thankful for thanksgiving

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I am so excited for Thanksgiving - you have no idea!

Reason #1- It's basically my vacation for the year....
Reason #2 - We are headed to Michigan to see family, and I know I'll be able to truly relax there.
Reason #3 - I always have a great time on road trips with my husband! 9.5 hours each way!
Reason#4 - Uh hello....the FOOD!

Now, all I have to do is get through these 2 weeks at work, which for now seems like it will take 2 years. I still have to make Abe's reservation at the doggy kennel spa/retreat (I love how the company makes it sound so luxurious), but then we are ready to hit the road. :)

Completely unrelated:
We have been doing a lot of work in the yard the past couple weeks (pictures to come). It's no where near where it needs to be but every little bit helps. It's sad to say, but the yard will take years of work for me to feel good about it.

We are going back to our kitchen designer on Thursday. We've had our plans for a few months and really let them soak in (figured out what we liked and disliked). So we are hoping the new ideas we bring to the table will be the winning plan. This is a huge (and expensive) part of our remodel and I just want it to be perfect!

the bell

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I know my door looks dirty, but it's just dingy and old. :(
Since we got Abe in the middle of May, we have continually had a problem with potty training. More recently we've only had accidents 2 a week or so (thank god for all hardwood floors :)  ). But that shouldn't still be happening. We are both pretty frustrated with.

Well, about a week ago, we went to the store for more dog food and came across this bell. We had both heard from other people that if you have a dog that won't bark when it needs to go outside to get a bell for them to ring on the door. We both thought it was silly and didn't think anything of it.....but as you can see we bought this bell, and IT'S WORKING!! :) How it works is we ring it every time we are about to take him out and say "potty!", and then we go out. So at some point he will just be ringing it every time he needs to go out.

He's only rang it on his own twice now, but he's had to go; and we haven't had any accidents (knock on wood!) this whole time.

I know this may be boring to the non-dog owners, but this is a huge step for us and I couldn't be more excited! I'm so glad we found something that works for Abe.

fire duty

Sunday, October 3, 2010

So I went a whole month without blogging....sorry guys.....

It was just a really busy September. After going back to Indiana twice and then having a pretty uneventful (but lovely) anniversary, we are now in October. I can't believe it! This year has flown by and I know if has no intentions of slowing down. ugh.

Here is a little news in our lives right now - Mike is out on FIRE DUTY! We got the call last Friday night about 8:45 pm and he left a 10 am the next day. phew! We don't really know when he will be back, but he can only be out for a maximum of 18 days. He was shipped to Virginia; I guess they had a really dry September. He was really excited "because no one ever goes east, babe". :)

That was a crazy night; trying to get him packed, figuring out how to get him there, and our minds racing with thoughts of what's going to happen (like how do you put gas in a lawn mower???) I have never mowed in my life - big shout out to my Dad and Mike for always doing it. Mike did, however show me how to pull start ours about a month ago, but that's it. So the morning he left I asked him how to put gas in it. I know that may sound stupid, but I didn't know. :) Mike laughed a little and then suggested that I just hire someone for a one time job. Let me remind you, next to my father, and brother in law, Mike is the cheapest man I know ( I think this and being Harley men are the two things they all have in common). I told him a can do it! I know I can; and I haven't tried yet so I'll let you know how it goes.

He's been gone a week and I miss him like crazy. Abe has been a life saver, I'm glad there is still someone to come home to. It's been pretty quiet this week and future is looking like it will be a quiet week ahead....

On the plus side, I'm organizing! I bought a lot of Rubbermaid totes and labels to organize our storage. It's kind of boring, but it's something to do and it needs to be done. Our basement isn't a completely dry basement so I want to put everything that's in boxes in those totes just to be on the safe side.

decorating is hard.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

I started shopping for the dining room, and let me just say - it's hard. I'm so worried things won't look right together. I want everything to "match" but not look matchy-matchy..... I guess I just want flow. I know I'm probably just freaking out because I've never really done this before and haven't really started yet. The thing is, is that most of what I want to buy to decorate isn't available in town, so that means online shopping and I just don't want to deal with returning things online. On a lighter note, I've bough two things for the dining room and some book-ins for the living room. :)

I'm going to back in Indiana next weekend, and I'm hoping to hit up some stores. We will just have to see if there is time.

abe and me time

Sunday, August 15, 2010

It's just been Abe and I this weekend since Mike was out of town, and I can tell you one thing. We BOTH missed him. In the morning, when I went to get Abe out of his kennel, he ran upstairs, because he knows there are two of us. He just keeps looking for him. We will definitely be happy once Mike returns this evening.

It was a lot harder to have my relaxing sewing weekend this time. I've never had one with a puppy.... It's hard to tell Abe that I just want to sew right not and not play fetch. He just sat next to my chair and whined over and over. I really felt bad, so I set the timer and sewed for 30 minutes and then played for 10-15 minutes. Well, this makes my purse making last for Saturday AND Sunday. I was not planning for that.....but I couldn't just let him sit there; it wasn't fair.  It was funny this afternoon, I couldn't figure out what he wanted; didn't have to go potty, just was fed, not really into fetch. So I went and sat on the couch, and you want to know what Abe did - he jumped up and fell immediately asleep on me. He's used to laying on one of us. :) So spoiled, just like a tired kid needing a nap; He is truly our baby.

I did end up getting a purse made for myself in the end and a present for someone. So it was still productive.  Since I don't have my sewing room set up yet, I took over the dining room. It was actually really nice. I wish I had a big table for my sewing room now. I loved having all that work space.
Loved having my four stations -sewing, serging, pressing and cutting.


pretty fabrics

This is just the second purse I've made that has coordinating fabrics instead of just one. What do you think?
I'm liking the change. I can't wait to carry it! :)

sewing - i miss you!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I have something to tell you all and it's not good.....I haven't sewn since before Christmas. GASP!

I know, I hate it.

I can understand not sewing from January to maybe April, because of the whole moving 3 hours away/buying a house thing. But there really isn't a good reason for not now. I don't have my sewing room set up yet and that's probably why it's not in use. It just wasn't anything that needed to be unpacked and with every bedroom needing updating, I felt silly unpacking everything and then just rotating rooms when one is completed. But now since it's been so long I feel that it just needs to be unpacked or I'll never use it until the house is done, which is expected to be Summer 2025. :)

Since Mike is going to be out of town this weekend, my plan is to take over my newly finished dining room and SEW! I know I could do this any other weekend while he's here, he would have no problem with it at all, but I feel better doing it while he's gone. I won't be making myself proper dinners that need a dining table this weekend, just soup.

I'm going to definitely make myself a new purse. I've needed wanted a new purse since December. I bought some fabric for myself when I bought for Christmas presents and it's still in the box. :(

I just want to get back in my groove so to speak. I have other projects I want to start: Christmas tree skirts, stockings, that dang quilt I've been talking about for 6 months, etc. I also want to try my hand at baby clothes. Since I have my serger now and know how to use it, I want to make presents for people. There are a couple of girls at work that are pregnant and I think it would be cute to make them part of there present. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

chimney work

Sunday, August 8, 2010

A couple weeks ago we had our chimney worked on. It was something we knew had to be fixed when we bought the place and it was the main thing the previous owner told us he was going to fix before he sold the house to us. Well, we all know how that story went, the owner did not hold up his end of the deal.

Sadly, I don't have any before shots of the chimney. The workers kind of surprised us with when they would start working on it. They just called Mike one morning and said they finished a job early and asked if they could start on our a week early. Mike said 'of course', and I found out when I came home for lunch one day. But to give you a visual, the top bricks of the chimney weren't connected anymore. They were just laying up there; all the mortar was gone.

So the plan was to remove the bricks down to the roof line and rebuild. They would also grind away the mortar throughout the entire chimney and re-mortar so it all looks uniform.


showing how much they ground out.
bricks removed.



finished!
It took about a week, and was pretty painless for us (except in the checkbook!). We really like how it turned out. It was a little nerve racking doing our first expensive thing to the house, but I'm sure the next ones with will be easier. :)

dining room

Saturday, August 7, 2010

before....
after!
before....
after!
before....
after!
Here is the dining room all painted! I'm so glad we decided to tint the blue a little darker. I would not of been completely happy with the lighter blue that was the first coat of paint.

I seriously can't believe the change. That mustard/mcdonalds yellow was so bad. And let's not forget the fruit wallpaper border with clashing floral curtains. :)

The only thing left to do is refinish the floors and add shoe molding to the bottom of the baseboard. Well, and of course decorate! I told Mike last night that it's time to start shopping for some art/pictures and things to go in the built ins. He hates nic-nacs, so this is definitely going to be a challenge to find things that we both like. I don't want to fill them to the brim with crap, but I don't want them to look bare and empty.

what i'm doing today

Sunday, August 1, 2010

The only thing I told myself I have to accomplish today is painting the second and final dining room built in.

So I'm making it look like this......


and I started with that.


The thing that keeps me going is knowing the next step is decorating! I can't wait. :)

question: where are you going on vacation?

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

answer: weddings.....

Since I started my new job at the bank after the new year, I was only given 5 vacation days for the year. I wouldn't have been a big deal, but we have 4 weddings this summer/fall....all in Indiana, which is now 6.5 hours away. So all my days off are being used for the Fridays before the weddings. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE weddings, it's just I don't really love using all my vacation on them. :) Our first one is in a couple weeks, but where it gets tricky is September; we have a wedding and then a reception in Indiana, then a reception in Missouri, and some where we HAVE to fit in our anniversary.

We had a chance to go to Michigan for Thanksgiving to see family. I used to always go there as a child/teen, but we haven't been in 6 years. So, I changed all my Fridays before weddings to half days, and we get to go! I'm really excited to take Mike where I celebrated as a kid. I guess my real "vacation" is going to be this Michigan trip. My great Aunt and Uncle we are visiting have lived in this old haunted Victorian home (yes, I said haunted) and they are going to retire next year and sell the place, so this is the last Thanksgiving there. It will be sad, but I'm glad to go one last time to really soak it all up.

As a kid, we had a vacation every year. It wasn't always a big one, but my Dad work's somewhere where there is a 2 week shutdown in July, so we always had time for one. I love vacations and really miss having one since being out on my own and now married . I know I was spoiled with this...Mike is doomed. :)

when the cats away...

Sunday, June 27, 2010

....the mouse will do nothing! :)

Mike went to a bachelor party this weekend out of town, so it gave me a chance to catch up on ME time. I honestly didn't really do a thing yesterday. Well, I watched girlie movies all day and took a two and a half hour puppy nap with Abe. It was just what the doctor ordered. Now I know I probably should of been working on the house, but you got to have some down time every once and a while, right?

Since Mike's coming home sometime today, I need to get crackin' on my wifely duties of normal weekends....back to reailty! The plan for today is making a grocery list and go to the grocery, laundry, cleaning the house a bit, and giving Abe his bath.

I've also been hitting the quilt pattern search a little harder recently. I said a the beginning of the year I wanted to piece my first quilt this year, and look, the year is half over and I'm still where I was 6 months ago. :( I guess that's what happens when you buy a fixer-upper for a home. Anyway, I've narrowed my pattern down to 3. I may buy all three of them, and then choose later. I like them all so much that I can see myself making all of them at some point.  One of them is actually a Christmas quilt and if I started now, I think I could have it done just in time for the holidays. That gives me a deadline. I work better with deadlines....

Enjoy your Sunday everyone!

chairs

Monday, June 21, 2010

Since we moved to a house with an actually working garage, Mike's been wanting to do some wood working. I've been telling him for years that I would love to have Adirondack Chairs on my front porch. Well, we bought a house with a big front porch, so Mike made my dream a reality.

He started on Memorial Day weekend, and he didn't stop the entire weekend. It took one more Saturday to finish the four chairs and then we stained the next weekend.  He did an amazing job on them. :)

Next, will be 2 matching cocktail/side tables. I hope to have them done sometime this summer, but I know there is a lot more important things that need to be done. There is also a matching love seat version and I would love to have that as well. It would make a nice conversation area on the porch.

We've already sat out on the porch twice now and love it. It's nice to sit outside on a summer evening just watching the cars and people.


I love my handy husband!

abe

Sunday, June 20, 2010

This post is only about a month too late, but we got a puppy!

We have been casually looking at the free dogs in the newspaper and rolla net (our local craigslist) but just hadn't found any that just jumped out at us saying "come get me!" I've really been wanting a chocolate lab, but in the end we got a beagle/patterdale terrier mix. We saw him online one evening and the next day at work, he was all I could think about. So Mike agreed, and we went and got him. It took us a couple days to decide on a name, but we ended up with Abe. When I first met Mike, before we started dating, my friend and I would call him Abe. With his sideburns we thought he looked like Abe Lincoln. I know it's silly, but it was neat to incorporate his name with something from our past. I really wanted to find a name that was from our honeymoon to Ireland, but we couldn't agree on any of those names.

I'm really happy that we decided on a smaller breed in the end. He's expected to be between 15 and 20 pounds.  It will work out better when it comes to making the trip back to Indiana.

Abe is full of energy, but loves his puppy naps on Mike and I as well. Oh, how I love it when he falls asleep on me! He loves to play rope/tug of war, he can play it for longer than I've ever played it with a dog. We can play for 20 minutes straight, and then promptly followed by an hour long nap. :)

Abe has definitely been an eye opening experience for Mike and I. Mike has never had a puppy nor an indoor dog before, and I haven't had one for 13 years. He's taught us a lot already about changing our lives to fit him in to it. I don't want people out there to think I'm categorizing children with pets (but don't get me wrong, I feel that pets are part of the family), but Abe has definitely shown me a slight "preview" to what it's like to have a child.

still here

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I'm sorry I left you high and dry....It's funny, when I have the time to blog, nothing is going on; and then when something big and eventful is happening, I don't have time to blog. Oh well.

Here's a bit of a recap:




My job at the bank is going really well. Finally started opening checking and savings accounts. And I got my first loan yesterday! Now lets just hope it goes through. :) I'm really enjoying the environment and the people I work with. Mike is also fitting right in at his new location. There are a lot more employees his age and so he just has more in common with them.


The house is coming along slowly but surely. (I still don't have my computer set up, or there would be pictures). The dining room came out great. The second coat of paint the was darker than the first is perfect, exactly what I envisioned. We bought a new light fixture a couple weeks ago and it just finishes off the room. I still have the corner built ins to paint, but I gave myself a goal that they WILL be done by Memorial Day Weekend. They need to be done, I've dragged them out long enough!

As I said, my computer is not hooked up yet! I know, we moved in 2 whole months ago and still no office. All I have to say is thank god for my iphone! But the main reason the computer is not set up yet is that we are going to be redoing all the bedrooms up stairs and so everything is going to move atleast once to free up another room to redo. And I didn't really feel like setting things up just to repack them.

While I was MIA on here, we had a kitchen designer come to the house. I'm very excited! We knew buying this house the kitchen would be one of the biggest things we changed and we didn't really want to wait too long to do it. We want to fully enjoy it before we sell (we aren't planning to sell for awhile, just fyi). Well, we got the estimate back and it was a bit high for us and it was a bit too fancy for the house. So we are going to go back and have them simplify it a little and maybe the price will go down too. We really want to remodel this house right and so we really want the custom cabinets.

My birthday was last week, and my sister and brother-in-law came to visit. Jeff had never visited us before and Sarah hadn't seen the house before. We had a great time! We were planning on going to a few wineries in our area and then I found out about a beer and wine festival that was happening. Well, we decided to go to that and it was so nice. Great weather and tasting wine all day - perfect! Another great thing that happened was one of a winery representatives commented on my sisters purse, and we told her I made it. She's wanting locally made "stuff" to put in there gift shop and asked me if I was interested....heck yeah! I'm super excited about it! Nothing has really happened yet, just emailing back and forth. I'm probably jinxing myself, but I couldn't keep it in. :)

falling

Monday, March 15, 2010

Things just couldn't be better. I am really on cloud nine right now.

I have a new job!

I'm so excited about it! It's at a bank here in town where I'll be a Universal Banker. Which is a personal banker (open accounts, explain accounts, start loans, etc,) and then I'll be a back up for the tellers (during lunch, vacations, or just when we are busy). I had the interview the day after we signed for the house and then last Tuesday, I got the call that I got the job. It's funny, I actually interviewed for a teller position but after the interview the manager call me and asked if I would be interested in the Universal Banker position. Of course I said yes, but it took a whole week for the official offer to come. I'm glad they saw potential in me to put me in a higher position. I don't start until next week and I'm glad. It gives me time to get the house a bit more in order.

Things are just falling into place. I'm so thankful it only took a week to get a job, instead the 5 1/2  months it took when we moved to Hannibal. It makes me feel like we definitely made the right choice with Mike taking this job, moving 3 hours away, and buying this house.

it's official...

Monday, March 8, 2010

...we are homeowners! We've made it through!

We had a couple of hiccups on closing day, but in the end we closed, signed and went on our way. When we did our final walk through (3 hours before signing) we found that basically nothing was done on our list of things to fix after the inspection. UGH! We were quite upset with the owner, to say the least. As I said in a previous post, instead of giving us the $1,000 off the price for the problems, the owner said he would fix them. And then he didn't. The reason we were so upset was he could of negotiated the $1,000 down or just said no to it and we would of been okay with it. But no, he said he would fix them. And what made us even more nervous about the situation was the seller signed all his stuff the day before us (he couldn't get off work) and couldn't be contacted before we signed. Our realtor did the best he could in the situation, called the seller's realtor and she couldn't even get in contact with the seller. There was a lot of piddly stuff of the list to fix but the big thing was re-mortoring  part the the chimney, some of the bricks are pretty loose. I have no idea how much something like that costs and now we have to pay for it. Luckily, when we went to closing, the sellers realtor offered us $200 of her own money for the situation. I know it's not enough to fix the chimney, but it will definitely help. I felt bad that she had to do that, but my realtor explained that she would most likely be reimbursed by the seller.

I know buying a house isn't easy and those things happen, we were just hoping it wouldn't happen to us. The seller also left the house with a lot of trash and it was just in disgusting/dirty shape. So we spent a fair amount of time cleaning it out.

But on the other hand, we bought a house! And we did a lot of painting this week, thanks to my Dad. My parents decided to come help us get the house ready to move in and I'm glad they did. The living room was a bigger project than I anticipated. The walls are plaster and needed a good overhaul. There were cracks, divets (sp?), and waviness. I know I couldn't of done a job as good as he did on those walls, it was a full day of prep work before we got to the paint.

These are the before pictures again:




Here's some prep work:



Finished painting:


We definitely have more work to do in this room, but this was a big part. I LOVE this room now. I can't wait to get our furniture in it and decorate! We need to do some work on the mantel and built ins, so we didn't paint them yet, so that will be another task to be done.

We were able to get the first coat of paint on the dining room. With seeing all the work that had to go into the living room, we didn't expect to get anything done in the dining room. I'm really glad we did it though. I wanted a grey-blue, not too bright. We put the first coat of paint on and it's too bright for us, so we are going to take our other gallon of paint back and ask them to add some more grey.

Here is the before of the dining room:
 

Here's after the first coat:

 

Hopefully this week (it might be next week), we will get the second coat on of the grey-er color. The movers are here now packing us. Oh, how I love free movers! But I do kind of feel in the way and feel like I should be helping. 
I am hoping to have the computer/internet up and going soon in the new house, so it may be a week before I post again.

dreaming of a sewing room

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Mike and I have been stuck in our house this whole weekend....cleaning and packing. These are the 2 things I dread most in life, I think. Since we are relocating for Mike's job, they are paying for movers to pack and move us. Yay! But our house was in dire need of a spring cleaning regardless of the move. I hate to say it, but our house has been a mess since the new year. We got home from our Indiana Christmas visit and it's been down hill from there. Now for our defense, we then found out about the move, found a house, did my sister's bachlorette party, Mike's been out of town for work, went to Mexico for the wedding.....phew! Our weekends have  been really busy for the last couple months. 

So now we are cleaning and packing for the movers. It's kind of like cleaning before the cleaning lady comes over so she doesn't think your too big of a slob.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a cleaning lady....

Today I put away my sewing machine. I'm been on a sewing break since Christmas, and I really miss it. I can't wait to unpack my sewing room and start making things for the house. I'm also excited to get back to my purses, I have a couple patterns I've "designed" and I really want to try them out.  I got my serger and it's just sat in the box; there was no reason to get it out. I wanted to paint it an aqua-teal, but Mike said no. :( So I'm going with a grey-blue. I like the grey-blue but I was kind of looking forward to a bright, bold space. It's now going to be more calm looking. I guess I'll just have to do bright, bold accessories and wall art.  Our new home is a four bedroom, so for the time being I will have a room just for sewing. I'm not sure which room it will be (we still don't know what room will be ours, since there's no "master" bedroom).

But here is a contender: 

 
 

5 days

Thursday, February 25, 2010

....until were are homeowners!

I am really getting excited now. I did the last thing today that needed to be done before we sign. The house gods were definitely on my side today. We had to move some money around to get our down payment all in one account....and I waited until today to do this. I know, I know, two business days is not really that best time-line to give your money. The teller said there is normally a 9 day hold on that amount of money....GREAT. But when she put in the deposit we didn't have a hold. Woo Hoo! We are truly lucky.

I'm starting to make a list in my head what I need to pack for the first week in the house. We are going to be roughing it until all our stuff is moved, air mattress, camp chairs, etc.  But we are taking advantage of the time...painting!! While Mike's at work all week, I'll be painting the living room and our bedroom. Those are the two rooms the "need" to be done before the furniture comes. If I have extra time, the dining room will be next.

So here are some before pictures of the living room:

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, these are from the listing. 

We think we are going to take down the bead board, just because we want to put in up in the dining room. I don't want the first floor to all be bead board. But of course, our minds could change between now and painting. We are both on the same page with going with a tan color, but Mike wants a more brown-tan, and I want a more yellow/golden-tan. We will see who wins this battle! :)

This is a pretty big room (like 14' x 25'), so I will definitely have my work cut out for me. Plus, with all the trim and the built-ins.....long days of painting are in my future. Mike is a horrible painter; his hands are too shaky. So I may spend most of my time on the trim/built-ins and Mike will do the big open space on the walls. :)

sushi class

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Mike and were lucky enough to attend a sushi rolling class at the resort in Mexico. And when I say lucky, I mean lucky....we didn't sign up for the class when we should of and they ran out of space. I ran into the lady who was conducting the class and she said it was full, so I read by the pool and Mike headed to the bar. :) Then about 10 minutes later the woman came back and said there was a cancellation and we were in. YES!! Mike and I were pretty excited about the class; we both love sushi but found it intimidating to make. We were wrong; it's so easy! Now granted they had everything laid out for us, but at least we were able to try out our rolling skills. I know there is a lot of prep work, especially the "sticky" sushi rice, but the class changed our thoughts on homemade sushi. Mike wants to get a rolling mat, and is actually considering a rice cooker. Rice cookers are pretty inexpensive, but are "one-hit wonders" in the kitchen and Mike normally hates those.

This class was definitely a highlight of our vacation. :)

mrs. hanson

Sunday, February 21, 2010

My sister in now a married woman, and was the most beautiful bride! I couldn't be more happier for her and her husband. The wedding went off without any problems (for the most part). It down poured the day before the wedding, so she was a bit worried; but it was a beautiful ceremony on the beach right before sunset.

I wish you guys the happiest life together. :)


We had a great time in Mexico with family. Their destination wedding was a great way to get the family involved. I just wish I was there longer; with the wedding it felt so short.

Mike even enjoyed himself (I'm thinking it had something to do with all alcoholic drinks were included), he said he would even consider doing it again. This excites me to no end, because my husband hates to travel. He also hates to spend money on trips because he would rather a material item for the same amount of money. This is something we disagree on and I'm sure I'll change his mind at some point. ;)

mexico

Sunday, February 14, 2010

We are heading down to St. Louis this afternoon for our early flight tomorrow to Mexico. I can't wait for this week of relaxation and my sister's wedding! :)

more inspection

Saturday, February 13, 2010

After the inspection , Mike went back to the realtors and asked for $1, 000 off the house price to do some little things found in the inspection. We were kind of shorting ourselves with the amount but didn't want to sound too "greedy". There were a few things wrong that weren't in the last post because my lovely husband didn't tell me about them. :) Aren't men great?! I know he didn't want to explain electrical stuff, and all the knit picking stuff that were found in the inspection, but I want to know what's going on with the house. So when I was told about the $1,000 off, I was really confused, because I thought the pipes and the insulation were it. So Mike explained everything to me.
  • One of the bedroom windows has a crack.
  • The dryer circuit is over fused.
  • Full bathrooms sink drain doesn't work very well.
  • The downstairs half bath is gutted.  We knew this buying the home, and it will most likely been our first project.
  • Half the kitchen counter is off. Again something we knew going into it and we would of replaced.
  • One of the fireplaces' corners needs to be re-tucked....I have no idea what this means.....
  • The dining room and living rooms' outlets have cross polarity.
So we put in the $1,000 offer, the seller came back and declined it. But he's going to fix everything on our list instead!! We couldn't be happier! It's better for us so we can move in and take our time with the remodeling we want to do, instead of rushing. I'm really happy about the half bath and the kitchen counter the most. Even though we will be redoing the bathroom still and it will most likely still be the first big project, but at least it's functional for the time being.

Also, the seller was really upset when he found out the gas wasn't on to check the furnace. It turns out the renter in the seller's nephew, so I'm sure he had a few choice words for him. ;)  I kind of felt like I was overreacting, because Mike was so calm about it.  So I'm really happy the seller was upset, so I wasn't the only one.

inspection...part 1

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

So we had our home inspection yesterday! I was so excited for it to happen, since it was the deciding factor on if we were buying the house or not. It started at 9am and it was just Mike and the inspector....and it took 5 hours!! I can't believe it took that long. Now don't get me wrong, I wanted them to go through everything, but I didn't think it would take all day. Right??

Everything went really well. There are just a couple things that are pretty standard things.
  • There could be more insulation in the attic but it's up to code. We want  to insulate the garage, so we will just do it all at the same time - no problem.
  • Some of the pipes are original to the 1935 house. They aren't in bad condition, just old. The inspector recommended to replace them before we resell - no problem.
Now here is the problem (and it's not really a problem just a set back). The gas isn't turned on in the house so they couldn't check the furnace. I'm a little ticked! We have had this inspection set for 2 weeks, they knew this was coming. And who doesn't have everything that's staying with the house running during the darn house inspection???? So now we have to get the gas turned on (don't worry we aren't paying for it) and the inspector is going to come back (free of charge). It's just frustrating... so note to anyone house hunting, when you schedule your inspection make sure everything is on so you only have to do it once. There's a fireplace with an insert (this makes it basically like a wood burning stove), and this is what the renter has been using this winter, so that's why the gas wasn't on, but still...

So we have 2 weeks until our closing date (March 1st) to get the furnace checked, and one of those weeks we are going to be in Mexico. So we have a small window to get this done, but I think it can do it.

one week

Monday, February 8, 2010

 .....and we will be in paradise!

I cannot wait for this vacation. My sister is getting married first of all! So excited for that. She's going to be the most beautiful bride and she gets to do it on a beach! And Mike and I get a relaxing mexican vacation at a resort to go with it. We haven't had a proper vacation since our honeymoon in Ireland, so it is much needed. We are having our house inspection tomorrow; fingers crossed everyone! And if everything goes well, the stress of the house will almost cease to exist.  Then this vacation can truly be a stress/worry free week.

a wedding dress moment

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Any married or engaged woman knows what I'm talking about. That moment you see your wedding dress, you just know that it's the one. Everything in your mind is so clear and you have the highest level of assurance that your making the right decision. Well, we totally had that when we saw our new house. Mike and I were talking about it in the car yesterday, and he said as soon as he walked into the house he knew it was the one. I told him he had his "wedding dress" moment. :) I had to explain it to him, and he thought I was crazy I'm sure. But it's the truth, and I know I had it for the second time in my life with this house. I'm pretty sure this is just a starter home for us, but it's our dream starter home.

Mike left yet again this afternoon for a week of work in Rolla. This weekend was great, but was definitely too short. We went bowling with Brad and Lindsey and had a great time with friends we haven't really been able to hang out this recently. They've  been really busy with him about ready to go into surgery, and us with the whole house/moving thing. It was nice to just relax with them.

With Mike being gone for a week at a time and not having the a proper kitchen where he's staying, I've been making food for him to reheat. Today, I was a cooking fool! I made a weeks worth of dinners for us and split it up. The good thing is, no cooking for the rest of the week for me. :)

I'm not a huge football fan, but this Indiana girl is rooting for the COLTS! I'm heading over to a co-workers to watch with her and her husband. It should be a fun time; they're Saints fans. But like me, are super into the game. So I'm sure someone will end up gloating, and hopefully its me!

change

Sunday, January 31, 2010

It's so weird how much can change in just one month. Our whole lives are completely different than last month. Yesterday marks one month on knowing Mike got promoted and we were going to move. I can not believe what we have accomplished in this month, I honestly didn't think we would be half a far as we actually are. January went by in what seemed to be a blink. First off, I couldn't be prouder of my husband; being the first one at his level to get promoted says a lot about how well he's doing.

Now we are homeowners. Something we didn't plan on doing for 6-8 months from now. This new time line scare us both to death in the beginning, but we have made it through. We found a house we love! We went to 'Home Depot' yesterday and planned day dreamed our house all out. Even though somethings won't happen for a while, we know we are both in the same mind set, which is great! It amazes me all the things we can do now that we are homeowners. I've trained myself to live in rentals for the past 6 years, that it's strange that we can do whatever we want. When my parents come to visit, they can bring their dog, Tanner. Our rental doesn't even allow visiting animals.  It's those silly little things that I can't wait to discover in home-ownership.

Today also marks a new part of the moving adventure of ours: Mike left today because he starts his new position bright and early tomorrow. It's going to be hard, but it was for the best decision for us. Good thing is is that he will be home on weekends, and we have my sister's week long Mexican wedding vacation; so February will go by as fast as January. Maybe even faster!

In house news: Nothing really big has happened. We've heard back from the bank and closing papers are basically done and ready. :) We have our inspection on the 9th. Mike will be there, not me. Mike's really excited for the inspection. Since Mike worked construction during college, he know quite a bit about buildings. So he wants to see what he knows versus what the inspector knows. Since inspecting things is this guys job, I'm assuming he will catch something that Mike doesn't....but you never know.  If everything goes well, our tentative closing date is March 1st! We will know if that date is locked in after the inspection.

homeowners!?!?!?!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

This weekend has just been a crazy one, that's for sure. I went to Indianapolis for my sister's bachlorette party. I have a great time and it was nice to see her and my mom. Overall, it was just nice to spend a weekend with my sister. I don't know how long it's been since we were able just to hang out the two of us. I think everyone had a great time at the bachlorette party and the best part was I wasn't the first one to pass out! I never go out, I never drink a lot, and I always go to bed early; so I thought I was going to have a hard time keeping up with everyone and falling asleep at the bar. But I did great, had fun and everyone got home safe and sound. The only bad thing is I woke up with possibly the worst hangover of my life. I mixed alcohols and of course that didn't mix well with my head in the morning. I had a long 5 hour drive home and it was fabulous. (a little sarcasm)

I can't wait for my sister's wedding in a few weeks! It's going to be a fantastic week. :)

So, I'm sure everyone is eager for info on the house, right??? Well, the way I left it with you all is we put in an offer on Wednesday and gave the seller until Friday at 5pm to respond. We figured we would of heard something Thursday, but no! The seller's realtor waited until Friday at 4:45pm to call our realtor. (gee, thanks!) The seller put in a counter offer (he came down a bit), so we countered back (we moved up a bit) and gave the seller until Saturday at 5pm to respond. Saturday at 5pm came and went - no response! I got really nervous; our realtor called and said he could be just "playing hard ball" and our realtor would call us back on Sunday. Our realtor call and told us the seller was out of town and didn't want to do any business while away and would get back to us on Monday. Well, Monday came and Mike heard from the realtor, yet again, and he told us that the seller offered us a "verbal offer". He came down a bit more. Our realtor warned us that if we accept it, papers still need to be drawn up and the seller could change his mind because nothing was on paper. And since we basically "showed our cards" and told the seller what we would be willing to pay, he could raise his offer. But our realtor has worked with the sellers realtor before and confident it would work out, but just wanted to let us know what could happen. (Sorry if this is boring, but it may be helpful to first time home buyers)

So, I got the call from Mike (who is down in Rolla today) that the seller did put in the verbal offer to paper and he was on his way to sign for it!! WOOHOO!  So we still have the inspection coming up, but we are one step closer to buying this house. : ) 

offering

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

So I don't know if anyone reads this who isn't my friend on facebook, but I figured I should announce here as well.

I got the call tonight from Mike that we officially put in our first offer on a home! We were waiting for our financing to completely go through before doing so (we heard your offer is taken more seriously that way). I'm so excited and yet so nervous. We gave the owner until 5pm on Friday to respond, so it will definitely be a long 2 days. The realtor said it probably won't take that long, so maybe we'll know something tomorrow. I'm not really expecting him to take our first offer; I'm sure he will counter with something.....

I'll update you all when I know something! :)

non-house post

Monday, January 18, 2010

I figured the blog has been on house-hunting over load. So I will only say one thing with regards to the house; our realtor has figured out the style of the home. It's dutch colonial. I'm glad we've finally figured it out so IF we get the house we can keep with the period of it.

Mike's gone for the week for training. Luckily he's in Rolla, so we can easily put in an offer this week. It's going to be lonely, but I'm going to be able to get a lot done. I may even get a purse sewn! I figured with this whole moving thing I wouldn't be able to sew until we do move. And just in time too, I'm headed to Indianapolis this weekend for my sister's bachlorette party. It was very last minute, but I'm super excited. I'm in charge of the food while my sister's future sister-in-law is in charge of the games. I'm so excited to make the food! We are doing a Mexican theme since she's getting married in Mexico next month. I can't wait to go to Mexico! I need a vacation....

Completely off the wall, but I'm getting a sewing serger!! I never thought I would be able to get one because they are so expensive and I wasn't sure how often I would use one. But on the bright side, I'm getting it for FREE!! And it's NEW! I'm sure your asking yourself how can that be??? Well, my job gives us "bonus bucks" and we got a lot for working during the holidays. Bonus bucks are basically money to use in the catalogs I work for and we get our discount too. So with those 2 things the serger will be free. I can't wait! I'll be able to make clothes for my kids, and just more of a variety of projects in general. I always see these cute kids patterns and dream of making them, and now I'll be able to in a professional way.

are we ready????

Sunday, January 17, 2010

So after going through houses yesterday, we decided our #1 is still our #1. It has the most character and the most work. The other homes just didn't compare to this ones potential. It truly surprises both of us. Mike hates formal/separate dining rooms (I happen to love them), and this one is separate and Mike said he thinks the dining room is his favorite. Then the whole 2-story thing I've already discussed. It's downtown and we normally don't like downtown, and the location is another one of our favorites; it's right across from 2 huge parks with lots of things to do and lots of kid apparatus'. So we don't have to buy all that stuff ourselves when kiddos come into the picture. A major plus (that stuff is expensive!)

It will be fun to make it our own and pick out floor tile, kitchen cabinets,sinks, paint, MORE furniture, art work...etc.

We haven't put in an offer; we are "sleeping on it". We are going to wait until the middle of this week. We don't really feel pressured to do it, we really doubt some else is looking at it right now. Not that we want to wait too long, but this is a HUGE decision and we just want to make sure it's the right one for us.

One concern I do have is just the layout of the kitchen. It obviously will have to be remodeled soon (like in the next year or so). The size is a bit small, and shape is horizontal p (if that makes sense). But it does have a pantry!!! So excited for that. I think we will take advantage of a "designer" at Lowe's or some place like that. I think that service is complimentary when you purchase there, so we'll see.

So now comes the hard part....money! Picking the house is easy. :)

a picture and a poll

Friday, January 15, 2010

Tomorrow is going to be a big day! We are going down to Rolla for an afternoon of house hunting. We are looking at 4 or 5 houses, so hopefully we will be able to make a decision after that. I wish we could take our time and look for months for the perfect house, it's just moving very quickly. Maybe that is the normal pace of buying a home? It's just hard for me to make this kind of purchase with only seeing it maybe twice. At least for me anyway, Mike will be down there before me, and we will be able to go a lot more often then me. I'm very appreciative of what Mike's job is reimbursing us or just out right paying for, but they only will pay for 2 visits of the spouse, but unlimited ones for the employee. Obviously, I will have to go down more then twice, but we will definitely limit my trips as much as possible.

Here is our #1. (The one I've been talking about in the past couple posts) It's so funny that we are actually considering a 2-story. I like the look of them more than 1-stores, architecturally anyway. But Mike and I hate 2-stories, just for the fact that if you forget something upstairs you have to go right back up. We actually told the realtor that we only want to look at 1-story homes; our exact words, "it's a deal breaker if it has a second story." It's just makes me laugh, because as soon as we both saw this one online out eyes light up and said we liked it, not 10 minutes after the 'deal breaker' speech.

Now here is a question for everyone....WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THIS KIND OF HOUSE????

I would really appreciate a lot of comments on this one, even if you've never commented before and if you want to comment anonymously. I don't care, just really need feed back. I can't find this style house anywhere online to tell what it's technically called. I have a name for it and Mike hates it; I call it the dairy queen house. Just because my parents actually lived in one right after they were married and that's what they called it. The reason I want to know the style is we are going to be doing remodeling IF we buy it, and we want to keep it is style of the home.

The only help I can give you is that house was built in 1935. That's really all I have.

Thank you in advance!

mike on his own

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Mike was in Rolla for the day for a meeting and he had the afternoon free, so he was able to see our #1 choice. I was pretty jealous that he went without me, but we only have so many 'reimbursable" trips. So we need to make the best of them.

But Mike saw it and finally called me about 3 hours after...I was so anxious! He was told to take pictures, but that didn't happen either. Apparently, since the house has been for sale for over a year, they now have a renter (enter sarcastic "great...") and it is not a good renter from what Mike said. And to top it off the renter wasn't told the showing was going to happen, so the renter was there when Mike walked through. Awkward!!

Mike really liked it though! He said it needs work and that's what want - a fixer upper. He said it was structurally sound, and just got a new roof a couple years ago. That was what I was worried about, major, expensive repairs. I guess the windows are original, but in good condition, so that is something we would probably replace soon. It's a big house with lots of windows, so that's going to be a big chunk o'money. But I just love the character of the house, from what I've seen. It was built in 1935 and has built ins. *sigh* I get to see the house this weekend and I can't wait....don't worry, I'll take pictures!

round one

Monday, January 11, 2010

Well the house we went to go see was a BUST!! We understood it was a foreclosure and would need to do a few things to it, but it being only 4 years old, we thought it would really just things to make it our own. WRONG....before I even get to the layout, it just had major problems. Starting with when we walked into the garage we smelled mold. The house has not been sealed properly for the winter because there was mold on all the walls, and an inch of ice on all the windows. Then Mike found some problems with the electrical, like 4 electrical outlet in a 5 foot span...Just bad news all around. Mike and I were actually both glad it didn't work out. It was kind of at the top of our price range but didn't want to pass up a chance to buy 15.5 acres with a house that cheap.

But the banker that took us to see the house was really nice and told us what rates we could get with his bank, so we did decide to go with them. It will be nice to deal with a bank in town, something we haven't had here because we still banking from Lafayette. :/ Anyway, we then asked him if he had a recommendation on a realtor in town. He said yes, made the call and the banker took us to the office so we wouldn't get lost in town. How nice!

The realtor is super nice as well, he reminds me of my dad in the way he's explaining everything. I learned a lot sitting there with him. It was too late on a Friday to set up any walk throughs for the weekend, but we took a look at his data base and found a few we liked. Saturday, Mike and I drove our town, found our barrings and found the houses we like. The town is pretty easy to drive around and we picked up on it really quick.

But we did find a house we really want to see. We probably like it too much right now. It's an older home built in 1935 with beautiful built-ins. :) The bathrooms are original but in great condition (as far as we could tell in the pictures). It definitely needs remodeling, but we LOVE that character of an old house. We like that fact that we can remodel it, but keep the integrity of the home.

Mike has a meeting in Rolla this week, so we are trying to get him a chance to see it to "pre-screen" it. Then, when I'm able to go down soon, we both are going to see it, if it passed Mike's inspection. :) I hope it does!

We got so much accomplished this weekend! So much we didn't plan for that happened. We came home feeling a lot less stress about this and not so much in the dark.

house hunting begins....

Thursday, January 7, 2010

All Mike and I have been doing for a week straight is look at houses online, ask questions about houses, etc. I feel like we've been busy, but honestly, nothing really has come of it. Well, I guess I can't say nothing--we have found one thing.. a foreclosure. We've contacted the bank that owns it, and are going down to see it this weekend. I know it's probably not too responsible of us to go see a house without a realtor or being pre-approved for anything yet, but we just want to see it! Everything sounds great on paper and we saw an exterior picture of it but who knows what the inside looks like or the layout. This house and property is right up our alley....we shall see. We are both excited about this house and it could be the one, but I've been joking with Mike that I don't want it to be. I want to look at houses!! I want to do the SHOPPING and if we by the first house we see I won't get to do that. But seriously, even if we really like this house we will still look at other houses.

The reason why we are going this quick should be obvious...houses sell quick and right from under you if you wait too long.

As of now that's the only house we are seeing this weekend, we really just want to see the town. We both have never been there, so it will be nice to just drive around and see the neighborhoods..... maybe find a fabric store. :)

Mike is going to be down there some of next week, so that is when we are going to get a realtor and get that ball rolling. No fear everyone! We are still on the plan of me staying back in Hannibal until we find and buy a home. Mike's job is paying the movers and we really want to take advantage of this. So if I stay behind, then they can do all the work; if I go when Mike goes, they would move us into storage and then WE would have to do the actual moving into the house. And I really don't want to do that.

thank you 2009

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

you were truly great to us!

We've learned so much this year about growing up and what marriage is all about. I can't really say anything too bad about you 2009, except for those week long training sessions Mike had earlier this year. But then again, they were good to us too because Mike got a new job right at the end of the year. I guess they paid off...

So thank you 2009, for everything...and tell your friend 2010 to do the same! :)
Anniversary