Bye bye Kendo :-(

Poor guy. Barely born, let alone had any time to get into any rock star shenanigans before he gets stuffed into a box ready to move.

Still I wanted to make sure he gets to his new place safely and then I'll let him out and get into whatever mischief he wants to ;-)

Just wanted to let you know I am still here....still packing.

I started out with good intentions. Every box was labeled with the room it will end up in and it contained things for that room and nothing else. Well you know how that goes...that little gap in 'Jayne's Workroom' box that wouldn't fit anything but the pestle and mortar from the kitchen. So my boxes are now full of whatever will fit into them.

In the beginning every box was labeled with it's entire contents. Well that soon got old. Now boxes are being labeled 'stuff' or misc'






I know I'll regret this at the other end but hey ho.

See that roll of clear stuff. It is saran wrap (cling film for you Brits) on a roll. I have had to wrap all my storage drawers with it to make sure none of the tiny contents fall out. A lesson learned from my last move lol. Well you know how difficult regular saran wrap can be to handle...you should try this stuff. Total mare but hopefully it'll do the job.

Not much news on the house. We had the inspection done and that went fine. There is a lot of work to do but nothing that we hadn't figured for ourselves and nothing major like a dodgy roof thankfully.

We are waiting for the appraiser to go in and should know the results of that my mid next week. Hopefully it will be appraised for at least our offer price or more otherwise we have a problem.

Because it is a bank owned house there is very little give and take. We've already had to sign a bunch of disclaimers saying we are buying it 'as is' and won't try and sue the seller if something wasn't disclosed.

There are no negotiations, no repairs made, no help with closing costs etc...just a case of if you want to buy it as it is fine...if not we''ll go to the next offer. So hopefully we won't have any hiccups with the appraiser.

We had the Natural Hazard report done (same as surveyors report in the UK) and that seems fine.

Just the usual stuff, we aren't in a flood zone, we are in an earthquake zone (hello this is California) the ground is susceptible to mudslides after an earthquake, there are farms and horse ranches within 1 mile etc, etc etc.

The great ? news is though......

The property IS NOT located within a California Red-Legged Frog habitat sensitive area.

The property IS NOT located within a California Tiger Salamander habitat sensitive area.

And.....

There has been no ground surface displacement within the last 1.5 million years


Those ones had me cracking up.


So aside from having to sign gazzilion papers that is about where we are at now.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments on my last post. I tried to comment myself and it wouldn't let me...got some message that I needed permission...lol.

I will post photos as soon as I can. I do have lots already but it doesn't seem right to post them publicly until the house is actually ours...I promise I will then.

There was mention that extra rooms could be used for dollhouses. Weeeelll .....there is this one room off the living room. I think it might have been used as a dining room as it is long and narrow. So long and narrow it would be the perfect place to display the Pickled Vicar...what more motivation do I need to get building it :-)

I also seem to have given the impression that the house was brick. Oh Jodi I wigs it were....I crave a brick built house. Unfortunately this is standard wood construction with siding at the front and stucco at the back. There is a lot of brick used in the gardens though in terms of raised brick planters, columns etc and one whole wall of the family room is brick...real brick to boot.

In fact I am not sure I've ever seen a brick built house in California at all.

I do feel though that this is the right house for me and although we put offers in on others I loved I didn't get the same feeling as I do with this one. And every time I look at the photos I just love it some more which is good.

It is in the same town...only about 8 miles from us. One of those situations where a different part of the same town makes all the difference.

And thanks you for following Miss Mustard Seed. I think I might start another blog just to journal all the house stuff once we have the keys. It will be great for me to share it with my friends and family that way plus all my mini followers won't have to be bored by it :-)

And that's about it from me for a while....I'll be back shortly. I miss you all :-(