Yesterday, the lovely spouse and I signed our names and initialed in a bunch of places within a four-inch-thick pile of papers (or a few dozen MB on the thumb drive included in the folder we walked away with), and I handed over probably the largest cashier’s check I’ll likely ever have to deal with (a hair over six figures, to give you an idea) over the course of my odd little life, and now we’re officially the owners (or at least the lien holders) on the home in the photo below:

As mentioned previously, it’s just around the corner from our old place (which my realtor tells me the new owner/investor is happy with as a project ripe for flipping), and a little more than twice the size, and full of modern conveniences like solar panels and dual-zone HVAC (well, as soon as the guy installs the second unit on Thursday), and all sorts of neat other things that keep folks from tripping all over each other.

Sure, the washer/dryer stack (that which fits into the space allotted) won’t be here until next week, and some other furniture bits will be added over the next couple of weeks or months as we continue to unpack boxes and place and receive orders for some new pieces, but as of yesterday (or really this afternoon after we went back to the settlement company after I finished a really long meeting and signed a couple of places they initially missed), we’re here and we’re on it, and it’s ours.

Additionally, since the drunk driver knocked the mailbox down last weekend and the former owner/realtor has an insurance claim in, I’ve got some paperwork filed with the local USPS office until I can get a new one up this weekend, we need to go down the block to pick up our mail (including the new bank card to replace the one I lost in the move, dammit) for a couple of days, but we’re on our way. The locks are replaced with new ones and we have new towel racks and stuff to make it ours, and I spent a few hours on Sunday (along with a trip to Lowe’s) to fix the damned Mansfield toilet I didn’t even know was it’s own thing until I landed in a house with one that’s probably been there since the mid-70s with bolts I needed to hacksaw through, but it works now and I can mark the fix a success part from the extra nicks and scratches on my hands to match the ones I picked up during the move to succeed the ones on my knees and forearms from the bike accident the other week.

So yeah, lots of work, so far and in the future, but it’s in my name now, and I’m not moving again until I can help it.

Just wanted to share that with ya; it’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.