Still Waiting

The good news: we got an offer on our house.

The bad news: it was pretty low, so we submitted a counter-offer yesterday morning, and they had until 2 p.m. today to respond.

Meanwhile, Lee and I started house hunting. Because these potential buyers want to close so quickly, we scrambled to get into several homes for sale and found two possibilities. We think we know which one we'd put an offer on if our sale comes through, but we're both trying to be cautious and not get too attached. I'm not doing a very good job.

I slept with my computer and my phone by the bed last night, just in case our realtor called. After all, these people want to close in 2 weeks, so I figured they wouldn't dilly-dally in their response.

I had a hard time falling asleep, trying not to imagine our furniture in the new house. When Camille woke up this morning, I knew before I even opened my eyes that it was too early. My whole body protested that it was too early. 5:11 a.m. I propped my eyelids open with toothpicks.

All day I carried my cell phone with me, except when I tried to "jinx" myself. I'd go get something out of my car and leave it behind, thinking, "If I don't take it, that'll be the moment I get a phone call!" I'd come back and no messages would be waiting from my realtor.

Any time I called Lee, our conversations went something like this:

Lee: (answers on first ring) "Hello?"
Me: "Haven't heard anything. Sorry."
Lee: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Yeah. Just calling to see about your lunch plans."

1:45 rolled around and I felt like a wreck. 2:05. I had to finally begin to accept the very real possibility that they had just decided to let our counter-offer expire without even a response.

My realtor called me around 3 after getting a frantic call from the buyers' realtor. Their realtor hadn't bothered to notice the deadline listed on our counter-offer, and didn't realized they'd missed it. She said they planned to submit something in writing to us ASAP.

I was encouraged.

It's now almost 9 p.m. What the heck? These people - who are in such a tremendous hurry - are 7 hours past the deadline to respond, and we've heard nothing. I'm trying not to take it personally, but I really do think it's quite rude. I'm getting very grumpy.

I want to go crawl under the covers and get to sleep early, in the hopes of recouping some of the sleep I lost last night. But instead, I'm going to sit here and stare at my phone. I wish it were easier for me to turn off the anxiety, but I know myself better than that!

Perhaps St. Joseph believes I need a lesson in patience?