Slight Delay...Sorry and other details!

Ok, so there's been a slight delay in the relay of the information I promised would come this past Monday! I will post as soon as I can about it. But for right now, we are not pregnant & like Ellen said 4 days wouldnt have mattered anyways. I wish I were pregnant...mentally I'm ready, but financially, socially, physically, etc I'm not & Jake has said 2013!! (Yikes..I'd be 28! considering my Bday is tomorrow!)

In other details we officially closed on our house on Monday. It went a lot faster than we thought & what people had been saying it would take. Only an hour for us & the only way it would take 3 hours is if I read through all the papers & tried to figure out how to understand all the lingo in it (Jackie watch out..I fear Alex would be able to understand and try...therefore take hours to close! LOL) We are all ready to go on Monday to move in-so 5 days!

Saturday we are picking up our new bedroom suite! I'm really excited about it because our bed right now (which will become the guest bedroom-sorry guests!) is a little worn in! We werent originally going to get the whole suite, but Jakes dresser (which is a hand-me-down) is on the fritz & may not last long. Mine is from when I was a little girl & the drawers are already fritzing...it was time! We still havent found any bedding, but we are hoping to find some this weekend on the north side.

This is way off subject, but totally worth sharing. We got a gym membership at the Plainfield Rec Center...It. Is. Awesome! Complete gym (free weights for Jake) with tons of classes (my favorite part!), spin classes, an indoor track, indoor swimming pool, outdoor Splash & something water park, etc...its awesome. We are in Plainfield now (at our apt) so we thought we'd take advantage of the $200 discount the residents get for the year! Anyways, today I thought I'd go to 'total body toning' because thats really what I need. It was OK until we hit the lunges...then my legs were shaking-literally sh-a-king! But I was half the age as half the people there who were doing just fine so I couldnt. give. up.! I kept working as we tore apart our abs, triceps, buttocks, quads, etc as my entire body started to shake! After class I thought wow-that was nice...in a total-body-torture type of way. I decided to 'cool down' for a few minutes on a treadmill & when I went to step off the treadmill I about took a tumble right of it! I caught myself before I left my balance and thank goodness I didnt fall (how embarrassing!). So, I was leaving after that incident I had to walk down the stairs (was not taking the elevator!LOL) and I had to grip the hand rail all the way down for fear of falling because my legs were shaking and in so much pain...I'm scared for when I wake up tomorrow. You know if your legs hurt immediately following the exercise that you are screwed for the next two days when you typically feel the pain! Its funny to think about, but I dont think I'll be able to get out of bed tomorrow :) haha.

Ok enough with the other details...hopefully I'll keep up on posting when we are moving and I'll have pictures of the house up after we paint/decorate! Have a great Earth Day (4/22!)

Closing on Monday...!!!

We are set to close on Monday! Yipppeee...Still looking for new bedding for our upgraded king size bed. Where do you suggest or like to shop for bedding? I like duvets, but I'm up for anything thats nice. Still waiting to get that picked out before I buy curtains. Saw some at JCPennys today (thanks to Rach for the sale tip) buy on get one for 88 cents! Can't beat that, but if you dont know what you are trying to match its hard! Then will come paint colors-if only I could get the bedding down..gesh..never thought it would be so hard.

Other news to share on Monday...you'll have to tune in to find out! :) {hehe} its kind of a secret right now!

Is anyone out there...{sometimes when I blog-I hear crickets!} Help me to see that there are readers out there!

P.S. I'll be 1/4 of a century in 8 days ....YIkes!

We did a drive by!

After we went for a run/walk at the park we headed over to drive by our house! We've officially done it 3 times since our inspection. I'm not sure what we think we will see, but we keep doing it. I think it's to see what our neighbors are like, the yard, etc since it was snowing when the inspection was going on so we couldnt get a good idea of the grass/landscape. When we pulled in the neighborhood and we passed the 3rd house on the right, Jake said, "Oh no, already!" I looked at him and he said, "that yard is already covered in dandelions. I hope our house isn't that way!". So as we got closer we slowed down to get a nice view of the yard, neighbors, etc all to find that our yard (in 15 days) doesnt have many dandelions (it has a few), but nothing like our neighbors. They have a million!! We are hoping that in those 15 days they dont spread to our yard. Does that happen? It was nice and quiet through the neighborhood-surpirsingly enough there werent many people outside on such a nice day. We discovered kids next door, well we didnt actually see them, but we saw evidence of outdoor toys everywhere. It kinda looks tacky, but I'm sure we'll understand sooner than later! :)

That's all for now, we are closing on the 19th & are moving in on the 26th. We've been packing for the past few weeks & getting things organized. Just some food for thought, I never thought about the fact that you have to buy a whole new lock for your front/back doors! Jake brought that up the other day & I was stunned! I guess I dont want any intruders or old family members of our sellers stopping by-so it would be a good idea. Just more money I knew would come with being a home owner. I'll put that on the list of curtains, shades, lawn mower, trash cans, weed eater, etc that we dont already have! I'll keep you posted on whats new & pictures to come shortly after we move in.

House Update!

We had the inspection a couple weeks ago and the roof inspected last week. Things looked great & he only found 4 things: 1) a window was cracked (freak accident-kid must have thrown a rock at the window!), 2) the dishwasher wasn't installed properly which isnt something huge, but its sort of an eye sore, 3) the dryer vent was full-so easy to fix, & 4) there was a gap in the siding that could have been potentially a bad thing depending on the rain. So, overall minor things! We heard back from the seller today & they are fixing all the things we asked for-awesome so we dont have to do them! We were worried that since they weren't major problems (>$1,000) we didnt think they would fix them. Praise God for reasonable sellers and a wonderful inspection! It could have gone wayyy worse!

At this point, I'm ready to move in & enjoy it, but we still have 2 more months. On a wonderful note (another praise!) I posted our apartment on Craigslist & we've gotten several subleasing hits this week. One couple is coming tomorrow night to check it out-YAY! We might not have to pay double payments after all!

We're still alive...

We are still here...not much going on lately. We've been busy with the inspection (went well), roof inspection (went well too), and getting all things together for the house. We have been shopping around for bedroom furniture & purchased that Saturday. Still hunting for cheap patio furniture on Craigslist and other discount shops. Deciding on paint colors, etc for the house. Trying to sublease our apartment to cut double payments! Sell our washer/dryer we bought for the apartment that we dont need, things like that. Exciting, but lots of that kind of stuff lately.

If all goes well...this is it!

Here it is! The house we are getting as long as everything goes well with the inspection tomorrow & the rest of the details until we close on April 19th. We will post more pictures after we move in-providing again that everything goes well!

House Hunting Update

We are headed out for our 3rd adventure house hunting a little discouraged from our 2nd outing. The day that I got home from my business trip there was an offer on the house we liked the most from our 2nd outing. So, we needed to get a move on quickly if we wanted that house. Turns out an hour later we had an offer in which was 97% of list price and the first offer ended up being list price, but the sellers said they would take it for $1,000 less than the list price-which was roughly 99.5% of list price!! (I thought this was a buyers market?) Needless to say we were thinking objectively and not subjectively about the house and thought 'no way' we would pay that price-seeing how usually they come down a little bit from where the list price is. Well, the first buyer had contingencies where we didnt or else we wouldnt even have gotten the thousand off. A lesson well learned-no hesitations next time.

We have several nice houses on our long list to see Saturday & we're really excited and hopeful that one of them will be a great catch. We are still hoping to snag a nice one before the tax credit deadline on April 30th all while not trying to be too picky while searching. We found one we really like that backs up to our biking trails (AWESOME!) and has a nice deck, screened porch, etc so hopefully the kitchen speaks to me!

We have a little more money to put down now since we got our tax check deposited today (yes!). It only took a week-thanks to Jake's expertise in the taxing area which I am clueless about! Every little bit counts towards a down payment!

Pray that we make the right decisions in the next few days & that we have patients and a clear mind going into each house so that we can decide on the house He wants us to have.

Round #2: House Hunting

This morning we went out on our second trip house hunting and it was a little bit better than the first time...in other words, no Pilsbury Doughboy (Whoo hoo!). We looked at mostly newer homes and one built in the 70's.

• The 70's home was nice, had a large fenced back yard with screened in porch, BUT...It had a very, very, very small kitchen with white cabinets and off white/white/cream appliances (not so attractive). It had a basement, which was appealing, but in the end it would have needed a lot of work-after seeing what it looked like! The only thing I really liked was the master bathroom vanity/sink/cabinet thingy they had replaced...that's too bad!
• We really liked one of the first houses we saw-cute ranch built in 2006, 3 bd 2ba. It was very nicely 'staged' unlike our first round out house hunting which definately made our interests peak a lot, but the master bedrm was HUGE and the master bath was soo tiny! We couldnt get 2 people in there if we wanted to-and I dont want to be doing the whole-spare-bathroom-getting-ready-in-the-morning-type-thing when we can afford a home! So, we figured we'd keep looking.
• The very next 2 houses were in that same neighborhood (which is close to the bike trails-a plus) were so unlike that first one it was ridiculous..sure tells a story of the homeowners. One of them was definately a grandma -we could tell by the smell & light pink curtains and the other had kids that were not easy on the carpet which would have to be completely replaced. Oh yeah, and the 30 gallons of Kilz that we would have to put on the red, orange, and yellow walls in the living/kitchen area and the bright pink/royal blue/yellow walls in the little girls room. Needless to say they had a mural too-a beach scene that seemed like a pain to get off! Next house please...
• After looking at several more, we found one that we are particularly interested in more! It has 4 bedrooms, a den, 2 1/2 bath and is 2300ish sq ft (a huge house for 2 people), but is listed at a nice price. It backs up to a corn/whatever field so that means privacy/resale is good. They have a nice deck on the back that isnt just a 10 x 10 platform like some of the other 'decks' out there! From the garage you enter into the laundry room & then the kitchen, which our realitor explained to us is a huge bonus-because how many times do you carry groceries in your house clear in to the kitchen...we had never thought about that before. Nice non oak cabinets with lots of them, wood fireplace, gigantic master and master bath with 2 sinks and a huge master closet-the list of positives could go on and on. The only thing we were trying to figure out is if the house is cheaply built. For the price and sq. ft. we arent sure. It's a KB home and we havent really heard much about it-want to make sure its not a CP Morgan home or close to it! If you know anything about KB homes, please let us know-if we dont hear anything we may seriously consider becuase they are PURDUE grads too! Meant to be?? I dont know :)

Much better this time I think! Not as frustrating, but there arent many homes in Plainfield that fit our budget so we are sort of looking hard to find a good buy and possibly squeeze in for the tax credit! If you have any advice...feel free to provide & comment!

Round #1: House Hunting

Yesterday evening we took our first trip out house hunting with our Realitor. Needless to say after visiting 8 houses we learned ALOT!

I want to preface the rest of this blog post by saying that we are avid HGTV people and love to watch shows like House Hunters, Get It Sold, My House is Worth What?, First Time Home Buyers, and any other buying/selling house show on that channel.

We are upgraded 'gu-rus' for Goodwill prices kind of people. There were 2 huge things that stuck out in my mind from our trip out: 1) When we went to some of the houses the only thing in my head was...'this is what our money can buy us?' (sadly). Even though the housing market is apparently good for buyers, it is not great for buyers! 2) House hunting is NOT as much fun as everyone leads on to believe!! (see huge thing #1). Now, if we had $300,000 it would be ALOT of fun in this area!

The first two homes that we toured were older 2 story homes built in the early 90's, which our realitor said were better built that the 'mass produced homes' today. That statement might have been true, but unlike us, the sellers had not watched one episode of Get It Sold! Let me explain. . .

We called on a for sale by owner house on Friday and set up a time on Saturday morning to see it-the seller requested not to bring our realitor (something about fees, etc) so we went and didnt bring our realitor... which ended up being OK. Its a huge sign that the house you are looking at isnt the one you want to buy when you walk in the front door and it smells like smoke..not cigarette smoke! I think he was trying to relax before we got there.

-House #1: nice layout, but the kitchen was too small, there was too much furniture (chunky furniture) in the living room which made it seem entirely too small, they decided not to paint the mint green walls and beat up scratched white walls. The master was apart of the master bathroom & there were no overhead lights (which apparently is a common thing in houses, not the one we will buy, but the ones we looked at). Ok, decent I give it a 5 for functionality. NEXT!

-House #2: nice sitting/formal living area right as you walk in, but was cluttered with 2 computer desks and a bunch of junk, small living room with, again, over sized furniture, horrible paint colors..and wait for it...THE PILSBURY DOUGHBOY muraled on the kitchen wall!!! What? You have to be kidding me, did no one tell you that neutral was a good way to go? Nope..the dining room was apple red with the most hidious* furniture ever & did I mention 3 types of hardwood/laminate/etc floors throughout the house and a very specificly built master bath (which from my HGTV experience) was pretty costly for the horribly digusting taste they put in it. Along with many other things...NEXT!

The rest of the houses were new or newer, we're talking past 3 years built. I would say 5/8 had kitchens that are smaller than our apartment (all of which were ugly cabinets) and the most frustrating feature of the houses...TBA at the end of the post, new construction on either both sides of the house and/or behind the house too (which is a huge no-no for resale & my sanity)! Each of those houses had their different and unique 'deal-breakers' for me like the fact that our living room furniture wouldnt fit in there or there was only a shower in the master or only 1 sink in the master-stuff like that and the whole kitchen-eesque stuff too.

Needless to say we did not find our first home and were only frustrated more with this process. A couple of the most frustrating things when house hunting:

1. EVERYTHING is an upgrade...oh you want space (upgrade), oh you want a door (upgrade), oh you don't want standard knobs on your bathroom sinks-the ones that look like crystal balls (upgrade), oh you want a sink that's actually deep enough to wash dishes in (the MOST frustrating thing EVER)...nope thats an upgrade too.

2. People who are selling their homes must not really want to sell as evidence by the nice brass light fixtures and crazy paint & decorations they still have in their houses..P.S. to the people trying to sell---no one wants a crazy persons house!

3. The sellers who showed us in a few houses (we were with our realitor) would act like their homes were so much better than everyone elses-nevermind they all look alike! One actually tried to tell me that the stove in this one house was an upgraded stove...he was taken back when it was the EXACT same one in our apartment & inserted his foot in his mouth when I told him and he said well, I doubt its the same one in your apt!! Well, how do you know?? You have never seen it! Wow..

The good thing is I can almost look at the outside and step into the front door and realize if I'm still interested in the house!

We will take Round #2 on Wednesday in Plainfield (of which I'm trying to be positive, but I've looked online and driving and havent seen much). On the positive note, if we dont find a house right now, thats OK! Because I like our kitchen/bathrooms/rooms better in the apartment we're in now than any of the houses we've seen so far. If you have a similiar experience share it-we'd love to laugh at it! More to come on our experience after our tours on Wednesday!

Side note: every time I used the word 'we' I really mean 'I'-Jake would be content with almost anything!

What do we do now....

Jake and I just got our credit reports from annualcreditreport.com (Thanks to Al)! But, now that we have them we really dont know what they mean!! Everything was green-assuming as in good, or that we've been on time with any payment we've ever had. It shows the money we still owe on our car, and student loans (ie debt) but what do we take from all this? Basically, it didnt show us anything new that we didnt already know.

It offered to give us our credit score for only $5.95, but we opted for just the report for FREE! Should we have gotten the credit score or not...Jake thought we could get that for free at a bank we we try to qualify for a loan?!

Help! We're thinking about looking for homes!

Today I started looking online for houses in the Plainfield area! Could be a good thing, but also a bad thing because our lease isnt up until Sept 2010. Good thing because the first time home buyers credit of $8,000.00 was extended until April 2010 (must close by June).

I've read a few things online about what to do before buying a home such as check your credit & debit-income ratio, etc....But, I'm not even sure if I'm doing it right! We both are really confused & have many questions, but at the same time we dont REALLY want to start looking until March-because I get 'lets buy it now' syndrome. A few things we are wondering: should we put money down? how to start looking (other than online)? if you run a free credit report, does it take points off? There are many more, but thats all I can think of now.

I think a big problem could be that we are so ready to get a house that we havent even decided what things we are looking for in one! Is there a website or something out there to aid our thought process? Really, any assistance would help greatly. And I know we could get a realtor now, but I feel like I would be pressured and un-knowledgeable about the home buying process & I want to know as much as possible so we dont get scammed!

Good thing we still have a while!