NO LONGER HOMELESS!

Yes, it's true.  After nearly three months of sponging living off the kindness of strangers relatives, we now have our own home.   Not that it's been easy.

We were close to buying a house a few weeks ago but a few things revealed by a home inspection deterred us.  Then we were all set to put a bid in on a nice house that needed a lot of sweat equity, when the owners of the very first house we looked at phoned our agent, asking if we would buying it at a reduced price.  We said yes and submitted the paperwork that day.  They promised a fast turnaround.  Evidently the owners were an equity group, most probably an amateur equity group because they really didn't know what they were doing and kept forgetting to send some of the proper paperwork.  We were scheduled to close last Friday, but they didn't have their act together.  We were rescheduled to close this past Monday, but ditto.  Then they said they would close on Wednesday, forgetting it was a holiday.  Thursday closing had to be put off because some of their paperwork was missing.  This morning, shortly before noon, we got the phone call and everything was a go for 3:00 this afternoon.

So we bought a house.  Interestingly, we didn't get any keys.  The equity group didn't provide any but we're able to jimmy the back door to get in.  And yes, we're changing all the locks to something secure, pronto.

It's a comfortable house, 10-years-old, in a good neighborhood, with a bit more room than we had in Southern Maryland.  The yard is small and maintenance-free.

Now it's just a matter of moving our stuff in and figuring out what we have to buy,  When we moved to Florida we assumed we would be going into an apartment so we shed an awful lot of stuff -- some of which we will now have to reacquire.  On the bright side, Kitty likes to shop.

Our rambling days look to be over.

Let the good times roll!