Day 4

Lights in the ceiling fans! We can see after dark!





Over the toilet storage in both bathrooms assembled (but not attached to the wall yet)




Carpet in dining room cut and removed



Funkadelic ceiling fan in living room almost done (two lightbulb covers were broken and we need to trek to Lowe's to get replacements)



New underlying floor installation started in kitchen (more on that later)



A nice plant from our friendly next-door neighbors



Ok, so Sunday (Day 4) will not go down as the least stressful day of home-ownership. I was feeling like crap and spent most of the morning sleeping. And most of the afternoon for that matter. Anyway, I missed most of the exitement. Adam went over to the house yesterday morning to continue where we'd left off on Saturday - ceiling fans, kitchen floor. A few things happened:

1) Torrential downpours all morning combined with a leaky (and uncovered) basement window = 2+ inches of water in the basement. Luckily it's completely unfinished and there is nothing down there. Well, except for some puddles now... Anyway, after discovering the home warranty we got at closing doesn't cover windows (what's that about?) Adam and his dad pulled some deck boards up (because the leaky window would have to be the one under the deck, right?) and put the window well cover from the side of the house onto that window. We'll see if it works. It rained a lot today as well so when I head over there in a little bit I'll check for standing water.

2) The paper backing to the previous vinyl floor in the kitchen just would not come up. They tried some adhesive solvent stuff but that didn't help. So it was determined that the easiest solution would be to buy 1/4" plywood, recover the kitchen and dining room with it and start tiling over that fresh surface. Alrighty!

Other than that the day seems to have gone well. I can't really say since I wasn't there for most of it. We're still making progress and things should be on schedule. We're having an issue with the carpet installation (due to misinformation given to us by the salesperson) but hopefully that gets worked out.

Tomorrow the cable guy comes to wire the house for tv, internet, and phone. Yes, we decided to get a landline after neither of our cell phones worked decently while inside the house.

So far the "house buying expenses" total up to almost $5,000... and we're not done yet! Money pit indeed.

Day 3

2nd coat of paint done in master bedroom, ceiling fan up, floor cleared off. Now we wait for the new carpet.






Ceiling fan up in second bedroom



Stupid wall in kitchen knocked down (there were two holes in the floor underneath that we didn't expect to find. Hence the patch there.) and all the flooring ripped up.


Dishwasher installed (and it works!)


Plans for today (since it's raining again) include scraping off the paper on the kitchen floor and priming it for tiles, getting the other two ceiling fans up, assembly of over-the-toilet storage in both bathrooms, and who know what else - the shopping list continues to grow.

Recent Page-a-Day Dilbert

Reminded me of a conversation I had with Evan a few years back regarding English majors...

bwahahahahahaha

My First Blog Entry as a Homeowner!

Honestly, the whole closing thing was a lot less stressful and scary than all you people would have me believe. It took about 40 minutes and 15 of that was us all chatting while the title person made copies and cut checks. Everything I signed were things I had already seen in one form or another. It was so simple to bind myself to a bank for 30 years, promising to pay them a ridiculous amount of interest on a piece of property.

Anyway, after we finished at the title company we went back to the apartment to pick up the trailer that Adam had loaded earlier in the day. We then headed to the house where Adam prompty uprooted the "For Sale" sign. We then unloaded the trailer, the car, and my car. I took pictures of every room as a "before" tour (click on any picture for full-size version):

Ugly pink master bedroom - We're painting it and replacing the window treatments (oh, and getting rid of that random hanging basket...)




Master bath - not really doing anything in here unless we have extra paint



Second bathroom - not really doing anything here either aside from pitching that ugly wicker thing



Bedroom 2 - will be the guest/computer room - not doing anything in this room



Bedroom 3 - will be the pet room - not doing anything in this room either



Kitchen - definitely where most of the work will take place. We're replacing the existing dishwasher, stove, and range hood in addition to ripping up the flooring and putting in new tile. And getting new curtains.


and we're ripping out this stupid wall



Dining room - removing about 2/3 of the carpet, replacing it with tile.



Living room - not really doing anything in here



This lilac tree's days are numbered - it's going as soon as we get some really big hedge clippers


The rest of the yard is just fine though...





The sellers left us a big stack of wood for the fireplace


Ok. Mini-tour over.

Originally the first order of business was knocking down the retarded wall in the kitchen. When Adam tried to find something to plug in the outlet so we could tell when he shut off power to the right area he got distracted and ended up putting the garbage disposal together instead. Look at the 70's looking disposal they had originally:


He then removed the range hood and took down the ugly curtains in the equally ugly bedroom:


We then took a break for dinner. His parents got there right as we got back from eating. His mom and I went to work on painting the ugly room while Adam and his dad worked in the kitchen, installing the disposal, installing the new range hood, removing the stove and dishwasher, and installing the new dishwasher. Kind of. There is some kind of plumbing issue so it's not totally installed yet, but it's close.

At the end of day one, our progress was encouraging:

First coat of paint done in ugly bedroom except for inside the closet (Adam needs to remove the shelf first). Oh yeah, we ripped up the carpet before we painted so that's why everything is a trippy green color.




Kind of a disaster area for the time being, but a good chunk of progress made in the kitchen.




Originally I was going to start taking boxes over there tonight but between being sore (argh, my shoulders!) and the rain, I decided to stay here and pack up the kitchen. And write this totally long blog post. I plan to keep taking pictures of our progress. Home improvement is so much fun. :)

Big Jug

In an effort to reinvigorate my water drinking improvement plan I got a huge 52oz “Bubba Keg” this past weekend (plus it’s kind of cute - that's a pint glass there for size comparison.)



It’s my goal to drink through one of these every day. We’ll see how it goes. It’s going to be kind of tricky because I can’t see how much is left so I won’t know if I’m getting close to the end except through the weight of the container. It’s a mental thing…

Pirates III

We went and saw the third Pirates installment yesterday afternoon. We went to the noon showing (the first of the day, but unfortunately not on the UltraScreen) to avoid crowds and because Adam worked in the evening (plus it’s cheaper!) We did pretty well. The theater was nowhere near full. I’d say maybe 40 or 50 people were there. So yay, no elbows, squishing, or nasty old lady perfume to battle.

Both Adam and I had read some of the reviews out for the movie. In general, I’d agree with most of them: It was long, the special effects were definitely more of a focus in this film than either of the other two, there were multiple false endings, confusing alliance switches, and lots of gore and fighting. That being said, I maintain that it was a pretty good movie. There are several sight gags and thinly veiled sexual innuendos that are almost worth the admission price by themselves.

The story is really too complicated to try and describe in that there are many plotlines all happening at the same time, all intertwined in some way, but in a very large nutshell (full of excruciatingly long run-on sentences): Jack needs to be brought back from Davy Jones’ locker because the East India Company has control of the sea because they have Davy Jones’ heart (thanks to Commodore Norrington) and they are strategically wiping out all the pirates so all the pirate lords need to call a gathering to decide what to do to stop their race from being eliminated. All 9 pirate lords need to be there and since Jack is one of the nine, him being dead is kind of a problem. There’s also the issue of Will wanting to stab Davy Jones’ heart to free his father from the imprisonment of the Dutchman (which was kind of his own fault in the first place, but whatever...) But if he stabs the heart, he must take Davy Jones’ place and captain the ship for eternity which would kind of mess up his relationship with Elizabeth although that was already messed up with that whole “she’s in love with Jack but she killed him” thing. Then there’s this whole new Calypso storyline (well, kind of new, but you have to see it to know what I mean) and a whole Singapore thing. **exhales**

Ok, so that probably didn’t tell anyone anything. Really, things do get resolved, there are some hilarious hallucinations, some very sad moments, and lots of double, triple, and possibly quadruple crossing. Plenty of sword fights, stuff exploding, and even a monkey shot out of a cannon. What more could you ask for? (Except maybe an intermission for a bathroom break.) They did leave some open endings for more sequels but we’ll have to see if that happens.

I’m not sure I’d go back to see it again the theater. I think it would be pretty good on the UltraScreen although the second one was probably better with the whole deep-sea Kraken rumbling thing. We’ll probably end up getting the DVD since we have the other two already.

Next on my list of movies to go see: Knocked Up

We had our “parental unit” meeting last weekend and “finalized” the guest list and invitations. I just have to make a few revisions to the invitations and response cards and then they can be burned to CD for Joan to print for us. Not much else to do in that arena aside from the actual assembly and mailing (to be done 6/15.)

We have a meeting with Tom and Alice (the ceremony musicians) in about a week and a half. This is our second meeting with them as our first left us with some unresolved issues. Looking back, I realize I never really blogged about this before. I guess I didn’t write anything at the time because I was frustrated with the results of our first meeting. I went into the meeting with the ceremony order and what I wanted to be played at what time. Things got off to wonderful start when the very first piece on my list got shot down and there were some uncomfortable (at least for me) Catholic vs Non-Catholic moments. After that things went downhill as I was unprepared for such a complete rejection of everything I had wanted. I guess I just went along with pretty much everything else that night just to get out of there. I know that (some) musicians can be arrogant a-holes who are obviously superior to those around them. That’s not exactly the feeling I got being around Tom and Alice, but it definitely wasn’t a warm and fuzzy, they’re on my side, feeling.

Anyway, after that disaster I took some time off from thinking about it. When I went back to it I did some research online using “Catholic Wedding Ceremony Music” as my search term as to avoid any further religious clashes. Oddly enough, the song that caused all the problems in the first place (by the way, the problem was that I wanted Ave Maria sung as the processional – the horror!) showed up on a lot of the suggested lists AS A PROCESSIONAL. Imagine that. In any case, I got some more ideas, listened to some bad midi files and recordings, and narrowed the list down to some songs I could live with.

We final got the second meeting scheduled with them this past week. Alice emailed me asking if I was going to bring sheet music to the meeting. I said no and apparently this caused panic since she “had sung everything she had.” To alleviate unnecessary spikes in blood pressure I had Adam email her my revised ceremony plan. I just wanted to get rid of back-to-back vocal pieces and try and get processionals and recessionals that were more like I wanted than what we had picked the first time. I don’t know that she has responded and I’ll have to see how things go on the 6th. I don’t want to turn into a Bridezilla over the music at the ceremony, but I don’t want to have to hear the Pachelbel Canon either. I want to respect their opinions as people who have done a lot more Catholic weddings than I have, but I don’t want to give up my choices completely just because I happen to be getting married to a Catholic.

In any case, hopefully it will all work itself out. It’s ironic that the music is really the only thing I’ve had a problem with throughout this whole wedding planning process. Even the ceremony planning wasn’t that painful (although I suppose we’re not really done yet…)

June and July will be busy months with lots of house-related appointments and tasks along with meetings with vendors, Father Mike, and eventually wedding favor assembly, dress fittings, and the million other things on the list that I can’t do yet. For now I’m enjoying the calm before the storm by very slowly packing up our apartment and, this weekend, watching the second season of The Girls Next Door ( Now out on DVD!)

Oscar Update

I’m doing horribly on the reviewing movies thing. I even managed to lose the list I was keeping of movies I had yet to add to my RT journal so now those are gone forever because I can’t remember what was on the list. *sigh*

In any case, I figured I’d do an update on the Oscar Movie Challenge:

Apocolypto (not going to see)
Babel
Black Dahlia, The
Blood Diamond
Borat
Cars
Children of Men
Click
Curse of the Golden Flower
Departed, The
Devil Wears Prada, The
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Good German, The
Good Shepard, The
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
Illusionist, The
Last King of Scotland, The
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Marie Antoinette
Monster House
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Prestige, The
Pursuit of Happyness, The
Queen, The
Superman Returns
United 93 (not going to see)
Venus
Volver

So I’m about half done. I’d be doing a lot better if Adam hadn’t added all the Harry Potter movies to our Blockbuster Total Access queue and moved them up to the top. Oh well. The remaining movies seem to be a good mix of films I’d probably see anyway (like The Queen, Little Children, Venus) and films I’d probably consciously avoid seeing (like Blood Diamond, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Good German.)

I’m happy to report that there haven’t been many so far that I really didn’t like. My only real complaint could be that I found Half Nelson and Flags of our Fathers to be incredibly slow-moving and boring (but not so unwatchable that I actually had to stop watching them a la Cinderella Man.) My favorite so far is hard to choose. Little Miss Sunshine was a great movie but in a completely different category than The Prestige, which was also a great movie. I don’t think I’d be able to narrow it down to one, but both of those have been my favorites overall.

The last movie I watched was Babel. I had no idea what it was about – only that Brad Pitt was in it. I thought maybe it was a period piece about the Tower of Babel. Uhm, no. Not even close. It’s a Traffic-esque film about how lives intersect each other. A good 2/3 of the film wasn’t even in English so perhaps that’s where the Babel thing comes in. Oh wait, I just looked at IMDB and apparently “In Gen. 11:9, the name of Babel is etymologized by association with the Hebrew verb balal, 'to confuse or confound.'" "Babel", through a series of misunderstandings, interweaves the unfortunate circumstances of a Moroccan, an American, a Mexican and a Japanese family.” So there you go. It was generally just too long and I’m still confused by the leaps forward and backward in time between the different stories. Anyway, one more down.

Westminster Bell Choir

Monday night was the final outing for the bell choir this season. We went to the Westminster Bell Choir concert at a local Lutheran church. This is the largest bell choir in the world – 8 octaves worth plus 6 octaves of chimes, some Welsch hand bells, and lower octaves consisting of both aluminum and traditional bronze bells. The players are all college students at Rider University in New Jersey. Overall, it was a wonderful concert. They demonstrated all kinds of techniques, styles, and showed it’s possible to break a sweat while ringing teeny tiny bells but still keep a smile on your face.

I especially liked that they changed positions between each song so everyone got a chance to play all the different bells and show off their different strengths. There were three guys who manned the back table with the ginormous bells pretty consistently. They really reminded me of the percussion players in an orchestra. They would run back and forth between bells carrying huge mallets. They must have very defined arm muscles as the largest bell weighs almost 20 pounds and they actually do pick them up and ring them. It does take two hands for those ones though.

The selections ranged from slow and peaceful to almost frantic (a la the Hungarian Rhapsody.) They consistently rang two to three bells in each hand, used chimes and bells at the same time, used mallets, table-damping, thumb-damping, shaking, and other techniques I’m not even sure how to describe since I couldn’t figure out how they were getting the bells to make particular sounds.

The conductor was a very approachable woman who entertained the audience between pieces so the choir could rearrange their bells (since not all the bells fit on the tables at one time.) The choir was made up of mostly juniors and seniors with two freshmen thrown in for fun. They were almost all music majors (education, organ performance, and sacred music were the most popular majors) with the exception of one of the guys in the back – he was a Computer Information Systems major. LoL.

The performance was phenomenal and although there are recordings available I would suggest that they videotape a performance since half of the fun is watching them throw bells around and do their outrageous three-bells-to-a-hand ringing. They’re on tour through June in various places including South Dakota and Minnesota. If you ever have the chance to go see them I’d highly recommend it.

Random Rambling

Apology for lack of posts, but there’s really not been much going on.

Last week was pretty boring. We did go to the drive-in on Saturday night. They opened for the season on April 27. We saw Meet the Robinsons and Wild Hogs. I had never even heard of the first one. It was animated, geared towards kids. It was ok, but predictable and sappy. Wild Hogs I had heard about. Mostly bad stuff though. It isn’t a bad movie, it just didn’t reach its potential. With the cast is has (John Travolta, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence, and Tim Allen) it could have been much better. Anyway, we got to see two movies for $6, had some good food and got out of the house for a bit.

Adam had to work early Sunday morning so that had the potential for suckage. Luckily he can survive on minimal sleep. After he left I read the paper and then fell back into bed for a few hours before cleaning and doing some packing in the kitchen.

Speaking of packing, I haven’t really done a lot of that yet and perhaps I should start. I’ve got all our DVDs, CDs, and tapes (yes, as in cassette) boxed up. All my books and photo albums have been in boxes for weeks. I’ve still got to figure out what I’m going to do with our videos (keep or trash.) I packed up my cookbooks and some random kitchen stuff. I also packed most of our glasses and dishware, bedding and towels we seldom use. That leaves a lot of crap still. Luckily we still have two weeks until we close. And then we have approximately two weeks of work to do before we really move in. So I have a month to procrastinate packing the rest of the stuff. Heh.

We plan to go to Lowe’s during Memorial Day weekend sale time and make our one major purchasing trip including appliances, flooring, and a new front door. I fear the number that will show up on the register when the cashier hits “total” but we’ve done our research and estimated the damage so hopefully we come pretty close. Aside from potentially endless smaller purchases (shower curtains, dirt, etc.) that should be the major chunk of change we drop for the house. It will all be worth it in the end and we’ll have fun showing it off at the end of June and then again in August.

This week was the last bell practice and the last IMA meeting of the season. It’s been a good year for both groups and I will continue on in my current position with both of them. There are summer planning meetings for IMA in June and July and the bells are meeting on Monday to go to a Westminster Bell Choir Concert together. This Sunday is the meeting of the parental units (minus one) to go through guest lists, invitations, programs, and wedding day logistics. I’m trying out a new zucchini/turkey recipe so hopefully it turns out ok or we’ll be ordering pizza or something.

After that I get to print the invitations, get a jillion paper cuts while stuffing them, dehydrate myself while licking them, glue my fingers together while peeling and sticking a jillion stamps and address labels on, and piss off the post office when I go to mail them. Woo! I’m pumped (no, really. I’m looking forward to doing this.) Speaking of stamps, with the stupid 2-cent increase, they have no cute wedding theme stamps. I’m stuck with the Liberty Bell, Star Wars, or Jamestown: the first settlement. The clerk at the post office suggested I go with the Liberty Bell stamp since it says “Forever” on it and my marriage is “for forever.” Psssht. I’ll have to think about whether I want to be so hokey. None of the other (perhaps more appropriate) stamps come out until after the invites need to be mailed. So I’m stuck. Grr.

Anywho, enough rambling about pretty much nothing.

Lori's Wedding

I left work around 11 and we stopped to fill up the gas tank and get some lunch before hitting the road. In general the drive to PA wasn’t too bad. There’s obviously a lot of construction between here and there, it being construction season here in the Midwest. The only obvious delay came in Chicago where we got stuck in snail pace traffic for about an hour. Hence the reason it took an hour longer to get there than it did to come back.

After we escaped Chicago we desperately needed a pit stop and in our desperation stopped at the most ghetto McDonald’s ever. Note to travelers: Don’t stop at the McDonald’s right past the tolls in Illinois. Trust me, you want to wait for the first rest area. You won’t regret it.

Anyway, we then drove for miles and miles through Indiana and Ohio stopping a couple times for dinner (well, South Bend Chocolate) and bathroom stops. We got to the hotel around 10:30pm, discovered there was a Fatburger right next door to the hotel that was open until midnight, had some late dinner and went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up and bummed around longer than necessary. We went to the lobby and had breakfast around 9. It was a decent selection with Jimmy Dean sandwiches, waffles, assorted cereals and breads. After a failed attempt to talk with my dad about plans (my cell phone is a piece of crap) we headed out for some shopping. While planning our trip we had discovered that there were no less than five Marshalls stores in the Pittsburgh/Cranberry/Beaver vicinity. One of them was right across the street from our hotel. So we made it our plan to go to as many of them as possible on Saturday. Adam also was on a mission get Harley t-shirts from two different dealers for a friend at work. We started at Starbucks though. I had somehow managed to get some kind of “feel like crap” bug overnight and needed some warm beverage to wash down the Tylenol cold and loosen up the sinuses. So after a quick stop at Walmart (for the aforementioned drugs) we headed to the first of the Harley stores.

Apparently people in PA like to name their streets oddly and they like to have a 7th street, 7th avenue, 7th boulevard, 7th drive, all in the same general area. Jill (our friendly neighborhood GPS) took us on an adventure through the wind-y hills of backwoods PA and ultimately led us to nowhere. We decided to try a Marshalls in the area and Adam called information about the dealer. Turns out it was on 7th street BRIDGE which was apparently completely different from 7th street. Hmm. After moderate success at the first Marshalls we headed to the bridge. The address given seemed to be part of a car dealership but we didn’t see any Harley signs. Somehow in the process of giving up and heading towards Pittsburgh we found the first dealer. It was probably 3 or 4 blocks further down than we expected it to be. They were having some kind of hoopla with a local radio station there with a prize wheel and a big red and yellow bird named “Pickle.” They told us there were roaster dogs (are those like hotdogs?) and stuff out there but we decided to avoid it and just picked up a t-shirt and headed to Pittsburgh. We found the other Marshalls pretty easily since most of them were in malls. We also stopped at Borders and got a Catholic bible since I’ve been curious about those books left out of the Protestant version. We managed to find the second Harley dealership with almost as much trouble as the first but it worked out.

We stopped for a late lunch at Applebees on the way back to the hotel. I took a short nap before my dad and Cheryl called and then stopped by. They came bearing gifts from my birthday, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Apparently my dad had been stockpiling them and since we hadn’t seen them since Christmas, this is what happened. After hanging at the hotel for a bit we headed over to my grandma & grandpa’s house. My aunt and uncle were out busy with the rehearsal and stuff so they needed my dad and Cheryl to take care of things at home for a little while. We sat and talked for a while, watched the Derby (we all cheered for losers), and left as they began eating dinner. We stopped for dinner of our own on the way back to the hotel.

Sunday morning was kind of a repeat of Saturday. We hit the lobby for breakfast around 9 again. We stopped across the street at Giant Eagle since we saw they were supposed to carry Kim & Scotts pretzels. We found two new flavors there: Apple Cinnamon and Parmesan Sourdough. We mistakenly thought the Marshalls across the street opened at 10 but it turned out to be 11. So we went back the hotel for an hour and then checked it out. We didn’t find anything this trip and went back to the hotel to watch TV until it was time to get dressed for the wedding. Adam was nice enough to iron my dress while he did his pants and shirt.

We found the elusive fire hall with no problems and got there in plenty of time. We were seated at a table right up next to the head table along with my cousins Jennifer and Joanie and their guests. Well, ok, so their guests were Joanie’s friend Marcy and Jennifer’s daughter Elle. The ceremony started right on time and ran about 30 minutes. My uncle John officiated. It was a nice ceremony although all the music was canned and the DJ seemed to have some timing issues. After the ceremony was over the wedding party took off for almost 2 hours for pictures. There were mountains of cookies and they opened up the bar. We ate, drank, and socialized until the salads were brought out. When the wedding party returned they showed a cute slide show, did the introductions, and then dinner could begin. It was a buffet of sorts catered in by Boston Market. Beans, macaroni & cheese, mashed potatoes & gravy, chicken, and a turkey carving station. Simple, but filling. The cake was cut and dancing started not soon after.

A couple comments: I noticed a severe lack of clanking of glasses or heckling of the head table. Isn’t that what is the most fun for guests? Perhaps my family (or Dave’s) is too polite? After about 3 dances, no one was on the floor and about 45 minutes into it pretty much everyone had left. This is my ultimate fear for our reception. Please people, come and dance and have a good time and stay for more than an hour! Free beer!

Anyway, we left and my dad and Cheryl were supposed to call us after they got my grandma and grandpa home but apparently they were there until 10:30 and by that time we had been in bed for a while. Oh well. We caught up with them on Monday morning as we checked out (at 7:30 – see, we can get up early when we want to.) After another Starbucks run we got back on the long road home. The return trip was relatively painless with only two stops and smooth sailing through Chicago. We got home around 4, unloaded the car, checked on all the furry guys (they’re all fine although Mo managed to knock his water bottle completely off his cage and was waterless for a day or so), and then headed up to Adam’s parent’s house. My mom had sent pictures of her dress choices so I showed them (along with the picture Adam can’t see) to his mom and older sister. We picked up some dinner on the way back home and I busied myself unpacking, doing laundry, and catching up on some DVR programs before heading to bed.

All in all it was a good trip. Adam got to meet a large chunk of my extended family and I got to hang out with people I hadn’t seen in 10 or 15 years. Most of them say they’re going to try and make it to WI in August but we’ll have to see what happens.

Click for Photobucket Pictures

PA by the Numbers

Miles Driven:
1,419.40

Travel Time (appx):
WI to PA (Friday) – 10 hours
PA to WI (Monday) – 9 hours

Money Spent: $718.21
Tolls: $42.80 (IL - $10, IN - $9.30, OH - $20.50, PA - $3)
Hotel: $303.72
Gas: $165.00
Food: $136.57
Souvenirs: $20.12
Gifts: $50

Gas Price Trend:
5/4/07 – WI – $3.099
5/4/07 – IN – $3.299
5/4/07 – PA – $2.899
5/7/07 – PA – $2.899
5/7/07 – IN – $3.199
5/7/07 – WI – $3.099
Today in WI - $3.149

I Saw the Sign

Financing GET!

Well Adam was getting kind of antsy about the whole commitment letter thing as we hadn’t received it in the mail by yesterday afternoon. So he called Kristie, our Mortgage Specialist, and left her a message last night about it. She called me this morning to tell me she had the letter in her hand and rather than dropping it in the mail, how would I like to stop by sometime today to sign it? This way it could be faxed to the realtors today and everything could be taken care of before our 4/30 deadline. So I stopped by at lunch, signed a harmless-looking letter that binds me to the bank for 30 years, and was on my way. I also dropped off our 60 day notice at the rental office of our apartment building on my way back to work so we’re all set. So we're right on track close 5/31. Woo!

I Need a Cat

I know I’ve complained about this subject before but I just can’t seem to get past it. There has to be some kind of decent solution I’m just not thinking of.

So this is what I refer to as “the bad week.” It’s week 13 in the 13 week Seasonale cycle. I think we all know what I’m getting at here. Now it appears as though I have two choices: 1) Doing nothing and surviving through the indescribable cramps and headaches that make me dizzy and nauseous, or 2) taking OTC drugs that, while alleviating some of the problems in choice one temporarily, leave me with the same drowsy “head ten feet in the air” feeling that cold medicine does. Unfortunately normal pain relievers like Aleve are totally worthless in this battle.

I chose number two this morning and let’s just say it hasn’t been a very productive day. It’s hard to get anything done when my eyes won’t focus on the computer screen and I just want to put my head down on my desk and sleep. But if I hadn’t have taken the drugs this morning I would be stuck with what’s returning now.

So what can I do? I’ve considered skipping the sugar pills altogether and (hopefully) foregoing the misery completely. I know I read something somewhere that said that a period while on the pill is not necessary since it’s pretty much a “fake” one anyway. If that’s the case I’m all for leaving it behind. I will definitely be bringing this up at my doctor appointment in June. It’s gotten progressively worse (or I’ve gotten wussier about it) over the past couple years or so, so perhaps there’s more to it than just my body beating up on me. Who knows? It just totally sucks, feeling so crappy, stuck with no real reprieve. And no cat. Cats make wonderful heating pad-like companions when you plop them on your stomach and they purr…

House Progress

We had our mortgage appointment last Friday and it was pretty painless. I had already done some calculations to estimate our payment and I was frighteningly close. Even the mortgage specialist was impressed. Anyway, I signed a bunch of things, gave them $365, and it was sent on its merry way to be approved. Hopefully. I’m still spooked because of last Wednesday so I’m semi-holding my breath until we get the letter. The deadline for financing is the 30th so we’re hoping to get the letter for me to sign sometime this week (they even put a rush on it.) Then I can sign it, run it over to the bank, and have it faxed to the realtors so the SOLD sign can get hung. I’m waiting for that photo op! Anyway, while we were there I opened a savings account since I think they’d frown upon me borrowing tens of thousands of dollars without even having an account there. They never said it was a requirement but I figure it will be easier for direct withdrawals for the payments. We’re still trying to work out how we’ll get the money into that account but we’ve got until 7/1 to figure that out.

This past weekend we went to Lowe’s to pick out appliances and the other things we plan to buy there. We won’t actually make any purchases until we are solid as concrete on the financing. It would suck to go drop more than a grand on appliances and then have the financing not work out. Anyway, we found the things we wanted and managed to come pretty close to our original budget. We’re not completely sure about carpet yet since it ended up being a lot more expensive than we anticipated. We’re going to try and check out a few flooring/carpet outlet stores to compare pricing before making our decision.

I worked out a preliminary timeline for installations and moving. If things go as expected (which they never do) we should be moving the big stuff the weekend of June 16th. We should be completely moved in during that next week and plan to have a house-warming shin-dig on the 30th. If things go as expected. I think it’s possible. If we get the painting and kitchen floor done in the first week we should have no problem getting everything else to fall in place. The outdoor things might wait for a bit, but that’s ok according to Adam.

Sadness

It’s been a rough couple of days. Not for us – we’re fine – but for those around us.

Sunday evening Adam got a call from his sister telling him one of their mutual friends had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Paul had been a groomsman in Katie and Chris’ wedding and was supposed to have been an usher in ours. What’s even worse is he and his wife, Stephanie, just had a baby. I’m talking less than a month ago. I didn’t know them too well as I had only met them twice but he seemed like a great guy. It’s tragic when these things happen to good people.

Then yesterday at bell practice I found out one of the ladies in the group was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Not a good situation in any case, but worse in this case as it has apparently already spread to her lymph nodes, lungs, and perhaps liver. I stand right next to her and she’s already had a rough time lately because her father died unexpectedly right before Christmas. Once again, so sad that these things happen to the nicest people.

As things tend to happen in threes, please stay safe everyone.

We will definitely get a "No Soliciting" sign...

So I was just caught by a proselytizer. I’m not sure which religion he was affiliated with. He was too old to be a Mormon on his mission. In any case, he wanted to share some magazines with me that tell that there’s an end in site to the cruelty in the world. He read some stuff out of Timothy and offered me a free bible. I declined. *sigh* I should have ignored the doorbell.

The Appliance Adventure Part 1

Well it didn’t go exactly as planned yesterday at Lowe’s. Does it ever? I was approved for a line of credit at an interest rate I’m not crazy about. I mean, my credit card’s interest rate is lower that it is. *sigh* In any case, Adam and I walked through multiple scenarios to solve this quandary. We eventually decided to go ahead and use the Lowe’s line of credit because it has a “6 months no interest” deal. We’ll still make payments during those six months and if there’s a balance at the end of the term (which I’m almost positive there will be) we can decide what we want to do then. We have decided to take his parents’ old washer and dryer since they’re planning on getting new ones. We’ll wait to get a snow blower and doors for the fireplace until we actually need them in the fall. We should still be able to get everything we want/need at Lowe’s and that’s a good thing. Keep it simple, I say.

Also not going as planned is the financing part of the deal. But don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing. I got a call from the mortgage specialist this morning. She was concerned that we might be cutting it too close. We have to have the financing secured by the 30th and our appointment was for the 24th. So we just bumped the appointment up to tomorrow. Hopefully this will give them time for the appraisal and all the other things they charge us $1,700 to do. With the way things went yesterday I’m kind of nervous about tomorrow but I figure they pre-approved me for $150,000 less than a month ago and I’m only asking for $142,000 now. I don’t know why they wouldn’t give it to me…but you never know. I do have excellent credit and Lowe’s still gave me a shitty interest rate, you know. Maybe I need the Walmart version of Lowe’s and I’d be fine. I think it might have something to do with the fact that we still technically rent and we'd have had better luck if we'd waited until we could put down that we own the home... Oh well, live and learn.

Anyway… Perhaps we’ll step out on the town Saturday night and actually look around Lowe’s. Yesterday we headed straight to customer service to see what kind of deal we could get so we didn’t even look at anything. And I suppose I won’t have an excuse to not start packing stuff for much longer. Ugh.

I’m totally behind on my movie reviews and I’m even behind on my unofficial book reviews. I don’t even know what I do with my time. I have started to DVR Dawson’s Creek reruns though so that takes up some time. This house/wedding/being an adult thing is totally time consuming…

House Update...

So it looks as though a potential crisis was averted. The sellers had an HVAC person in yesterday morning to clean and inspect the furnace. There were no cracks – it was just condensation/water something or other. So the furnace is fine and we’re good to go. We have an appointment with the mortgage specialist on Tuesday afternoon to finalize the financing. I plan to stop by our apartment building’s management office this afternoon to see if they have a form for the 60 day notice or if I have to free-hand that.

The next big hurdle is all the stuff we need to buy before we move in. Mainly it’s the appliances but there are other things we want to take care of as well (hello pink room!) The bank made it very clear that we can only get the mortgage for the amount of our offer. I figure our other options include a signature loan or some kind of in-store credit line or card. I did some hunting around for rates and terms and right now it looks as though getting a “Project Card” from Lowe’s might be our best bet. Lowe’s will most likely carry everything on our list so we can buy everything from the same place. Their Project card is relatively new and seems to work like a line of credit. You apply for the card and then you can use it for whatever you need at Lowe’s within a 6-month time period. After the six months is up you start paying it back. The interest rate is fixed at (as low as) 7.99% for a period of 4 to 10 years with no prepayment penalties. Seeing as how the lowest personal loan rate I can find is 8.99%, this seems like a good choice. That said, it’s not guaranteed that I’ll get the lowest rate (although I don’t see why not since my credit is excellent) and we wouldn’t know what our repayment term would be until the application was approved. Even so, we plan to stop up at Lowe’s tonight and see if we can talk to someone about it and perhaps submit an application to see what we qualify for.

If anyone has other ideas that I might have forgotten, let me know. I believe in doing research and getting all the facts before making a decision. :)

Bridesmaid Dress Success

Here's the wedding blog entry with a picture of Catherine in her dress.

There's always something...

The house inspection yesterday went well, generally. There were a few minor things the inspector recommended we get taken care of before we move in: grading around the house, a couple of electrical things (reverse polarity in one outlet, a faulty GFI in a bathroom, random live wires in the attic), power washing the deck and siding. The only major potential problem is the furnace. I wasn’t down in the basement with them when he was looking around but he says there’s a potential crack leading to potential leaking. He recommended we get an inspector in to take a look at it. We wrote up an amendment to our offer last night asking the seller to have the furnace cleaned and inspected. The seller has agreed to get that done.

Our next step will depend on what they find. If it turns out the house inspector was right and there’s a crack, we’ll have to do a notice of defect. If the seller refuses to fix it, our offer is dead and we have to move on. Hopefully if a new furnace is needed the seller will realize they’d have to fix it no matter what in order to sell the place so they agree to take care of it so we can forge on with the house-buying process. If it turns out there is no crack, we’re golden. We have the one-year home warranty already included in our offer so it if goes south after we’ve closed on the house, we can get it fixed/replaced for $60.

But for now, we wait. Again.

We are Homeowners!

Success!

I debated posting this considering it gives the address... but I figured the only people who really read this are friends and if some crazy stalker person REALLY wants to come get me, they'd figure out where I am no matter if I post this or not, right?

Today's "Get Fuzzy"

This is the only comic strip in today's paper that made me laugh... (click on it to see it normal sized)

Gah! I've been tagged!

5 Things You Don’t Know About Me

1) I currently wear a size 7 shoe but in high school I wore an 8 1/2 or 9. How is it that my feet have shrunk so much? Why can't the rest of me shrink? *sigh*

2) Speaking of feet, I hate feet. Your feet, my feet, any feet. Not because they smell or anything, but just because they creep me out. I don't like mine being touched and refuse to get near Adam's (although I did actually rub them with some lotion stuff last week because he was sore but I wore latex gloves so I'm not sure that counts.)

3) I don't like oranges either. Just the smell of them grosses me out. Unfortunately the two guinea pigs like them and we're supposed to give them some on a regular basis to make sure they get enough vitamin C. So I suffer for the furry dudes.

4) I do like the movie Spice World however, and am not ashamed to admit it. For such a lame musical group, the Spice Girls do have some surprising comedic talent...

5) I still keep pictures of my dog, Mandy, on the desk by my computer. Such a cute face, but such a dumb animal. I'm hoping eventually I can get a dog again, but we'll see how things turn out.

I'd tag some people if I knew anyone with a blog who hasn't already been tagged. Oh well. :)

At the Risk of Jinxing it...

I've decided to post this blog entry anyway!

I was wandering aimlessly around the misses section of Kohl's looking for something to wear to Lori's wedding when Adam called me. I got some weird looks given the ring tone I have set for him [that would be George Michael's "I Want Your Sex." How's that for too much information? ;)] Anyway, he was calling to tell me that Jim called him to let him know that our offer was accepted. They also agreed to pay our closing costs and required escrows as well as a year of the home warranty program. Sweet deal.

But if you recall there's still the matter of the other offer out there. We had good timing in the real estate world. The seller's agent was going to try and have the paperwork to the other buyer by 7pm tonight. From that time of delivery they have 48 hours to release the contingency. Not business days. Hours. Tee hee. That means by 7pm on Sunday they have to have made a decision. We are a little bit evil, but it's a little fun too.

In any case, barring a rare occurance (although having a reasonable offer flat out rejected was supposedly rare too...) we should be the official future owners of the house. We'll know on Sunday, maybe Monday morning.

To stave off the jinxing gods I'm going to refrain from posting the address/listing details until we know for sure it's ours. Cross your fingers, pray, or do whatever else you do to send good luck in someone's direction!

The Great Critter Cover-Up

There was a note in our door earlier this week from our apartment complex management. They’re going to be doing apartment inspections next week, looking for leaky faucets, general disrepair, etc. They say they’ll be starting Tuesday morning and hopefully be done by Thursday or Friday. Now, we never asked permission to have our furry friends. I don’t think they’re contraband like cats and dogs are. I know that fish are allowed and hamsters are kind of like fish. Without the whole water thing.

In any case, we figured we should probably hide the crew when the manager wanders around our apartment. With three 10 gallon aquariums and two wire cages full of critters, that’s easier said than done. We decided it would probably be best to clean out the closet in the second bedroom and stow them in there during the day. We had also considered the garage (it’s still a bit too cold for that) and Adam’s parents’ house (I would miss them too much.) Wednesday night we took everything out of the closet, trashed about ¼, took about 1/3 to Goodwill, and put the rest back into the closet in an organized way. This should leave us with enough space to put the cages and all other pet-related articles out of eyesight. Hopefully we remember to remove their toys and they don’t squeak. I’m not sure what would happen if they found them and we weren’t allowed to have them. I suppose we could take them out to Greenville, but it might be a moot point anyway if a house works out soon.

Anyway, the great cover-up of 2007 starts Tuesday night. :)

Questionable Easter Greeting?

During lunch today when I ran to get my mail from my PO Box, I heard the DJ on the radio say “Happy Good Friday.” Is it just me or does that seem kind of inappropriate? Perhaps this is a strange comment, seeing as it’s coming from me and all, but it just seems wrong. Even though I don’t buy in to most of what it all stands for I still try to respect other peoples’ beliefs. It’s like saying “Happy anniversary of your mother’s death! Let’s go grab a beer!” While it’s true that lots of people are either not Christian or are not very good Christians, the serious ones are still out there and I can’t help but think they’d be offended by that kind of remark. Good Friday is not the day to celebrate. Easter Sunday, yes, go crazy. Good Friday, not so much.

Speaking of Easter, the handbells play at the 11:30am mass on Sunday. I plan on getting there plenty early since I’m told the crowd will be large. At least I know I won’t have to fight for a seat. Adam works 8-5 at Wal-mart and we’re supposed to go over to his parents’ house for dinner at 6. Rumor is we’re having spaghetti. I like it that they’re not very traditional when it comes to holiday fare. I mean we had Taco Bell the first time I went over there for Easter and lasagna for Thanksgiving the year before last.

And now, perhaps in a statement similar to that about which I opened this blog complaining:

The best thing about Easter is…

**Le sigh**

Ok, so on whatever day that was that we were supposed to hear back from the lawyer/bank/realtor, we did. They countered at $149,000 which was, well, basically the original listing price. (Ok, so they knocked off $900. How generous.) We thought they were being pretty ridiculous seeing as how the house wasn’t even done so we decided to reject the counter and just move on. In all honesty I’m glad it didn’t work out. Even though I wouldn’t have been doing the work, it was a big thing to take on and I would have been annoyed by the lack of grass.

In any case, last night we had two appointments. One was to look at the house over on Byrd that I had gone to the open house for a few weekends ago. The second was for another house over by the park that we had originally booted from the list because its taxes were relatively high. In general Adam liked the house on Byrd and saw much of the same potential that I had. Then we went down into the basement and discovered a puddle of water and crack in the wall. That wasn’t there when I looked at the place two weeks ago! Oh well. It was in a really random place and we figure the neighbor’s directing their downspout right at the yard and there’s a slope under the deck, leading to seepage.

Adam used Jill (our friendly GPS) to find the second house although I thought that was kind of unnecessary since it’s one block from where I lived that one summer in college. (Aah, memories…) We pulled into the driveway and Adam commented that it looked nice. After taking a look around he decided to call his parents in for some additional opinions and his dad’s eagle eyes for potential faults. We had some fun with the safety lock on the patio door (as in, we couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t lock, Jim, the realtor, tried to use some silicone stuff from the basement, and then Adam found the instructions printed on the door, locked it, and then pranked his dad when they arrived) while we waited. After his parents arrived they did the tour and spent some quality time in the basement. Adam and his dad proceeded to try and break the garage door. All in all, it’s a nice place with lots of good qualities. The only things Adam disliked were the fact that the master bedroom is painted pink (ok, ROSE) and there’s this awkward divider mini wall thing in the kitchen area. Other than that, no complaints. Good sized rooms, two bathrooms, nice fireplace, great back yard including a deck complete with a grill bump-out, room in the basement for a workshop area and plenty of space on the breaker thingamajig (whatever that means…)

So, I think by this time you can guess what we did. We invited the realtor to our apartment for some wine and had him write up the offer while he was there. Heh. We just didn’t feel like driving up to Appleton and since their systems are all web-based we could do it this way. He faxed it over this morning and the seller’s realtor said she’d be talking with them this afternoon. I’m getting to be a pro at the offer paperwork. Don’t even need to read most of it anymore. Just check some numbers and dates and we’re good.

There’s just one potential problem. Doesn’t there always seem to be a problem?

Ours is a secondary offer as there’s an offer already on the place with a contingency that the buyer sells their current home. There’s a 48 hours bump clause in the contract wording and it’s likely things might work out. If the seller accepts our offer (or counters, although I think our offer was reasonable…and then we accept it) the other people have 48 hours to remove the contingency from their offer or we get the house. Jim says it’s very unusual that people remove the selling contingency but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens. In any case, we won’t know for sure about anything until next week.

We’re hoping that perhaps, for us, the third time is the charm.

House Update. Again.

Jim, the realtor, says we might hear something back tomorrow morning from the lawyers/bank about the house we put an offer on last week. There's another offer out there but apparently they have a contingency that they sell their current property whereas we don't. We'll see what happens.

Some Easter Humor

Book Review: The Great Gatsby

I was introduced to The Great Gatsby in my 8th grade English class. During one quarter we had a choice of three books to read: the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, or John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. For some inexplicable reason I chose Siddhartha, a choice I regret to this day. That book was so boring I could barely get through it. Not quite a horrible as Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it nevertheless lies on the same level in my mind. I consider that book as my freshman hazing in college since I was required not only to read it but I also had to write numerous essays about it before classes even started as part of the freshmen honors seminar in which I was enrolled. Yay for the University Honors system. What a joke.

In any case, having realized my mistake too late I went back and read The Great Gatsby after the fact and liked it so much I read most of his other novels along with some short stories and the collection of letters he wrote his daughter (which is not surprisingly entitled Letters to His Daughter.) I suppose I should note that I did NOT go back and read Steinbeck’s contribution to the list. I think The Pearl put me off from Steinbeck forever just as The Old Man and the Sea made me very wary of Hemingway (yay for required reading!)

Man, I keep getting distracted! This is supposed to be a book review. So I re-read The Great Gatsby again this past week during my lunch hour. It’s very easy reading but I think it’s easier for me since I always picture a 1970’s Robert Redford as I read. (Yum.) Yes, I even own the movie. On video cassette. Granted the movie isn’t that great and I can’t stand Mia Farrow, but it’s still worth a watch every once in a while. It follows the book very closely to the point that Nick’s narrations are pretty much word for word at times. Anyway, this book is always touted as a glimpse into the sordid life of the rich 1920’s flappers crowd. Could be, but it’s still an entertaining way to pass a couple hours.

Howie

Mr. Howie the Russian Hamster loves his big log. We had previously given him TP rolls and those were fun and all, but he adores this huge toy.





Here's a late happy one-year living with us to Howie! He joined our household 1-6-06 and has been the most resilient of the bunch.

The Search Continues

Alrighty. So the house Adam found on Tuesday had accepted an offer that very morning so that wasn’t going to work out in our favor. Fortunately there was another new construction house in the same subdivision. Right across the street in fact. So we made arrangements to take a look at that one Tuesday night. His parents came along again. The house itself is quite nice. There’s just one problem. It’s not finished. As in it’s not done. The company who built it (Creative Custom Homes) went into bankruptcy and out of business. The house is built and I’d say it’s about 95% done. There are just some things left in limbo. There are no gutters or downspouts. Some hardware is missing in a bathroom and on the patio door. The fireplace is still in a cardboard box. It’s dusty and a mess inside. All kinds of miscellaneous odds and ends have been left throughout the house and yard. The yard is really just a big pile of dirt and rocks with some beer cans and a tarp thrown in.

That said, the things that need to be finished up to make the house inhabitable are all pretty basic, minimal labor things that Adam and his dad would have no problem doing. The house is well arranged and has great potential. We went to dinner with his parents after looking at the house. We made a list of all the things we’d have to do before we could move in, assigned each item a cost, and deducted that from the listing price. We wrote up the offer last night and hope to hear from them today. The company’s assets are in receivership so if their attorney has already left town it might take a little longer to get a response. We’re hoping that they’re eager to get rid of as much as they can. I don’t think our offer was low-balling it too much but I don’t think we should pay the going rate (97%+ of list) for a house that’s not done. Our offer came in at about 91% of the listing price (which had been dropped from the original listing price by $9k, so about 88% of the original price.) We’ve asked them to finish up a few things that would be impractical for us to do (final grading, driveway fill) but Adam and his dad will be doing some significant work as well. We’ll also have to take care of grass and landscaping at some point. All we can do is see what they say. We're hoping we can get a great house at a steal of a price!

But for now we wait again.

House Update

Guess it wasn’t meant to be. We were waiting for a call this morning and finally got antsy enough that Adam called the realtor. Apparently the owner flat out refused our offer. Not even a counter. He was “insulted” by the offer we made. I guess I should add that the house recently dropped its listing price from $143,000 to $135,000, but I didn’t think our offer was inappropriate even given that fact. But whatever. Apparently the owner has taken this a little too personally, but I wish him luck in selling his house.

Perhaps this can be considered a blessing since this morning Adam called me and said he was having second thoughts about whether he even wanted the house anymore. He was being haunted by all the work we’d need to do, the weird pipes, etc. So now he doesn’t need to worry about any of that.

So, what’s our next move? In his struggles this morning, Adam came across some new construction that looks promising. It’s a little higher priced than the other house was but it’s also brand-spanking new, comes with a complete home warranty, and we don’t have to do any work or clean up after the previous owners. There are positives to both sides I suppose. Looking at our budget, we could still get by with the higher mortgage amount but it would be tight. We’re looking to start our financial combination a little sooner than we’d originally planned since it will give us a better idea about what areas are negotiable to give us some breathing room.

In any case, our realtor is going to try and get us into a house tonight. From the five pictures online it looks nice. We’ll see how we like it in person. We’ll see if we like it enough to blow $150,000 on it. If not, I think we just wait until when we originally planned to do this house thing.

And We Wait

I got a call from the realtor earlier this evening telling me the husband of the seller couple was in Milwaukee for work today but they were planning on meeting with their realtor tonight. I haven't heard anything back so I'm assuming I won't hear anything tonight. He said if not tonight, it will be first thing tomorrow. I'll update as soon as we know what's what.

House Update

Well it was certainly an interesting weekend. Much more exciting than I had anticipated.

We went to see the house Saturday evening along with Adam’s parents. The owners had opted to stay around while we walked through but they kept themselves and their children very inconspicuous out in the sunroom. Adam’s dad took his eagle eye throughout the house to look for problems. I marveled at the cabinet space, the huge closet in the master bedroom, and the very affectionate cats (who do not come with the house… lol) Our major concern turned out to be some funky plumbing pipes down in the basement and some unfinished wiring. The house looked pretty much as it had in the pictures and was generally satisfying. We left the house with a good feeling. The owners were very accommodating and seem like nice people. We went around the block to look at the other house we had scheduled. Apparently the owners hadn’t been told we were coming as they were there, cleaning or working on a truck or something. It didn’t really matter too much since the second we walked into the house we walked right back out.

We thanked Jim, our realtor, and headed back to the apartment for some discussion. Well, first Adam and his dad headed to their house to pick up some wood and tools since I had somehow managed to break the couch earlier in the afternoon. Anywho, after they returned we had dinner and then they fixed the couch. After that was taken care of we discussed our options and how they felt about things and what they suggested. We decided on what price we thought was fair and some contingencies we wanted to be sure to include. After his parents left we went to bed and fell asleep pretty early.

On Sunday Adam worked at 8am and I got up when he did to take a look at the open houses in the area. I made a list of about 11 and narrowed it down to 4 I actually wanted to go to. The first two were a few blocks from each other so I went to them back to back. Neither one was terrible but they each had some strange features. The third open house didn’t start until 12:30 so I went to Walmart to kill some time. I drove out to the third house a little early but was so creeped out by the neighborhood that I decided to not even go to the open house. The fourth house on the list was a few blocks from the third so I eliminated that one as well. Somewhere in all this open house-ing, Jim had called Adam, asking if we’d like to come in that evening to discuss making an offer on the house we had seen Saturday evening. We planned for a 6:30 meeting. We arrived pretty much decided on what we planned to do and Jim seemed to agree with our plans. He prepared the paperwork, we reviewed it, I signed some stuff, and he should have sent it to the sellers this morning. The deadline he set for acceptance/counter/rejection is today so hopefully we’ll hear something back soon. I think our offer was fair considering how much painting we’ll have to do and how much the house was assessed at compared to their asking price. I guess we’ll see if they agree with us. :) Then we’ll have to see if it passes inspection. That’s our biggest concern right now. The basement has some funky stuff going on we’re not sure is up to code. But it’s a waiting game for now.

The Hunt Continues... Quickly

I happened to find a local realtor listing for the house that we most wanted to check out this morning. It had a lot more pictures and almost all of them made me say "ooh!" I went up to Appleton to have lunch with Adam and I printed the pictures out so he could see them. He agreed that it looked great and called our realtor right then to see if he could get us in to look at it tonight. We've got a 5:30 appointment. Amazing. We've both agreed that unless we find something that's really horrible, this will probably be the house we put an offer on once we get his dad in to look it over. Some good news is that the price was recently reduced so perhaps the seller is more motivated to sell and will therefore be more open to negotiations regarding closing costs and price. Bad news is it's an awesome house for the price so we might have competition. We're hoping to jump first though! We also have an appointment to look at another (vacant) house a street over from the first but I drove by both houses on the way home and the first is definately a nicer place. Wish us luck! I'll let you know what happens.

140!!

I failed to mention this previously and kind of forgot about it until Adam emailed me the pictures. We went bowling two weekends before this last one (for his birthday.) He got a coupon for 2 free games up in Ashwaubenon and we hadn’t gone for awhile so we thought, “why not?” The first game I was on fire. I ended up with a 140. No, really. A 140. I have proof.




I got all 10 pins 4 frames in a row. Of course it just went downhill from there. About 4 frames into the second game Adam retreated to the bathroom for a while (this was near the start of the evil stomach thing we both picked up.) I waited for him to return, chatting with the family who arrived to play in the lane next to us. As the dad went to bowl his first frame, he shoes stuck and he did a face plant at the end of the lane. Many profanities, laughter, and the throwing of objects ensued. He was good natured about it, but determined he should bowl in his socks thereafter.

When Adam returned he decided not to bowl the rest of the game since his wrist was hurting him. I played the rest of my game (to a miserable 64 point end) and we called it a day.

But I bowled a 140!



Look! A 140!

Embiggining Myself

I ordered the CMA review books again. Since the test format completely changed since I last got them I figured it wouldn’t make sense to start studying from the books I have since they’re obsolete. I’m also considering getting the CD-rom set from Gleim since our IMA chapter gets a discount on them. The exam itself will cost me over $500 for all four parts. I’m not sure when I plan on registering or taking it, but I want to stay motivated to actually do it this time. Looking over the outline provided on the IMA website, I’m familiar with most of the subject matter. I just hope the details haven’t fallen out of my head over the past two years. I’m putting the MBA on the back burner for now and I’m going to focus on the certification instead. That way when I’m ready to go back for the MBA I won’t have to take the GRE/GMAT.

Spring has Sprung

I’d like to think that spring has arrived right on time in Wisconsin. On Wednesday (the first day of spring) we had three ginormous thunderstorms. We got caught in one on the way home from dinner, the second came while Adam was out in the garage fixing his radio and the third was in the middle of the night, prompting me to get my cell phone and set the alarm in case the power went out. I’ve been very impressed with this apartment and power. In my old apartment if the thunder was too loud the power would go out. As far as I know, the power hasn’t gone out (because of the weather) in this apartment at all. It’s wonderful knowing the alarm clock will wake you up when its supposed to. In any case, I’m sure I’m delusional and we’ll have at least one more big snow dump before we’re completely clear of winter. I’m just happy I can go outside in the morning and not have to scrape my car off. It’s nice.

TGIF

I’m hoping this weekend is boring and relaxing. I haven’t been sleeping too well all week and I’m just exhausted. Tonight all I plan to do is some grocery shopping on the way home from work and some stuff on the computer. After that’s done I just want to lay on the couch, catching up on my Rachael Rays and Conans. Although I still have The Departed sitting on the table to be watched. Tomorrow I’ll probably do some cleaning while Adam’s at work. The bathroom definitely needs it and the kitchen could probably use some attention as well. I’ve also started thinking that if we’re going to be moving sooner rather than later perhaps I should start going through all my stuff to see what I can toss (or donate) before we have to box it up. I’m going to try to be proactive but I’ll probably end up proactively procrastinating. Sunday I’ll check the paper in the morning to see if any of the places we’re interested in is having an open house so I can go check them out before the realtor gets us in. We have one in particular that we’re leaning toward and I want to see if our leaning is warranted. (I mean we already got a quote on homeowner’s insurance on it…) Other than that I don’t think we have any plans. We were going to try and see “Little Shop of Horrors” which one of the high schools is putting on but we couldn’t find tickets. We’ll probably end up watching a movie or two at home.

Whew!

We got our invitation to Lori’s wedding last night so we won’t have to show up uninvited. Yay!

The House Hunt - House #1

Realtor’s Listing

Vitals:
Asking price - $144,900
3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 1,365 square feet, 1.5 story, 2.5 car garage (detached)

Pros:
Close to where we are now (therefore, close to the highway)
Very well maintained
Fenced-in yard
Large garage

Cons:
In the top end of our price range
Small
Seems over-priced
Ceilings in basement are too low for Adam
Awkward layout (the master bedroom is right off the kitchen)

Thoughts:
We pretty much eliminated this house from the running. It was too small, barely larger than our apartment is now. It’s on a pretty busy street, right across from the high school. The kitchen had strange cabinets with ugly hardware and the entire layout of the house was just weird. It had a nice living room with a fireplace tucked into the corner and the backyard and deck were nice. Overall, we think they were asking too much for what they have to offer. We gave the realtor our list of 5 others we want to look at so hopefully we’ll get in to look at those soon.

Mortgage or No Mortgage?

I think we can characterize our time with the mortgage specialist last night as successful. We discussed our options and ultimately we decided to go ahead and see whether I could be pre-approved for the high end of our price range ($150,000) on my own. Thanks to my excellent credit score, I was pre-approved for a loan for more than even the most expensive house on our current list. Even though the interest rate on the kind of mortgage we chose was a little higher than I’d like (6.375%), it’s reasonable considering it requires no down payment and the PMI is relatively low. My estimates (I had put together a pro forma budget to see if we could even afford to be buying a house right now) were pretty close to the actual numbers the bank quoted us so we should be good. Tonight we look at house #1, which is on the high end of our price range ($144,900.) There are a few others from the list the realtor gave us that we’re interested in as well so we’ll see how this process works out. We’re looking at perhaps a May or June closing date. We want to get it done before the wedding, but we also have to give 60 days notice at our apartment. It’s kind of strange, doing this house thing. I think maybe it will be a positive thing to get it done earlier than I’d planned since I was beginning to think my whole “life plan” was spiraling out of control. This might allow it to get back on track.

Last night we also got the chance to finally go out to celebrate Adam’s birthday. Only 10 days late… Sometimes that’s how life works. We went to Tumbleweed. I had never been there before but it was AYCE ribs Wednesday and that was what Adam was craving. I (unsurprisingly) stuck with the tame grilled chicken sandwich and was pleased to find it was not covered with anything spicy. We happened to get there at the tail end of happy hour so the bill didn’t kill me either. After that we went home (in a torrential downpour thunderstorm) and Adam tinkered with his car’s stereo system for a while. He recently installed a new stereo that has XM, AM, FM, and an iPod hookup all in one and he was getting annoyed by the oversensitive new XM radio antenna. When he was done with all that we caught up on our “Apprentice” and “What About Brian” shows before heading to bed. Tonight I had planned to try out a new recipe that Adam flagged in the Rachael Ray book but that will depend on how long the house thing takes tonight since our appointment isn’t until 5:30.

Book Review

His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis

This is the first book in my attempt to read a biography of each President. The book takes the reader through what little is known of Washington’s childhood and young adulthood, through his war involvement and reluctant presidency, up to his death. About half of the book is focused on his involvement in the wars against the French and Indians and the Revolutionary War against England. The rest of the book focuses on his presidency and his legacy. It is written in such a way that it was very easy to read. I didn’t get bogged down by lots of dates and statistics.

I found it interesting that Washington seemed to select which items remain to reveal his character and which items disappeared. For example, all the letters he wrote to his wife, Martha, were burned when he died, yet all the communication between him and his generals, advisors, etc. remain. Washington was an interesting person yet not the kind of person you’d expect to have been the first president of the country. The presidency has certainly changed from when Washington held the post to the modern day Bush presidency. I also found it interesting that there were constant struggles and backstabbing amongst his most trusted friends and members of his cabinet. Jefferson and Madison were at the same time his wisest advisors and his greatest threats.

The adventure that was the birth of this nation was a strange one. Washington resisted a leadership role after the war with England because he wanted to retire and enjoy his house at Mount Vernon. Fortunately he recognized the need for his role in another, much more important leadership role. He was a very private man and seems to have been very successful in separating the public George from the private George. The private George continues to be mostly a mystery while the public George will live on in history.

Next up: The Good Mother by Sue Miller. (Not a biography, but it’s what I’m reading now.)

Blog-World Catch-up

The network here at work appears to have crashed so since I can’t do much else right now (oh, how dependent we are on computers!) I figured I’d do some catch-up blogging.

In the world of weddings, we’re at the 150 day mark - not that I’m counting. This past weekend I fashioned a bouquet of fake hydrangeas for the bouquet toss at the reception. I think it looks kind of weird, but Adam says he’s going to get one or two more flowers to fill out one side and then hot glue them all onto the styrofoam holder thing tonight and it should be fine. One more thing done. Yay! I still haven’t gotten myself out to the hair salon to check on pricing and scheduling. I considered doing it on Saturday when I was up in Appleton anyway but I decided against that. I think it will be less busy sometime during the week. Unfortunately this week filled up pretty quickly so I’m not sure I’ll get around to it. I’m waiting for the bridesmaids dresses and my veil to come in so I can head back up to Kaukauna (hopefully with Catherine, the roommate) and see the whole package put together. This will also allow me to check whether my chosen undergarments, shoes, and jewelry work with the other elements of the ensemble. Fun, fun. The guest list continues to change so hopefully it will be finalized in the next month or so. I have to revise the invitations again because we changed our RSVP date (apparently there was some miscommunication between Adam’s mom and me) but after that’s done they should be good to go. I need to do some research on the addressing format though. The invitations we have don’t have an inner (unsealed) envelope so I don’t know if I should be putting “and guest” on the outside envelope or include some little slip of paper or something on the response card to indicate if they get to bring a guest. I don’t know what the standard practice is so I need to research that before I go ahead and print labels. I’ve got time to mess with that a little still.

In other news, Adam saw that a house about two blocks down the road plunked a “For Sale” sign on their lawn last week. He thought it looked like a nice house, we looked it up online and indeed it looks nice and is not a bad price. The open house this past weekend was from 11-12 and since I was up at church for the 11am mass for bells I couldn’t go and Adam was at work. So we got in touch with the realtor his parents used when they bought their house and asked if he could get us in to look at it. We’ve got an appointment to do just that on Thursday. We didn’t intend to start looking for or buy a house until after the wedding but Adam is getting antsy about interest rates and housing costs. And with our rent increasing in May, perhaps it’s a good time to start thinking about it. We have an appointment with a mortgage specialist on Wednesday so we’ll see what they determine about our credit-worthiness. Our major problem is going to be the down payment issue. This would have been a problem regardless of when we planned to buy a house. I was hoping to be able to scrape together perhaps 10% but at this point that’s unrealistic. We’ll see what our options are on Wednesday and go from there. I read an article yesterday that said 43% of first-time home buyers don’t put anything down. I also read about 80/20 piggyback loans. But I guess we’ll see what the experts tell us we can do. In addition to the house we saw right down the block, the realtor sent us 62 other houses in the area. Of that list we narrowed it down to 15 houses we might want to take a look at. Our criteria are pretty basic: at least 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 2 car garage, central air. Other than that it’s more a case to case determination. Of course, the clincher for me would be a great kitchen whereas Adam is more interested in the garage/basement/workshop space opportunities. I guess we’ll see where this takes us.

On a completely different topic, I attempted to make my yearly doctor appointment a few weeks back and learned that my usual doctor is on leave for an indeterminate length of time. Hmmm. So now I have to go to the other doctor, an OB/GYN, and they were already booking for the end of June, more than a month after my desired appointment. And she doesn’t book appointments earlier than 8am. *sigh* So now I’m stuck with a 9am appointment the last week of June with a complete stranger. Boo.

We made our hotel reservations for Lori’s wedding in May this past weekend. So we’d better be invited because we’re coming! Dad and Cheryl haven’t gotten an invitation yet either so I’m not going to worry about it quite yet.

I’ve got my monthly IMA meeting this evening. It’s our first annual Ethics Workshop. The IMA recently changed their CPE requirements for CMAs and they now need 2 hours of ethics training each year so our president figured we could help our chapter members out by providing this for them as part of our normal chapter year. Smart thinking. It looks as though we’ll have a larger crowd than usual. Some members of the Packerland (Green Bay area) chapter are coming as well as some ladies from the CBMN. It should be a good time but I think I’ll be kept busy for a while seeing as how the treasurer won’t be there tonight. At least it’s in a familiar venue so I won’t have to figure out where I am.

That about sums up what’s on my mind right now. I’ve got some Rotten Tomatoes reviews to catch up on as well as some recipes to post and a book review to write. The network is still down so perhaps I can get some of those done now as well. :)

A Petty Post

This is going to be a very petty and unnecessary blog posting but I’m still going to post it. It makes me feel good about myself. So there.

On Thursday morning at work I saw something in the bathroom. The person next to me was wearing sandals. She was also wearing those pantyhose with the reinforced toe. You know, the kind with the dark strip at the very end of your feet. Even I know you don’t wear reinforced toe pantyhose with open-toed shoes! And I’m remarkably fashion-unconscious.

Anywho, just had to say it made me feel good that I would never make that fashion faux pas. Could it be that there are those out there even more clueless than I am? Fear for the fashionable future if this is the case.

Flirty Frogs

We got a new shower curtain this past weekend. It's frog themed:



It looks innocent enough, right? I think it even came as a kid's shower curtain. But if you look at it closer...

There's a pimp frog:



There's an Elton John frog:



I know that must be a gay frog because the girls have eyelashes...



Obviously I've spent way too much time in the bathroom lately since I'm contemplating the illicit images in a children's shower curtain called "Flirty Frogs."

Stupid stomach. Quit rejecting everything I put into you. *sigh*

The Tricky World of Credit

Our joint credit card billing cycle ended on Wednesday and I took a look at the online statement on Thursday. I discovered that the credit limit has been increased to $6,500. That’s a jump of $2,000! I can’t even imagine spending that much money using a credit card. Maybe it’s because it’s so engrained in me to pay off the full balance each month and paying $6,500 at one time just seems ridiculous.

I’m definitely not going to complain about this increase. We generally try to keep the monthly bills to around $500 (although we haven’t been doing so well lately with various wedding things, vet bills, etc.) Even so, our debt to credit ratio will rock even more now.

We put pretty much everything on the one card except for normal bills (rent, electric, cable, etc.) and we’ve earned over 13,000 WorldPoints since we opened the account. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them yet but we originally opened the account to rack up points for something honeymoon related. We’ll see what’s out there in the next few months I suppose. We know we’ll be earning a decent amount of additional points when we start making finals payments for the honeymoon and reception. Yay for spending lots of money! :)

My personal credit card also earns me points and I redeem them for $50 checks every 5,000 points. It’s a easy way to make some free money since I pay off the balance every month and never pay interest or fees. You just have to know how to work the system.

I checked my credit score again last night to see how things are going and it's in the high 700s still. My goal is to get it over the 800 mark but I don't know what I can do to bump it up. I only have 3 credit cards and one loan (my car). I have never been late or defaulted on anything. Right now I'm at 24% credit line usage. I have a spotless credit history of almost 10 years. The most recent line of credit is the MBNA (well, BofA now) card we opened almost a year ago now. I don't know what I can do to increase my score since pretty much all the things people tell you to do I'm already doing. *Sigh*

Wedding Stuff

Tonight we are meeting with the people over at the reception hall to do some menu tasting. We’ve pretty much figured out what we want, but there are a couple dishes we’re unsure about and since we get to eat free food, why not? Apparently there has been some turmoil over there recently in the form of management and ownership changes so we also want to make sure nothing in our contract and agreement has changed. I’m not really too worried about it, but I’d rather know now than when I pay the bill.

In other wedding news, I finally went and looked for comfortable underwear. But I’m not sure I’ve found it yet. I did buy some things and actually spent some time walking around the house in them on Sunday but I’m not sure they are things I can wear for 9+ hours. I also pranced in my shoes for a bit. Adam tried to help stretch the toes out by using a blow dryer but other than making my toes toasty warm for a little while, I don’t think it really did much. I like the shoes and they are surprisingly comfortable. It’s just the toe area that is causing me problems. Apparently I have fat toes. In any case, Adam has suggested getting one of those shoe-shaping wedge things and putting it in upside-down. It’s worth a shot.

I also got my final apparel item – the tiara. I was having a hard time finding anything purple at the stores in the area so I finally broke down and looked on eBay. I found one I thought would work and had Adam buy it for me (I don’t have an eBay account and have no desire to get one.) It arrived on Tuesday and with a little tinkering and the right hair-do I think it will be fine. Whew. It’s good to know I won’t be a complete mess walking down the aisle. Ha.

So, with my look taken care of there’s not a whole lot to do for now. We met with Adam’s parents last weekend about the rehearsal dinner and RSVP plans. I should be putting finishing touches on all the various invitation parts in the next few weeks and then getting them to his mom to print. It’s going to be so much fun doing all that envelope licking and stamp pressing. The invitations are pretty basic, but there are a lot of parts. The wedding invitation, the reception card, the response card, the rehearsal invitation, and the breakfast invitation will all be sent out in the same envelope. Hopefully this won’t confuse people and we’re making the RSVP date the same for all three things so that should help.

I’m crossing my fingers that our relatives and friends are nice enough to respond promptly because I can’t do the fun stuff until I get a headcount. Fun stuff like wedding favors, gift bags, and seating charts. I’m not sure if we’ve decided if we’re doing assigned seating but I know it was discussed. One of the main reasons we decided to have a buffet-style dinner was to get people up and mingling. Therefore I’m not sure it’s really necessary to force the two sides to mix via a seating chart. One of the many things to think about still.

Another thing I’m having a problem with is the whole “something old, new, borrowed, blue” dealy. Of course I’ve got the new thing taken care of. Pretty much everything on my body will be new. It’s everything else I’m at a loss for. Anyone have any ideas? Also, how is that whole “penny in the shoe” thing supposed to work when I’m wearing strappy sandals?

We’ve got lots of meetings in our future still: photographer, DJ, Father Mike, organist and vocalist. But nothing we can really do right now. We’re a little more than five months out and I’m getting antsy. The only thing on my list I need to get taken care of is picking a hair salon. And check on the La Quinta rooms. Apparently there are some communication problems somewhere. Shocking…

Anyway, just a (not so) little update about what’s going on in wedding-planning-ville.

Blondes in the Snow

It seems kind of boring to blog about the weather but what else is there really to talk about in March in Wisconsin. Everything is dependent on the weather. Last week the school districts in the area freaked out a little and cancelled classes on Thursday and Friday because there was supposedly a really bad storm coming. In my opinion, what we got was no reason to cancel school. I think they overreacted just a little.

In any case, this post is really about an episode of "The Girls Next Door." For those of you completely disconnected from the world of E!, this show is about Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends and the goings-on at the Playboy mansion (and I'm hopelessly addicted.) The third season premiered this past Sunday. I of course DVRd it and watched it yesterday. The show was Christmas themed. They decided to hire someone to pump snow into the backyard so they could go sledding. Because that's so cool. Perhaps I was less exciting about this because I get to wake up to this every day:



This is what I get for living where I do. One of the girls remarked how it was so awesome to have a yard full of snow when it was like 70 degrees out. *sigh* It's 12. With a windchill of 3.

Big Cheeks

This is Gus about 2 seconds after I put him into his newly cleaned cage. I know hamsters have the cheek pouches that they store stuff in, but you'd think we starve the poor guy! He's storing up for a famine or something! You'll notice the new pretzel shaped chew sticks we got. (That's what the orange thing on his wheel is.) It's even funnier watching Gus and Barry shove those into their mouths than the straight sticks. I should really record that sometime. It's creepy.

Oscar Update

Let's see how I'm doing (the ones I've seen are linked to my RT review of them)

Apocolypto
Babel
Black Dahlia, The
Blood Diamond
Borat
Cars
Children of Men
Click
Curse of the Golden Flower
Departed, The
Devil Wears Prada, The
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Good German, The
Good Shepard, The
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
Illusionist, The
Last King of Scotland, The
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Marie Antoinette
Monster House
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Prestige, The
Pursuit of Happyness, The
Queen, The
Superman Returns
United 93
Venus
Volver