Awaiting dry ink

That elderly homeowner rejected our offer. We countered. She turned us down again. We stayed in the game.

By 9pm last night my wife and I were seated at our realtor's dining-room table, thoroughly exhausted, signing a stack of papers. At last we'd come to terms.

Our search for a new place to live has ended. We have an address.

There are a couple of hurdles yet to clear. First, the seller could reconsider before putting pen to paper -- unlikely, but we'll know by 5pm today. And then there's the home inspection and the myriad issues it'll surely uncover. The way we look at it, we already know what most of those issues are -- the inspector simply will tell us that they're worse than we thought.

We've agreed to be undeterred without being stoopid.

At this moment it's hard to resist being excited and still easy not to be completely overjoyed. The burden is easing but hasn't yet lifted from our shoulders.

If all goes well, though, we'll celebrate by dancing around a Maypole.