Bad Omens

As predicted, our government failed to pass a budget, so we're getting hit with sequestration. Now we can kiss any hope of getting that relocation assistance goodbye, and cross our fingers that  my hubby isn't furloughed, which could mean a loss of up to 25%  of his income.  Gee, that won't hurt our buying power for a new house at all (she says, rolling her eyes).  Hopefully, the Great Congressional Pissing Contest won't come to that.  Of course, I'm still not holding my breath. 

At any rate, we dropped the price on our house a week ago, but haven't seen any difference in traffic.  Our selling realtor said that we are just now coming into the heavy buying season, so we'll give it a few more weeks before dropping it again.  I've just about given up hope of being able to move before school is out this year.  The kids are happier with that, but that also means it'll be tougher for them to meet new kids during the summer.  They also won't have time to make friends with which to celebrate their birthdays (which are in early September and October).  Oh well, they'll adjust. 

In an attempt to be helpful, my mother-in-law gave us a statue of St. Joseph to be buried in the yard (upside down) to bring us luck selling the house.  I think it's an old wives' tale, and don't belie1ve it'll do a lick of good.  But we're in dire need of good luck, so I'm not opposed to letting Husband Fixture put it to work.  At least, I had no objections until he dropped it and broke the head off less than ten minutes after bringing it into our house.  While I don't think it'll bring us good luck, I cannot see how that can be anything but a bad omen.  I posted a query to our friends on Facebook, to see what they thought we should do.  The majority of them said we should glue the head back on and bury it anyway, as Hubby wanted to do.  We'll see. 

On the buying side of things, we did submit an offer for the house we want in Maryland.  The owners have been out of the country, so it's taken awhile to get an answer.  Essentially, they agreed to a contingency sale and to helping with the closing costs, but they want almost the listed price.  Husband Fixture wanted to try and nudge them down by a little bit (we initially offered $14K less), but we agreed that we'll accept their counter offer if they won't budge.  We don't want to lose this house, as it's by far the best we've seen at this price point.  I'm just hoping we don't nudge them into thinking they should hold out for other buyers.