An Offer We Did Refuse

We got an offer on the house today! I got it in my email, which was new. I had a chance to look it over and gave Holly a call so that she could look at it too. I thought it might be a tad low so Holly and I had a conference call with our agent. First I needed her to explain exactly what the bottom line was. The buyer wanted us to pay all the closing costs and that irked me. But we then found out that the buyer was using an FHA loan and there are some closing cost items that they are not allowed to pay for. I asked our agent for her opinion and she suggested we counter offer by increasing their initial offer by the total of the closing cost. That would give us a higher profit that we believe is fair for our house.

Another issue is that they want to close on Dec 17. Our new house will probably not be ready until Mid-January. We asked if they would entertain a lease-back to us or push the closing date out. We also will use our appliances as a bargaining chip. We were going to sell our washer, dryer and refrigerator but will convey them if everything works out okay.

We hope to hear something back tomorrow! It’s very exciting to be getting somewhere on this sale. We just need to see how things progress. I think this is the buyers first home because I looked his name up in our county’s appraisal roll and didn’t see his name there. And I did another search and he’s either 29 or 30 and apparently single.

If he is not able to change the closing date or do a lease-back, some friends from church have offered us the upstairs of their new house. We’d have to move out of the our house, have everything put in storage and then have it all picked up from storage in Jan and moved in to the new place. But the Army is covering the cost of our move, so we really don’t mind which way it goes. But we really would rather move just once.

More tomorrow!

And yeah – this is Roger… I’m back on the blogging bandwagon again baby!

MRI Monday Feb 4

First, for those of you that get the blog emailed to you, something happened to the service this past weekend and plogs that were written late last week were not emailed at all. I made the system email them to you just a bit ago. Sorry about that... if you want to get the blog emailed to you, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the webpage to sign up... its free!

I have another three month MRI Monday afternoon at 5pm ET to see how things are up there. Please continue to pray that the tumor is still gone and that healing is continuing. I meet with my Rad/Onc Tuesday morning to review the results. I'll let you know how it goes.

This week is going to be a busy one... I finally have an appt with the VA to have my physical by them for my VA disability claim. And I have a meeting with my pro-bono attorney to prepare for my hearing on Feb 13 to appeal my initial disability rating from the Army. Yes, I will get a disability rating from the Army and the VA. I'll have to explain that at a different time. I'll try to get you caught up on the lowdown this week.

Oh - and what an awesome game tonight. Personally, I was glad to see the Giants get the win over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. The Manning brothers get back to back rings. How cool is that?

-Roger

I'm here!

Well, I've been in DC almost a week now. I can't believe it. Time is going by so fast. Roger & I have been running around like crazy. He has numerous appointments each day and between traveling to and from Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval, waiting for doctors and the actual appointments themselves we are constantly going, going, going. We were so busy last week that we barely made it to meals. We were usually running into the dining facility with 30 minutes to spare which if you know anything about military dining facilities, that's when all the "good" food is out. Of course you know I'm being sarcastic. When the menu for that day runs out, they bring out the leftovers. The food is edible. We try to eat a lot of fruits and veggies. We have a salad at lunch every day. Lunch is the best meal of the day for cooked food. Breakfast is easy. Dinner, that's another story.

I thought I would have a lot of down time here so I checked some books out of the local library in Austin. Boy was I wrong. Not only are we constantly going somewhere, but at some of the appointments they actually put me to work too. During pool therapy and physical therapy, I had to be Roger's spotter. I don't mind it at all, but so much for my library books. Pool therapy is really neat. There's a 3-5 foot deep pool on the third floor of the hospital and one pool therapist named Melissa. She's really nice and knows her stuff. Roger can see how it will help his mobility and balance improve. The physical therapy where Roger goes is outside of the hospital in a portable building. The physical therapy inside the hospital is for soldiers missing limbs. And there are a lot of them here. Physical therapy is a little different for Roger because they are targeting specifics now and they show you your exercises at the first session and you are on you're own after that. Since Roger is still susceptible to seizures, they will watch him closely and assist on some exercises, but other than that you are on your own. Some of the exercises he can do outside of physical therapy. He might even buy a jump rope. That's one of the exercises he has to do in physical therapy. He was really surprised that he could jump rope but he did well. He should see a lot of improvement between the pool therapy and the physical therapy.

As for this whole Med Board process, all I can say is that it's interesting. The process is unorganized and seems to change regularly. It can be frustrating at times. They are trying to improve the process but of course anything associated with the military is not simple nor easy. Everyone associated with it seems frustrated. I'll blog more about that later. I'm going to post a few pictures of what we've been doing since I've been here. We've been invited to a baseball game tonight so we're off to get some things done before we get picked up. Check back soon.

Off to bed - long day Saturday

A big thanks to Buddy, Amanda, Ryan, Derek, Jumoke, Pili, Charles, Megan, Ruben, Esther, Ashley, Matt, Julie, John, Tamra, Jana, Kezia, Naomi... your help providing materials, ideas, muscle while we packed everything up and loaded the trailer has been such a blessing to us. All we have to do now is wake up, take our last few items down to the truck and drive off. We had a nice meal at El Pollo Rico (which we're going to miss so much since it's so close and sooo yummy) and then we watched just a little TV and talked. Then our great friends presented us with a scrap book full of pictures from our two years here, and goodbyes from many different people from church. We looked at the pictures, but didn't really get a chance to dive into it. We'll enjoy reading it when we get home to Texas. Thanks again to everyone that had a hand in this wonderful gift.

Our time here has been awesome. I can't believe that we're leaving and that one year has passed since my brain surgery! Time has absolutely flown by. It just ticked past midnight and now it is March 3, 2007. One year ago right now my parents and Holly's mom were here and I was trying to get to sleep knowing that I would undergo brain surgery the following morning to remove my tumor. I didn't know it at the time, but the months following the surgery would be the most trying of my life. But here I am, one year later, driving off on one year to the day of that life changing day. Sometimes, it never seems like it happened. But every day I look in the mirror and I see the scar and my thin patch of hair from the radiation. It reminds me of what happened, and how far I have come. But I didn't do it alone. My wonderful wife, Holly, was there by my side every single day. She is my rock. And our family from Grace lifted us up during that time too. God gave you to us so that we could get through that time. In turn, we gave something back to others that are able to take our experience and somehow get through something in their lives just a little bit easier. I'm happy that God used me for that purpose. I will go through it again if I need to, because I feel I have helped more people having experienced this than anything else in my life. And it has made me a better person in the end.

The next few months will be a challenge for us, but it's nothing we won't be able to handle. But for the next 40 days, I'm on vacation... my first in two years. Man, am I looking forward to it! Lastly, Holly shared with you that I am on the selection list for a promotion to E-7/SFC in the Army. This is great news since it means more dinero and it just feels good to know that I made the cut. I had to take what the Army calls a DA Photo (Department of the Army Photo) and submit it with my promotion packet. I thought I'd share it with you. Good night.