abode update and a giveaway

top o' the morning to you all!  i thought i would give y'all a house update, and then reward you for reading about that with a giveaway.  that's fair, right??  i mean, it's buying a house, it might get a little boring.  and, feel free to scoot on down to the giveaway part at the end!  thanks everyone for keeping tabs on our journey, and i swear this grief better end with a cute "we've moved" card...that's all i gotta say.  so here's the jam.

so i told you guys on friday that we had been waiting no less than five days, or 'all week' if you consider just the work week, or approximately 120 hours, to hear back from the seller on our offer that we submitted the previous monday.  not that we were counting.  we didn't hear boo from them until this past monday...promptly after they received a second offer.  now - this offer was lower than ours, so wouldn't you think that they would say something along the lines of, "we have a higher offer on the table and we owe them the courtesy of moving forward as they have been waiting patiently (or not so...) for a week; kindly get lost."  that's what would make sense to a rational individual i believe.  a pertinent detail to mention is that we are trying to purchase a bank-owned property.  quite a different story from buying from an individual, who is probably for the most part a fair, level-headed, sane person - or at least you can hope they've hired an agent who is even if they're not.

as you can probably surmise, that is not what happened.  the bank told the new buyers on the scene that there was a higher offer on the table, and that they should raise their offer if they want the house - because they now have the chance to outbid us and walk away with the house. even though their offer came in a week after ours.  and we never even got the courtesy of a counter offer, or heck, acknowledgement that we were first in line from the bank.  and then we, in turn, were told the same thing - to raise our offer, even though we were the higher bidder - to in effect "win" the house.  the best and final offers from both parties are due today at 5:00 p.m.

i tried to use restraint in how i conveyed this story, but i can tell you right now i was TICKED.  majorly, severely, ticked.  it just made me so mad, how we are suddenly players in this dirty game and have to cave to their ridiculous game rules, just because they say so.  it also made me sad for the world we live in, because i want to believe that people (even banks...that are run by people) will act honorably and you can trust that.  but i guess in this case, it comes down to how much money they can squeeze out of us.

big sigh.  i'll let you all know how it goes, and hopefully i'll have good news to share later this week!  here's hoping anyway.

now that y'all muddled through that so nicely - let's do a giveaway!!!  yeah!  first though, i need to share with you the notecards that mary clare received from the last giveaway back in november.  yes, that was a while ago - but there was christmas in there and i swear i had to sleep through all of january to catch up after the holiday season craze. 

mary clare chose monogrammed notecards with a cute and simple border in a pink and green palette...and we lined the envelopes in a fabulous floral pattern.  i love how light and fresh these turned out - like a big bay window in the form of notecards!

so for today's giveaway, let's do a set of 12 foldover cards - with lined envelopes, of course!  since the topic of the day is moving...tell me where you would live if you could live anywhere in the world...money, jobs and family not being issues.  i'll announce the winner on monday, so leave your comment by sunday!

my answer - beaufort, south carolina with santa barbara, california being a close second (it does have all those wineries however, hmm).  have y'all been to beaufort?  it is just the cutest little town.  such charm and nice people, beautiful homes, a thriving artist community, an adorable downtown and the beach is right there.  we spent a few afternoons there while vacationing at fripp island this summer and fell in love with two things:  a restaurant called wren and the old homes by the bay in the historic district.  the big chill house is one of them, and don't think we didn't stalk it.  the current owners have copious amounts of shrubbery, greenery, gates, trees and anything else you could think of to deter lookers, but we caught a few glimpses.  here it is in the light of day...

other houses, if forced, i could reside in in beaufort.

ok - your turn! and good luck!!
xoxo