, 4/5 - We offer $280,000. They counter with $283,500 with $2000 earnest money. That evening we sign a contract.

Whew. I'm exhausted from all this. I would make a horrible real estate agent.

This blog post contains 0 grams of carbohydrates

I've been a diabetic for 23 years and today was the first appointment I've ever had with a dietitian. When I was diagnosed in 1985, the resident dietitian at Children's Hospital of the Kings Daughters claimed that I could have as much juice as I wanted since natural sugars were not a problem and it was only refined sugars that affected my blood sugars. Just in case you were wondering, that's patently false. So needless to say I've never had a high opinion of dietitians. Today I met with Gisela (pronounced GHEE-seh-lah) for two hours to discuss my diabetes (hey, better late than never, eh?). My homework before arriving was to write down everything I ate and drank for three days, bring my glucose meter and a list of all my medications. Me being me, I opted to bring six days of everything I ate/drank as well my blood sugar readings and insulin doses for those days. I also kicked it up a notch and took pictures of everything I ate and included those in an Excel file. Needless to say, Gisela was impressed.

The short version is that for 23 years, my HbA1C has been hovering around 7% and for 23 years that's been just fine. But the times, as they say, are a changin'. Depending on who you talk to, a person's HbA1C should be closer to 6% or even closer to 5%. Basically that percentage is an estimate of how much of your blood is "blocked" with sugar to keep it from carrying oxygen. The higher that percentage, the less oxygen your blood can carry to all your body parts. Over time that adds up. Fascinating stuff, really.

A few weeks ago, I went to the gynecologist for an annual service check. I recently switched from a very old male gynecologist (actually the guy who was my mother's OB-GYN when she was pregnant with me) to a much younger female one. She's very nice and we were chatting about my health record and she asked if I planned on having kids. I told her "um, no, not right this moment, but my husband and I would like to eventually." She casually told me that "they" say that before a Type 1 diabetic gets pregnant, her HbA1C should be 5%. I looked at her and told her "you're insane." We then discussed that while getting pregnant with a percentage higher than that is not forbidden, they'd like it as low as possible. This whole thing just annoyed me because it seems like the medical community is just covering its collective ass. You can get pregnant if your A1C is over 5 but don't come crying to us if your baby has three heads.

The next week, I had an appointment with my endocrinologist for a routine checkup. I talked to him about this magic number and he was a little more lax about it. He claimed that if my A1C was closer to 6.5 or 6, that would be nice, but that I'm not on fire. I requested that I talked to someone about counting carbs and if there were any hints on how to make sure my blood sugars were closer to perfect.

For reference, the American Diabetes Association says that your fasting blood sugar should be between 70-110 mg/dL (both at waking up and anytime before meals). The ADA also says that two hours after meals, your blood sugar should be under 140 mg/dL. These numbers will come in handy in a moment when I explain my day. Just remember that the goal is your blood sugar never goes over 140 throughout the day, otherwise your poisoning your body. No pressure.

So let's look at my day today. I woke up and felt slightly low (we won't even get into all the different shades of low that I can sense). I took my shower and checked my blood - 84 mg/dL. I didn't want to just "correct," since that number is supposedly fine, but I also didn't want to get in a car, pass out and end up on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow after I've killed a bus load of schoolchildren. So I begrudgingly ate a granola bar (18g) and took one unit of insulin cover 11 of those 18 grams.

Two hours later (10:45am), while in the lobby of the "lifestyle center" my sugar was 144. Not ideal, but nothing horrible. I took half a unit and went on my way. At 12:45pm after leaving the dietitian, my sugar was 155. Hmm, that's odd. Maybe it's stress. I took another 0.7 units (try doing that with a syringe).

I worked my way back to the office with a small chili from Wendy's (23 grams of carbs). At 1:25pm, my sugar was 143 but I knew it was on its way down. I took my 2 units for the chili (1 unit for each 11 grams of carbs) and did my online presentation. At 3:45pm my sugar was 100 (high fives all around!). At 6:22pm my sugar was 83 but the ADA says that's normal.

I ate a bagel sandwich (56 grams). The pump suggested 4.8 units but I only took 4 because I was about to walk the mile to my parents. At 8:05pm, my sugar was 136 (living on the edge, eh?). I ate 2 mini Reese's cups (22 grams for 5 but I only had 2 so ... 8.8 grams?). I took one unit and got a ride home from Mom. This evening I've done nothing but drink a diet Pepsi and surf the internet. But at 10:43pm my blood sugar was 193. Can you explain to me what the hell?

Nothing is different today than any other day for me. And nothing is different this month really than in the past. I just want to take care of myself in the best way possible. I don't want to be so spaced out in the shower I can't remember which step of the bathing process I'm on. I don't want to be worried about walking a mile without bringing a granola bar with me in case my sugar goes low. And I certainly don't want the pounding headache I have right now and the inexplicable high blood sugar.

But right now, I'm just pissed. I'm pissed that my insurance will only cover six test strips per day and I used nine today. I'm pissed that I'm not sure what I should have done between 8:05pm today and 10:43pm today to sense some disturbance in the force that my blood sugar was going higher while I was sitting on my ass watching TV and using the computer. I'm pissed that I've had a granola bar, cup of chili, bagel and two miniature Reese's cups today and I know the exact numbers for all the carb content in them and it still didn't fucking matter. And I'm pissed that I have an elite task force of medical professionals all doing their best to help me and it's still not enough. Two hours later, my sugar is still only down to 153. Do I take more insulin and go to bed, hoping I don't go low in the middle of the night? Or do I leave it and wake up with high blood sugar in the morning? Remember ... no pressure ...

Maybe being so pissed off is why my blood sugar is high right now.

Some people are just romantics in their own way

We had an impromptu dinner with my brother and his girlfriend tonight and it was a really nice evening. Perry said something while we were talking about Dad that I had (almost) forgotten so I wanted to write it down before I really did forget. Our dad has never been an overly romantic kind of guy. My mother teases him that he's lucky her first husband turned her off to overt displays of affection like flowers and fur coats (that were bought on her credit card) so that she appreciates Daddy for all that he is. I can't recall my parents ever buying each other gifts. I don't know that I've seen my parents kiss in my life, but I do remember them hugging a lot when I was a kid. My father was under a lot of stress when we were kids, working two jobs and worrying about money, and I think it affected how I perceived him when I was younger.

But Perry was saying how there should be an NPR radio special about my parents (he's very into NPR programming these days). We started comparing notes about various Dad stories and Perry mentioned how Dad made them hold the plane to Vietnam. I had totally forgotten about that.

In January of 1968, when my parents had just gotten married after Daddy got his orders for Vietnam, my mother was there when he had to get on the plane to head across the globe. He walked out and got on the plane with all the other GIs and as they were about to taxi to leave, he told them they had to stop the plane so he could get off. I'm sure they were expecting some story about how he was not ready for war, but it was something far more important. He told them he had to get off the plane because he had forgotten to kiss his wife goodbye. So they let him off the plane to go kiss Mom and then re-board for Vietnam.

He wasn't able to see her or speak to her again until nine months later when they met in Hawaii for their honeymoon. With the exception of those two weeks in Hawaii, they communicated only by letters for 364 days. I'm glad Daddy got off the plane, but I can't imagine how glad he and Mom were that he did.