Our House

I realized I never posted a picture of our little house.  So here are some pictures.  We bought a smaller, older home, but it was something we could comfortably afford.

Looking at these pictures, everything is so green.  It isn't right now.  It's freezing cold and everything's covered in snow and ice.

Some facts about our mortgage (they make me laugh):

20% principal

34% interest
46% taxes/insurance (but it's mainly taxes)

Yeah, Wisconsin has some really high property taxes.  I believe we paid about $3600 in taxes last year. It's nuts...  And as of the beginning of this year, we own 0.5% of our home.  That's comforting, right?

Oh and you'll note the car on the right, my car.  I don't have it anymore.  It died on the way home from Utah right before Christmas.  Long story short, it couldn't be fixed without spending more money than what it was worth.  So we had to sell it to Carmax in Omaha, Nebraska.  We bought a new used car to replace it, but we're still attempting to pay the car repairs and travel expenses (of attempting to pick up a 'fixed' car, realizing it wasn't fixed, sell it and rent a car to get home) for the car that never made it home.  Anyways moral of the story is don't ever go to Nebraska.  It's a horrible state, hahaha.

My past happenings in a nut shell.

Busy

This past week, I've gone from work to looking at houses.  And let me tell you, it was a very tiring week. Not to mention, I don't even think I read a hundred pages in the whole week (I usually read that much in a day).  I'm so glad it's over.

We've gone to a couple of banks to get mortgage preapproval letters.  And we found out very quickly that not all banks are created equally.  Some are very prejudiced against first time homebuyers.  From what I've learned this week, my advice would be to stick with the banks you bank with and local banks.  The chain banks were the ones that gave us problems.  In a nutshell, they basically told us we needed a 20% downpayment and should never have gone to college if we were planning to buy a house so early.  They also recommended we keep renting and save like crazy.  While I can see some good in that advice, I can't understand why anyone who has 'owning a home' in their life plan would want to keep renting when rent prices are the same price as owning a house right now...

I have been cooking up a storm lately.  Which also gives me more opportunity to damage my hands.  Last Sunday, I didn't open the oven door enough and my knuckle hit the inside.  A big, ugly blister resulted from that.  And then yesterday, my infamous fingers without feelings did another stupid thing.  I had the hot pad in my hands while pulling the food out of the oven.  But I didn't realize that the hot pad was not centered, and my finger was very much not protected.  Needless to say, I had the pan halfway out of the oven before I realized my finger was touching the pan.  A nice dull tingle resulted.  And it's turned into a lovely blister as well.  Good news is I only feel it every once in a while.  Bad news is I'm not used to feeling anything in my finger.  Ugh, the issues I face while cooking.

Did I mention my car broke down last week?  We had just barely begun our search for a new home and had spent a couple of hours looking around our area for other apartments.  At that point, moving to another apartment was an option for us.  We decided to end our search, grab something to eat from Hardees and go home to relax for the night.  While in the drive-thru, my car started smoking.  We thought the radiator fluid had leaked out.  But that wasn't the problem.  We had to tow it to our mechanic and wait for the news.  Turns out, our water pump failed.  Wasn't cheap to fix...

So why the big interest in moving?  Or buying a house?  Well, our lease goes up in a couple of months, and the complex wants 60 day notice as to whether you'll stay or go.  Problem is, they don't have to give you any notice that your rent's going up.  We only had two weeks notice before we have to give them our decision.  While we love where we live, we've watched the rent go up every year.  And it just doesn't make sense to us to stay if there are other options out there.  Especially with our plan of buying a house and the fact that we have a down payment ready and we now have stable jobs.  So, our living situation is kind of up in the air right now.

Snow

The first snowfall of the season occurred today.  I took out Gizmo this morning.  He noticed the snow right before he was about to step off of the covered porch and immediately tried to turn around.  Unfortunately, he still had to go potty.  So, in the wet snow he went to do his duty.  As soon as he was done, he could care less where I was because he wanted inside.  Kind of stinks that he was stuck on a leash that was hooked to my arm.  So what should have been a very fast run back to the door turned into a five foot run that ended with him falling over when the leash was stretched as far as it could go.  I had to pick Gizmo up and put him in my jacket since he was shivering so bad from the cold.  Yes, Gizmo hates snow.

And to make the day better, we had to go to the vet's office.  We've come to the conclusion that Jared's car (the car I happen to be driving lately) needs a new battery.  It doesn't start well at all.  Fortunately for me, there's a battery jump-start thingamajig in the car.  Kind of sucks that I didn't know how to use it before I had to figure out how to use it today.  And what's even more embarrassing than having five or six men pass me while I'm fumbling with the stupid gadget (not one of them offered to help me) is the fact that Jared's trunk doesn't stay open well.  Yes, the trunk door fell on top of my head not once, but twice (you'd think I'd have learned with the first occurrence).  But never fear, I figured it out and got the car started.  And that's just when a nice guy driving by decides to ask if I need help starting the car.  He was probably scared off with my maniacal reply of, "Nope!!!  I figured it out all on my own even if I am missing that Y chromosome!!!!!!!!!!"

PetSmart

So, there's never a dull visit to PetSmart here...  The last time Gizmo and I went, someone brought his horse to get his picture taken with Santa.  That was a funny and interesting visit.  However, today's definitely wasn't funny.  And in hindsight, I'm glad I got distracted by the parking spot that was covered in snow...

While in PetSmart, a semi ran into a parked car which made the car run into another parked car in the parking lot.  This second car that got hit would've been my car if I had paid attention to open parking spots while trying to park my car.  Fortunately, I ended up parking a little further away.  So, while leaving PetSmart, I got to go to my car which was parked next to the wrecked car, but mine was left unscathed.

Apparently, the semi had run into this car only a couple of minutes before I left.  And the driver was cussing and smoking in the lot while he waited for the owner.  I know snow makes parking lots a lot smaller for all vehicles, but you'd think someone who drives big vehicles for his profession would have better parking lot driving skills.  Oh well. 

Fly

So, this week has just gone by quick.  A lot of stuff has happened.

Jared and I flew to Georgia Saturday morning to visit my family and pick up his 'new' old car.  It was Gizmo's first time in an airplane and he did fairly well.  He didn't understand why he had to stay in a small bag on the floor instead of just sitting in my lap.  He was a little scared at first.  But as long as he saw me and knew I was there, he did fine.

Georgia was hot!!  I should have brought shorts with me.  But considering a huge nasty storm had just barely left the Madison area before we went to the airport, it was only 50 degrees here.  It was nice saying hello to my family.  But the visit was too short.

And then come Sunday morning at 4 in the morning, we began our 14 hour drive home.  It was interestingly long.  At the beginning of the drive, Jared and I switched driving shifts every couple of hours, so the other person could sleep.  This left the effect of the drive feeling a little shorter than it actually was.  But we arrived in Madison at 6 pm and were glad to be home.

Then I find out that my brother was hit by a car Saturday night.  He was walking his dog when the car hit him.  He went unconscious and the next thing he remembers is being in the hospital.  You could see his skull in some places on his head and his knee took a lot of the impact.  He's lucky to be alive.  And (note this is all second-hand information and I am completely biased when it comes to the police department in the West Jordan/Murray area), it sounds like the police aren't planning on further investigation into this crime since there is little information to go off and why on Earth would good, perfect police officers want to soil their shoes over someone they consider to be a low life and not something to concern themselves over....  Mess up once, and you're a screw-up for life as far as they're concerned.  Anyways, I'm very suspicious of this incident truly being an accident.  I do think it was intentional, but I don't know the motive (but I can guess and speculate).

And then my work week came along.  Right now, we're hosting a lot of clients.  It's like a big super conference.  There's over 9000 people on the campus.  It's super-super busy.  I've been helping with some of the transportation volunteer shifts.  And let me tell you, directing traffic and telling cars to stop is scary.  Number one, they're a lot bigger and can cause a lot of damage to you.  Number two, drivers do extremely stupid things around people directing traffic that can scare the hell out of them without the driver ever realizing they did something worrisome.

Oh, and did I ever mention that I am considering getting another reconstructive surgery done on two of my fingers on my right hand?  The fingers are partially webbed, and I want to remove the webbing to give my fingers more functionality.  My doctor said she'd approve the consult to the hand surgeon when I'm ready to pursue it.

My life in a nutshell...  Hahaha.  Too much going on.

Perspective

So, I happen to overhear someone talking about how she caved in and finally bought a car.  She went on to say it's a Hyundai Sonata.  And then, "It's nothing fancy, but at least it'll get the job done."  It took all of my strength and then some to not turn around and give her the bug eye (I'm assuming her car's relatively new - <5 yrs).

Jared's getting a new car too.  And when I say new, it's only new in the fact that we've never owned it before.  Want to know the difference?  This car is nothing fancy, but at least it'll get the job done...  It's a 1992 Honda Accord.  Why am I buying it?  Because I trust my dad when he says, "It's nothing fancy, but it'll be more reliable than your current car [1997 Nissan Sentra]."

I guess it's all a matter of perspective...  I can also thank the way my parents raised me with never taking anything for granted and not buying crap you don't need.  So, while I would love to buy a 2-year-old Nissan Altima, Honda Accord, or Toyota Camry, it's not practical for me.  Cars depreciate in value, and I can't guarantee that nothing bad is going to happen to my car when I drive it.  Also, I have a car that works just fine (other than the fact that the lights now turn on when I brake).

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.  Some people enjoy new cars and think they're completely worth it.  I just don't.

But just in case I were to splurge...  My dream car is a red Cobra Mustang from the 90s era.

Luck Gone Wrong

So...  Saturday was probably one of my days where I hate being so dang lucky.  It was a day for bad luck and lots of it came my way that day.

First off, I wanted to spend the morning cleaning up my home since I never have time for it anyways.  I was doing the laundry.  And then the dryer broke down.  So, I had to spend my time trying to figure out what's wrong with it.  We still don't know what's wrong with it, but we're guessing it has to do with the motor since the belts are still intact.  My step-dad's going to look at it eventually.  But what'll probably happen is we'll have to buy a new used dryer to replace ours.

And then...  We were planning on going down to Salt Lake right after Jared got off of work.  Well, the dryer stalled us for a bit.  But then we were ready.  We get in the car.  And me being an idiot; somehow, I manage to pull the rear-view mirror off of the windshield.  Yeah, I was mad.  Super-glue wouldn't work.  And since it's illegal to drive without the mirror and knowing how lucky I am, I was not risking the drive without that mirror.  So, we had to go to Autozone and spend a half hour attaching the mirror back to the windshield.

We finally arrived in Salt Lake a lot later than expected.  But that wasn't going to bring us down.  Until the stupid check engine light came on.  Ugh...  What else could go wrong?  I'm assuming that my car is doing the usual and nothing too serious.

Is it bad for me to want new things and not old things?  I know I should count my blessings and be grateful for what I have.  But sometimes, I feel like I'm barely moving an inch forward while the rest of the world throughs me back two feet.