Time provides change

What an amazing week it has been. My first week working full time, well 5 days equals 25 hours, was  amazing. So many things were accomplished that have been put on back burners. I started my bathroom project of scraping the ceiling and painting. I continued ripping down all my sticker bushes in the front yard. But most importantly I spent time with my family.

Every morning I tried to send Cor off with a hot breakfast and a packed lunch. Every night we had dinner together at a reasonable time. We caught a movie on Wednesday. Rented a movie at 6pm on a Saturday. That is unheard of. 3 years of me working nights and weekends and now we get time together. It's amazing.

Our house is clean and I'm not coming home at midnight all pissy because its a mess, mostly my fault every time anyways. I'm not rushing to do a load of laundry so my chef pants are clean every night. We just don't feel rushed. It's wonderful. I can't even begin to explain it. Even my dogs are more settled than before. Jazmina has become the expert cuddler with me and I have never seen her do that. Although Cor tells me she does it every night with him normally. Well now Momma is home!!

Yesterday I was able to take a day adventure up to Steven's Pass with my brother, sister and two nieces. I didn't have to hesitate when they asked me if I wanted to come. I knew I could. On the drive home I started to feel antsy and I looked at the clock. It was 3:40pm. My body felt like I needed to call in or be at work and it was such an odd feeling to just sit and not have a time limit to my life.

I am looking forward to many more adventures that I never thought I could do. This Friday night I get to go do ZUMBA with my niece at 6 pm. I get to go to her softball games. I get to bake whenever my sister gives me a call. Man, life is good.

No more wishing I could do things. This year is all about actually DOING things!

A new adventure

Since buying the house we have had a few moments of looking inward at our lives. Like I said in my last post, I had a moment of depression and we needed to fully look at ourselves and see what we could do to change us for the better.

I took a new job where I was quickly, within weeks, offered the head chef position with a great salary and health benefits. I was still covering shifts at the coffee stand and was asking to be placed back on the schedule for one day a week. It seemed that I was going in the right direction for a career.

Everyone was so proud of me and my achievement. I was proud of myself and I wanted to prove my worth to anyone and everyone. The only problem was none of it seemed to work with the life that I wanted to live. The life that Cor and I wanted to live together.

I was working 50+ hours a week and once I took the new position I would be required to work 55-60 hours a week. I don't mind working hard or long hours, in fact I seem to enjoy it. But it meant that it would be less time in my home. Less time with my friends and family.

I have had two jobs or a job and school for almost the entire length of our relationship. I haven't been to a friends BBQ or seen a 4th of July firework in years. My, and in turn Cor's, quality of life was at a very low point. He often jokes that he is basically just a monogamous single man.  He enjoys the perks of living with a woman, clean dishes and sheets, but he misses out on the perks of having a partner to go do things and I miss out on EVERYTHING!!!

My friends can agree that I am barely a blip on facebook now. My family sees me on Christmas and Thanksgiving because those were the only two holidays I was ever to have off.

A change had to be made.

An opportunity came to me at the coffee stand and I was able to pick up 5 days a week with weekends off. What?! I jumped at the chance to do something I thoroughly enjoy at a place that I adore with customers that always make me smile.The idea of leaving work not stressed to the max with a million emails to respond to and fires to put out puts a smile on both Cor and my face!

It will be the biggest change in our lives since buying this house. Our income will be a little lower but we will have time. Time together. time to cook meals instead of eat out. Time to budget instead of spend. Time to enjoy each others company without feeling rushed. Time may just be the best gift we could have been given.

I can't even explain the amount of joy our decision has brought to me. I can't wait for a spring spent hiking our mountains, gardening, and projects. A summer spent in the river with friends and eating the veggies we grow and projects galore. And a winter spent baking and volunteering and finishing projects!

I'm looking at this as our trial period for learning to live on one income that is supplemented for when we decide to begin our family. That is the next great thing to come!    

Home

We are at the end of February and we have been in our home for almost 4 months now. It has been amazing.

I had a bit of post-house-buying depression when I realized we had no other plan or schedule made. I had nothing solid to look forward to. That was a very hard adjustment for me.

Now, I have so many wants and plans and needs for our home but I recognize that it will take time. We will be in this home for many years, if not forever, and we have no rush.

In those four months we have ripped up the flooring in our Living room, laundry room and Master closet. We have painted the kitchen, dining, living, family room and hallways. We have laid new flooring in the living room. Hung curtains and blinds on most windows. Accumulated enough furniture to fill the whole house including two king beds and a queen.  We bought a new mailbox that Cory has plans to customize with our name and house number.

We have had multiple over night guests and enjoyed every minute of playing host to family and friends. We have tried the 2 restaurants in town and the one bar.  We have celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my dad's birthday, my birthday and Valentine's day.

We feel home. We feel cozy and excited for the rest of life we will get to live here in our own little chunk of the world.

Boxes, Boxes, Boxes

Well, here we are. Waiting again.

Another roadblock has been thrown our way from people slacking in the government (go figure) and I am stressed to the max.

Our apartment has been slowly packed into boxes stacked high for the last 3 months. We have only two weeks left before we have to vacate and clean the apartment. Thus meaning those boxes have been multiplying at an insane rate. All that is left to pack is our dishes, cupboards and about half of our clothes that have managed to escape the boxes.

It gets to be difficult at times to know that we need to just keep packing with out really having an end spot. We have wonderful people in our life and thankfully we have been offered a place to crash if we need to. It is going to be tough. Everything will need to go into storage.

On top of all that our poor dogs will need to go to boarding. That is if any boarding facility will take an anti-social dog and a pit mix while leaving them together at all times. I was researching a few last night and some look just like a dirty run down pound. I actually began to cry. I can't do that to our poor babies. But a friend recommended the kennel he uses for his Boston terrier and his boxer. I checked them out and it seems perfect. So that feels a little better. Now we need to get them up to date on their vaccines. 

Knowing that we now have a plan makes it a little easier to keep moving forward. I don't feel as worried about our pups and I can calmly focus on the now.

Well, as calmly as possible while wanting to ring the necks of everyone working on our file!

We have ten business days, including today, to sign the papers on this damn house. Our closing date is set for the 31st and I really don't think anyone is going to allow yet another extension. We have already gone over a month past what the original date was set to be.

We received approval from USDA about two weeks ago. We could have already been in our home. But our lender, with very good intentions, decided to cancel that approval and raise our loan amount to cover some extra property taxes. Unfortunately she did this right when the boss went on vacation for a week. So nothing got done. They haven't even touched our file yet. If we don't get approval from them by tomorrow we won't be able to close on time.

I don't know what to do or what I am even able to do.

I just keep my fingers crossed everyday.

Until next time, fingers crossed for us.

oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!!!!

I've been blabbering about buying this damn house since April.

It has consumed my every waking thought.

I've been packing since August and planning since May.

I have paint swatches galore and notebooks full of ideas.

But it really hadn't sunk in that we were going to be homeowners. I knew we were going to be moving into a house in a new area and I knew we would get to do whatever we wanted with it.  It never actually hit me the huge responsibility we were taking on. Don't get me wrong, I am soo game for this it just never hit me with that euphoric-holy-shit-this-is-AMAZING-jumping-for-glee moment.

When we put the offer in and it was accepted we were excited but reserved. We knew we still had so many hoops to jump through and it could still possibly fall through. Then we were happy inspection wasn't devastating, but just happy. The trend continued. When the lien holder approved our amount we were thrilled and felt so ready and so excited but it was quickly dashed with all I've wrote about in the past. Since then every little victory has been met with just a small sigh of relief, nothing too exciting.

Except for yesterday.

Yesterday I had a hell of a night at work. We had one of our busiest nights in a long time and I was pooped and on the verge of being pissy. I went and checked my phone around 9pm last night and this is what I saw:
                         Lender: I wanted to let you know I did hear something from USDA on Friday:)
APPROVAL!! The loan amount was wrong (because we adjusted it to pay some of your insurance costs) so it is being reviewed and will be fine we just need their approval. We will have it sometime next week. Maybe even the following Monday due to this Monday being a holiday. But just wanted to assure you we will have everything in 5 or so business days!!!!

Let me tell ya, I freaked out!!! I started squealing and jumping up and down. I did a cute little chicken dance and then ran out to the kitchen to tell anyone who would listen! I was shaking for a good 5 minutes or so. I felt it. I got that euphoria I wanted! I can only imagine what happens when we are handed those keys!

Now I am packing with a deadline and purpose. I am slowly realizing it. WHoo to the HOOO!!!!

scary times!!!

We have until Thursday to let our apartment know our plans on continueing a month-to-month lease, vacating or re-signing. Thursday is in 5 days. FIVE!

I started to do some math in my head and I decided that if we went month to month and paid for the month of November we would be throwing away about $95o if we only stayed for a week into the month.  It would cost us $1288 for the whole month of Novemeber, plus utilities and all that jazz.

I talked to Cory and decided we should just terminate the lease and give them our intent to vacate. I would prefer to spend that money on things we need. He, like a smart and rational man, didn't think it was the best idea seeing as how this whole process has gone so far. I, being the impatient and frusterated woman that I am, decided to veto him. I am telling this apartment to go stuff it!

I figure if need be we can crash somewhere for a week or two or we can sleep in a U-haul. I've been known to make those pretty cozy.

Cory wasn't too thrilled so I called our lender and asked her how confident she was in us closing before our closing date. (our lease is up on Oct. 31st and our closing date is Oct. 31st) She, thankfully said that she thinks our closing will start in the next week and that is should only be about 2 more until we get the actual keys. Leaving us with a week to move!!! YAY!!!

She said she was 95% sure we should be fine and that terminating will be a good idea. Now let me remind you that she also told us she was 97% sure that we would be fine back in July and then a few hours later called to say the deal was dead. We are not getting too excited but I'm still forging ahead with packing and letting the apartments know we will be bailing out at the end of the month!!

I can possibly be in my new home with paint in my hair in just a few short weeks!  It doesn't even feel real. I feel like I was meant to sit in limbo forever. I think it will all be so surreal when we actually walk in there as owners.

So thank you all for keeping those good vibes going for us!!

Ongoing.....

Since our last chat not much has changed, except for our closing date.

Again.

And for good measure, AGAIN!!

That's right, it changed twice. We extended our closing date to October 19th and then we were requested to push it even farther to October 31st. Just in case.

Just in case what exactly?

Just in case USDA closes for a week in October to do their end of year reports.  Just in case there is a nightmare with USDA boundaries. Just in case our underwriter didn't have all their shit together.

Oh I am so ready.

This is my favorite time of the year and I am being jipped. I don't get to decorate, or bake. In fact, my house has been half-packed for over a month now!

I am missing out on a great time of year, of settling in and getting cozy. A time when we still have semi long days and sunshine to dry the paint. Time before the rains to dry our crawlspace and blow insulation into the attic. The magic Indian summer that Washington always manages to snag. We don't get to take advantage.

Although, I did sneak up to the house yesterday and place gutter splash guards at the bottom of all the gutters. In our inspection we found that there is nothing directing rainwater away from the foundation. No problems with the foundation (thank goodness!) but it does cause a water issue in the crawl space that can be remedied for $30 at home depot. I wanted to get those babies down before our first big rain so that we don't have to deal with it.

In going up to the house we did find that the previous tenants are completely moved out. They even were nice enough to do a real good thorough cleaning of the place! It even looked like the carpets were steamed. On a bad note, every door was unlocked.   I went through and locked up most of what I could, the slider doors don't seem to lock but we put sticks in the tracks.

I was so nervous on the drive up that it would be trashed and vandalized but so far so good! I just want to get in. I just want my home.

For now, we wait some more. You think I would be so much better at this waiting game now that we are 6 months in to this process!!

I leave you with the listing photos until we can get the keys and take our own: