So...

I officially hate house-hunting. I am on the verge of hating realtors. I know, strong statements. But...well, it's stressful and annoying and I'm sick of it all.

As stated before, I work 65 miles from where we live. For our entire marriage, Tom and I have spent half a week apart, every week, all year long. I'm tired of that too.

I actually do like the guy. I'd like to spend more time with him, to actually life FULL TIME in the same house with him. I know, it boggles the mind that married couples do that, doesn't it?

Well, I want to be one of those married couples. One of those couples who see each other every single day, even if just for a few hours in the evening. I want the girls to see him every day. I want him to be able to fix them breakfast on school mornings while I race around getting things ready so we can leave. I want him to help me clean up the kitchen every night after dinner. I want him there every single night to help me get the girls into bed.

I want a lot, I know.

And we were so close. We'd put in an offer on a house. A great house. But...they wanted more than we wanted to spend. So we made a low offer at the advice of our realtor.

And they (the bank who currently owns this great house which has been empty for over a YEAR!) countered. We countered their counter.

And they came back at a good price. One we should have jumped at.

But our realtor and Tom were in the 'game.' They wanted to win. They wanted the bank to accept our offer, not the other way around. So we counted the countering counter. Ahem...

Whatever...

A few days later, the realtor called and gave me some devestating news. Someone else had come along and offered close to the asking price.

That was that.

Or so I though. That wasn't that.

A few days after that, the realtor called AGAIN. This time, he said there was something wrong with the other offer and did we want to go back to the bank with an offer of what they'd offered us. Confusing, right? But we did. We went back and made a backup offer of the last offer they'd made to us.

And they COUNTERED that!

Seriously...I'm losing my ever loving mind here. I told my realtor that I'm not going higher than they'd originally offered. We know they'll go to that point becaus they did once. This is not some family I'm screwing out of a down payment for their next home. This is a financial institution that is willing to let this house sit empty for another year while countering and countering and countering some more.

So we wait to hear if they'll just take the final offer or not. But yeah, I'm beginning to hate everything involved in buying a house.