Just one week left...maybe less

I cannot believe it is already Wednesday. Which surprises me since each day this week (at work) has just dragged on and on with nothing really being accomplished. Not much happening here at home either, especially in the packing department. Last night I packed a large box with my winter clothes. Surprisingly I have a ton of winter clothes and it never gets cold enough to wear them. They are all boxed up now. Well most of them and I still need to tape up the box. Today I was determined to accomplish more. I brought home some boxes but they are still in the car. There was a huge storm after I arrived home and we also got a couple of good movies from Netflix. So, tonight we watched the movie Knowing. It was a pretty interesting movie. Lots of destruction, which of course the husband enjoyed. But nothing really got accomplished except that I made dinner. Maybe tomorrow something will get packed.

it's getting closer

foxtrot Originally uploaded by DreamsOfNyssa It looks like the 15th may be the day. That is still a guess-timate but hopefully a correct one. We had hoped that we would close on the house the weekend of the 10th, so our 4th of July holiday was spent packing and cleaning. It wasn't all work though. On the 4th, B made yummy BBQ ribs and there was some time spent on quality laziness. I am glad that we have an extra few days to get ready for the move. I am already tired and we have not even really gotten started. I still have so much left that I need to do and I still feel overwhelmed but I am sure it will all work out in the end.

It feels like a Friday

This week started out as any other week. It did not even feel like a holiday week, well until today that is. This year the 4th of July is on a weekend. Even though Saturday is the actual 4th of July holiday, Friday is the common day off from work. The department is closed (to the public) on Friday but everyone is still scheduled to work. No one talked about having to work and some people were not aware of it. The gal who sits at the desk across from mine wasn't too happy when she found out that she was supposed to work. She had made plans to be off and I think a few others had done so as well. So most of them were working longer hours during the week in order to leave early on Friday. I had planned to do the same but on Wednesday I sent an email to my manager asking if we were really scheduled to work on Friday. She responded that everyone else was required to work but that I was to take it off. I was pretty surprised (and happy) to hear that. No staying late for me! The only bad thing is....I am the only employee (other than management) that has the day off. I did not mention my day off to anyone today. I am sure they will figure it out when I don't show up tomorrow. Hopefully there won't be too many angry co-workers come Monday. I have lofty goals of working on packing and cleaning during my 3-day weekend but the reality is that it probably won't get done. After all the stress that B and I have been thru the last month or so it is nice to have some time off together. Tonight has been wonderfully relaxing and I hope that it continues into the rest of the weekend. I have pretty much spent my evening editing some photos and searching online for drivers for my Canon scanner. I have found yet another item that does not work with my Vista64 laptop. First my Canon camera and now the scanner. I don't even want to attempt to try the printer. I am not looking forward to having to buy new products just because Canon doesn't want to cooperate and update their drivers. So basically my new laptop is only good for going online. I cannot do anything with it as nothing works with it. I have started to share pictures of our new house. These are the photos from the listing. I can't wait until it is ours!

holding pattern

Well it has almost been a month since my last post. We are still living in the same place and technically have not yet purchased the house. I guess you could say we are in a bit of a holding pattern here. After the house inspection we were supposed to get the house assessed. Then we found out about a Federal law that prohibits the sale of an investment property (flipper house/foreclosure) until it has been owned for 90-days. It appears the listing agent was a bit excited about the house and listed it before it was legally able to be sold. So, instead of moving into our new place in June we ended up having to wait until the end of June for the house to be legally available to purchase. That day was last week. This week the house was again supposed to be assessed. We have not heard anything but have been told this could take a week (I am thinking maybe longer because of the holiday?). We hope we may get to close on the house sometime around the 10th-15th of this month. I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed about packing and moving. I really do hope that this move goes a lot smoother than the last time. At least I finally found the time to upload my Project 365 photos for March. I must say that March sure did end up to be a pretty colorful month.

sigh.....

sigh..... Originally uploaded by DreamsOfNyssa Life has been rushing by so fast. We found a house. We put in an offer and it was accepted. It's silly but I am almost afraid to talk about it. I don't want to jinx it. I guess I won't feel like it is all really happening until I have the keys in my hand. Today we had the house inspection and it went surprisingly well. The house is in pretty decent shape and for that we are thankful. Just one more thing that helps reduce the stress of buying a new home. The final thing left to complete seems to be the financing. I am a bit concerned about our mortgage lady as each time we get new documents there is usually something changed, added or missing. But from what I have been told we should be closing by the end of the month. So keep those fingers crossed that it all works out.

a little bit of everything

We didn't look at houses today. I was so happy to actually be home on my day off from work. I didn't do everything that I had planned to do but I did manage to do a little cleaning, a little de-cluttering, a little reading and a little watching of the tele. The new season of Primeval started tonight, did you see it? Darn, if you watch the show don't click on the link. That is the one thing about BBC shows. They air so late in the US (England is already on episode 7) that every site has spoilers and I just happened to see one. That is why I never go to any Torchwood or Dr. Who sites. Speaking of which, those should be starting up again real soon. Yesterday evening we went to look at a house just down the street. The location is perfect but the house was not. I don't think we will be able to find both a good house and one in the neighborhood we want. So I guess we may have to just find the perfect house that is in the not so good neighborhood. That is if we can find a house. Hopefully we will find one before the car dies on us from overheating. This house hunting has gotten me even further behind in basically everything. There is so much that needs to be done. I finally got my photos from February uploaded. This project is just not as much fun when I upload the photos this late.

So the search begins, again.

I have spent most of my time this evening looking for available properties. I came across one that looks nice on the inside and is of newer construction. It is a 2-story (been there, done that) but I am willing to at least go and look at the place. When a place looks promising I like to look at the Google satellite pictures to check out the surrounding neighborhood. Well, now I am not too sure of this place as it is right next to a huge business lot. One that has large bay doors like for semi-trucks or maybe auto repair. The back of the house overlooks this business lot. I still think I want to look at it though. I sent the listing to my Dad to see what he thought of the place. This is his response: I had received an email on this listing,but I personally don't like it because............. it's 2 story, frame stucco(harder to maintain if it has a lot of wood exposed) and because it is ugly. (MY opinion) Dad Of course reason #3 is always the most important when it comes to selecting the right house. I really want a house that has character on the outside. I thought the house that we were going to buy did not really have any outside character. But I was willing to forgo that for the character the house had on the inside. Now this house that I am going to look at tomorrow. It does have character. Ugly character. But still that is better than nothing.

Back to square one

I haven't been around recently as I have been busy with the purchase of our first home. Sadly, the deal on the purchase fell thru. It was a total surprise as the financing was complete and the offer (in writing) had been accepted. This week my Dad (who has been helping us) was scheduled to meet with the Inspector to check out the house. The hubs and I had already walked thru and made note of everything that we had noticed so that the Inspector could look into it. The inspection kept getting postponed. We found out today that the seller had sold the place out from under us. It was all a scam. He had never planned to sell to us in the first place. What really upsets me is that we did everything the Seller requested of us which was to get everything (financing etc) pushed thru by a specific date and time. My poor Dad has been doing so much and to find that this guy was just pulling a fast one really makes me feel sad. On the plus side...we already have our loan secured. Now we just have to find another house in our price range and at this time there is really nothing available except the same properties we have already seen. So the day did not get off to a good start. Once at work I got my monthly "you suck" call from The State Department. The one where they tell me that I am behind (I know) and they want to know how many cases I have left to complete (too many) and if I can finish over a year's work of cases in a month (yeah right). They do this every month after I submit my report. But you would think that they would at least write down the info I give them or even check my submission report before calling me. Nope. Then they tell me how they realize that this is not my fault (darn right) and that this mess happened years before I was hired (over two-yrs) and that I am working alone (and training myself I might add). Sigh. Then, lucky me. I got a second call from The State. They called to tell me that they are speaking with the CEO to get a contractor on the job. They think it will be to help me but I know that when I was hired it was either me or a contractor and of course the cheaper option (Me) was chosen. There is no way they will keep the both of us. So I am afraid that if a contractor comes in, I am out. Double sigh. I am exhausted. What I am still doing up?

I like to call myself a scrapbooker but...

So today was National Scrapbook day. Did you scrap? Did I? Of course not, silly. I just collect the stuff. I couldn't even tell you the last time I scrapped. Well let me rephrase that. I have tons of stuff on the table and a couple of pages sitting there but I have not finished a page (or even got halfway) for I am sad to say probably a year (or more). Sigh. So let's talk about other things shall we. Today I did 3 loads of laundry. I watched the cat run head on into the recliner. I then got to see said cat stuck under the laundry basket after she knocked it off the bed and it landed right on top of her. I heard a crash in the bedroom and figured that the basket had been knocked over. It about 5 minutes later when I heard the meowing. I thought she was in the closet meowing at the wall. Again. I went into the room to find the basket upside down on the floor and her caught inside. Poor kitty sure has had a full day. At least she is never boring. I mean...last week she took a head dive straight into the garbage can. Head inside can. Feet outside of can. In even other news... We may be buying a house. Papers have been signed but not the "real" papers so it is not yet a done deal.

And so another weekend comes to an end

How can it be Sunday night already? I have not even had a chance to do anything this weekend. On Saturday the husband and I went out to look at houses. Lets just say there are some scary houses out there. Then there are some awesome looking houses but either they are out of our price range, already under contract or a short sale. Pretty much all the available houses for sale in our price range are short sales. It is really frustrating. We looked at 6 houses yesterday (with the Broker). I think there were only 6. I know we stopped at others that we noticed along the way that happened to have a key box. One house looked amazing online but when we went to look at it we just drove right on past it because the neighborhood was terrible. The Broker did not even want to stop. Think really old run down neighborhood with just one newly built house sticking out like a sore thumb. There was one house we looked at that was in a nice neighborhood but the house was in bad bad shape (on the inside). The Realtor (owner) stated that no info would be given as to what was wrong with the house. We are thinking water/electrical damage as it needs a permit in order to get the electrical turned on (it was not on when we stopped by) The husband loved it. It just gave me the creeps. There was just something about it that really freaked me out. After a full day we went home and got online to look some more. We found a new posting in our neighborhood and so we drove over to check out the outside. It was a cute house. It needs work but the neighborhood was nice and it would fix up really nice. So that would make 7 houses and a super full day. Then today after the husband got off of work we met with the Broker and got to see the inside of the cute house. It is definitely a fixer-upper but we loved it. Only problem is that it is a short sale. Frustrating! We then drove thru a few neighborhoods that we knew had houses for sale and then back home to look (yet again) online. We left again and took a drive a bit further out and found a house that looks promising. I really don't want to live in the neighborhood but the house is nice and the price is right. Plus it is NOT a short sale. When we drove up to the house there was already a young couple there looking at it. I think the gal got a bit anxious that we were also looking at the house. She kept stating how she REALLY wanted it and there was room for all FOUR of their vehicles. So it looks like there may be some competition there. I meet with the Broker tomorrow after work to check out the inside. Keep your fingers crossed! So...This has been me the last few days. Just imagine me without the smile and when I am not the one at the laptop, the husband is. And to think that my original plan this weekend was to scrap.