What the What!? We bought a house...

Well we've almost bought a house anyway, just hanging out in a little place we like to call escrow. To some of you it's already old news, but to others it might come as a surprise. Surprising still when I tell you that this is actually the second house we've "bought" in the last two weeks. It's true. Two weeks, two different houses, two inspections, one canceled contract and one good contract equals one really great house.


We started this process in the beginning of March when we realized it might actually be possible to have a lower mortgage payment than our current rent, I know that's some crazy rent. So some encouragement from Aaron's dad, a few phone calls and one tax return (to put towards a downpayment) later we were on the hunt. 


We walked through 52 houses, not including the many "virtual tours" we took online, and our kind and patient Realtor was happy to oblige. Within the first week we found house #1. It was nice, with a huge yard and just enough space inside. It was the best one we'd seen and in an area we loved so we offered and the sellers accepted. A few days later the inspection revealed more hidden issues than we realistically would have been able to deal with so we walked away confident that this wasn't the house for us after all.

we don't really like ranches anyway

A week later we were deep into another round of house hunting. In the opposite direction of house #1 we found house #2 coming in at double the square feet and a lower price. The inspection went significantly better this time and we're looking forward to officially buying the house (closing) at the end of April.

much to my mother's chagrin the awnings are NOT staying

A lot's happened in the past few months and between becoming parents and becoming homeowners I'm not sure how much more "adult" we can get. Unless of course we buy a minivan...


P.S. Steve this one's for you:

so handy!

Some Observations for March

Greetings, all.  I thought I'd take a break from meeting Jath at Starbucks and offer some suggestions for the month ahead (hopefully not an indicator of the time before my next blog post).

Suggestion 1: Layer appropriately.  Today's high = 40, Tuesday's = 59 Thursday's = 45.  Temperature at the office = freezing.  Temperature in the car midway through the commute = balmy.  So I'll be walking out of the house in this:

And returning in this:

(And of course I'll look good doing it; I'm an F-18 bro).

Suggestion 2: Send me some Starbucks gift cards, cause it's trenta time.  Among the more exciting benefits of the warmer weather on the horizon is the justification it provides for iced coffee.  Fortunately for me, Howard knows that when America loves 20 ounces of something, it can't help but love 11 more.  Even without iced coffee, I've been to the local Starbucks enough in recent months that the employees know both my name and my order.  I can only imagine that by June, they'll have my 200 liquid calories ready to go.

Suggestion 3: Check you email!  After spending the last 10 years living with a cell phone that--gasp--only made phone calls (and sent a few txt messages here and there), I've finally upgraded to what the kids these days are calling a "Smartphone".  Using some money gifted to me in celebration of The Feast of the Nativity, I traded in the A767:

for the HTC Inspire 4G:

So far it's taken me 6 hours to figure out where my contacts are, I've twice accidentally called my parents and once been unable to end the call, and I have no idea how to get rid of a pre-installed app from Blockbuster (really AT&T/HTC...Blockbuster?  Ever heard of Netflix, Redbox, or even the concept of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy?).  Also because this phone is intelligent, it apparently requires a steady diet of "data".  And data, I'm told, is money--much like "time" used to be until they invented free nights and weekends, free mobile to mobile, anytime rollover minutes, and text messaging.  So be prepared for copious amounts of communication headed your way.

Suggestion 4: Keep mid-to-late April free on your calendar.  Why?  Well that's a post for another day.