Options Insomnia

Apparently I have house hunting insomnia. I am hoping that if I just blog about what we've seen and what our options are, I will be able to sleep.

This is the back of the house I liked the most from our house hunting jaunt yesterday. I will tell you why. It has a HUGE bonus room upstairs, off of the kitchen. And the bonus room has two bedrooms off of it. I can just imagine it as the Emma & Macey suite. All their toys in that main room, their bedrooms right there. Oh, it would be great.

But it has negatives. They did not leave enough room between the kitchen island and the carpet in the living room for a dining room table (woops!). The garage is on the side and so you have to do a tight turn from the driveway to enter the garage. In a van or the Jeep, it might not be possible without backing in, backing out, backing in, backing out. The backyard is fenced (yeah!) but a mud pit. 1/3 of an acre of absolute wasteland. I see possibilities! Garry sees money, hard work, and, oh ya, money. They also stripped out all window coverings and the basement is not finished and has water damage from improperly dug window wells. But did I mention the fabulous bonus room???
This is Garry's favorite from yesterday. It also has a great bonus room with two huge closets off of the bonus room with built in shelves. Hello toy storage!!! It has a circular driveway, which you cannot see from the picture, but it is awesome.

It has major negatives. The backyard is narrow, narrow and on the other side of the fence are a ton of horses. That's just going to smell really bad all summer long. The girls loved watching the horses, but I am not sure I want to smell them. It's off of a busy street (114th) -- second lot in. The basement is not finished, the landscaping is completely undone, even the front yard. Just dirt. Everywhere. They also stripped all of the window coverings. But Garry loves the driveway and in the kitchen they have a water spicket thing right over the gorgeous gas stove in case you need to fill a pot and are too lazy to walk to the sink.

We saw two new houses that looked identical. One had a fireplace and the other did not. And they had different railings on the stairs, but besides that they were identical. They were nice, but the loft was open and visible right from the entry. Who wants a toy area they actually have to clean? Backyards were unfenced, landscaping in the back was not done because it is a new construction, and the basement is not finished, and the window coverings have to be out in.

The neighbor on the other side of the fence put concrete in his entire back yard -- it's just a mass of concrete. I asked the listing agent why they did that. She said that he probably set it up for large parties/gatherings. It'd be easy to barbeque and have seats for everyone, etc., etc. I thought she was CRAZY for telling me that -- who wants to live behind the party house??

I know we will never find the "perfect" house, but do the negatives have to be so, well, NEGATIVE?

Attachment

We broke every rule when we started looking at houses in December. Okay, I broke a very big rule. I got attached. First to Lizzie with its fabulous fireplace and fun bonus room that no one would ever see and therefore I would rarely have to clean! When it got snatched up just hours before we were thinking of putting in an offer, it broke my heart and was hard to look at other houses after that. They just did not stack up.

And now Esperanza. When the banks were within $5,000 of an agreement, the negotiator went on a two week vacation. She is now behind, not answering phone calls, her voice mail is full, and she is not returning the phone calls she has. There is no movement. What was supposed to take two weeks because we had a verbal agreement and all parties were on-board has taken two months and there is no end in sight.

So we're going to go out and look at five other houses (none of them are short sales!!). It'll be hard because each house will have something Esperanza does not have: a deck, a fence, landscaping, a finished basement. Big costly things.

Not sure if we should just forget about Esperanza or hold on because it has everything that we want?? We've been 'homeless' for three months and my sanity level over having three kids in such a tiny space is wearing THIN.

A Friend

Garry and I have been going to the ward that we would go to if we got the Esperanza house. We have not become very active in the ward since things might not work out with Esperanza and we would have to start all over somewhere else. I am not sure if they have a play group or a book club.

So I have been going to my sister's book club. It's a little fluffy. January's book was fluffy. February's book was by a Mormon author and fluffy. In March we are reading a Sheri Dew book (sigh) and in April we are reading another piece of fluff by January's author (deep sigh).

So it was with great excitement that at the end of book club last night a member, Sarah, said, "If anyone is looking for a really good book to read, I highly recommend The Glass Castle."

I nearly jumped out of my chair and hugged her. Finally someone who read more than fluff!!

I gushed to her about how I LOVED that book and was starting her new book and on and on. I probably scared her with my excitement, but apparently good book club friends are hard to find.

She walked out with my sister and I and we talked about wanting to read more serious, good, stay-with-you, change-your-life, good books. She said that she felt like the 'liberal' of the group because she recommended a book that shocked the book club to its core and made the Relief Society book club change to the neighborhood book club.

Sounds like another friend I know ;)

Happiness

I have a book blog. bloggingonbooks.wordpress.com

It's not as neat or as cute as this one, but I hope one day it'll be a good resource for people looking for a good book to read.

I recently finished the book Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos.

At the end of the book, the main character, Cornelia, is talking with her father about happiness in the home. Her mother's life growing up had been very difficult and she swore that nothing like that would touch her children.

Her father explains happiness to Cornelia:

"Did you think all this was for free? Happiness isn't what happens when you whistle along, pretending bad things don't exist. . .Happiness is earned, like everything else. It's achieved. The problem is that your mother's made it look too easy. Which is exactly what she wanted."

It's a great little speech, but I was left wondering how she did it? How did she work and create happiness?? They should have written a book about THAT.

Going To The Ballet

My niece performed in the ballet Coppelia last weekend, and so on Friday night I took Emma and Macey to the auditorium to watch her dance. Here they are with the ballerina, Samantha. Isn't she beautiful?!?!

Here we are in the audience with Cousin Chloe. The girls enjoyed their first ballet, but Macey needs to learn to whisper! During the play she'd ask, full voice, "Where are they going?" "What are they doing now?"

After, we went out to ice cream, and I got the BEST surprise of the evening when I got home and Garry had cleaned the apartment. What a guy.

Celebrating Valentine's Day, Utah Style

Back East, Valentine's Day could be a little stressful. You had to find a babysitter that was not already booked and a restaurant that you could get into! Often Garry & I would celebrate Valentine's Day a little early or a little later so that we could get a babysitter and a table at a restaurant.

But, welcome to Utah where we have lots of options for babysitters and so many great restaurants to choose from. But, problem. This year it fell on a Sunday. (Sigh).

So on Saturday we went to a movie. The Blind Side. It's been out FOREVER and so I expected the theater to be pretty empty. Instead, it was packed. I guess everyone had the same idea. It must have been a great one!

Check out my roses -- aren't they beautiful?!? This vase was actually my first Valentine's Day present from Garry. Ahhhhh......

Amateur -- Part One

I have found myself in two situations lately where I was a hopeless amateur, and it showed.

The first situation found me on a snowy day in Maryland. We were staying in the hotel and the only washer in the whole hotel was broke. It was time to visit the laundermat.

Even in my college days I did not go to laundermats. I either went to the laundry in the basement or to my sister's house. Being poor, really poor, it was almost always to my sister's home.

So I walked into this situation alone and confused. They had washers of all sizes! Do I go large? Medium? Normal? And the prices!! Did they really want $4 for a large washer?? Didn't they know that in the dorms, in the 90s, it was only 75 cents?

I made it through the washing process and headed for the dryers. All of the dryers were set to Medium heat, and I assumed that this was because hot was super hot -- shrink your clothes hot. So I kept it on Medium and waited the appointed time. The buzzer rang, I opened the dryer door, and my clothes were still wet! Suspicious, I walked down the aisle to see what settings the pros were using. Yep, all were set to high.

Sighing, I inserted more money and turned the knob to high. I could just imagine what the pros were thinking as I struggled through this process. "Sad, amateur. Medium! Hah!"