Buying Property and Moving

Even though I didn’t see any property I liked on my trip last week, we are currently in escrow as of yesterday.  The day after I got home, I noticed a place on a real estate website that seemed very attractive.  Unfortunately before my realtor could look at it, someone had already made an offer.  Then another very attractive property in a good location came up on the website.  My realtor (my dad) made an appointment to see it and reported that it was everything we wanted.  We asked him to make an offer, which was counteroffered, which we counteroffered, then finally accepted yesterday by the sellers.  Our escrow account opened, inspections were scheduled, movers arranged and scheduled then rescheduled, travel plans made and remade.  Whew.  Dave is in Seattle at a job interview as I write this.  I hope I have good news to share by tomorrow.  In any event, he gets to see the house that we’re buying tomorrow.  I’m not going to describe it since we’re just in escrow now and so many things could go wrong between now and our August 22 closing date.

Even though that date is 3 1/2 weeks away there is much to do in the way of sorting through the junk we’ve accumulated over the last 5 years of living here and training Lucy Cat to wear a harness so I have a little control over her during litter box breaks on 2-day journey up north.  Sister Cat already knows how to wear a harness and submits to the pressure of a leash, which is how I keep her from escaping the backyard during their supervised evening outings.  Lucy Cat is too fat to jump the 5′ cinder block walls so she roams unleashed in the enclosed yard.

Clipper is still moving to his new stable the week of August 8, although I hope it’s later in the week so I can ride him a bit longer.  He’s doing so well, I’m please to report.  His confidence over jumps is much improved and he’s far less spooky than he used to be.  Most of the improvement has to do with my riding him better.  At the jump approach I sit back on him and encourage him forward with my leg cues.  I used to approach jumps in the two-point position but somehow that gave him a way to duck out.  By sitting on him, I’m making him wait another stride before the fence, which seems to give him more confidence.  He used to spook in the same spot every time until I started bending him hard into the rail.  Now when we go into the arena, I don’t give him a chance to look for spooky things.  I immediately ask him serpentine at the walk and he walks by that scary spot at the northwest end of the arena without jumping sideways from the bogey monsters in his imagination.  It’s a very stressful time right now but things are going very, very well.  And I can’t wait to escape this SoCal oven to the cool greenness of WeWa.