It's Been Awhile ...

Sorry. Sorry. It's been awhile. But with the exception of my exuberant "bank has the offer" post of last week, I don't blog from work and all I've been doing is working. Special sections to get out the door before Thanksgiving, and the beast known as ROP ("Run of paper," or as snarky journalists like to call it "Rest of paper") must still be fed.

Feed the beast.

So to catch everyone up:

1. Bank received offer.

2. Bank accepted offer.

3. We are working for full loan approval and should know about that in two weeks. No loan approval, no house, so I'm still trying not to get too excited about it all.

4. Termite report done. We need the FHA appraisal.

5. Chuck met with a contractor who specializes in FHA rehabs. He's based in Napa, but apparently he does these projects all over the coast. He comes in, brings a crew and they work on nothing but that project until it's done.

6. The budget, contractor said, is going to be tight. But it's not undoable.

And did I mention the previous owner wants a rate that can only be described as usurious for us to get the rights to the plans? Fifteen large -- that's $15,000 -- for the rights to the plans. The bank offered him $1,000 and put a clock on even that. I'm not holding my breath.

All of our friends who are cheering us on right now are asked the same question: how do you feel about painting? One friend, a climber, said he's willing to strap on a harness if need be. Others have offered to wear bikinis and set up a churro stand on the sidewalk to raise money--and that's just the men.

Please know that when the time comes, and there's painting to be done, I fully expect most of you to disappear from my life, never to be seen nor heard from again.

Also, am I totally insane to want this as the bathtub in the master bath? In no way, shape or form can we afford it, so does anyone know a good source for black market Japanese bathtubs?

Perfect Friend Terry, who gave up being Irish American when she married a Japanese American and morphed into the perfect Japanese daughter-in-law, said when Japan's Crown Prince and Princess traveled the Central Coast a few years back, at least one farm family she knows of installed a high-tech Japanese toilet, just in case the Prince or Princess needed to relieve themselves while visiting. This is a people that take their fixtures seriously, folks.