Someone please pinch me! Did this really just happen? After all of the daydreaming & contemplating & weighing of options & committing to change, we have finally crossed the finish line! Today we signed the remaining 900 thousand pieces of necessary paperwork & we have keys to our new woodland abode in hand! We are officially headed to the peace & tranquility of our very own nest, tucked away in the Back Bay country of Pungo, Virginia!
Looking back, just a little over 6 months ago, we made the ambitious decision to ditch city life & head to the country to experience a new & different way of living. In that brief blink of time, we listed our house, sold our house, rented a house & ultimately made offers on a barn, a cabin, a 100-year-old farmhouse & 2 foreclosures. That’s a lot of cleaning up, cleaning out, packing, unpacking, negotiating & believing in the power of the universe. Much to our surprise, we received a full price offer on our Norfolk home in less than 24 hours after placing the “for sale” sign in the front yard. Things got real… Like, really quickly!
Immediately we were thrust into a full-on house hunt, with precious little time to spare. Weekends were spent locked in the station wagon with three kids, munching on PB&J’s while driving aimlessly, mile after mile on unfamiliar winding roads seeking that perfect patch of God’s green earth to call our own. The entire house hunting process was filled with unexpected ups & downs, pleasures & panic. For instance, the little situation we now refer to as the “Great Dismal Dilemma”. We happened to stumble upon this enchanting ranch style house & piece of land in the Blackwater vicinity of Chesapeake, Virginia. It was a foreclosure, included a smallish barn structure & consisted of 5 secluded acres of woodland bliss. Jackpot! So we thought.
The house was a bit of a fixer-upper, which would have allowed the hunk & I just the right amount work to feel as though we were making it our own. We dig projects! We wasted no time putting a bid on the old place & much to our excitement, the bank accepted almost immediately! The whole thing was just thrilling, until it became terrifying. One evening, my friend Sarah called to suggest that prior to moving ourselves & our children out into the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp, we take some time to visit the commonwealth’s public sex offender website. Because moving out into the middle of forest swampland is not creepy enough. Plant the seed of a few sadistic pedophiles lurking in the woods around our new homestead, & watch my imagination blossom into a full-on night terror! And yes, just for the record we really did make an offer on a house surrounded by swampland, okay people? Let it go. It was not our finest hour, but until you’ve tried to acquire your own slice of earth in the midst of the urban sprawl that IS Hampton Roads, you are not allowed to be judgey. Thank God for my friend Sarah! THANK. GOD. FOR. SARAH. I should buy Sarah a new car. Or an all expense paid cruise to Tulum. Leave it to Josh & I to choose the only piece of property in all of Hampton Roads that is situated less than half a mile up the road from an 18-bed halfway house for convicted sex offenders! Yeah. Ummm, NO… I’m not joking. Let me put this into perspective, these are the individuals in our society who are convicted & on parole for the types of lewd acts that I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about, let alone living next door to. Literally, people have been ostracized for less than the very real & graphic crimes these men have been convicted of. Can you imagine the sheer terror that would have ensued, had we actually purchased that property, moved into the house & then learned about this little swampland retreat for pedophiles after the fact?
For your information, these are the precise circumstances when it is absolutely crucial to have chosen the world’s best realtor to represent you. Thank God for our realtor Chanda. THANK. GOD. FOR. CHANDA. Chanda should be going on the all expense paid cruise to Tulum with Sarah. Apparently, in the great state of Virginia, this sort of information is not made available to realtors prior to agreeing to list properties. Therefore, the listing agent on this property had no idea there were rapists living across the creek. And because the listing agent was not made aware of this tottery little fact, neither was our realtor. Fortunately for us, we hired an incredibly awesome realtor who happens to be a mastermind of itty-bitty detail. She swooped in & slid us out from beneath that contract quicker than hot snot on a cold day! Needless to say, we took a few deep breaths, signed a short-term rental agreement on a local house & decided to take our good, old time finding the perfect primitive pad for our family.
It finally paid off.
While visiting loved ones in Ohio over Christmas break, our wonderful, dedicated & brilliant realtor (did I mention dedicated) took time away from her own family’s holiday festivities to journey out into the middle of Virginia farm haven to investigate a newly listed foreclosure. Sure enough, it was the one! We knew how quickly property was getting snatched up in our price point, so we made an offer sight unseen! Crazy, scary, risky. BUT, it turned out to be everything we could have imagined, only more. Heart is full. Let the house & lifestyle renovations begin!
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