how much is that money in the windows?

the house is off. yup...that's right. no more new house for me.

we were actually VERY lucky to get out of it. i took my mom and dad through it yesterday and it turns out all the windows in the entire house are garbage. being that it was an old house, the windows were not only many, but also large. the replacement costs would have put us in the poor house.

i didn't sleep much last night worrying about how we were going to get out of the accepted offer we already had. would we be stuck with a house we couldn't afford to fix? the thought made me sick. so i made many calls trying to get every angle i could on what we should do.

it turns out in the end that i just decided to call the owner and tell her what i was thinking. (the house is "for sale by owner") i called her and told her how devastated we were, but that i thought we would have to back out of the offer. she was nonetheless disappointed, but very understanding. i was very thankful. we went to the house again today to sign a cancellation of the offer and to get our earnest money back. so it's finished and i am very relieved. as much as we really liked the house, we just don't have the cash-flow to replace tens of thousands of dollars worth of windows.

thank goodness for daddies!