The Waiting Game: Everybody Loses!

Arrgh! I used to think I was a pretty patient person, but lately things have gotten out of control. I'm no longer waiting for something specific anymore... I'm just waiting to reach a point in my life where I'm done waiting.

To answer the questions that we have gotten time and again, and you may even be wondering right now, NO we have not sold our house, NO we have not gotten a new house, and NO we have not left Hurricane (although YES we have moved out of our house). Let's discuss each question:

• No, we have not sold our house:
  We got our home under contract with a really lovely couple on August 14th. They wanted to close in the first week of October and we asked for a few extra weeks because we didn't know where exactly we were going to go. Then we discovered we could stay with either of of our parents so we went back to the earlier day (Oct. 8th). Needless to say there were delays from the get-go and the 8th became the 15th, the 15th became the 22nd, and the 22nd blossomed into the 29th. Since we never suspected it would drag on like this we were totally out of the home by the 10th of October and staying with the Douglas'.
  
  Needless to say it is now November 12th, we are on our third extension addendum, and we still have not closed! The new day is supposedly November 20th, but I'm not placing any bets. The sad thing is that it isn't in our control or our buyer's control at all. It's just the bank (down with Bank of America!) and USDA Rural Development that are incredibly slow. Our poor buyers have been in a motel since Oct. 31st because they thought we would be closed by the first week in November and we have totally crashed the Douglas' for more than a month. Insanity!!!
  

• No, we have not gotten a new house:
  We have been looking for houses even before we sold ours. I'll admit we've been a little picky because we simply don't want to have to move again (and finding a good deal wouldn't be bad either), but we've had offers on a few places that haven't panned out. Most of you know about the Utah Trail house in Enoch. It's by my sister and is in a great family neighborhood. It's a short-sale that we put an offer on before Labor Day.
  
  We'd checked in with the bank a few times before they told us at the beginning of October, "We'll have an answer for you at the end of the month, but don't call back before the 26th or we'll make you wait two weeks longer." That is a direct quote (and guess which bank??? Bank of America strikes again!). A call on the 26th told us to wait another week because they just hadn't had a chance to look at it yet. A call on the 5th told us that they'd looked at it, but couldn't make a decision until they reassessed the property. This week they told us there was some kind of discrepancy between the two independent assessments and they had ordered and they now would have to do a formal appraisal... which they said we might hear back by, oh, the 22nd or so of December. DECEMBER.
  
  We really haven't found anything else that is screaming out to us, except another short sale, and judging by the timeline we are on with the first one we'll be lucky to hear anything by Labor Day.
  

• No, we have not left Hurricane:
  We originally stayed with our in-laws so we could be near the house to clean it, get the mail, etc. for those few days before we closed. As our deadline kept getting extended so did our stay here. The master plan at the moment is actually to head to Parowan to stay in my parent's basement (words I never thought I'd utter). LOL. We should be down there (regardless of closing) by November 15th.
  
  To sum up, we are waiting to close on our house & waiting to find/contract/close on a new house (which we will be extremely lucky to do before the end of the year). We each have a suitcase with our clothes and pretty much everything else is in storage. It's been frustrating, but Nate & I are both very aware of how lucky we are. First of all we found buyers in a horrible housing market, we got the price we needed, and we have great families that have opened their doors and given us a place to stay.
  
  We will very, very relieved when the waiting game is over!