I'm sitting in a very nicely appointed room at the Candlewood Suites in Emporia, where our ever-helpful Realtor has put us up for a few nights until our house is habitable again, and it's time to count our blessings.

1. Most saliently, we hired a Realtor who has consistently gone beyond the call of duty, and has promised to pay for so many things that are not his responsibility that I'm starting to wonder if he's going to net anything on this deal at all.
2. Aside from the plumbing issues, our house is everything we hoped for and more.  We're still very happy with it and can't wait to resolve the remaining issues.  Closing costs wound up being less than expected, so we've got plenty of money left over for repairs and improvements.
3. The move itself went very easily, and everything happened on schedule, from Jessie & Josh's arrival in Fairfield on Saturday the 2nd to the last armload from the U-Haul on Tuesday the 5th.  There were a few changes of plan along the way, but we handled them gracefully and kept going.
4. I was able to take time off from both of my jobs so that I could handle most of the unexpected work in the basement while Jessie unpacked, so that she was ready to start her new job this morning.  Also, my work is flexible enough that I should be free to meet with contractors and inspectors and such this week.
5. The fast-moving cold that hit me right before J&J arrived in Fairfield, and then caught Jessie full-force, and then spread to her whole family and finally to mine, was more of an inconvenience than an actual obstacle.
6. So far all the stresses and complications along the way have only brought Jessie and me closer together.  Our parents met and liked each other, and we still have no second thoughts about living together or buying the house.

I'll have more to say about the basement issues later, once we know for sure what the problems are and how we'll solve them.  For now, I'm just grateful that the problems are ours to solve, not a landlord's, and that we have the resources and the will to solve them together.