Whoo HOO!!!

I've been antsy over the last couple of weeks due to the house-buying experience. "Will it go through as hoped? Will the bank agree that we have the wherewithal to buy the house?"

Late last week, another piece of the puzzle arrived--the loan company's appraisal of the house.

It was $4500 less than the contract price. Not going unnoticed by any of us, it was--to the dollar--the same amount we had initially offered on the house.

Apparently it would be all but impossible for the seller to get more money for the house at this point. The pool of buyers has all but gone away with the end of the first-time home-buyers' tax break program, so if she refused the reduced price it would likely be a LONG time before she could sell the house for more money, and she certainly would not be able to sell it to someone who, like Jenn and me, are buying using the FHA program.

Still, given the difficulty the selling realtor had getting her to sell for our second offered price, we were nervous. Would she come down that last few thousand dollars?

I learned late last night that she had. We'll have the signed addendum to our purchase contract at the appraised price tomorrow or Thursday.

The seller asked that we schedule the closing for 8 June. Good for us, as we plan to fly to California on 9 June. Jenn's daughters will be minding things while we are gone (along with some friends of ours that my step-daughters may or may not notice doing drive-by checks), and the closing is early enough in the day that I expect to have time to change the locks on the house before we skip town. I wouldn't expect problems from this seller, but I still feel better having my own locks installed. There was one deadbolt that is misaligned a bit, and I'll have a chance to fix that while I'm changing the key cylinders.


I've not been riding much the last few days. I rode to work Saturday, and rode to Mom's from work to help my stepfather plant a tree in their backyard. Jenn picked me up at Mom's house so that we could visit some of her family that evening, so my commute was only eighteen of the usual twenty-four miles. I'll hit the Tuesday evening ride in a bit, and get some miles on the Strada just for kicks.

I also now have my newest kilt. I've been saving for this one for a while, and it's been a pretty cool way to buy. It's an RKilt, with some traditional details but made on a more modern form. I couldn't justify getting a leather kilt, although having seen the one Robert (the creator of RKilts) was wearing this morning I can see why a lot of folks like them so well. However, I've been reading enough good things about his attention to detail and the "hand" of his hemp fabric that one of these has been on my "eventually I'll get one" list for a while. I need to wash it one more time before I start wearing it (and certainly before I take pictures of it), but the test-fit felt VERY good.

As I said, it's made of hemp, and the more I read about hemp the more I think this country has some serious cranio-rectal insertion problems! If the North American Industrial Hemp Council can be believed at all, hemp would easily displace tobacco as Kentucky's leading legal cash crop, and make a run for being the leading cash crop by making the current leader harder to grow (hemp cross-pollinating with marijuana plants leads to lower-THC marijuana, not higher-THC hemp). It's easy to learn the difference between the two, so reasonably-well-trained LEOs *should* be able to discriminate. Besides, hemp is typically grown densely-planted, to get it to grow more fibrous, whereas pot is grown widely-separated to get it to leaf better.

Of course, small minds prevail on such things. Go figure. Yep, keep us from growing a plant that has dozens or hundreds of uses, that requires far less chemical help than cotton and makes a better fabric, that provides an oil that was the original fuel for Rudolph Diesel's engines, has longer fibers and is thus better for rope, and much more.

...and the fabrics made from hemp are so darned durable! At least, that's what I keep reading. I look forward to seeing how this kilt wears. I plan to wear it when I crew on RAAM next month.