Almost but not quite

We aren't homeowners yet... But it sure feels like it! The closing didn't happen on Friday due to a missing piece of paper from Afghanistan. The seller is currently deployed and we are waiting on his power of attorney form to come in the mail. Hopefully it is here tomorrow or Tuesday. Pretty much any day this week could be our closing day. Pins and needles here people! Luckily our agent was able to get is occupancy so we can get into our house and begin the thousands of renovation and update projects. It's overwhelming, but we wanted a historic home - and that's what we've got. Our first task as semi home owners was ( drum roll please) go to Lowes. The weather was amazing and no one had taken care of the 1/2 acre that the house sits on... So we needed rakes. We were going rake our new yard. Ha! In southern pines we just put the leaves back into the woods. No chance of that here and we have missed the time of year when they so curb side leave service. What do we do with the leaves? We are under and fire ban with no rain in weeks. So we after raking for hours , Jasin went BACK to Lowes and bought (under the recommendation on Fonda) this amazing leaf blower that sucks up the leaves and mulches them for you into a bag. Amazing! It took us two full mornings of work, but the FRONT yard is fairly free of leaves. I am rocking one large blister and a minor splinter on my hands from our efforts. We still have the backyard and two side yards left. The front yard has 5 trees- all with zero leaves left on them ( so you can imagine) & we took all the mulch back to our apartment and dumped it in the woods along with buckets of sticks from the yard. We don't know where to put this stuff!
Brianna & I also tackled the wallpapering. This house has plaster walls - hence the wallpapering. Wallpaper from 1970 and earlier. Wallpaper from the top to the bottom of our 12 foot ceilings. Yeah. Imagine it. The seller has started removing the foyer wall paper and given up/ deployed, so we continued on with his efforts. We had some extra helpers on Saturday - but as of Sunday night still had 30% of the work remaining. Not to mention the lesson we learned about why people wallpaper plaster walls- they crack and are not flat surfaces. We discovered a couple cracks as we slowly removed the wallpaper ( Jasin has been watching "how to" videos on repairing plaster cracks all night).
We brought Kelty over to the house first, by herself so she could take ownership of the house. She could tell our excitement and immeaditley pooped in the backyard and then ran inside and peed on the floor to establish ownership. The house was Kelty's now ( with or without an power of attorney form). Bodie soon joined us and also peed on the floor.
Jasin saw to little tasks as Brianna & drank beer and peeled wallpaper for what seems like an eternity. One memorable moment: I am up on a ladder peeling wallpaper when I hear Jasin yell in the kitchen. I climb down and find he has moved the fridge and tried to disconnect t from a waterline & water is spraying all over the place from a copper hose. While I manhandled this copper hose into a trash can - Jasin runs to the basement to turn the valve off. Brianna is laughing from her perch on a ladder and kelty and bodie are running back and forth from Jasin to myself trying to enter the fray.
One thing is for sure - everyone is welcome to come help pull wallpaper!