Yard Work day

So sore...oh my gosh. Now I remember why I was so ripped when I was doing archaeology. Back then I was shoveling, troweling and digging for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. This weekend I've put in about 7 hours and feel like my muscles are rejecting my body.

It will well be worth it in the spring though! I went over to my mom's house and we went through to thin some of her plants. One hour later and I don't think we even made a dent! Dad took his new truck to Meadows Farms to get a load of funk (mulch) and met us at my house.

Saturday was the big push day. We put my tlc cherry tree into the ground, planted about 40 baby Burning Bushes along the front yard (where the white I's are. You can't see them at all they are such babies), and put about 8 mums into my front house garden since the Blackberry Lilies are done for the year. Dad took his chainsaw and with Scott's help cleared out all of the dead trees and brush from the back fenceline. Then we put in about 25-30 Rose of Sharon bushes (babies) along that fence line, with Ajuga as a little groundcover between the plants. (You can also see my neighbors dog in the picture. They are adorable and keep me entertained while gardening). I would love to eventually terrace this part of the backyard into two or three tiers with a rock waterfall. Ah ambitions...

Today we worked on the bulb garden in the side yard. When we bought the house there were already beautiful purple Irises that bloomed and made the wall beautiful. We spaced out those Irises and also added a white/purple variety I purchased from Home Depot. We also planted some Hyacinthe purchased from Martin's grocery as well as some Snow Glories. Then we added some bulbs mom and I had dug up from her yard a few months ago which included tulips, daffodils, yellow irises, and lillies. I cannot wait until they all start popping in the spring!

I also planted some Hyacinthe plants next to the tiger lilies in the from garden. The zinnias and geraniums were awesome, but sadly are going down now that it's dipping into the 30's.

I also think Virginia forgot about transitional seasons. We had the AC on all summer to combat the 90+ temperatures from May until October. Then mid-October we went from 80 one day to 40 the next and have had our heat on ever since. Come on VA! Get a grip. I want some transitional seasons where I don't have to pay for climate control!

Last weekend was crazy Halloween weekend! Scott and I went over to my parent's house to help set up and hand out Halloween prizes to the kids. This year we had books for anyone under 14 and some candy for older kids. We also had the annual glow bracelets that the kids adore.

I was a Seuss Bird (complete with bright purple tights and a feather tail) and Scott was a Superbowl spoiler in his Lion's jersey. The jersey was even funnier because the Lions actually beat our local team earlier that day and, let's face it, the Lions are not a great team by reputation.

We were still setting up when the first family stopped by. The dad was amazed at the yard, and said that this was their first stop of the night and the kids were asking "Are we going to the cool house this year? Let's go to the cool house!" the entire way. We gave them a show and as they walked back towards the car the son starts taking off his costume! He thought they were done for the night and was ready to go home.

I think we had well over 80 kids stop by that night and everyone seemed really happy with the house. It was definitely a successful night.

Ode to a Lumina

Yes this is a post about a car, but not just any car, my very first car.

When I turned 16 mom and I went shopping to go get a car for me to drive. This was a family car sure, but I got to be the primary driver and actually have a say in what we would be getting. We came home with a 97 Chevy Lumina. Keep in mind that it was 2000 at the time, so getting a 97 car was a huge deal!
She was emerald green, oh so pretty, and had huge comfy seats. I spent a lot of time in that car and a lot of great memories happened revolving around her.
I recently drove the Lumina when my current car went on hiatus, and loved that 10 years later she was still part of the family. Until today, when she was traded in with dad's truck to buy another truck and now I'm sad (ha, sad over a car, I know).

So let me tell you about some memories involving the Lumina and why I am sad that she is gone (even though it really was time for her to retire)
- When I was 18 I started dating my high school crush. One day I was over at his house and got pissed at him for whatever reason. My friend happened to live across the street and came over to talk with me in the car. Well, we found some ladybug stickers I had and decided the only way to feel better was to cover the car in lady bug stickers. Now I'm not talking 1 or 2. I'm talking a couple hundred lady bugs covering the interior of the car. 10 years later mom was still finding ones randomly under the seat or in the glove box. She did save several for me though :)
- The Lumina has taken me and my family from VA to Wisconsin and back on many occasions. Nothing like 23 hour drives to help with family bonding.
- Spring of 2004 the Lumina took me and 3 of my girlfriends to Daytona Beach Fl. for spring break. The party started the night before however. We were at a friend's house the night before for some bad movies and parked the Lumina in his lot. We went to leave at midnight and guess what, the car would not start. We tried everything, including a mechanic friend who said it sounded like the starter died. Not good when we were taking this car on a 14 hour trip the next morning. Then we decided (how, I don't know) that the Lumina just needed gas. Cue a crazy idea to create a funnel out of a sprite bottle to pour the gas into the car (we were smart...). Safe to say, that did not work. Went back inside and crashed at the friends house. We had an amazing time and it was a great birthday (did I mention this was on my birthday?). The next day we called AAA and sure enough the car just needed gas. It has a little more than 1/4th of a tank but was parked on a slope steep enough to prevent gas from getting to the proper place.
We were off! Within the first 3 miles of the trip I got my first speeding ticket, whatever happened to warnings?
- One summer I slept in the car for a week. I was camping for work and bears were in the area. I just put the seat on recline and slept away.

There are many more, but those are the stories sticking out in my mind right now. I think having the Lumina gone has really been a signal that I've grown up and moved on from where I used to be in life. No more "Earth is Full, Go home" or "Annoy the boring" bumper stickers, no more randomly putting stickers or sleeping in cars just for the hell of it. You would think that getting married, buying a house, the miscarriages, or finances would have jolted the realization that I'm a different, adult type person, but no, it's the trade in of a car.

Last day of freedom

Well, today is my last day of freedom before I go back to work. I have thoroughly enjoyed my summer off and was really glad my husband convinced me not to pick up a summer job. I definitely stayed busy enough getting everything done around the house and really loved having so much time to spend with my husband, parents, animals, everything.

Today I rescued a cherry tree, so it's time to start researching them. My local garden center has a TLC section for plants that have seen better days and after this summer, the section was pretty full. I found this little cherry tree for only $7.99, originally $39.99. She has a lot of dead branches but the stem (trunk?) seems sturdy enough and still has some leaves trying to grow. I gave her a pot with some nice rich soil and placed it in a cauldron so the water can slowly soak up into the roots and give her back some life.

The pink hallway is also officially gone! We purchased a telescoping rod ...thing...from Home Depot as well as a corner and edge piece that could be screwed onto the rod. We actually managed to get the entire entrance way using this method without having to get up onto a ladder. It looks fantastic and so open and clean.

We also replaced the outside light fixtures, so I will have to get pictures of those to post.

Getting the Grill

Today was fun and exciting :) For the past two weeks or so my parent's have been offering to buy Scott a grill, but we haven't told him. Today we woke up and went shopping under the guise of getting shoes for an upcoming wedding as well as some odds and ends for the house. We purchased new lights for the exterior of the house, filters for our AC system, and got some great ideas for flooring for the dining room and kitchen.

We ended up at Sears and brought home this baby. Scott could not have been more thrilled when we told him that we were taking home a grill today.

Of course seconds after we got the grill into the garage the skies opened and we had our second crazy thunderstorm of the summer. 70 mph wind gusts, torrential downpours and lots of flying debris.

Let's see...so Scott rides his motorcycle to work and we get storms, we buy a grill and we get storm...what else can we do to bring some rain to our poor parched land?

Pictures pictures and more pictures!

This is going to be a very heavy picture post so be prepared!

We will start the post with a picture of my dog, because I love to show her weight loss progress to the world. The cool thing is how her coloring is changing as she loses the weight. She is actually starting to show the classic Catahoula Leopard coloration which is so beautiful and fantastic.


My flowers are also blooming like crazy. The VA heat has finally calmed down a little bit and they are thriving. Here is a far view of the front of my house and a close up.









These flowers are the 4th generation from seeds that originally came from George Washington's flower garden at Mount Vernon. I interned there one year and they let me gather about 10 seeds. Well, those seeds grew and gave me 30, then 30 more, etc. I've collected about 60 seeds so far this year which makes me so thrilled. We are going to be using the flowers for a lot more of our landscaping next year.



My yard has also turned into a major hotspot for birds lately. We have a red house finch some cardinals, chickadees
and doves.




















We also had a crazy storm go through my area the other day. Of course it came through the day my husband rode his motorcycle to work. We had 70 mph winds and a fast downpour. At one point I heard a loud CRACK and looked in the backyard to see this




That was once a 40' dead tree which was covered in poison ivy. To get an idea for scale, my garden to the right of the tree is 4' by 4', and the pine trees behind it are about 20 feet.









And just for kicks here is one of my favorite pictures from our vacation to Maine this year.

We went curtain shopping

Today we decided to go curtain shopping so we could add some curtains to our dining room and give it a more finished feel. We hit Target, Wal-Mart and Pier 1 but didn't find anything that we liked. We did however find this awesome comforter/sham set at Target that we fell in love with . I think it makes our bedroom look a lot nicer than our old striped comforter. I originally wanted that gray color on the walls, but it turned out much bluer. I do like the blue though, especially on a nice sunny morning.




The other day I worked on the window areas of our living room. I painted them with the same green paint we used in the small living room. I think it really brings the room to life and adds a bit more color to the upstairs of the house. This is the large window cut-out that overlooks the landing of the house and here is the window that we were curtain shopping for . The blinds are great, and good quality, but the window just doesn't look finished to us. We were thinking of putting a valance (spelling?) over the upper portion and possibly some side curtains that would be looped to the side.


We also decided to stop into a few room stores on the way home to continue our quest for the elusive black leather recliner for Scott. He's been wanting one since forever, but it was never really in the budget, or we didn't have a house yet. He found one at the store and completely fell in love. Too bad we don't have $600 on us at the moment. My parents pulled me to the side and said they would buy us the chair as a house warming/birthday present if we were sure it was the one we wanted. We let the sales lady Jill know we would be on our way back, then went to look at some other stores. Finally after the long day we sat down with Scott and told him that we would be buying the couch, and my parents were getting us the chair as a present. I have never seen someone so excited to buy furniture! We'll be getting it delivered from Grand furniture on Tuesday, so he'll come home from work and have a new living room to relax in.

There was happy news in our mailbox too! We received our notice that our tax credit for the new homebuyer is in the mail and should reach us at any time! Perfect timing :)

Oh cat, how I love you

This is Demon aka Mcfluff, Flufferbutter, Fluffy pants, or McFluffster.

She helped us move by providing quality inspection of all the boxes prior to them being filled with objects. She is also my baby and has fully commmitted me to being the crazy cat lady.

Today was a Demon day. She is not feeling well at all so we got to take a fun trip to the vet. I called the vet we take Katie to...no vet in the office after noon. Ok, call the next number on googles list, no vet in the office after noon, the next is not open Wednesdays period. The emergency vet can't fit her in until after 6 (it was 1 when I was calling) due to the amount of emergencies today.
Did I miss something? Is today "Vet vacation Wednesday" or something.
I finally find a vet a few towns open who is available and has a spot for Demon to come in at 2:30. Finally!

I pop her in the car and we head on over. For being a small town vet the facility at Roseville Vet Clinic is outstanding! The receptionist is really nice and Howie the pet cockatiel made for interesting entertainment. I think we were there a whole 1 minute before being escorted to the examination room. Demon's temperature, gums and heart were all fine. They did a GI examination and found nothing impacting there to cause her symptoms and the fecal was clean.

Final diagnosis? Possible food poisoning from a bad can of wet food resulting in vomiting and diarrhea. She was sent home with some medicine to get her stomach/intestines feeling better and she gets to eat turkey meat for the next few days.
Now the fun part starts. Have you ever tried to medicate a cat before? Yeah, it's not pretty. Add to that the fact that she does not eat human food at all, with the exception of tuna. No joke. I have tried giving her pieces of chicken and beef before because she is always interested in what I am cooking. She wants absolutely nothing to do with it. I purchased some ground turkey in the hopes I can mash it into a bit of a pate and maybe she'll be tricked into thinking it's really delicious wet food.
Then again, she's on a 24 hour fast, so by tomorrow morning she may be happy just to have anything to eat!

A post about my pup

Katie our Catahoula has been going through some major life changes, so I thought I should give her a post of her own.
She is going on 10, and her health has been declining in a fairly big way. The apartment was not good for her in those last months. She could not go down the steps to the apartment so she could only go outside if Scott was home to physically carry her up and down the steps. It is horrible to not even be able to take your own dog out to use the bathroom. I really started worrying that she was going to pass away before we got her into a house. She deserves a yard and things to see, and was just so static in the apartment.

Well, she had a vet appointment about 3 weeks ago to get a rabies update and we walked away with a lot of solutions to try. We put her on Rimodyl, a pain killer which should help with the joint pain and improve mobility. She also is on a very strict diet because she needs to lose 20 pounds (ouch). After just one week with the Rimodyl she was walking around, going down our small set of steps, and acting a lot younger. 5 pounds later and she can handle all of the steps, walk around the house several times (we do laps) and is even taking some adventures down our street.

Updates to the house

This past month has gotten crazy! School is done for the year and this summer I'm devoting to the house. Here are some pictures of the progress we have made so far.


This is the start to my little veggie garden. I planted carrots, radishes, colorabi, beans, spinach and peppers. Everything got off to a really great start but then we had one day where it hit 32F at night and went to 90F during the day. The beans and colorabi are trying to grow still but most of the little ones got baked. That's ok, we'll try again next year.


Here is out old dining room. Note the various shades of green. The dining room is kind of small, and very dark. We mostly use it to feed the cat since we have to feed her on a table to prevent the dog from eating her food.



And here is our shiny new dining room! Much better I think.


We also re-did the paint job in the kitchen to better tie it in with the dining room. The same white on the dining room is now going throughout the top of the kitchen. Eventually we want to do a tile backsplash on the blue part to give it a bit mroe pizazz, along with getting a black refridgerator to finish off our black/red appliance theme we seem to have going.

Moving vendor reviews

I guess I should do a vendor review for the moving process, since we have had a lot of experience with various companies lately.

Southern Trust Mortgage Company - A++
Beyond outstanding. We told them our previous experience with Metlife and STMC went above and beyond to make sure that we were taken care of. They called us daily with any updates to loan processing and really made sure every little thing was filled in correctly. They were super friendly, professional, and closing was actually a really fun process. We were in and out of closing in about 20 minutes which was phenomenal.

2 Marines and a Truck - Also A++
These guys were absolutely amazing and I will always use them for future moves. Bryan was my main point of contact and he made me feel so at ease about the whole process. There was no fee for cancellation or rescheduling and they were very understanding about all the little snags that can (but didn't) come up with closing and moving. The day of the move they arrived about 10 minutes early and wow were they 3 big freaking dudes! You could tell these guys were Marines, but they were also incredibly friendly, and even gave my dog a treat after she spent 3 hours barking at them. They loaded all of our monster furniture in record time and did not break a single thing or scratch anything. When we got to the house they took only 30 minutes to unload and again were just amazing.
This company was definitely a godsend throughout this whole process, and I will spread the joy they gave me forever.

Budget Truck - B
We went with Budget because they were the only company who could give us a pick-up time prior to 24 hours out, and who had a drop-off location in our new city. However the customer service lady at pick-up talked for about an hour about every ticket she got, every move she went on, and every movie she saw. Ok lady, I have to move now, and the earliest we could pick up the truck was 1, let's shut it and get a move on ok?
They also charged us $20 more than on my reservation, which I forgot to print out.
But it's ok, because *knock on wood* we're not moving again for a long long time!

And I'm back

So it turns out I'm pretty bad at keeping a blog updated, woops!

We have been in the house for about 3 weeks now, although it just now hit me that this is ours. Our neighbors that we have met so far have been wonderful, and I've met most of the dogs.
In the past few weeks we have built a veggie garden (which is already growing many plants!), put in flowers, mulched around the trees and mowed about 15 times. We are mostly unpacked now and just starting to get organized. Today we managed to get a lot of little things done, along with getting all of our door locks changed (finally!).

We also saw a hot air balloon fly over our house today, random, but very fun to see.

I will try to upload some pictures of our progress tomorrow.

Paint day

Saturday was the day of much much painting. My goal for the day was to have all three bedrooms painted so that they would have a week to air out before we moved ourselves and the animals into the house.
It was also the day to drop off my chinchilla at my parent's house for the week. She does not like strangers or commotion so it will be easier on her to not be in our apartment when the movers come this weekend. I got her situated and then we headed over to my house to paint.



We started with the master bedroom. The paint we had picked out for the room was a very light grey color to give some color to the room without making it too dark. The room is only 12' by 12' so we definitely don't want to make the room appear smaller.
Dad taped off the room, I grabbed the edger, and mom went at it with the paint roller. The paint went on a little bit bluer than I had originally planned but as it covered more of the room it evened out. When it was finished I was completely in love with our bedroom. It was light and fresh and calming all at once. I love it and couldn't wait to show Scott.




Next up was the chinchilla room which will also double as my sewing room. The color for that room was named Honey Sand. Mom put the first roll on the wall and we both looked at it and thought "um...this one may be changing". It was still a neutral beige color but a slightly different color than the current wall color, so it cast a very weird shadow. Alright, let's finish and see how it looks. Once again, I'm in love. The color is this beautiful warm honey color and brightened up the room immensely. It was a beautiful neutral pallete for a room that will be filled with colorful fabrics and various sewing patterns.



Due to a lack of rollers (and a frustrated father who needed to make a Home Depot run) we decided to give the kitchen a spin. The strange pea..camo green was going away, and a beautiful bright blue was taking its place. We also tried painting the top the same Honey Sand to give above the cabinets a bit of a neutral color, as the dining room was also going to be a dark blue. We will see how that turns out after being in the space for a while.




Last but not least, the nursery/guest room. We went with a blue-green color which I was very happy with. It made the room bright and cheerful without being too Easter egg pastel or over-powering.

A very long Saturday, but a very good one.

Home ownership is exhausting!

Well, it has certainly been one exciting weekend!

We started off the weekend with a bang by buying our first house. Scott could not sleep at all the night before, and I was up with the sun out of pure excitement. We drove to Leesburg and arrived at Monarch Settlement to go sign the paperwork. Rebecca had been our main point of contact and she was absolutely amazing, so it was really good to meet her in person for the first time.
Our Realtors arrived and Chuck handed me our new house key. Well then, let's just skip the paperwork and go paint ;) Ok, we'll do the paperwork. After a ton of signatures, and two tons of initials we were through. I think all in all the closing took about 25 minutes. I guess there's a plus to purchasing a foreclosure home, there is no seller at the table!
Our loan officer Brad also came in about halfway through the process. He has been a huge help through this whole process and a definite sanity saver. Our Realtor, loan officer and closing attorney all worked with each other on a regular basis, so it gave our closing a very relaxed and fun mood, which I loved. It was equal part "signing your life away" and "have fun with your friends."
Really, they have become good friends, as hard as that may be to believe. We have been looking at houses for so long that it will be very strange to go for a month or more without talking to our Realtor, but I'll find a way to manage.

After the closing we went straight back to the house and just reveled in the fact that it was ours! It didn't feel like ours yet, it felt like we were just doing another inspection or another walk through. It was similar to the feeling I had the morning after the wedding. You know you just made a huge change in your life, but it hasn't really sunk in yet.

We then picked up my mom and went to grab paint, and a flag to hang by the front door. We have a house!!

Night before closing

Hurray! Tomorrow is the big day! In less than 15 hours we will be signing our lives away and officially have a house. This weekend is packed too.
Tomorrow morning we close on the house, then have to get the water turned on and purchase the paint we want.
Saturday I'm going to the house with my friend and parents (Scott has to work) to paint. We have to get the three bedrooms painted and possibly part of the living room as there will be furniture put into those rooms that we cannot move at a later date to paint around.
Sunday we are getting a Budget truck to start collecting loose items. We have a couch and a bunch of garage items coming from Scott's sister's house, a dining room table we are purchasing from my boss, and my fish tank equipment.

This will definitely not be a weekend of resting, but that is just fine by me :)

I will try to get pictures up as we go about the painting process.

Spring has sprung

Hurray it is so beautiful outside!
The cherry trees outside of our apartment have hit full blossom, and they are so gorgeous. It also made me a bit sad to have to leave them behind. Well, we will just have to plant a cherry tree at our new house and we will have the beautiful flowers again.
Today I went out to lunch with my husband, sister-in-law, her daughter, and my mother-in-law. We went to a little inn and restaurant, the same place we went for my wedding rehearsal dinner almost a year ago. It is truly a magnificent restaurant and is true to Winchester style. You walk in and are greeted by the kids of the house, probably 12 and 10 who figure out where to seat you, then are led to your seat by the 16ish year old hostess. Only in Winchester. The food there is absolutely divine, and only $30 for appetizers, 4 sides, an entree, and desert.

Then we drove by our new house so that his family could see the outside of it and we walked around the yard. Our backyard has its own flowering tree and the side of the house is lined with Irises that are a few weeks away from blooming. The sun hits the yard perfectly and we all just stood on the deck imagining how it will look once we get the yard to its full glory.

Busy busy spring break

Well, today was the first day of my spring break and it was definitely a busy one. Scott and I started off the day by driving to his soon to be new job to pick up the drug testing form, then drove to the testing lab so he could prove he was drug free (mandatory for employment for management level). His new store seems like it will be a million times better than what he had in the past. The store is large, clean, has a full management team and does a good amount of sales. The other managers also seemed very nice and the customers weren't the same brand of crazy as the ones he and I have dealt with in the past.

Then we high-tailed it to Leesburg to meet with our loan officer, hopefully for the last time before we closing. He was stuck in traffic but his processor helped us with the paperwork. Stan had actually faxed all the necessary papers over to us earlier, so everything was filled out. I'm getting far too efficient at filling out this paperwork and I sincerely hope I don't have to do it again for another 10 years at least.

We also talked about home insurance and I got a quote from USAA. I still think it's incredibly bizarre that we pay twice the amount for the first year (pay the entire year in advance, then pay a monthly fee on top of that) but there's nothing I can do about it so I will try to keep the complaints down.

Then we drove back home and picked up my parents to go see the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit at the National Geographic museum in DC. While it was very cool seeing terra cotta statues and bronze artifacts that were over 2,000 years old, I left the exhibit feeling very underwhelmed. The archaeologist in me understands why they would not want to ship more than 10 statues from China, these are irreplaceable and incredibly fragile after all, but I left the building wanting more. You could not get an appreciation for the magnitude of the find just by looking at a few individual statues, and I felt the pictures were far more impressive.

We came back early and decided to hit the Home Depot with my parents as a way to kill time and wait for traffic to die down a bit. We came out with about 50 paint swatches, ideas for landscaping the yard, and some neat ways to replace the counter top in the kitchen with granite tiles to cut down the cost, but still have a granite counter top. That project won't be happening for quite some time though, we're still working on the packing phase!

Scott also found 2 black cats hiding among the potted trees! We asked a worker how they got there and he laughed and said they lived here to keep the mice down. It reminded me of a book store in my college town where there was always a black and white cat sitting in the window. We would go in there just to play with her.

We did get some colors more or less figured out there. The army green dining room is going to turn into two shades of darker blue. The kitchen will go a lighter and brighter shade of blue, while the adjoining living room and hallway will take on a white with blue tint color. Our bedroom is a steel blue/grey, and my bathroom is looking like a very slight purple tinted white. The nursery/ guest room is a toss up between two very very light shades of green. My sewing room/chinchilla room is currently veering towards a sandy honey color, or possible purple if I can find a purple hue that isn't extremely bright or Easter egg pale. I still haven't figured out what to do with the main entrance way/staircase, so that will be next on the swatch list. I think we are going to do most of the house in shades of white with a smidge of tint to be on the safe side. We'll worry about the downstairs later.

I also had fun watching a family picking out paint for their rec room. There was a father, mother, 8 year old boy and 5 year old girl. Naturally the girl thought the room HAD to be pink or purple, while the boy wanted nothing but blue. I couldn't help laugh as two minutes later Scott came over and said "let's do the house in blue" and I responded "But I don't want everything to be blue, it's a boy color."

Some things never change...

Scott's new job

So today has been an exciting day! On Monday night Scott applied to about 8 jobs closer to our new home. He received emails from 3 saying "we don't have a position that will fully utilize your job skills" aka, overqualified. While that sucks, it's also kind of funny, as Scott never completed college and yet can still be over qualified for a job which is interesting.
Well, he also applied for a position with our old company, a well known pet store chain which will remain nameless. He received a call early yesterday morning that they would like for him to come interview. I spent a while yesterday crunching the budget to figure out how little pay he could take (they are not well known for paying well) before we would be losing money.
He had the interview this morning and was immediately offered a job. The pay is borderline comfortable but I think we will be ok. It will also put him about an hour from home, saving him an hour each way commuting to work. He will also have earlier hours so there will be no coming home at midnight and having to be back at work at 7am, definitely a plus.

Well, we've got the house (still working on an April 16th closing, should know by the end of the week), he's got the new job, and we'll find out in less than 24 hours if the third part of our wish list has happened. Exciting!

March 22nd, inspection day

I will begin this blog post with a word about how odd timing can be. We finally get a house, I have strong reasons to believe that I am finally pregnant, and the school board votes on the school budget tonight. I may not have a job there next year, awesome. But I will worry about that when I need to. At least my school salary can be easily met (if not far exceeded) if I get back into the retail world. I've been spoiled by education though and don't want a new job. We will have to see.

Today was our housing inspection! Scott and I arrived early and walked around the edge of the house. Yep, as good as we remembered. The yard is a bit steeply sloped so it will make gardening a bit more...creative, but I'm still excited. Our Realtor arrives to let us in and we spend 10 minutes just walking around the house again.

I was so pleasantly surprised. I've seen so many houses that they've all been combined into one house, and my mind had put a lot of the less attractive points of the other houses into this one. Both of the bathrooms are a bit bare, but are still very pretty and have good bones. The bedroom is 12' by 12', which is not huge, but has a large walk in closet I completely forgot about. We fired up the gas fireplace and that thing radiates some serious heat! We also learned that because it's gas it will still work in the case of a power outage, so we can huddle around the fireplace but not have to go out for wood.

The inspector found a few things to comment on. The water heater was the original heater for the house, so we may need to replace that in the next 5 years or so. There is a power outlet on the outer wall of the house that is not functioning (apparently an easy 10 minute fix) and our driveway slopes towards the basement so we will have to fix that (again, "eventually').

A much better bill of health than the last house, with it's grade of "replace the roof asap, buy a boiler before moving in, redo deck flooring in the next year, replace entire house wiring before moving in..."

All in all, good day!

So now what?

So now we have to go through the steps.

We have our inspection on Monday (many pictures will be taken) and then we get our loan ready to go. We are trying to get an April 16th closing, but we will close on May 16th at the very latest.

Now I can start plans for wall painting, furniture buyer, and how we want to decorate. I can start to plan my garden, landscaping, and get my dog out in the sunshine. We can have a house that we are proud to be in, and I can have my friends come over to visit. So far it is nothing but blue skies in the future (and the present as the weather has finally turned for the better).

What comes next? We'll just have to take it as life happens :)

Tuesday March 16th

The day before Saint Patrick's day and my department's open house at work. We are busy debating door prizes when my phone rings. Its Scott.

The other offer is better than ours, they are giving us one chance to put our best offer on the table. Ok, we increase our offer by $10k over the asking price, but the seller has to pay closing. If we get it we only pay $5k more than our original offer, still in our budget, and if we lose it, well, so be it. He leaves a message and we cross our fingers, expecting to hear back Wednesday or maybe Thursday.

20 minutes later I get a text message "We got it, we got the house, holy shit!"

I just stared blankly at my phone, then started laughing. We got the house, they actually accepted our offer. If everything goes smoothly we're going to get the $8k tax refund before the extension runs out, I can take my dog out to pee, and we're going to have a house. 24 hours after we put in our offer and we have a house!

Sunday March 14th

So Rebecca is the first house we see. A quick stop to pick up my parents and we are on our way. The house is about 5 minutes away, 10 minutes closer to our jobs, and in a really nice neighborhood. We walk up the front steps and enter the house. A carpeted staircase goes 4 stairs up or 4 stairs down. We walk up the stairs first and go into ...a kitchen! A real kitchen with cabinets and a countertop and even appliances! I never thought I would get so excited over freaking appliances but there you have it.
The kitchen opens up to a living room and dining room, then there are three bedrooms.
We walk downstairs and there is a fireplace in the living room, a laundry area, and the 1 car garage. The entire house has new carpeting, fresh paint on the walls, and a nice airy feel.
Mom points out the bird nest above the front door, a symbol of good luck (as long as they don't poop on your head). We decide to look at the other houses but put an offer on this one at the end of the day.

We then go to the Wilkins houses. Both very close to the freeway, smaller, and more beat up. Not even worth the time to look, next please!

We pull up to the O'Brien house which is in my parent's neighborhood. It looks like a study little house, another split level. The outside is having a bit of an identity crisis with its bright red stairs, baby blue cement foundation and gray siding, but that's minor right?

The two car garage immediately draws the attention of the men, while the brand new carpeting has my attention. The kitchen is missing appliances and could use some work but it does have cabinets and counter top. Ah the little things in life.
We decide to make this our second choice. It's a bit of a fixer upper, but it's a fixer upper we can live in while fixing.

We stop at my parent's house for some chili, then go the Realtor's to get the paper work in. While there we find out the house already has another offer placed, but they won't look at the offers until Monday. We put ours in but don't expect much to come out of it.

Dogwood - I'm over you

March 10th:

The latest on the Dogwood house comes in...well, remember the lien the seller took out on the house? The credit card company who he borrowed from is not willing to settle with the house. I can't really say I blame them, since settling would mean getting $2k out of the $10k borrowed. They didn't get a government handout, so why should they lose money to the financial institution who did? The bank is giving them until Friday to settle before they turn the house into a foreclosure and our deal is void.

Again, cue hysterical crying ( p.s. I hate crying so this is driving me absolutely up the wall).

Our agent sends us more houses to look at the following weekend, and we give Dogwood until Friday at 5 before we pull our deal. Friday at $4:30 the bank extended the lien's deadline until Wed. We say "screw this" and pull the account. "But you'll close in two weeks" "yeah and we'll win the lottery too, goodbye".

I'm randomly sifting through mls listings and what do I chance upon...the Rebecca house! The prior contract fell through and it's on the market again! Our plan for Sunday, Rebecca house, O'Brien house, and 2 other houses. I'm feeling a little more excited again.

Dogwood house - seriously? we're still going?

Now through this process I've told my family that house hunting is kind of like dating. The Bremerton house was like the guy who looks great the first date, then the second date you're suddenly washing your hair every night.
The Dogwood house was becoming very similar to my last long term relationship. We were great in the beginning, and then slowly things started to go south. It took me three years to finally end that relationship and honestly, it took meeting Scott and realizing how crappy my life was to spur that on. What would it take with the house?

Finally at the end of February we're done. We call our Realtor and tell her to pull the deal, that we are done playing with the bank. We receive a phone call the next day "The bank has to fix a lien on the house and then we can close in 2 weeks. Do you want to give them until the end of the week or pull now?" We decide to give them until the end of the week but look for houses at the same time.

We get about 25 houses to look through. I send 6 of them back to the Realtor to confirm their available status. I am super excited about one of them. The "Rebecca House". The Rebecca house is a brick split level, 3 bedrooms 2 bedrooms with a garage and a fireplace in a very nice neighborhood by my parents. It's perfect, it would be amazing, its...under contract already. Breathe in...breathe out...

Scott and I both take off work Wednesday to go see the remaining 5 houses before anyone else can. I leave work early and start the one hour drive to Winchester. As I pull into the city Scott calls me "We're putting in an offer on this house, it's awesome". I pull into the house and our Realtor has already left to put in the paperwork. Ok, buying a house I've never been in is not crazy...I trust my husband.

5 minutes later we get the phone call "The house went under contract two hours ago, as did the other 4 houses".

We walk into my parent's house to have some lunch that my mom made. I held it in for about 20 minutes and then couldn't do it anymore. The tears just start rolling down my face. Scott heads back home to take care of the dog, and I tell him I'll be there shortly. He leaves and my mom asks if I want a massage (she's a massage therapist). I sniffle "yeah". Well, the massage relaxed me enough that it all came out.

I'm sick of not knowing where we live. I'm sick of living with roaches. I'm sick of being surrounded by noisy people. I'm sick of not having my own space. I'm sick of using quarter machines. I'm sick of looking at houses. I'm sick of everyone telling me to be patient. I'm a failure because I can't get pregnant and I don't want my dog to die in a shitty apartment where she can't even pee!

After the last line my mouth literally dropped open and I stopped crying out of shock. I hadn't even realized that my emotional crazy stemmed from the deep fear my dog would die in our current apartment. Holy crap...no wonder I've been taking this so seriously and getting upset to such extremes.

Dogwood house - building a kitchen

February :
Ok now, where were we?
Ah, so we discover that there is no possible way for us to purchase this house without an existing kitchen. The selling bank (who I now curse daily) is not willing to put in a kitchen prior to selling the house. So we are sunk.

The bank is now accepting cash offers only on the house, and have dropped the price of the house to $130,000.

Enter : SuperRealtor! Our agent tells us that he is willing to put a cash offer on the house, put it a kitchen, then sell it to us for the original asking price we had put down for the completed house. We bring in Scott's sister who works with Real Estate Law to make sure every thing is kosher. We send in this offer and cross our fingers for a miracle.

Now, by this point I'm getting even more and more emotional. Conceiving is not working, my poor dog is getting older, and I'm starting to feel useless. Katie's joints are to the point where she cannot get down the apartment steps on her own, and she is too heavy for me to carry her. So I can't make a baby, I can't get a house, and I can't even take my dog out to pee. Not a high point.

Dogwood house - Say what?

We are now into the new year and hoping for a better time.

Then we receive a phone call from our Realtor. The seller no longer had enough money to pay his electric bill and jumped ship, selling parts of the kitchen before he left.
Um...come again?
Our Realtor gets us in 3 days later to access the damage.

We walk in and just stand staring in shock. The kitchen now is only wood floor and white walls. He took out everything. The cabinets, the counter top, the appliances, everything is gone. Well...ok...this is something new.

We start planning for how to fund a kitchen when we have very little in our savings account. I go home and start crying. It's a new pattern for me, and one that will be repeated.

For the next two weeks our Realtor is attempting to contact our lender to find out if we can even get a loan for a house without a kitchen. She doesn't hear anything from him and Scott starts to call every day to try to get a response.

One month later we finally get some answers. Apparently our lender quit in November. No one at his office (a very well known national life insurance and mortgage company) thought it was necessary to inform his clients of this fact. They would pass our file to the next guy.

Oh, except they didn't know where our file was. So all of our information was gone, as well as Scott's paperwork showing his military eligibility for a VA loan. Excuse me? How does a worker disappear, lose important paper work, and the company doesn't inform us? I think anyone would understand why we immediately found a new lender, and I will never again purchase a service from this company. Unfortunate as I was leaning towards them for life insurance once we purchased a house.

Dogwood house - Christmas Present?

November 30th - Finally we get good news! The house has been passed from its current stage to the final stage "negotiation". This is where the bank will decide a closing date and life is good. We are told that chances of us closing in two weeks (day before Christmas) are looking very very good.
Christmas day is also the day I will find out if I am pregnant that month. A house and a positive test? Now that is an awesome Christmas!
Well, Christmas day comes and goes, negative on the pregnancy, and the bank "needs more time".
At this point VA is thrust into the worst snow storm we've had since I can remember. I'll tell you a little about that.
It is Saturday morning. We all wake up to a bit of snow falling outside. Scott calls his job and they inform him that if he doesn't come in they will consider it his resignation. He goes in and we all pray he gets home safely. He left at 10am, just during the beginning. By 1pm there is at least 5" of snow outside. The dog is loving it, and the Governor has already declared a state of emergency. All people are advised to stay inside no matter what, because blizzard conditions will be closing major roadways. Does his job close? No, they do not. He works retail by the way.
At 5pm I get the text that he is on his way home. I look outside and the snow is at least 21" outside. 45 minutes later ( his job is usually 15 minutes away) I get the phone call "My $@# car is stuck in the snow".
Luckily he got stuck on the exit ramp to our street. It was still about two miles walking distance. Knowing him he only has his work clothes (dress pants and a button down shirt) and his work jacket. I throw on my coat, grab his coat and start walking.
Our street looks and feels like the day after the end of the world. There are two utility trucks trying to pull into parking spots at the complex, and my feet are sinking into the 6" snow that has already been plowed. The banks on the side of the road are up to 21" in some places, 30+" in others. The cold brings bright color to my cheeks and I huddle deeper inside my coat. I walk onto the main road and it looks even more devastating. Cars parked on the side of the road are completely buried under snow, and people are walking in the center of the road to go only they know where.
I go about half a mile down the main road and see my poor husband walking my way. His dress shoes are sliding across the road and he is soaking wet with sweat.
We get home and call the Va state police to report his car. We then call a tow truck and are informed that no trucks can get out due to the snow. His car will be towed in the morning for $80.
Around 9pm we get a phone call from the state police "You're car has been hit by a tractor trailer and was towed to XX lot." Oh lovely...The next morning we call them. Final tally for Scott going to work on a snow day? Income for the day $250, towing fee $650. Apparently they charge $200 for an "accident tow", $200 for a towing fee, and $100 a day. $100 a day? But it was there less than 12 hours? Yeah, a day changes at midnight. So even though it was only there for about 12 hour it was there for Saturday and Sunday, $200. Bastards.
Oh, and we find out 4 months later that the accident damaged his car more seriously than we original realized, to the tune of $1300 in repairs.

Dogwood House - The Wait

September 2009:
We put an offer in on the Dogwood house on September 30th, 2009. I remember the date because it was the day we were supposed to close on the Bremerton house. The seller signed off on his part of the paperwork immediately and now it was in the hands of the bank. The bank had a 30 day deadline to decide if they were going to pass our contract on to the next phase.
Ok, 30 days is the end of October. The tax credit (and our current lease!) runs out November 30th. We still have time...right?
I continue to pack up our apartment, hopeful that we will be moving shortly. This was a foolish act in hindsight and, I think, a large part of the emotional turmoil that was to come throughout the home buying process. All of my crafts, books, journals, and dvds were boxed up and put into storage in my parents garage.

The deadline came and we received an email from our Realtor "The bank needs more time, they will have an answer after another 30 days."

...*crickets chirp*...Say what?? This was one of the first times my poor husband came home from work to find me crying. How does a bank not meet a 30 day deadline just to decide if they want to push our offer to the next level? How does a financial institution (who received a very substantial government bailout) not want to get this process rolling?

So we wait another 30 days. Finally they pass our contract to the next phase. It is now November 20th, and Congress passes an extension on the housing credit. We now have until April 30th 2010 to get the $8,000 tax credit. We also call our landlord and let him know what is happening. On November 30th we'll switch to a month to month lease. The good news, we just have to give him 30 days notice before we move. The bad news, he can give us 30 days notice that we have to move.
Moving into an affordable apartment in our area with a cat, dog, and chinchilla is not an easy feat, so I am not incredibly stressed out.

The stress doesn't help our attempts to try to conceive a child either. Talk about high stress levels.

So we continue to wait for our dream house, because, what else can you do?

Dogwood house - The introduction

Our excitement had all but withered as we drove to a house my parents had found in their neighborhood. It's within our budget and a short sale. We decide to look just for the heck of it.
The two story colonial has a nice long driveway, large front yard and nice front porch. We walk up to the beautifully decorated door and the seller lets us in. The second that I stepped in the house I got this warm sense of calm, almost as if my heart was saying "I'm home now". You step into the house and there is a living room to the right, a dining room to the left, and stairs that led to the upper floor. After you walk through either the dining room or the living room you reached the kitchen.
The kitchen was absolutely beautiful. Creamy beechnut colored cabinets and a shiny new refrigerator, a gas stove set among granite counter top and a beautiful hard wood floor. There was an L shaped island and the room was shared with a secondary dining room. A sliding glass door led to the back deck, which then led to a goodly sized back yard, fully fenced. There was a beautiful half bath off the kitchen as well as a closet for the washer/dryer unit.
We walk upstairs and I'm instantly in love with the master bedroom. A beautiful bedroom with lots of space, a walk in closet, and a full bathroom. Then there was a second full bathroom in the hallway, and two more fairly large bedrooms. The carpet was in great condition and the walls all had a new coat of paint.

We went straight back to the office and put in paperwork.
Then we learned the irony of the short sale, they are anything but quick.

The "great potential"

The next house was, what I call, "the great potential".
The house was a three bedroom, two bathroom rambler just a little ways out of the city. It is on a very large lot of land with some large trees. We pull up and I immediately notice part of the roof seems to be disintegrating. We walk in the front door (skirting past the hornets nest under the front windows) and I let out a frustrated sigh. The walls were covered in stains, and the carpet was almost frightening to step upon. The kitchen looked as though someone stopped mid renovation. We walk back to the bedrooms and one window is broken. They are decent sized though. We walk down to the basement. There is a section of wall that has very apparent mold, and a large circular hole in the cement. The walls are also framed with metal supports, always an encouraging thing to see in a potential house.
I walk back upstairs as Scott and Chuck are talking about what a great deal this house would be, about how it would take some elbow grease and initial money and it would be a great investment at the price.
I walk into the basement and start crying. My mom comes down and we talk. We don't have any initial money to put down, and when Scott is working 14 hours and commuting up to 3 hours every day, it means I will be the only one doing to the hard work. I don't want to spend every second of my free time cleaning just to get the house livable. I want a house I can move into and not have to do serious renovation or sanitizing.
Next please!

Moose and horses

Our first house showing was a 3 bedroom rambler located on Moose road. The Moose animal has been somewhat of an inside joke between Scott and myself from the time he lived in Maine, so is this a sign?
The house was located about 2 miles off of the main road, always a nice thing. The yard was very large and there were some small trees. We walked through the main door and stepped into the kitchen. It was a very dated kitchen, with a wall paper border across the top, very small cabinets and dated appliances.
The entire house was wood floor. It was very pretty and in fairly good condition. When you walked out of the kitchen you could go straight into the kitchen, down to the basement, or left to the bedrooms. The living room was fairly small, and the main window sill showed some fairly serious damage. Termites or just beat up? I'm not sure I want to find out. We also noticed a very dark residue on the ceiling. Grease perhaps?

Several more houses to look at urged us back out the door. Not a bad house, but definitely not what we want.

*The horse house*

We drove about 10 minutes further out of the city and pulled into the next house. It too was a rambler and was being sold because the prior tenants passed away from old age. It was on a large parcel of land and had many large trees. You walk up the ramp (ramp?) and into the front door. The living room was well sized, but very long and narrow. The tv would have to be positioned about 3' from the couch, not really ideal. The kitchen was alright but again, not great. You could then go down another ramp into a porch addition. The bedrooms were very small and strangely arranged. Scott called it "a maze house" because the walls seemed to be placed at random. We walk out the backdoor and see a huge back yard adjacent to a large field with tall grasses. The selling agent tells us the adjacent land would also be our property. While part of me is saying "sweet, lots of land" the other part of me is saying "it's going to take days to mow our yard".
I turned to the side and saw...a miniature horse! Now it just doesn't get any better than having a horse as a neighbor! Then I realize that introducing our dog to horses may not turn out so well.
Again, the house was ok, but not great, and not worth driving over an hour each way every day to work.

Adventures in Winchester

August 09 -
Ok, this is not working out. All of the houses we are looking at are too small, too expensive, and the neighborhoods are all fairly run down and somewhat sketchy. It's time to re-evaluate. What do we want in a house?
We want a good sized house, a house that we can grow into with a family and still have space. We want a house that we can be proud of, and a house where people can spend the night without issue. We want a house that is safe, where we don't have to constantly jump at little noises and where the dog can lounge in peace. We want a neighborhood where I can walk/run and not feel like I'm in danger. We want a neighborhood where kids can play in the yard without fear of them disappearing, or ride their bike down the road and safely reach their destination.
Ultimately, we want a house further out of the city...but that requires a much longer commute for Scott.
So we started looking in the neighborhoods around my parent's house. Scott would be looking at over an hour commute and is starting to look at job options around the new city.
We headed out west very very hopeful. The houses were a lot cheaper in price and much bigger. They also had larger yards. This could be very good.

The Bremerton House

As we had a closing date on this house it will get its own blog.

We pulled up to the Bremerton house with all of the wind let out of our sails. It was now September and we were quickly approaching the end of the tax credit, as well as the end of our lease. Images of us trying to find another temporary place to live with the dog, cat, chinchilla, fish tanks, etc loomed in the back of my head, raising my stress and not doing great things for my general mood.
The front yard was big, nice trees, and the house was very regal looking. The green shutters and door trim would have to go, but that's an easy fix. We look curiously at the side of the house and realize that there used to be a garage door where there is now a stucco wall. Curious, but it could be a good thing. As we walk in the front door I notice a beautiful single pink rose growing in the flower bed...next to a pipe..curiouser and curiouser...
You walk in and have the option to go upstairs or downstairs. There is a little carpeted ledge just to the right. I can instantly picture my cat Demon sitting on that ledge waiting to swat at us as we walk in. We walk upstairs into the large living room and get the view of a red deck off to the side of the living room. Further inspection of the upper floor reveals 3 bedrooms, all roughly the same size, as well as a full bathroom. There is a small attic area as well. Newly carpeted and newly painted, this house is looking pretty good after all of the disasters.
You walk downstairs and go into the dining roomish area. You can then go straight into the kitchen or either direction. I choose kitchen. It's a decent sized kitchen with newer cabinets and appliances. Not much storage room but doable. To the side of the kitchen is a small dark room with the water heater, boiler, and washer/dryer units.
Walking out of the kitchen and to the side brings you to a very large carpeted room with an alcove perfectly sized for a fish tank or entertainment center. There is also a door that leads out to the side yard. The other side has what used to be the garage. The previous owner had walled off the garage door and turned it into two rooms, about 12' by 15'. Fairly decently sized for the area and great storage rooms.
Inspection of the yard revealed a beautiful, beautiful red deck that was larger than our current apartment. It had several layers with stairs going up to the upper living room. The yard was large, with large shady trees and a shed in the back for Scott's bike.
We put in an offer that day.
The seller accepted and told us he wanted a closing date of September 30th, a mere 20 days after he accepted the offer. We talked to our lender who said "no way can I do that", at which point which switched to another lender who said "I can get that done". We meet with him and get all of the paperwork together, then schedule the inspection.

Inspection time! Of course it happens to be a day Scott is working and can't possibly leave work for the inspection. As I am a worrier to begin with, I go to the house with reinforcements in the form of my mom, dad, and brother in law.
We arrive and the inspector is already walking around the yard. He introduces himself and points up at the roof. The roof is bowing slightly and will need to be replaced sometime in the next 5 years. Don't panic, don't panic, breath in, breath out.
He then chips away a section of wood from the support columns for the overhang, and points out some algae growing on the wall. It's ok, these can be fixed with just a little cleaning. Breath in...breath out...
We walk into the house...and I stop breathing. The smell of natural gas hits you with enough force to make you dizzy. Something in the house (the stove? the boiler?) has sprung a gas leak. The inspector finds the leak and turns off the gas valve while we open the windows wide so he can continue the inspection. He walks through the upper bedrooms and they get a clean bill of health. Some paint chips here, a torn screen there, one window that might need to be replaced but that's it.
He walks downstairs. The boiler, which supplies the hot water for the house as well as the heat system, is apparently completely dead. It's going to be around $10k to be replaced and would need to be replaced prior to us moving in. At this point I need my mom to remind me how to breath because I suddenly can't remember. He walks into the garage rooms...they do not meet Virginia housing code because they do not have any heat or air source (vents). So we would have to bring those rooms up to code before we could move in. At this point I'm on the verge of tears and panic all at the same time, and desperately wishing that Scott was there so I didn't have to make the call by myself. I pull my family in for a pow-wow and ask their opinion. All agree I need to call Scott and our Realtor and tell them to pull our contract. I do, choking up and feeling like I had blown it.
Meanwhile the inspector is still poking around the house, now just to see what else there is. I step out onto the porch to try to breath and get my emotions in check. I look into the backyard and notice a very large hornets nest on the deck, grafitti on the privacy fence, and rotting boards on the stairs. How did we not notice all of this? Were we really so blind?
I walk back in and Kurt (the inspector) calls me downstairs. He asks me if I called my husband yet and I told him yes. He said, ok good, because we have a major problem. The house was built in the 70's and the wiring was never changed. Back then the main wire for electricity was aluminum. Now most appliances are needing copper wires due to the increased demand on electricity. He gave the house 5 years to burn down due to a wall spark unless the wiring was changed. We were out $400 for the inspection, and had no house to show for it.
I went home and cried.

We made an offer for $172k, the house sold 5 months later for $112k. The seller had bought it in 2008 for $280k.

Adventures in Manassas and Woodstock cntd.

* The power line house*
One of the original houses we looked at, the power line house was actually one of my favorites. We drive through a fairly nice looking neighborhood towards a cul de sac. The house is a beautiful little colonial with trees shading the front yard and a beautiful front porch. We walk in the house and it was definitely move in ready. The living room was nice sized as was the dining room. All of the rooms were beautifully carpeted and fresh paint was on the walls.
The kitchen was very very pretty and fairly roomy for the area. You walk upstairs to large bedrooms with nice closets and plenty of storage. Then you can go downstairs into the basement where there is a cement floor on one half for a washer/dryer area and a carpeted large room on the other half. A sliding door leads out to the backyard and would be perfect for Katie, our aging dog.
A walk into the backyard shows a nice sized back yard with a shed (perfect sized for Scott's motorcycle) as well as a deck above that can also be accessed from the kitchen. We walk up the deck and look out over the beautiful scenic view from the wooded area and a small section of grass. We look left...and see the power sub station just 20 feet from the house...sigh...moving on...

*The pool house*
Honestly I don't remember much about the pool house. I remember it had very small rooms, smelled of cat pee, and had a pool in the backyard. The pool water was a very dark poop brown color and filled with leaves, trash bags, and a plastic lawn chair.

At this point I can't help but wonder, is this really what house hunting is? Is this what people get excited over? It's not fun its exhausting and somewhat depressing to go into house after ruined house.


The next 5 houses have become a jumbled conglomerate of house in my mind. All of them had very steep stairs, urine and feces in various locations (not always near a toilet...) and bedrooms the sizes of closets. Oh sure, if you knock down a few walls here, put in new carpet, completely sanitize and tear it down and start over I'm sure they would be great, but we're not going to play that game...

*The cape cod addition*

This was actually a pretty nice house and we were considering putting in an offer. We pull up to the house and search for a driveway...there is none..so we park on the street just a few houses down from the house. Parking was an adventure as none of the houses had driveways, so there was only space for 1 car to drive down the road. It was a two way road, I'll let your mind have fun with that one.
We walk up and the yard is fairly well treed and the grassy lawn is well kept for a foreclosure house. The front porch is fairly nice and the paint looks decent. Never mind the truck cap (the hard top you can put over truck beds, I'm not sure of the real name) sitting half on the property, or the car sitting on blocks in the neighbors back yard.
Enter the house to a decently sized living room, dining room, and kitchen. Not perfect but nothing that a coat of paint and some new carpet wouldn't fix. Kitchen was forgettable (I honestly couldn't remember what it looked like) but had all of its appliances.
We go upstairs and the upper part of the house was very nice. It was cape cod style but someone had added a large addition to the upstairs master bedroom. You had a smallish official bedroom that led out to another room about 20' by 10'. Well, we could make do...I guess.
Then we hear loud ethnic music coming through the walls from the neighborhood, a car backfiring, and a dog start barking. Never mind...next?

*The underwear house*
This house was more of the same. small rooms, crappy carpet, small yard. What stands out in this house was that it was currently being lived in. While most sellers would take the time to stage a house and clean up, these tenants obviously did not. The kitchen had plates laying around with several day old pizza, a trash bag leaning against the corner, and a pair of very..um..dirty boxers laying in the doorway to the bedroom. NEXT!!

Adventures in Manassas and Woodstock

* The Cape Cod*

The cape cod was truly a jewel hiding in the scum of foreclosures. It was at the very top of our budget but was advertised as "newly refinished, new appliances, new carpet". Sounds good right? We arrive and the house was absolutely beautiful. A very cute white house with green trim, a nice front yard with a little landscaping and a driveway. We walked through the house and the fresh white paint and brand new tan carpeting brought a smile to our lips. A beautiful (and clean) half bath was nicely positioned next to a decent sized bedroom. Brand new windows, new kitchen appliances, and a beautiful black counter top contrasting with the white kitchen cabinets gave the home a new, somewhat modern feel.
I walked up the flight of stairs, reveling in the cushy carpet under my feet, devoid of stains and without the smell of animal urine. I turned into the main bedroom...and wondered where the rest of it was! The two bedrooms upstairs were maybe 8 feet by 10 feet, and because of the cape cod style roof you could stand in the middle and touch the ceiling on both sides. This could be a problem as we have a very large bedroom set, which would definitely not fit in these rooms.
We walked out to the back yard and looked out at the view. Ok..an elementary school is really not the greatest view...but at least there was a school close enough for kids right? Then the sound of music filled the neighborhood, very loud music...time to get back in the car.

*The "murder she wrote" house.
We pulled into the driveway of another cape cod to the sight of our Realtor in the driveway laughing hysterically. This was generally not a good sign. He told us to go in and look, and that he and my dad had taken bets for which feature turned us off. We walk into the main door and enter the kitchen area. The kitchen consisted of a stove, sink, fridge, and 3, yes 3, cabinets. You could stand in the middle of the kitchen and almost touch both ends. Oh, and if I stood on my toes I could touch the ceiling. I'm 5'6, enough said. Ok...that's a good kitchen for...no one? Then we go to walk into the living room and have to duck under the large slanted ceiling. We walk into the living room and instantly are morbidly drawn to a giant red stain in the middle of the carpet. Chuck's son walks in behind us and goes "What do you think that stain is from?" Chuck jokingly goes "looks like the place where the last tenant died" and the poor kid darted out of the house. We had enough and left for the next house. We never did find out what the stain was...

*The Asian floor house"
This was actually one of the first houses that we looked at. We drove through the city of Manassas and kept on driving...and driving...ok...out of the city is good right? We pull up to an interesting looking wooden cabin in the woods. Walk in the front door and it's all wood floor and fairly beautiful. We walk into the first bedroom. It's about 20' long by 6' wide, and there is a giant Asian carpet/symbol...thing...painted on the wood floor. The other two bedrooms were about 8' by 9'. Definitely tiny. The kitchen was forgettable, not great but not bad. We walk down to the basement and it was decent. Again, not great but not horrible. The backyard however was a very steeply angled downward slope into a ditch. Not good for arthritic dogs, future puppies, or future little kids. More immediately I would have been miserable trying to garden and forget about mowing, you would fall off the yard into the ravine!

Where to buy?

One of the first question for a house hunter to consider is where am I going to look for a house?
Our current city of residence was completely out of the question, as the average house price was over $500,000 and our top budget was $175k. That's what happens when two people working as retail managers try to buy a house near the nation's capitol where lawyers and government workers live and play.

What is a girl to do? Well, we started looking in a few cities that were about 45 minutes away from the city. We would be looking at a 45 minute commute to work but the possibility of getting a house for our budget was much higher than staying in our current area.
We met our Realtor, Chuck, at the first house. House hunting was a family affair, as both our parent's have done this before while we, obviously haven't. We arrived at the first house with Scott's mother and niece, and waited for my parents to arrive.

*No Entry House*

The initial impression of the house was...ok...it was listed as a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with a beautiful bay window and huge back yard. We walked up to the front door and Chuck opened up the door. We were greeted by the low and menacing growl of the house's current resident, a very large male pit bull. Chuck took one look at the 120 pound pit's glistening white fangs and very calmly closed the door and locked it. Why was there a loose pit bull in the house you ask? The house was being sold by a married couple. The husband wanted to get out of the house while they still could, while the wife was not ready to part with their home. After the husband left for work she had let the dog out of his crate knowing that the house could not be shown while she was at work.



* It has great...potential?*

Onward! The next house we looked at was in Sterling Virginia and was an amazing $130k. We pull up and the outside of the house showed great potential. The house was listed as a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom split level on a fairly large yard. Well...the yard was big...and on a corner that seemed fairly busy. As we got closer to the house we started to notice some glaring problems with the house. One of the windows was broken, and the gutters were falling off. Since we had driven all that way we might as well go in.
The generally layout of the house was, in all honesty, my dream house. You walk in to the living room, dining room and kitchen. You can then go upstairs to the three bedrooms, or down a short flight of stairs to the basement/washing area.
The problem? The kitchen was completely gutted, there were multiple holes in the wall, and from the look (and smell) of the basement the previous tenant did not flush the toilets prior to his vacating the house. This house would be an absolute dream for someone, but not us. Our Realtor pointed out that with $10k for a kitchen, $5k for new carpet and some elbow grease and the house would be ready to go. Since we dont' have $15k laying around we got out of there very quickly.

The house blog

"Buyers Market" "New home owner credit" "Record foreclosures" "Perfect time to buy" "Record pricing lows on houses"

All of these phrases seem like a wonderful thing to a newlywed couple who are looking to purchase their first house and start a family. Could it be more perfect timing that an $8000 tax credit was established for first time home buyers at the exact time that we started trying to buy a house? Surely it's fate that the deadline for the credit is the exact same day that our current apartment lease is up!

I walked into the house buying adventure with stars in my eyes and my heart brimming with excitement. This was it! We had grand dreams of beautiful kitchens where we could entertain friends, a big yard for the dog to run and play, and a place to really call our own. We could finally start saving money and put our money towards something that was ours, instead of watching everything we earn go into our rent payment. This was our perfect time to get a house for our animals and start a family. Everyone told us that we would be in a new house by Christmas and soon we would be surrounded by the pitter patter of little feet.

Everyone could not have been more wrong.

We began our house hunting adventure back in March. We were mostly testing the waters as we didn't want to purchase before we were married in May. We went out a few times to see what was out there, and quite frankly, we weren't impressed. After the May 1st wedding and following honeymoon, we started house hunting in earnest.

It's now March, one year later. We are still house hunting, still living in our old apartment (now on a month to month lease for more money each month), and to say the excitement of house hunting has worn off would be a gross understatement.

I don't write this blog to depress, turn people away from home-buying, or give me a place to vent (ok maybe a little) but to share my experience with the world. This process is certainly not all butterflies and rainbows, but instead has exposed some very deep fears and worries about security, mortality, and the future.

These are the stories of a first time home buyer's experience, when everything seems to be going wrong.