Now, you might be asking yourself how two kids that have spent their entire lives living across the rive in Kentucky found their way to purchasing a home in Cincinnati? Or why it took the better part of 3 months to finally close? Or why I am packing but not moving any time soon? To fully understand the joy (and relief) in those statements, you need to understand the long and winding journey that led up to this point.
This saga began a little over a year ago when, like so many couples these days, Landon and I found ourselves unemployed and looking for work. At the time we were both living in Lexington, Kentucky and had been for some time. We met in Lexington. We had our first date in Lexington. We assumed we'd get married and buy our first house in Lexington. The universe, however, had other plans. As anyone who has ever been unemployed can tell you, sometimes you have to go where the jobs are. For Landon, that meant Cincinnati (which was a great deal closer than Dallas, which was the other option at the time). For me, that meant staying right here in Lexington.
While a long distance relationship wasn't what either of us wanted, we didn't have much choice at the time as he had no job opportunities here and I was striking out up there. So we settled in to a new life of only seeing each other on weekends and tried to make do. Eventually it was decided that, since I wasn't having much luck finding work in the Queen City, I would go ahead and apply to graduate school in Cincinnati to start in the fall of 2012.
Now, first let me say that I had been toying with the idea of going back to school for several years--well before I met Landon. My original plan was to go back part time while still working full time at the University here meaning they would pay for me to take two classes a semester. Doing things that way would have meant that in about 5 years I could have gotten my Masters degree without paying a dime. That plan, however, went out the window the moment I got laid off from the University.
The new plan was for me to apply to the University of Cincinnati instead and to go to school full time instead of part time. This would be a shorter course--2 years instead of 5--but a more expensive one. But, it would put us back in the same city.
Once that was decided, Landon (who had been living in his parents' basement to save some money) began to do some serious house hunting. The hope was that we would be able to find something this spring and then have the summer to get it fixed up a bit (since we knew our budget would most likely put us in a "fixer-upper") before I moved up in the fall to start school. As it is now July 26th and we only closed on the house yesterday, you can judge for yourself how well that plan worked out.
I won't bore you with the details of our house hunt. Let's just suffice it to say that, like any couple, we had some difference of opinion on what we wanted and/or liked. We looked at approximately 1 million photos of houses online (give or take a few hundred thousand). We did drive-bys. We spent a couple of days seeing the insides of houses. And finally, we found a winner.
I would like to say that it was love at first sight for me. Really, I'd like to say that it was love at second sight. But really, my first impression was of dirt and old and eww. I did recognize that it had huge rooms. And an okay yard. But mostly I was ready to leave. Landon however, fell in love. He saw the "potential." I saw a huge pile of work. In the end, he won me over and we made an offer.
Okay, I need to back up again for a second. We didn't really make an offer. Landon's parents made the offer (in cash) with the plan that we would buy the house from them later. The details of why we did it this way are messy and boring, but just know that we though making a cash offer would be the best thing and, since we didn't have the cash, they made the offer for us. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.
In the meantime I got accepted to graduate school and got my financial aid package. It didn't cove all of my out of state tuition. Now we had another choice to make. We were engaged by now, with a wedding date set for May of 2013. But the only way for me to be considered an in state student was for us to get married NOW. So we did. We had a small ceremony with just our immediate family followed by a back yard bar-b-que where we formally asked our best friends to be our wedding party for the next May. It was perfect. And now we were husband and wife.
We also found out that day that our offer on the house had been accepted and, pending the inspection, we could close. Then we found out that the seller was out of the state for a month. And that she needed almost another month to get packed and move. We'd been under contract on the house for more than a month at this point, so we were disappointed that it would take that long. But we went ahead.
Yesterday, three months after we made an offer on the house, we finally closed. For those of you keeping score at home, that gives us a scant week before I'm due to move up. Obviously, with the amount of work we'll be doing, we aren't moving in any time soon. Landon says two months. I think he's underestimating, but only time will tell.
Am I nervous about moving to an entirely new state, starting school, doing a complete remodel on a house, all while living in my In-laws' basement? Of course I am, but I figured writing about it might help. And I'm sure everyone will want to see what happens with the house. So here you go. Stay tuned for the adventures of a Bluegrass girl (and boy) as they figure out what the heck they are doing in the Buckeye state.
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