Officially Ours!

Jared at the closing when they gave us the keys to the house. He looks slightly scary I think :)


We closed on the house today so we are officially home owners. I have heard horror stories about closings not going well, being postponed or taking hours to complete. Our closing only took an hour. Our lawyer was really nice and explained things very simply, and our financing only took about 20 min to clear. Other then signing my name about 20 times it was really quite pleasant.

It still doesn't seem official yet, I think everything will set in tomorrow when we sleep there. I'm very excited for the new place. As I'm typing this (at 9:30 at night) our noisy neighbors below us are yelling in Hindi on their porch and blowing cigarette smoke up into our apartment. . .ugh, I will be so happy to be rid of them.

After the closing Jared and I went to the house and were greeted with a bottle of wine from the seller and a nice spread of sandwich makings, chips, soda, and cookies all in our fridge from our real estate agent. After eating a picnic dinner in the middle of our family room we rented a rug shampooer and I cleaned all the carpets while Jared cleaned the kitchen and all the bathrooms. While Jared was cleaning he encountered our first problem with the house (that sure didn't take long). Apparently the left side of the kitchen sink is leaking a little from where the drain connects with the plumbing. An easy fix, but still. . . .we've only owned the house for 4 hours. . .don't we get a little honeymoon period where nothing goes wrong? I'm glad it's a cheap and quick fix though, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.

We'll be moving at 10am tomorrow! Feel free to stop by and help us out.

It's growing!

Pretty much everything is packed except for a select few dishes, clothes in the dressers, and bathroom stuff!

Packing!

We started packing today! One of the benefits of having a husband that works in shipping is we were able to get lots of really nice boxes. (Notice if you enlarge the photo 3 of those big boxes are labeled DVD's. . . yeah, we own way too many movies)

I was putting this off for so long, and I still think we are doing this a little early. We don't have that much stuff! Jared and I have been packing for maybe 5 hours and we have at least 1/2 of the apartment ready to go. Now I have to live for the next 6 days with all our stuff in boxes where the kitchen table used to be. I can't wait till this whole ordeal is over.

Below is a picture of our make shift packing station for fragile things. Jared is quite resourceful. Well I should probably get back to packing. More to come soon!

The Almost Puppy

When I got home from Jenny's baby shower on Sunday I pulled into a parking space and saw this out my front windshield.

Now if you know me at all I grew up with mini schnauzers and this little guy looks exactly like a mini schnauzer puppy. So I looked around and didn't see any owners. He was shaking like a leaf and was really dirty. I tried to call him over but he wouldn't move, so I crouched down and slowly approached him. He growled a little when I first came up to him, but I let him smell my hand and he seemed ok. After waiting about 10 minutes nobody came around to claim him I decided to take him up to the apartment. Greg and Jared came home from fishing and I showed them what I found. At this point the puppy was totally relaxed, playing and being super cute. Yes I wanted to keep him, but he was wearing a collar (no tags though). The collar was super small and too tight for his neck, so that combined with his dirty state made me think he may have been missing for a while. Sooooo, I called the police department and they said somebody had reported a missing puppy fitting the description. Turns out he was from the apartment complex across the way. I felt good knowing I was returning him to his family, but a part of me was hoping nobody was looking for him.

Normally it sounds like a happy ending for the puppy but when I returned him to the lady she told me he has only been missing for 2 hours. This made me a little upset because if he was only missing for 2 hours I doubt he should have looked the way he did (really dirty, icky collar). She asked me where his collar was and I told her I thought it was too small for him and I took it off. She stated, "oh it will pop off if it's too small" ummm, no!. . . . .she also told me that the "other" dogs got out too. I asked how many and she said they have 3 other dogs besides the puppy. In an apartment! Yeesh. I also asked how they got out, and she said she didn't know, and they "must have pushed the door open or something." I hate people that don't take care of their animals so although I did a good deed, I felt crummy thinking maybe he would have been better off with a new family.

Insurance

I know this is the way it is with owning a house, but it always seems like there is something else to do. Right now we're in the process of picking home owners insurance. We were originally going to just go with State Farm (they do our renters and car insurance now), but we got a quote from a local insurance company that was a little cheaper. I'm still leaning towards State Farm, they are a large company and we've been really happy with them over the years. If we wanted a cheaper deal with the local company we would have to switch our car insurance to them to get the multiple line discount. . . .eh, we'll see. I doesn't hurt to shop around.

I think Jared and I are going to start packing this weekend. He wanted to start 2 weeks ago, but the idea of living around boxes and in chaos for a whole month was horrible sounding to me. I think it's finally time. I suppose we could just hide all the boxes in the 2nd bedroom. I don't feel the pressure to get everything done because we have the apartment till November. All we need to do is get the big stuff over there and the smaller things we can move over slowly. I hate moving. Hopefully this will be the last time, or at least for a very long time.

If anybody reads my facebook, you know my eye issues still aren't cleared up. So here is the story in a nut shell. I have blepharitis, it's an eyelid infection associated with the oil glands around your eye. It's a stubborn infection and it's normal to take a month or 2 to get cleared up. The doctor said my case is a really bad/stubborn one. Right now he has me on azithromycin ointment for the next 30 days. If that doesn't work he said he'll put me on an oral antibiotic. The idea of this lasting 2 months is so depressing. I'm really worried it won't clear up. The doctor already told me it's usually a chronic condition and I will probably get this again in a year or 2. That I suppose I can handle, but the last time I was there he said I may not be able to wear my contacts the way I have been wearing them. I guess my right eye isn't tearing enough and it could cause irritation. I suppose I should be thankful that at least he said I'll be able to wear them again. What's really bothering me is the waiting to get better. At least these next 3 weeks are going to be really busy, that will hopefully make the time fly by.

Wishful Thinking

Jared and I are sitting on the couch talking about all the things we want to get for the house. (Regardless of how much they cost.) Here is what we came up with.

Jared's List:
Pool Table
Plasma T.V.
Garden
Finished Basement
New Fish Tank

Kristen's List:
Master Bedroom Set
Couches
Kitchen Table with 6 chairs
Hardwood Floors on the entire main floor
Piano
Closet Organizers
Nice Bookshelves

Here are the things we need to buy:
Lawn Mower
Hose
New Locks


I'm sure there will be a million and one other things we will have to get. I think you kind of discover those things once you have a house. It will be a fun adventure.

The Numbers Are In

We got the appraisal numbers today! To be quite honest we were a little disappointed. We were hoping the house would appraise for at least 10k over what we paid and it ended up appraising for only 2k over. It is still good news though don't get me wrong :) We are definitely happy. I think the big down side is that the walk out basement isn't finished. Once we do that it will add a lot of value to the property.

We are not quite sure what is next in the process. . . .I'll post more news if we hear anything. All we may have to do is get a giant check from the bank and drive to town on the 31st!!! Only 3 more weeks to go.

Almost There!

All the paper work was sent in today for our mortgage application and we found out the appraisal is happening this week. So if things go well we should know by Friday what the house appraises for. Cross you fingers! I've heard some horror stories from other friends that are buying/building this year about really low appraisals. The worst one being my friend John who is building a brand new house that appraised for less then it cost him to build it! So ridiculous. The close date is set for July 31st at 3pm.

Now the next decision to make is when to move. The problem with this decision is we are helping my mom out by driving up to our cabin with her the weekend after we close on the house. The reason she wants us to do this is so we can drive the car back by ourselves and she can ride home with dad when he comes back. Driving 11 hours by yourself sucks. The following weekend is Danielle's bridal shower, the weekend after that I work, so that takes us already to the 4th weekend in August. We don't really want to wait 4 weeks to move. . . .how can you resist such a beautiful house! So it's looking like we may try and move the day after we close, and leave for Minnesota the next day. . . oye.

Eye update: I'm on another 10 days of antibiotic eye drops for my stupid eyes. It's been almost 4 weeks now I've been dealing with this. I'm really at the end of my rope. I keep thinking with the luck I've been having when I get my 300 dollar brand new pair of contacts my vision will have changed and I won't be able to see out of them (if the infection ever goes away that is). It's hard not to be a little pessimistic at this point. I want new eyes for my birthday.