Horrible Neighbors

That's apparently what our neightbor thinks we are.  Since we moved into our house almost 3 years ago, in August, we've had the county called  on us about one thing or another.  Everything pretty much came to a head on Friday when I found out that our neighbor, we have several but this is our only next door neighbor the others live across the street or are seperated by many trees and a creek, decided to talk to my 11 year old step-son about things she would like us to do at our house.  Okay now I'm the first to admit that in my marriage hubz is the more reasonable, reserved of us but I especially lose all reasonableness when you involve my child!  Had my sister-in-law and a friend been at our house I probably would have marched right over to this woman's house and let her know what I thought of her, this could have ended badly, but instead I kept my wits about me -- barely -- called hubz and ranted and raved then called the Momma and ranted some more.  Saturday Hubz tried, you just can't reason with bitchiness, to talk to her about talking to our child and about her harrassment, since at this point that's what it is, and she pretty much told him that we're horrible neighbors and that it's been painful living next door to us. WTF!!!  We've been in the house 3 years, we bought it as a foreclosure and hubz lost his job for 6 months so we were just happy to keep the lights on, water running and a roof over our head!  But she doesn't care because as she kept telling Hubz, owning a house is a responsiblity -- YA THINK!!! -- sure our backyard doesn't look as well kept as hers but we also don't have the money to pay yard people and we have jobs and kids to take care of.

Sufice it to say -- it's now war and this woman has no idea who she's messing with!  Oh and did I mention we have no HOA so anything and everything we do, or don't do, to our house is because we want to and not because we have to.  She reminds me why I HATE people.

Spring Cleaning

Every year I say I'm going to tackle spring cleaning.  Give my house the scrub down it deserves and kick start Spring and the beautiful weather it's sure to bring with a fantastically (<~ that's a word right?) clean house.  Every year it's a complete failure...the best laid plans right?  However, this year I was serious.  With so many things in my life feeling like they're spiraling out of control I had to do something to take back some control and the first place I can do that is in my own house, I'm still trying to figure out how to do it with my life.  So Saturday I cleaned Bean's room, switiched out small clothes for bigger ones, got rid of stuffed animals and clothes and just need to vaccum and steam clean his carpet.  Yesterday hubz and I tackled our room, or at least half, by vacuming and steam cleaning the carpet .  We have a GIANT king size bed with a GIANT dresser to  match so we only got half the room done but we'll finish tonite and next weekend we'll move on to the office, which is in desperate need of a purge.  My goal is to have the inside of the house done by mid-April, since I'm only working on stuff on weekends, and then to move to the outside in May, once it's nice on a consistent basis.

With getting the house in order I've been trying to come up with ways to get my life in order, since I feel like it's spinning out of control.  Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent a time that's suppose to allow for the preparation of the coming of Christ and time to reflect and repent.  It's normally a day I take to go to Church and reflect and prepare for the Lenten season but this year I couldn't go because times just didn't work out and with virtually being a single parent during the week it's hard to get the things important to me done because of taking care of the boys.  So now I feel out of sorts.

Baby it's cold ... inside

Our heat is broken and has been for almost two weeks now.  We had been waiting for a friend of Hubz' to come and fix it for us like he does when ever we have issues but apparently he's busy or rude but either way it's not fixed.  So Friday I called a local heating and air conditioning place to have someone come out on Saturday, which costs us an extra $20 because it was a weekend but no biggy, to hopefully fix the damn heat!  No such luck because apparently the thermostat on the actual unit shot, kaput, broken!  The nice kid said we'd probably be able to have get it fixed by Monday or Tuesday, but wait just kidding when he called yesterday to tell me how much it would cost, $432 ... what the 'F', he also informed me that it would take 7-10 days for the damn part to come in ...SAY WHAT!?  Of course the temperatures have been getting colder and colder, why wouldn't they we have not heat, and I don't think I can take it much longer.  The momma has offered to let us come stay at her house and at least we could bring the dogs.

Why is it that things always go to the shitter during the holidays?  I mean really!  So now we're just waiting, in our very cold house ... except for the bedrooms which have space heaters and is the only place you'll find me.  I refuse to cook because it's so damn cold on the middle level of our house and doing laundry is a chore, more than normal, because I have to bundle up to go to the basement. Oi vey! Oh and did I mention the 10 day mark, which is surely how long it'll take because that's just our luck, is on Christmas Eve?!  Merry Christmas!

Yard Work

So we bought this house 7 months ago and it was a foreclosure. Though it was way better than most of the foreclosures we looked at it still needs a little TLC. Lots of paint and tons of yard work, especially in the back yard. Well, this past weekend we started with yard work and while it doesn't look like much yet with the right eye you can see what is has the potential to be. Unfortunately for me, my allergies do not enjoy the yard work and after spending Saturday and Sunday outside most of both days I woke up yesterday with sneezing, sniffles and watery eyes...oh the joys. Add to the allergies sinus pressure and it's like a day at the carnival! I then thought it'd be a good idea to bowl yesterday where at least 1/2 the bowling alley smokes...HELLO ASHTHMA!!! My asthma is pretty mild and really only acts up when I'm sick or my allergies are really bad. Needless to say I had an asthma attack at bowling, thank goodness for my inhaler that I found out was almost empty! DAMN IT...it was enough to help a little but by the time I got home I had to have a breathing treatment..where the only bright spot was that little Gozer was freaked out by the machine and barking at me like a vicious killer. Lucky for me I've learned to not overreact when I can't breath, it makes it worse. Now I'm at work, I remembered to take my allergy med and it's a whole new day. I tell you what I sure hope this isn't just a glimpse into what allergy seasons going to be like this year!

BUSY

This house buying process is a little exhausting. Besided the packing who knew there was so much entailed? Inspections, insurance quotes, more inspections, papers to sign, checks to write, more papers to sigh...whew! However, all our inspections have gone GREAT, I only had to call one other place to get an insurance quote that wasn't totally absurd and so far only two semi-large checks have been written. Of course we haven't gone to closing yet so that could all change. We're still waiting on our apprasail, hopefully the apprasail isn't crazy.

Now I just have to pack the rest of the house with no help from my wonderful husband, he's too busy at least that's what he keeps saying. Apparently I do nothing so I have all the time in the world to pack an entire 3 bedroom single-family home! But I'm not bitter.

I already have plans for the bathroom on the main level of the new house...it's going to be my first project. I'm hoping we can have a birthday/housewarming in October, but we'll see.

OMG!!!

It finally happened! We have a house. Well almost anyway. The bank accepted our offer on this house: http://tinyurl.com/6q9okd. Besides the blue carpet it's a good house. We've bought an oven b/c we need it for financing purposes and b/c well we need an oven. It's within our original price range and it has tons of potential. I can't believe it! The plan is to close at the end of the month. Thank goodness! Only one month left in this s#*^t whole.

Home

Well after a fantastic trip to Florida. I'm back and not happy about it at all, but what can you do.

April was a beautiful bride and who knew Adam cleaned up so well? They were both glowing and I'm so happy that I was asked to be a part of their day. The ceremony was wonderful and the reception was a party, with many UT Alums in attendance. I drank waaaaaaaaaaayyy to much and paid for it the whole plane ride home. I'll upload pictures soon, that's assuming I can figure it out.

So now I'm back and still NO HOUSE!!! Everyone keeps saying that we'll find something and I know but WHEN?! I'm sick on this crap whole that oh by the way now has small mold problem in the basement bathroom/laundry room. And the AC still isn't working great and fat bastard hasn't sent anyone out to charge it like he said he would. BIG suprise, right?

In better news, I had my mid-year review yesterday and my boss had glowing words for me. She does want me to do more analysis then I currently do, although it's not normally necessary since most of what I do is no brainer, but okay. And she wants me to take on some supervisory stuff when we have people helping, not that that happens often. My mom says she maybe forming me to take over when she leaves but she's not retirement age for a while still and I don't plan on being here till then. We'll see what happens though. Seems life is nothing like I expected it to be at almost 27 so ya never know.

Week in Reveiw

What a craptastic week! That's what I get for extending the NC vacay by a day. Work's been hell....my house is a mess...and we have NO HOT WATER!!!! Wednesday morning I took a lukewarm shower and by Wednesday evening the hot water was all gone. Now it'll take the fat bastard that is our property manager at least the next three days to get a plumber out, I'm speaking from experience. And he'll expect one of us to take the day off to meet whatever bozo he sends out. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I want my own place. If this was our house we could've had the damn cheap, tiny water heater replaced yesterday.

Speaking of houses. We're going back out on Sunday to search some more. I did find this:http://www.homedatabase.com/kevinenglish/PW6732689
I think it's cute and may make us both happy and the price doesn't hurt either. It does have to Master Bedrooms which is a little weird but I'm sure we'd beabel to work it out. We might even beable to turn it into two bedrooms with a joint bathroom. We'll see. I just want a house. I'm so done with the craphole money pit!

In even happier news by best friend has returned safely from another trip to the sandbox. Now I have one less thing to worry about. We haven't talked yet, we keep missing each other, but just knowing he's back safe and home with his wife and dog is reassuring enough for me.

Update

The other house we put in a contract appears to now be off the market, so I'm guessing we didn't get that one. So it's more house shopping for us. Hopefully third times a charm.

Nope

So we didn't get the house in Dumfries. Oh well..moving in on. We're still waiting to here about the second house we put a contract in on and we've put a contract in on another house it the same neighborhood as the second house. Hubz is holding out hope for the backyard house: http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=25052125515 check out both pages. It's an okay house but older than I'd like put it has everything we want except a two car garage.

In other news. We spent that past three days at the beach in NC. It was great and well needed. Now the next month will be super busy. The step-son has a cub scout camp out this weekend. I'll be splitting my time between that and a belated birthday celebration for my favorite sister-in-law. Next weekend is my big 5k, then it's off to Tampa for the wedding of one of my favorite ladies to a great guy. I can't wait. When we get back it full steam ahead with the preparing the step-son for his first overnite camp. He's going away for a whole week before we pack him up and send him to his mom's for the summer. I can't wait for July just so I can hopefully relaxed. Unless of course we're in a new house by then...oh wait there's those GREs I still need to take.

More to come....

HOLY COW!!!!

Hubz just called to tell me that the Realtor thought if we raised our offer on the first house by $4000 (equal to about a $20 difference in payments) we'd probably get the house. WHAT!? Okay so I thought this was suppose to take a little longer. I'm still set on not getting it, but OMG...I may have a house by the end of the week after only looking for a week.

FINGERS CROSSED!

Hurry Up!!!

So today we should hear about one of the houses we put in a contract on. It's the foreclosure and the one we like the most, but I'm not really expecting the outcome to be positive. Regardless I wish they would just hurry up and tell us one way or the other. I've checked my email at least tweleve times today. I tell you what all the waiting that's necessary for purchasing a house is for the birds. I HATE waiting. Just tell me one way or the other so if we need to keep looking we can. We're suppose to go out on Friday to look at more houses but Curtis may be working a side job and since we need the money I can't really complain. It sucks though because we were both going to off on Friday, which is rare, and I was looking forward to spending the day together. Eh..oh well it'll all be worth it once we have a house. Especially if it's the foreclosure.

House Hunting...take two

So after 6.5 hours of looking at houses yesterday we found two that we liked..ALOT. So we're putting in a contract on both. One's a little higher than we wanted to go in price, but totally worth it and the other's right at the top of what we wanted to spend and again totally worth it.



Check em out...what do you think?



First choice: http://www.homedatabase.com/PW6760919



Second choice: http://www.homedatabase.com/PW6743628

House Hunting

So tonite we officially start house hunting...AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I tell you what I'm crazy overwhelmed and we haven't even started. I was trying to grow my nails, yeah they're gone I bit them all off. I know it's smart to be doing this now rather then sink more money it to someone elses house, but I think I maybe an alcoholic before this process even begins. Of course I will have Curtis, Stephane (our Realtor) and Melissa (the sister-in-law and whose company will be doing our closing) along for the ride it's still nerve racking. However...my eyes are on the prize. MY VERY OWN HOUSE!!!

Mother's Day

I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a step-mom. My mom and sisters all came over and I cooked dinner, since I don't consider myself a real mom, for them. It was a good time had by all, until we realized that our unfinished room in our basement was flooding along with the bathroom and the corner where my very expensive, handmade curio cabinet was sitting. NOT HAPPY! When hubz called the management guy he politely responded with...What do you want me to do? And so starts the house hunting.

That one little comment was enough to push hubz over the edge and so no we're moving up the house buying to this summer. We've been pre-approved and we're going on our first house hunting excursion this Friday! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm excited, anxious, overwhelmed and about a million other emotions. But in the end we'll be homeowners and then it's on to babies and grad school (which by the way is going to kick my butt since I can't even figure out the GRE!).