updated my side list thingy again

The quilt item is now in progress. I just signed up for a class about repairing old quilts!!! So excited, it begins at the beginning of February. Now, if only I could find where I have packed it away...

Happy New Year (a day late)!

Hope everyone out there had a great holiday season and New Years! Our Christmas was spent...at our new house! We had both sides of the family over for a delicious meal and it was great. The cooking went smoothly, everyone had fun, etc. Really feels like home now. Of course we're still not unpacked all of the way, but getting there. That's one of my new years resolutions, to get this house is good shape by the time the warmer weather comes, as we'll be needing to be outside a lot more, working on the landscaping.

I am working on a new blog, which I will share those who follow me...if I have a way to get in touch with you. Illini_girl, I have your email address, I'll email you the link, but could you please share with KCJayhawk? Everyone else I think I can get in touch with easily.

It'll be more about life in this house and what we're doing here...and it won't be anonymous ;-)

All the best to you for a blessed, happy and healthy 2010!

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Some of you might have noticed that my right sidebar thingy is different. My masters degree timeline is gone.

This is true.

A few months ago, I decided not to continue pursuing my MLS degree.

Why?
I wasn't enjoying it THAT much, especially to have it drag out for 3 or 4 more years. (Especially when we'll probably be starting a family in the next few years--I couldn't see myself pregnant/having a newborn, working AND going to school at night) The money I would be spending on the degree wouldn't pay off, salary-wise, for a LONG time. Meaning: me starting out as a librarian in 3 or 4 years would be equal to what I might be making HERE at current job in 3 to 4 years without a masters. I also enjoy my free time! Especially now with the house, and DH's weird work schedule, things would never be done. And I'd never be home.

Thanks KCJayhawk!

Yay, I like answering questions :-)

1--did you decorate for the holidays or do you still have boxes everywhere?
Uh, well, we have a wreath on our front door. Which is a start. We also have displayed the Christmas cards from people around our fireplace. Other than that, no other holiday decorations. The tree is still in its "body bag" in the basement, with the boxes of ornaments and lights around it. There are 5 other houses on the street, and 4 of them are all lit up. We look like Scrooges or something--these people put Clark Griswold to shame!

And yes, boxes are still everywhere. We don't have enough furniture to put our things inside! All of the wedding gifts that have been residing at my parents' house for 2 years came to live with us now, and...they are piled in the dining room. All we have in there is a tiny hutch that we got at IKEA--it was previously used for kitchen storage (pots, pans, bowls) at our old place since we hardly had any cabinets. I need to figure out what can fit in there, and start putting SOMETHING away. (I'm a procrastinator....)

Our desk/office stuff has not been put away yet--when we moved, we consolidated and went down from 2 desks to 1, so we need to figure out how to fit everything into one desk. Plus, we might be on the lookout for some filing cabinet type of thing.

We're currently painting our TV room, so everything that should go in there is in the library/office. The kitchen is probably the most put-together room in the house right now! Our bedroom is pretty good, too, we just need a stand for our TV. I also haven't unpacked our little 4th "bedroom" which will be my crafty stuff room, because, again, I have no furniture in there. The other 2 bedrooms are completely empty.

We did buy a bunch of shelving at Home Depot but we need to put it together so we can start organzing the basement. DH got some for his tools and his fishing & hunting stuff, I got a smaller one for pantry items.

2--did you find any "surprises" (good or bad) after you moved in?
Hmmm, I'll start with the good.
--Great neighbors! SO happy about this.
--That the house was decently cleaned before we moved in. I still have some odd things to clean--baseboards, light fixtures, but nothing was disgusting.
--It already feels like home, and doesn't seem like we've been there 6 weeks :-)

Not too much bad stuff, more like weird, maybe.
--Toilets that don't shut off--my FIL came to look at them, and he thinks we need to just replace the guts inside. That's cheap/easy.
--Lower water pressure than we're used to. Growing up and in our other homes, we had city water, now we have a well. It's not bad, just takes longer to fill up buckets or the tub.
--Some weird things on the walls when I started prepping the TV room for painting--in a few spots the paint started to peel randomly so that had to be fixed, and I didn't know how to do that, but I soon learned.
--The pantry closet in our kitchen was almost an afterthought, which makes it VERY tiny. Slim. An adult arm almost doesn't fit through the doorway to get to the shelves. Grr. We're managing by only keeping what's open or what can't be stored in a basement (pasta, rice, etc) in there. Everything else--canned good, things in bottles, paper products--goes in the basement on a little shelf until I get the shelving units up. I even have onions and potatoes down there!

My house--what do you want to know about it?

Ask your questions!

Still here...

I promise. I really really promise to write more soon. The house is great---a mess! but great.

I might start a new blog, one that is more "public," but I will send you notes privately as to where that is.

Still here, still busy

Just a quick hello. Everything is really crazy busy, but good. Lots of money being spent, haha. I will update eventually about everything that happened with the house so far. Hope everyone is well--I do read everyone's blogs and comment when I can. Just not so good with my stuff!

MOVED!

We are in, we survived...we are swimming in boxes.

A longer update to come soon...things are going really well. We met all of the neighbors except for one house and everyone is super nice. SO HAPPY to have nice people around!!!!

An interview with GirlWednesday

Thanks to Illini_girl for the idea. :-)

Where have you been?
Ohhh, here and there...nah, just kidding. I've been BUSY with work and getting this house stuff wrapped up and getting ready to move. Oh and PACKING.

Do you know it's been almost a MONTH since you've updated?
Thanks for pointing that out and yes, I do know. I also have a new supervisor, so I need to make sure I'm really getting my work stuff done, and ahead of time. Want to be a good girl!

What's going on with the house?
I just found out (like 5 mins ago) that we have the clear to close!!!!!

Monday, 10/26--walk through in the morning, then closing in the afternoon, probably cleaning after that
Tuesday, 10/27--cleaning, moving our personal stuff
Wednesday, 10/28--carpets are being cleaned. And having the locksmith come, probably.
Thursday, 10/29--MOVING DAY. We hired movers and they are worth every penny. Then my mom and dad gave us a check that JUST happens to cover the moving costs, so we are pumped.
Friday, 10/30--more moving
Saturday, 10/31--cleaning the condo, then handing over the keys to the landlord

Are you excited?
Are the Pope and GirlWednesday Catholic? DOUBLE YES!

What's the first thing you're gonna do when you walk in and it's really yours?
Jump up and down, run around like a 3 yr old, and scream. And hug my DH.

How are you feeling? How's your health?
Other things are going on besides the house? What? Kidding. I'm doing really well. Just had a dr's appt yesterday--maintaining my weight, my insulin levels are great, my glucose levels are too. In other news, I have a CAVITY!!! My first EVER. I really thought I'd never get one...I'm a little sad.

Anything else exciting?
Not really. I think the house is enough excitement for a bit.

2 years

Happy anniversary to me and DH. It's been only 2 years, but we are looking forward to many many more years together.

No big plans tonight--he's working late and I'm going grocery shopping after work. We did go out to a nice dinner on Sunday afternoon...and we're getting a BIG present in about a month. The house ;-)

house and something else

We got the commitment letter from the bank, got a REALLY good interest rate (below 5%) and no points...

There's something else that's been going on and I haven't mentioned it. I think it's because I've been so tied up with the house. I have talked about it before, just not in a long time.

I finally did it. I lost weight and kept it off. I stayed ON the wagon. I lost about 20 lbs in 3 months! I'm down one size (pants & shirts). I have much more to go (probably like 80 more lbs--yes, I'm a bigger lady), but this was a huge start for me.

How did I do it? You're probably wondering, and so have a lot of people.

Nothing magic. No pills, no drinks, no surgeries.

I counted calories and did a little exercise (which has since tapered off to nothing). I started by writing down what I was eating, and figuring out how many calories was in each food item. Lots of measuring, looking things up online or in this little calorie booklet I had. I also had the assistance of a food scale that also contained caloric information. I still ate almost whatever I wanted, I just measured out my portions and recorded it. I tried to keep my caloric intake to between 1500 and 1800 calories.

My doctor is thrilled and so am I! Especially with the smaller pair of jeans I recently treated myself with!

another great thing

We got the request for repairs signed by both sellers! This made my day!

The chimney will be fixed! The fridge will not leak! The furnace will be cleaned and serviced!

And all of our radon tests came back in the normal range.

Just a quick update.

testing, 1, 2, 3...

Got the water tests back--we have drinkable water! Whoo hoo! The house has a well (we're going to be living in the country, people) so we had to make sure we wouldn't get sick or have anything strange happen.

Waiting for the radon tests from the basement--important because DH is making it into his "man cave." Don't want him to have any lung issues.

The things that I mentioned, here, are being resolved! The sellers are having the furnace cleaned and serviced, the water leak is being repaired, and we're pretty sure that they will fix the chimney/roof issues. The garage door is being replaced, so the only things we'll have to do are the general maintenance/painting stuff. Oh, and the dryer, ha.

Meeting with the bank on Saturday morning to do all the mortgage stuff. So much to pull out of files and prepare. Talk about your entire financial life being opened up!

Oh and the best part...the reason I put this picture in my post. The Realtor called last night, she happened to be driving by the house and the selling agent had the sign changed to "Sale Pending."

We're almost there! A little over a month til our closing date.

This weekend's activity: purging and maybe some packing.

A return to something familiar

I've posted about this before, about feeling like I don't belong or don't have a place.

I'm having that feeling at work again. For awhile I thought things were going well...but I still feel like I don't belong, really. I know, it's weird, especially because it's just WORK, but when you see other people talking about what they do outside of work (and you know you weren't included), it's hard not to feel slighted.

I probably feel more slighted than most because I don't have many local friends. Not that work has to be a direct channel for socialization, but we all know it helps. The people I'm friendly with are all in their early to mid 20s and are single, not really tied down--they are one group. There are other people with whom I'm friendly, a little older, married with kids, all male--they make another group. I don't fit in with either...I'm really trying not to let this bother me, but it does.

I think I'm feeling this way partially because of this weekend. My college friend K got married. Besides her shower last month, I hadn't seen her since MY wedding almost 2 years ago. Same with another friend, A. I really have no idea what's going on in their lives. It makes me wonder why people don't want to keep in touch. Are we really so busy? Is it me? Is it them? Who knows.

doing something NOT house-related this weekend!

Off to a wedding in another state for one of my college roommates. I'm riding up there with another roommate. DH is not coming--he has to work, can't get any time off with a new job. It's a gorgeous day here in my state--should be very beautiful where we are going!

Inspection today

It went very well. The inspector didn't have too many bad things to say about the house. There were a few "pressing" matters that will need to be addressed, and there are also some "future maintenance" things that will need to be looked at later on.

Pressing matters:

• the fridge is leaking! It wasn't doing that on the other times we came to look at the house and the selling agent had no idea. The leak was pretty small, so maybe it just started.
  
• there are cracks in the chimney's masonry and there is some flashing missing between the chimney and the house, which caused a little leak in the attic. Not a HUGE deal but should be fixed.
  

Future maintenance:

• the railings around the deck. They are OK, but will probably need to be bolted in so that they don't just fall off if someone (or a few someones) were to lean up against it.
• I sadly cannot remember anything else besides normal settling cracks that need to be patched and painted.

Other things:

• garage door--sellers will be taking care of this because their kid or a friend of the kid crashed into it and it's very dented. But, when they went to the door company, they not longer make this same door. So, now we have to decide if we want the door replaced or get $750 (cost) towards a new door.
  
• furnace--never been cleaned and there aren't any service records, so we are going to ask them to have that cleaned and serviced.
• dryer--isn't working, hasn't for awhile, and we had to sign that this was "as-is" on the contract, but S (our Realtor) is going to send someone out to look at it and see if it's a huge matter to take care of.

Other than that, all we will have to do is clean the house and sloooowwwwly paint (1 room at a time). The house is in great shape, everything else works. Eventually we will need to have some of the hardwood floors re-done (esp. in the kitchen) but the other ones look almost brand new. We'll also have to stain/paint the front porch and back deck.

As for pictures--I didn't get any today, I was so busy following the inspector around, and taking copious notes, I didn't have much time. I do have pics of the busted garage door! haha

So here's a quick overview of the house. A colonial. Front porch (covered) and back deck (uncovered). Two car attached garage.

Downstairs--living room, dining room, family room, eat in kitchen, half bath, laundry "closet"--all rooms are hardwood floors except the family room (carpet) and the hallway to the garage (stone). Stairs are UNCARPETED! (We have cats, people, you don't know how much I hate carpet with cats!).

Upstairs--every thing is carpeted (boo) except the bathrooms. Master bedroom w/ bath and walk in closet. Two very nice sized bedrooms. Another full bath. Then this crappy tiny little "bedroom" without a closet, but does have the door to the walk up attic.

Tomorrow: contact the bank and the lawyers. SO EXCITING!!!! I can't wait to "go home!"

Oh, and after I left the house, I clocked the mileage to work--almost identical for mileage AND time. Sweet! DH's commute will be much shorter which is even better!

CONTRACT!

We have a signed contract from the sellers.

The past week has been nuts--lots of counter-offering, then we finally agreed to accept one of their offers. We are paying $3K more than we wanted to, but we LOVE the house, it's a great location for both of us, nice yard, only 5 or 6 houses on the street, great town, etc. Then the sellers had a rough time getting the contract signed back for us. The owners are divorced--the wife lives MANY states away--and then she wanted her lawyer to look over everything. Probably to make sure she was getting what she was supposed to, per their divorce decree. While we signed our contract on Saturday, I didn't get it back until today (Tuesday). Geez!

Note to everyone: never buy from people who own but are divorced! LOL Just too much hassle.

Inspection will be day after tomorrow. VERY EXCITED for this!!! I am taking lots of pictures and I might post some here.

Counteroffer

The jerks counteroffered. They only went down 5K. Seriously people!? This is a buyer's market. Grrr.

We will be counteroffering back later today, but sheesh. (ETA: Realtor called while I was typing this and we put in a counteroffer for 5K more, take that suckers!)

I have a feeling that Mr. Home Owner needs to give money to ex-Mrs. Home Owner as part of their divorce settlement. Big Mouth Listing Agent spilled that out during our 2nd showing--about how he can't keep up with the house since his divorce. And all of the docs said his name only...but one doc said his and her names.

I really don't want to walk from this house. DH needs a shorter commute. It's stressing him out...he is threatening to quit if we don't move soon. (I really hope that is just talk.)

Put in an offer!!!!

On the house we really liked from the get-go. It's the perfect house for us. Of course, now we have to sit and wait for them to accept/reject (BUT HOPEFULLY ACCEPT) the offer. I think I shocked the Realtor when I told her how much we were putting down, but she doesn't know about DH's accident and lawsuit. This is not two young kids messing around with Monopoly money, here. As DH likes to say "this is blood money."

We can't do too much now...just have to wait. But I will keep everyone posted.

House hunting, part "I don't know"

Still house hunting. We've been out more than twice now, but I can't tell you how many times. I lost count. It's still fun, but we really want to find THE home.

We've realized that raised ranches don't really fit us or our lifestyles and we're much better off with a colonial. We saw one that we LOVED but there are some cosmetic issues that we are concerned with so S, our Realtor, is investigating and asking lots of questions of the listing agent.

When I say "cosmetic issues," please don't think that I'm being a Diva and saying things like "ewww, I hate that shade of pink on the walls, I can't live here!" but "is that spackle job hiding water damage?" and "why is there so much blown-in insulation in the attic?" We want to make sure we aren't buying a lemon. Nasty pink walls can be painted. Serious damage or a lack of good insulation...harder and more expensive to fix.

So, no real updates...not yet...

Otherwise, things are good, just BUSY. Going out once or twice a week to look at houses can mess with your schedule and routine just a bit. DH is settling in nicely with his job--they give new hires TONS of training. My work is busy too.