I'm home sick today. Only once before have I ever taken off work because of cold sores (let me tell you - THAT episode was quite a story), but I'm glad I did. It's always roughest the first day: they hurt, your lips are swollen, and the itching is really hard to take. I did wake up with them being much worse this morning, but I *think* they've peaked. I hope so. I'm just going to stay in my office with the door closed at work for the rest of the week - *L*! Actually, it does take a bit out of you, since the body is rallying to fight them, so I do feel a bit sick overall. Taking it easy is helping.

On a different front, I did hear back about the house. I'd asked for money for repairs to the bathroom (water-damaged wall and tiles), and money for mold abatement in the attic - both of which are pretty standard costs - but the killer was that I had to ask for a lot of money for the garage to be replaced. It looked good at first - but the slab it's on is broken up, the sills are rotten (the driveway slopes down to it, so all the water drains into it), it leans, and the roof isn't correctly re-inforced. It would cost as much to fix it as it would to tear it down and build a new one, plus the driveway would have to be altered to correct the drainage problem.

So, the long and short of it is - they offered only enough to cover the bathroom and attic mold, and a little bit more. Which, thankfully, made it an easy decision to say "no". I was hoping for something clearly one way or the other, and this helped make the decision for me. I don't blame them, and I feel sorry that they probably didn't even realize the garage had such a problem. Hopefully they'll find a buyer who is so desperate to have an old house in that neighborhood (it's a beautiful one!) that they won't bother about the fact that they'll have to spend that extra money, but that's not me.

So! I'm going to go for one of the houses down on the lower end of my buying range, and settle for not a lot of space, and putting all my junk (LOTR collection, etc.) into a storage unit. I priced them yesterday, and a 10" by 10" unit in a temperature-controlled space is not that bad! Whew! I feel better now. *G* I was really stretching myself to get the house I'd bid on, and it's a sweet little house, but I wasn't "in love" with it, like I was my old one. I'll be happier with a homely little place, and I'll just put my energies into prettying up the yard, and keep what I have in the house to just a few nice things. Yay! Thanks to everyonefor all the helpful comments yesterday.