In his weight class in wrestling!   Every year Eli has improved, but this year he took a qualitative leap forward.  It began last year when Chris Weiss, an amazing young athlete from Rockland, worked out with the Camden-Rockport team since Rockland didn’t have a team last year.  He is an incredibly gifted and hard-working, focused kid, and he and Eli challenged each other to improve.  Last summer Eli went to a top wrestling camp in Boston for a week (the only middle schooler with many high school kids), and learned a lot.  At the beginning of this season, Eli set two goals:  undefeated and regional champion.  Eli admits he made several mistakes in one match about halfway through the season and lost one match.  So  he put that goal aside and focused on Eastern Regional Champion, and he DID IT!

Eli is the one holding the bracket card over his head, the number 2 from Ellsworth is on his left in the burgundy shirt, number 3 from Brewer is on the right in gray sweatshirt, and number four from Bucksport  (the only kid to beat Eli) is on the far left.

Here’s Eli’s match against the Bucksport kid…if there had been 3 more seconds in the period this would have been a pin, but instead Eli won (whomp) 13-3  (previous matches during the regular season were Eli wins by pinning, Eli loses 9-6 but doesn’t get pinned, Eli wins 13-0):

The Number 2, Jack Weeks, almost beat Eli in the first match of the season!   He was ahead 2-0 with 15 seconds left (matches are 3 periods:  first is two minutes long, 2nd and 3rd and one minute), when Eli somehow managed to get a reversal and near fall (2 points each) to win 4-2.  They met again in the finals, and it was a hard-fought  contest. For much of the first period and part of the second, it looked like this, with Weeks (in burgundy on top) controlling the pace:

The boys were well-matched in strength and skill, and Eli had to fight for every point. Then Eli (in red, on top) got his groove back:

Eli was able to hang on, literally and very tightly, to prevent Weeks from escaping and tying up the match in the final 20 seconds.  Eli won 3-2!!!!!!!

The Camden-Rockport team did well.  Last year there were about 9 kids on the team.  This year there were 18, most in their first year of wrestling and many in the 5th and 6th grade years (i.e. have a lot to learn).  Of the 18 kids,  3 placed fourth and  3 placed first!  YES, we had THREE Regional Champions on our team. The six will go on to States next weekend.  Of the 3 champions,  Chris Weiss in the weight class below Eli won his *fourth* regional championship (yes, he is that good!), and Taylor Crosby surprised many including himself in defeating Brandon Waterman (really nice kid and really good wrestler from nearby Belfast) in the weight class above Eli.  Here’s a picture of the three of them with Jared Gilbert from HAL (Hope-Appleton-Lincolnville schools combine to field a team) who won in his weight class.

Just think…in two years these four champions will be on the Camden Hills Regional High School team together:  can you say kick some serious keestker?

Congrats to the boys who won, to the coaches (including dear hubby who is the assistant coach) who got them there, to all the team members -boys and girls- who participated on the team wrestling varsity or back up and learning.  Well done!  See you at States and again next year.

And to end the day, sunset just as I was ready to turn left into the driveway…with the trees reflected on the hood of my car (this was a stick-your-arm-out-the-window-and-snap photo):

Like many towns in Maine, Hope is a place where the “town” is an intersection of two roads.  Don’t blink!  We like it that way here.

The center of Hope is the intersection of Route 105 (at this stretch I think it is called Camden Road) and Hatchet Mtn Road on the left...it is Church St. on the right.

And the heart of Hope is the Hope General Store (gray building on the right, above).  Right next to the General Store is a small shingled building: it houses the school district officers, the town offices, and the library:

The Town Offices, Library and more are in the little building behind my dirty car

Basically, there are three town employees and they all back each other up and do just about everything.  I’m now registered to vote in Hope, and am so glad to be here! Looks like the Library is honor system:  go in, and remember to write down what you want to check out on the way out.  I’ll find out more as soon as I have time to read again!

Looking down the Route 105 (oh yeah...the post office is inside the general store...you can see the sign just to the right of the stop sign); a few miles past this intersection, turn left, then take the second driveway on the left to our house@

EVERYone in the area knows about the Hope General Store.  Manager Andrew originally hails from Scotland (and you can still hear a trace of that wonderful accent), which explains why (YIPPEE!) they have MacVities chocolate digestives (cookies to Americans).  YUM!  Like a good corner grocery it has everything you might need and have forgotten at the in-town shopping:  milk, flour, chips, cookies, bread, wine, sandwiches, toilet paper, beer, munchies, and “Hope is Hip” bumper stickers.  Here’s the front of the store:

The General Store, with good people and good things inside

And saving the best ’til last, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the “round the world” clocks over the door.  From left to right:

Check out the "around the world" clocks above the door....

Here’s the close up:

Hope around the world....the UK, Maine, and Australia!

• Hope, Darbyshire, England (plus 5 hours),
• Hope Standard Time, Maine
• Hope Valley, Australia (plus 13 hours)

Have I recently said I love living in Hope?

Kate's card and candles, Kathy's bird whom I named Egbert

Move-in Friday brought some lovely surprises:

A card from Frayed Edges friend Kate says “Heart  Hope Home”…how perfect is that?

As Kate said...sometimes you just find the PERFECT card

And it arrived our first day in the house!  Next to the card is Egbert, the bird Kathy (also a Frayed) made for my birthday last year, and the votives are from Kate’s Christmas gift.  The old coffee mill from my dad went up first on the antique baker’s cabinet, and this group went up next!

Here is the current state of the studio:

My studio. Ahem. Clearly, this is the "before" picture. Alas and alack, the "after" picture probably won't be able to happen for at least 6-8 weeks...shriek!

UGH!  The wall on the right will come down to open  up the space, and a deep closet will go in on the left, with all of the closet doors becoming design wall spaces.  And the deep cinnamon brown on the walls will go away!

It was a tad nippy on move-in days…. but our painter (!) brought us a bottle of wine from Hope Vineyards…Australia!

I'm guessing it is a lot warmer in Hope Vinyards, Australia, than Hope, Maine--and 29 is a fairly warm day for winter (almost freezing for those of you who do celcius)

The part of the studio on the other side of the ugly wall isn’t quite as grim looking…three mini windows up high, less “stuff”… and when combined and painted the two rooms will be lovely!

The small/narrow room on the other side of the ugly wall that will be removed....also packed with STUFF

A week into residence, we’ve had below-zero (Fahrenheit!) wind chill, tonight I saw a shooting star (while walking the dog who refused to lift his leg in that bitter chilly wind!), and we have yet to have a single room other than a bathroom that is free of boxes.  BUT, most rooms are most of the way “there.”  And the necessary work begins tomorrow morning, and hopefully most of it (except the studio) will be done in the next four weeks.  I remember what passed for normalcy in this household fondly.  Fortunately, this house and location is SO worth the tumult of moving… I just wonder when I’ll actually be able to share any art of quilting with you!  Thanks  for coming to visit anyway!

Just a quick addition:  I was curious about the combined popoulation of the “five towns” area, which is Camden, Rockport, and the “H-A-L” (Hope, Appleton and Lincolnville) towns, plus the “big” town and county seat, Rockland.  It’s smaller / fewer souls than I thought:

• Camden population:           5,254
• Rockport population:         3,209
• Hope population:                1,310
• Appleton population:         1,271
• Lincolnville population:    2,042

• Total for the 5-towns:      13,086

Rockland population:                     7,609

Total for our immediate “area”   20,695

(Sorry about the wobbly formatting…it is nice and even in draft, but on the web stuff “moves”)

I also just discovered a brief history of  Hope, Maine online.  One local landmark is Hatchet Mountain which got its name because local “warring” Native Americans literally buried the Hatchet on the mountainside.  COOL!  And there are apparently 513 households in Hope, and we get to be one of them!  WOOT~!

The nightmare of our attempt to purchase a house is now blessedly over, thanks to some very good luck for us and a very selfish owner nearly going into breach of contract on the sale of his house (the one above). I first mentioned the mess in this post, and asked you to think “desired outcome” and “Hope.”  Read on to see why!

We will be buying a house and moving by mid-February, no thanks to the owner of this house who was quite happy to refuse to honor his word and signature on the sale contract and apparently quite happy to force a family, who had sold their house ONLY so they could buy his (and weren’t otherwise planning on moving), into homelessness in a Maine winter because of his contemptible selfishness.  Can you tell I’m ticked?  I am SO not a vindicitive person, but what this man has put us through the past four months is beyond the pale.

We are happy to report that we will NOT be buying this house, on which we placed a contract in September and did everything by the rules and actually really wanted the house at first…until we got so fed up with the absolutely unconscionable and unethical (if not illegal, but I’m not a lawyer so can’t say for sure) actions of the owner.  If you know of anyone who is looking for a house in Rockport, Maine, and they see this one, have them e-mail me.  I’ll be happy to provide more information not-on-the-internet!  The petulant bully of an owner will never see a penny from us, and all his own fault!

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I want to say that our real estate agent, the listing agent for the seller, and the owner of Camden Real Estate (the two agents work for CRE) have all been fabulous and supportive; though we have had minimal dealings (as is appropriate) with the listing agent, she was great too.

Here’s the lengthy sequence of events, if you want the gory details.  I am sharing them so that potential buyers (and realtors) can protect themselves  in the unlikely event there is some other person in the US who would behave as badly.  What I discovered is that most of the boilerplate in the Real Estate contracts protects the Seller on the not-unreasonable assumption that a seller actually wants to sell their house, but does precious little to assure that the Buyer is protected from unscrupulous sellers.

In August hubby by utter random chance saw a house listing in the online newspaper for what looked like a dream house and price for us.  It wasn’t, but that led to us finding a different house–the one in the photo– that we thought WAS the dream house—high end builder, a little small, but with a view and due to the economy a price we could manage.

In September, we made an offer just above assessed value, as that is about where things are selling now in this area–that was about 5 percent below asking price;  owner said full price or no deal.  Figuring properties like this (awesome view but in our price range) are exceedingly rare–usually the really rich people get these lots and build McMansions–and that the economy is turning around and values will go back up, we agreed to a full-price offer which was accepted.

Mid-September: While we are finalizing the contract to purchase this house, we get our house ready to list.  Our current house (well, at the moment we are tenants!) got lots of views the first week, including several with serious interest.  It is on the market TWELVE DAYS before we have a signed deal in early October.

Early to mid October: That’s when the trouble began.  Owner of the “new” house we wanted balks despite the fact that he has THREE MONTHS until he needs to move out…he wanted to stay in his house until JUNE 2011! (reportedly because he does not want to take his kids…ages 3 and 5…out of school!!!!)  and when he discovers he’ll need to move in early January because closing will be either December 28 or January 5th, he starts throwing up road blocks. It  has been a nightmare of contrariness and attorneys ever since.

The day after the owner is informed about closing in late December/early January, his second wife telephones (we were luckily out and she left a message)  “to chat.”  Right.  Then we get an e-mail in which the wife purports to be friendly.  Yeah right.  Please bear in mind that neither seller nor wife know anything about my business other than what they saw on this blog, and most of the statements about my business in the e-mail are gross inaccuracies or downright false assumptions.  Here’s what she wrote:

I wanted to give you a heads up about an email that my husband sent to Xxxxx (the listing agent) a few minutes ago.  We aren’t sure whether you are aware of the following. Thanks!

“Hi Xxxxx,

You might remind Sarah Smith that she may not run a business from a home in Tolman Park.     I believe you will find that written in the phase 3 covenant, paragraph 10.   I am aware of Sarah’s business because we have seen her blog.

You might remind the Smiths.    I just verified the business angle with the president of the Tolman Park Association board of directors, and she let me know it would not be allowed to run a business out of my home because it will involve extra car traffic.     It would not be allowed to have a show room or ship goods from a business inside Tolman Park.

I also want to warn the Smiths that association dues do not cover plowing the drive way.     It will cost at least $200.00 per storm to plow my road and likely more.    I will be taking my plow with me along with all my fire wood.

If the Smiths plan on using the wood stove effectively they will need to buy around two and a half chords of seasoned dry hard wood.    Mine is seasoned for two years before I bring it in to dry.     If the house is heated using propane alone, it will cost plenty for propane, likely 3K more.

Attached find the pdf of phase 3 covenants.”

I would be happy to email you the PDF if you would it as sent in the email to Xxxxx (listing agent).  Please just email me your email address.  Thanks!

I promptly located and spoke with the President of the Owner’s association, explained there were inaccuracies in how the owner represented my business, explained what REALLY happens, and she said “Oh of course that’s fine!”  And we are eminently smart enough to read and understand the Association rules and what the dues do and do not cover!  The man is…well….. you can draw your own conclusions.

Friday, October 8:  we arrange to have the house inspected on the following Tuesday.  The owner REFUSES to allow us access!  We had to hire an attorney to talk to his attorney and request said person inform the owner that he HAD to let us inspect under the contract.  First attorney is suddenly out of the picture (we guess she told the owner what he had to do, and he didn’t want to hear it, so hired someone else).  The second attorney must have told the owner the same thing.  At first, the owner said we could inspect the house on the last possible day we had in which to do it.  Our attorney had to protest that we had to get in sooner to do the radon and water tests.   It took another 10-14 days, but we finally got to inspect the house, though not the outbuilding.  The owner still refused to permit us to test for radon, which is quite common around here.  If radon levels are too high, mitigation is easy but could cost about $2000.

Late October/early November:  to get a mortgage, you have to have an appraiser from the mortgage company visit the house, including inside.  The owner refuses to allow the appraiser on the property.  HELLO?   What about “must permit the buyer to do what they need to do” to buy the house does this nitwit (what I really want to call him is unsuitable to a public forum!) not understand?   The owner finally says OK, but not until he is home, as he is in Alaska.  The fact that his WIFE is at home appears not to help.  Hello??? Appraisal is finally done with maybe 24 hours to spare in terms of the mortgage company’s timelines and requirements.

December:  request owner agree to a “simultaneous closing” so we will own a house and have a legal right to evict him if need be and  sign a rentback contract to confirm a date by which he will be out of the house.  He refuses to respond.  His attorney says first that he needs to be in the house until Jan. 22, then Jan. 28, then no more replies.  In mid-month, sick of the utter lack of cooperation, we finally said fine, no rentback.  Closing will be January 11th (the last day permitted under the Purchase and Sale contract) and he will be out or be in default.  No reply from owner or his attorney.  Can you say thoughtless, selfish, petulant bully?  The owner, by the way, is from a well-known, wealthy New England family and is described by most as “independently wealthy, never worked a day in his life.”  He is 48–not old, just …well…another one of those things I can’t call him here.

After discussions between the attorneys, our attorney suggests we ask the buyers of our house if they can extend  OUR rentback two weeks.  They can and do, but due to their timelines and move-out dates, can’t offer a day more.  They are nice, reasonable, sane people!

December 24th:  our attorney calls with an update about the latest lack of response from owner and  his attorney.  As I have several times over the past few months, when confronted with yet more petulance and obstinacy on the part of the owner, I check the real estate listings at about 2:30 p.m. to see if there are ANY viable alternatives to this moron’s house.  (Cue thunderclap, flash of light and parting of the clouds!!!!!) This time (unlike every other time), THERE IS!   There is a new listing…on the market only two weeks.  It has more land, more square footage, we like the location better, and it costs less! We e-mail our agent that afternoon to see if there is any way we can see this house before we go to closing to sell our house on the 28th. Merry Christmas from all the gods and spirits and house karma!

December 25th:  we all take a bit of a break from the nightmare.

December 26th:  our agent calls / e-mails, and we can go see the new listing later THAT morning!  We all meet there, and we love it!  The new listing is a well-built lovely home, but doesn’t have as high-end finishes and isn’t as dramatic looking as the first house.  But we VASTLY prefer where it is, it too has an unblockable great view, and has more than double the acreage.  The studio for me needs to be finished, but with the savings in price we can do that–and I can make it “just right”!  Best of all, the listing agent thinks the owners will agree to a closing that is in the first two weeks of February, meaning we don’t have to find a temporary rental and storage for a large house of stuff (meaning we are not out more big bucks!).  Blessings to the new owners of this house, which make all this possible!

December 27th:  we call our attorney and tell him that we now  have a Plan B, which we actually prefer.  This means we can play hardball with owner of the house above.  He is out and we buy the house per the contract signed in September, or he is in material breach of contract.   He is offered the right to walk away from the contract and both of us agree not to pursue legal action against one another (this is called a recission agreement).  If he hadn’t done that, we were fully prepared to take him to court for all expenses, including temporary housing, storage, and so on.  I’ve never had to take ANYone to court, and didn’t like the prospect, but his actions were just unconscionable.

We sold our house on Dec. 28 and have a rentback thanks to sane and reasonable buyers for our house.  We still don’t know where we will be living in 6 weeks.  We notified the seller as required under the contract, and he was still apparently willing to leave us without a home and refuse to honor his signature on the contract and move out of his house and sell it, as he had promised four months previously.  To me, that is utter disregard for the contract and the law.

Last week of December:  we work on a plan with the owners of the second house which means that if the owner of the first house defaults, we can buy their house.  Still no word back from the selfish toad.  We were still willing to go through with the purchase of the first house IF the owner vacated it on time, in full compliance with the contract.

January 5:  our attorney calls and says the owner of the first house wants out of the contract and will sign the agreement to walk away from the contract.  Except he doesn’t.  Once again he seems to think he can just string things along and get away with whatever he wants because  he is a rich, selfish xxxxx (can’t put that word, either).  On the 6th, his attorney says he’ll sign on the  7th.  On the 7th, he says the owner will sign on the 8th.  On the 8th, the attorney says his client will sign on the 10th.  Like I believe that!

January 6th:  we receive a phone call from a former neighbor asking where we are going to move since the first house fell through.   Hunh?  How did he know that…neither we nor the realtors have breathed a word to anyone?  Turns out he is friends with the owner of the first house.  The (expletive omitted) appears to have sent his friend on a fishing expedition to find out what we are doing.  None of his business.  I politely decline to answer as “things are not settled.”

We are only putting this information out in public now that the owner was on the brink of  breach of contract.  All along (as the owner’s own attorney put it to one of the parties in this transaction) we have done everything right. As our attorney said way back in October, the courts do not look kindly on people who willingly sign a contract and then try to break it on purpose.  Like this jerk. As I mentioned above, if you know anyone who is thinking of relocating to this area, they can write and I’ll share a few more details privately –like his name– so they can be forewarned!

Monday, January 10th:  we schedule the walk-through due to lack of response. At 9:30 in the morning we get a call from the owner of Camden Real Estate:  the recission agreement is finally signed by the seller!  The contract for the purchase of the first house is now null and void and we can go forward with the other property!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!

WE ARE FREE!!!!!!!

Now, let’s all hope no one else will come close to offering what we did for that first house, that the owner has to wait forever for another offer, and that every realtor in the region is unwilling to touch him or his selfish money with a ninety foot pole.  I believe in Karma.  I believe that I don’t need to waste another second of my life on a man who is, frankly, a waste of the planet’s oxygen.  Because Karma will come back on him.

But after telling our agent that, I realized, maybe GOOD karma came to us.  That Christmas Eve gift of finding the Plan B house is the reward.

We will be out several thousand dollars, which for us a sizeable sum.  The costs were the usual:  inspection, septic inspection, mortgage application fee, appraisal, and the UNusual:  lots of attorneys fees (they use attorneys instead of title companies for closing up here in Maine).  The sad fact is that we are glad to be rid of this jerk even at that cost.

And thanks to any of you who managed to read all of this ranting blather!  Can you tell I needed to get it out?  I won’t tell you more about the Plan B house for a while, though, because the owner of the first house is sufficiently spiteful (and in my opinion, unbalanced), that we don’t know what he will do; the good news is that the Recission Agreement means he can’t change his mind (again) and try to sue us for not buying the house.  Fortunately, they are moving to Alaska eventually, so they will be far, far away.  My condolences to the population of the town the plan to call home.  And for us….HOOORAY!  All’s well that ends well!

Life will be good!  And by the way…the new house, the one we WILL buy, is in the town of Hope!  See?  Think “Hope” worked!