Windows and Weeds

On Monday we had a guy from a window place come over to give us an estimate for replacing all the old windows. It was over 10k and Mike had already scheduled another meeting with another company, so we didn't accept it at that time.

By Tuesday we had received offers from 7 people to buy our house. They went from 1k under the asking price to 15k above it with most in the 5-10k above range. 

The one that offered 15k over also sent a letter and seemed pretty excited to buy the place, so we went with him. However, he had an inspection on Wednesday, and the inspector told him that some weeds were growing in the crawlspace, and it freaked him out so much that he backed out of the deal. 

Mike went down there to fix the problem that night, and with the help of the teenage Dalyai boy, had all the tree roots removed in two hours.

There has never been normal weeds growing in our crawlspace, however those trees of heaven aggressively sucker, and they constantly attempt to colonize the crawlspace. 

The inspector recommended that a cap be put on the chimney to stop rain from falling down the chimney, so we did that as well.

Thursday we had more window guys come over, and we decided to go with them. Their estimate was over $1k less, they can get the windows in about 6 weeks faster, and they have good reviews. We are excited to get better windows.

On Saturday we did more work around the house, and we got most of the house functional. The front room shelving is all constructed and filled with games and school supplies, the front room table is clear and accessible for school, the library has all the books on shelves and the toy library in the closet, and the playroom is clear. We definitely still have work to do (shortening the monkey bars so we can put them up in the playroom, getting the art cart arranged and working, organizing the fridge, and putting up Montessori shelves are the biggest ones), but the main space is very livable now.

Rea and Sara cleaned and arranged their room on Saturday, too, and all the kids picked the garden. We got 30lbs of green tomatoes before it froze Saturday night. We tried a green tomato enchilada sauce recipe that turned out pretty good, so we're going to make and can enchilada sauce out of all of them.

Grandma Julie came to town Saturday night with Becky's family, and they dropped her off at our house. We're so excited to have her for most of the week!

Sunday morning we woke up to a snowstorm! That was certainly exciting. We were glad the kids had picked the garden the night before. Our windows were covered with condensation; the kids had fun drawing in it, but it made the parents want to get better ones.