And So It Begins

And by "it" I mean the countdown to my birthday, courtesy of my baby brother Patrick who reminded me that I even HAVE a birthday coming up. 17 days to go. (If you're counting, yes it's December 31st, which I'm proud to share with Miss Molly and NO it wasn't awesome growing up with my birthday on a holiday, but it's become more and more awesome every year so I'm not holding it against the first 17 years of my life. Really.)

I can't believe I'll be 27. For some reason 27 is a scary age for me. Not because I feel old (I mean I DO feel old, but that's due to the fact that I just bought my second house, third car and do all sort of ridiculously ADULT things) . . . I think it's more because of the pressure associated with 27. It's the age everyone claims to be once they are over that age. I feel like there's a lot of pressure to make 27 my best year ever. That way, when I'm 45 and people ask me how old I am, I can say "27!" and think back on when I really was 27 and be joyful. I plan to try to make it the best year ever, but I'm fearing the pressure.

So, I'm moving on and not talking about being 27 anymore.

As I've said before, what is WITH this December? I am so behind my usual end of the year extravaganza!! I usually have a huge list of Christmas and Birthday wants, a huge gorgeous tree set up, Christmas music playing at all hours and all my shopping is usually done and all the presents are wrapped by now.

None of the above have happened. Thus my shock when Patrick reminded me it was my birthday in just a little over two weeks. Which means his birthday is in three days. My baby brother is 21! Now THAT makes me feel old! It also means Christmas is just a little over a week today and hi, freak out because nothing is done. Have I mentioned nothing is done? Good because nothing is done. And we've decided not to get a tree for our house this year because we're only in town for another week and I'm freaking out a little inside because it goes against everything I believe in, so things will remain to be undone.

Except this one thing. I got my Dad RED FLEECE FOOTED PAJAMAS WITH A BACK DOOR. I'm DYING at how awesomly funny they are and how sad I am I won't be there to see his face when he opens them. They were Matt's idea and I bow down to his genius.

Now, in memory of last year's amazing(ly overlit) Christmas tree, I leave you with a picture of said Christmas tree. May she and the lights we were too lazy to take off of her rest in Christmas peace.

The I can breathe out of one nostril Thankfuls

I'm on the road to recovery! Thank you to all of you for your well-wishes. Half of my face has recovered and hopefully the other half isn't far behind. I can breathe a little better and can sleep better as well. At least my Thanksgiving wasn't ruined! Phew!

I've realized that I have way too much to do lately, and no energy whatsoever with which to do it. I need to get a new couch, but I'm too tired to get up off the OLD couch to go look for a new one. I need to go to a friend's house to pick up some accessories I bought from them but the thought of driving out there has me ready for bed. I need to paint my family room, start decorating for Christmas (and buy new decorations because holy crap my old decorations don't cut it!), landscape the backyard and a whole host of other things that need to be done and I'm just.so.tired.

Oh yeah, and I have to shop for Christmas. Most of you know that a) I love to shop and b)I work for an eCommerce company . . . A tends to conflict with B because I like to go to the mall and shop for presents but I SHOULD shop online to support my industry. I just don't usually do it. Except for maybe this year. I'm thinking of going virtual for my Christmas shopping and even I can't believe it. What do you guys think? How do you shop for the Holidays? Does paying for shipping make you want to pull out your hair like it does me, yet somehow you add up the time it takes to go to the mall, find a parking space, drag your butt from store to store and realize that it might just be worth it? I'm still trying to decide.

Also, what the CRAP do I get my husband? He's very hard to shop for. I can't get him tools because "tools aren't FUN they mean I have to do work with them. I like fun presents." I can't get him what he really wants because hi, I don't have $40,000 sitting around with which to buy him a nice truck. Clothes seem boring to buy because he has a uniform of sorts and getting him the fiftieth blue and tan plaid shirt just seems . . . wrong. HELP!!?!?!?

Ok and on to Thankfuls. I skipped yesterday because, well, see the first paragraph. So ten Thankfuls on the way and then I'll see you all tomorrow!!

1. Hannah. We had the funniest conversation yesterday over email and I miss her and her gorgeous babies to death right now. I was thinking about a night many years ago when we laughed so hard for almost an hour that we couldn't talk, breathe or do anything. All over a guy's lip zit. AHAHAHAHA. Dear Hannah how I love you.

2. A clean car. I'm not good at keeping my car clean and I wish I was because it's sure nice to be in when it's not a disaster.

3. Chocolate hazelnut mousse cake with fondant. It was a co-workers birthday today and we got the most delicious cake. Mmmmm.

4. The ease with which I can buy music on iTunes. It's bad for the bank account but good for the soul.

5. That my husband didn't get one bit mad when I called him up AFTER I'd just spent almost $200 on concert tickets.

6. Instant Messenger. I'm not sure I'd know anything about some of my best friends without it. I haven't talked to one friend on the phone in almost six months, but we talk every day on IM.

7. Carbohydrates. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

8. The thought of eating my Grandma's creamed corn on Thursday. If I could get away with it, that's all I'd eat at Thanksgiving.

9. Little kids voices. SO precious.

10. My brother Sean. We talked yesterday and somehow got on the subject of tap-dancing lawyers and we were dying laughing. He's become such an amazing man and one of my greatest friends. I'm so proud of him and how much he's overcome. He's literally and figuratively my hero.

Thankfully

Today I worked from home because I had to meet some servicemen taking care of some issues with the house. I am surprised with how much I was able to get done despite working ten feet from my big screen TV. I was also able to supervise the work being done on my house, which was nice.

Have I mentioned I love our new house? Because I do. It's starting to feel like home and I don't miss our old house anymore. We still have lots of little things to do and some furniture to buy, but I'm not impatient and that will come in time, we're in no huge hurry. I do want to have a Christmas party this year, so I'm hoping I can make it look a little more homey in at least the common areas, specifically the family room. It needs paint in a bad way, but I also need a water softener. And by need, I mean HAVE TO HAVE RIGHT NOW oh my gosh the hard water stains are going to drive me to take pills. For real. So I think the paint may take second seat to the softener, because those suckers are expensive!!

So, now that you're caught up on my boring day, I give you my Thankfuls.

1. Soft carpet. I love walking around barefoot at home and digging my toes into our gorgeous, soft, wheat colored carpet.

2. People with accents. I know, I know, to some people I am the one with the accent . . . but today i heard Paula Deen say "auuul" (oil) like fifteen times and I giggled with glee every time she said it. I also love a British accent. I just watched The Holiday the other night and mmmm Jude Law . . . with his accent. Meow!

3. My recently fixed master bathroom toilet. It's been sorta broken since we moved in and I am overjoyed at the prospect of NOT running through the house to the half bath to use the lou in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Ahhh modern plumbing.

4. Forks. Yep, forks. I spent some time in China several years ago and let me tell you what, whoever invented the fork had the right idea. Eating without them sucks. Chopsticks are hard and spoons just aren't right for SO many things.

5. Feed readers. Oh the joy of not having to search out your new posts. I love using my reader to help direct me to your posts. I do love me some bloggers.

The one with all the pictures

Brace yourselves . . . they're coming. I'll try to go easy on you and not overload your brains with TOO many pictures. It might hurt. Most likely it will hurt me and not you guys. But it might hurt both of us, so I'll be careful.

First, I give you the final pictures of our first home. I have to say that it's SO WEIRD to think of someone else living there now. We closed on Friday and it's done, done, done. It was stressful and stupid and irritating but it's done and now we can move on, but a part of me is sad to end that amazing chapter of my life with my husband. So here you go:

The way I took this picture is very odd and . . . optical illusion-like.
Ha. Oh well! Goodbye beautiful floors and lovely red paint!

The final picture of the outside. Sorry it's at night. We'll sure miss that mature palm tree! We should have taken it with us!

The final picture of us in front of our house, even though all you can see is the garage light. Haha. Oops! Also, memo to us: pictures we try to take of ourselves are usually very unflattering.

Now, I give you pictures of the new house! I am going to go chronologically, from dirt to final product. Sidenote: I have yet to take pictures of the slightly unpacked, slightly better looking version of the house, so just remember that I took these THE DAY AFTER we moved in. No judging.

Our bit of earth

Later, after they dug a bunch of stuff up. Veeeery exciting.

Pre-plumbing and the frame for the foundation

Walls!! Sort of . . .

Almost there . . .

Almost there . . .

Ta-Daa! Complete with empty lot next door that will cause many headaches when someone finally buys it and they begin building on it. Seriously, EVERY OTHER LOT IS SOLD. Just my luck that the ONLY unsold lot is next to our bedroom windows. Seriously.

Le front door

The view from the entryway

Formal Living/Dining/Entry/Great Room/HOLY AWESOME NATURAL LIGHT!

Great Room from upstairs, where there is a small loft, three bedrooms and a bathroom.

Most of you have seen this already but this is the kitchen (unfortunately pre-paint. I gotta get one with the new paint. I promise I'll do it. It's light brown, if that helps!)

Family Room/Master Bedroom for the first week

Master Bedroom sans bedroom stuff

Master Bathroom (two sinks AND a separate tub/shower? I've died and gone to heaven)

Closet. Sigh of joy.

Our first meal in our new house. Traditional Move-in Pizza Hut. Mmmm.

I LOVE our new house. I'm having trouble decorating, but that doesn't take away from my absolute joy every time I drive around the corner and see it standing there. I seriously can't believe it's ours. I keep having to pinch myself. Especially when I see the view from our front porch. I gotta give it to Arizona, it has the most incredible sunsets. And now I have an unobstructed view of them every day. I'm in heaven and so, so grateful.

Well, I have lots of pictures of our trip to the dunes, but I think those will have to wait for another day because I'm about pictured out. Just to give you a teaser though, I proudly present me, kicking my husband's butt on top of a huge sand hill.

We got very, very sandy.

Stay tuned Sunday for my newest installment of Soap Opera Sunday . . . the one in which I completely embarrass myself. Again.

Dune Buddies

So we're off to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes with Matt's family and our quads. I bought new pink and black gear for the occasion which might spark the question "Kate, why on earth did you buy matching ATV gear to go out with your family?"

Well, that is another discussion for another time, but basically . . . IT'S PINK AND BLACK!!!

We won't be back until late Monday night, so I'm sorry I won't be participating in Soap Opera Sunday yet AGAIN. I suck. But trust me, I'm the worse off. I'm gonna have sand in places you didn't know sand could GET by the time we finish up four days at the dunes.

I leave you all with the knowledge that when I get back, it will be a week full of pictures because WE FOUND THE CAMERA CORD! So you'll be able to see me in the Shark Tank at Mandalay Bay, the new house, final pictures of the old house and me, covered in sand, but stylishly. I might dub it Ocular October or something stupid like that because you might just get pictures!

I apologize. Ocular October is a lame, stupid name.

OK we're off on our elebenteen hour drive. Have a great weekend!

Too tired to think of a title. Got any ideas?

I only have a few minutes but I wanted to update you all on the boring goings on in my life. Because I know you care sooooooo deeply. Or something.

So, in no particular order, I give you:

- I would LOVE to post pictures of the new house for all of you, but somehow in the move, I have misplaced the camera cord. Well, by I, what I actually mean is Matt misplaced it. And by misplaced I mean packed in a box and forgot which one. So um . . . yeah. Sorry about that, but not really because all the pictures are of a HUGE MESS. Our bed is in the family room due to technical difficulties with the frame (which should be fixed tonight. Who knew a 200 lb man doing a superman-esque leap onto the bed after running down the hall at full speed might actually do damage to a bed frame? Oh wait. I did. And I warned him.) and there are boxes and wrappings and blue tape (from finding little things that need to be fixed by the builder) EVERYWHERE. So it's really in no condition to show you.

- We are almost completely moved out of the old house. Now all we have to do is a bit of cleaning. I'm proud to say the house was not that messy. We got the wood floors pretty dirty moving everything around but all in all, I pat myself on the back for being able to keep the house relatively clean over the past six months. It's been helpful in many, many ways. And has sucked and been stressful in many, many ways.

It's bittersweet to be moving out of that house. After spending one night in the new house it seems small, cramped and old, but I still love it. Our blood, sweat and tears went into turning it from a pink carpeted, outdated disaster to something we were proud of. Tomorrow as we do the final cleaning and shut the door for the last time, I will be sad because a very, very happy chapter of Matt's and my life together is ending. We were in love when we got married for sure, but I truly fell madly in love with my husband in that home. I will miss it and be sad. But only on the drive to the new house. Then I will see the new house and I will be happy again because I really LOVE our new house.

- The Great Internet Debacle of 2007 is raging a war at our new house. We had one of the satellite companies come and install our new TV system and they forgot to mention that they were tapping into the cable box in the study . . . which means that the TV in the study works but the cable Internet doesn't. That's a big problem because as nice as a TV is in the study, Internet would be nicer considering it's where the desktop computer lives. The satellite company promised us a phone call in 24-48 hours to arrange a time to fix it and it's now been 48 and no call from them. For now we're thinking wireless on the desktop, but that uses valuable USB cords and heaven knows we need those for multiple iPods, the laser mouse, wireless keyboard . . . you know other junk. So wireless it is for now.

BUT then we tried to use the wireless router. Somehow, on the drive from the old house to the new house, the router broke. It wasn't dropped, damaged . . . who knows what happened. Maybe it's against new construction. However, JUST the wireless part broke, the router part still worked. So we had Internet when we were connected to it through a cable but didn't have wireless. *scratching head here.* So after an hour of trying to figure it out on our own, we decided to do the really dumb thing and call tech support. IN INDIA. (Please note I have nothing against India in general, I just find it very, very difficult to understand and be understood by anyone in another country trying to do TECH SUPPORT.) It was a giant disaster.

"Please plug your modem into the router and then your router into your laptop."

"Done. I have Internet"

"No, take the laptop cord out of the modem and put it in the router and that should get you connected to the Internet"

"Um, that's what is already done. And I have Internet on the laptop."

"I repeat myself kindly please. I need your laptop plugged into the router."

oh.my.gosh. It went on like this for like two hours and three disconnected calls. We finally talked to someone who seemed to understand what was going on and it appears our router stopped assigning an IP address. So um . . . now that means new router or wait for the company to send us a replacement one.

And the money keeps rolling out.

It's expensive to move. And I'm tired of sleeping in the family room and eating fast food. And lifting and unpacking boxes. And not exercising and feeling fat. I want so badly to wave a magic wand and make it all done.

*squinting eyes and waving hands*

Not done?

Crap.

Blah de Blah de Blah

First off, let me start my blog post the way I normally do . . . with an apology. Haha.

I apologize that I don't have pictures for this post. In fact the post is almost pointless without pictures, but I had to post about it before I ran out of time. So . . . yeah.

So, this week we started moving stuff in to the new house. Correction: We started moving stuff into the garage and kitchen and that's all. We have been taking over a trailer and two car loads of stuff every day and the third car bay of the garage is practically full of boxes. However, we have not moved over ANY furniture. So, recap. I have an empty house and a full garage. Per-fect.

Ooh ooh ooh but I DID (with the help of my amazing friend Rhonda) organize the entire kitchen. I am delighted to announce that I have WAY too many cabinets and drawers. I am a person of MANY, MANY kitchen things. The kitchen at the old house was bursting at the seams with stuff. I had about eight cupboards and four drawers. I now have four drawers and six cupboards on my ISLAND ALONE. I am full of bliss and excitement at the thought of a shopping trip to Williams Sonoma (someday when we have money again) to fill the cupboards with fun kitchen gadgets, serving platters and the like. Excellent.

We were also able to finally pick paint colors, thanks to a model decorated with exactly our color of carpet, tile, cabinets and counter tops, and as of Saturday afternoon, the living/dining room, nook, main hallway and kitchen are now painted. They messed up and put the wrong color on one wall in the kitchen, so I'll be working on fixing that this week, but it's not a huge deal. The house looks AMAZING. The colors are perfect. Now I just have to save up some more money to have the rest of the house painted. See, now I never want to paint again. I let the painters in at 7 AM and arrived at 2 PM to a finished product. Could it get ANY better?

The house selling negotiations are . . . well, going. This market sucks. S-U-C-K-S. I truly feel lucky to sell our house in this city. I went garage sale hopping on Saturday morning and I swear every other house on every street was for sale. There aren't a lot of people selling their houses and we've been able to sell ours. But I won't lie, we've been HATING it. We have been asked to do some repairs to the house that just seem utterly ridiculous, but in this market, we can't fight too much about it. We just have to suck up and do it. Luckily, our Realtor has really come through for us and he's handling all the repairs so I'm going to get a lollipop and stand by watching him spend our money. Who needs money right? I'll just work Matt a little harder. Hehee.

Speaking of Matt, have I mentioned that I have the most amazing husband? The man works all day, then comes home and works some more and he still manages to pack, organize and move a load a day and help calm my craziness to boot. We're both under a lot of pressure and it's obvious who deals with it better. (Hint: it's not me.)

And while I'm talking about amazing people, my crazy Mom ran ANOTHER marathon this weekend. Naturally, I can't get her to call me and tell me how she did, but I'm sure she did great. I think this is like the sixth marathon this year? I told you. CRAZY. Love her but she's CRAZY. And skinny. Damn I wish I was that skinny. Without having to run a marathon . . . or six.

OK, thus ends the craziness of this random, stupid post. I promise pictures of the new house soon and keep you updated on moving progress.

Merry kisses to all and to all a goodnight.

Finally! A Good Day!

I woke up this morning and for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel ominous. I didn't feel like I was going to sluggishly tromp through my day. I had energy and spunk and most of all, I was grateful for all the amazing things in my life for the first time in a long time.

I've been focused on the bad for way too long. It's not like me . . . I'm SO not a negative, wallowy (is that even a word? Eh, who cares.) person. I HATE feeling like I'm in a pit of despair. So I've been doubly miserable lately, drowning in my pit and hating myself for it. Basically, I was being stupid.

I have an awesome, luck filled life. I married a man I don't deserve who loves me in spite of ME. I have an incredible job I probably don't deserve that came with an incredible boss I probably don't deserve. I have an amazing family who is loving and supportive (how many people have 20 year old brothers who call JUST to tell their sister they love and miss her??) and I have the most incredible group of friends that I know most would kill to be a part of.

So today, I decided to be grateful for it. I said a prayer and thanked the Lord for my life and apologized for being such a butt-head (yes, I actually used the word butt-head in my prayer) and then I skipped off to face my day with a smile.

And this has turned out to be one great freaking day.

I don't want to jinx it, I just had to share because we had a plethora of good news in the last 24 hours.

First, after INSANE amounts of controversy, stupidity and more stupidity (the real estate world seems to be full of idiots. No offense to any of you who are in real estate. You're not the idiots of which I speak. Just everyone else in real estate. That includes Realtors, Banks and Title Companies. I'll share that story later) we FINALLY got the keys to our new house!! It's ours! It's more beautiful than I ever hoped. Here are some pictures to prove it!

A key! We have a key!

My favorite room, the kitchen (two views, one from the family room)

The breathtaking view from our front porch
(oh and the final picture of Rhonda's Mini. It got traded for a hot new set of wheels the next day)

And last, but certainly not least, my hubster, having the first go at the master lavoratory.
Two important things to note:
1. His pose. What the crap?
2. He gave me permission to use this picture

On Saturday the paint crew arrives to do away with the ugly white and make it look a little less sterile in there. I'm SO excited. I will post pictures of the other rooms soon. They're on my other computer and I'm too lazy to go get them off.

My second piece of good news is actually the one thing I've been waiting on for almost two years. I FINALLY got the PEARL PINK RAZR!!!! I have wanted it since the second I saw it but I was too cheap to pay for it. Hahah. So now, it's mine, all mine! Next step is to bling it out. I can't WAIT!

Look at it in all it's pearly pink wonderfulness!!

The final piece of good news is the one I don't want to jinx, but I HAVE to tell everyone about.

We got another offer on our house!!

It's not a perfect offer but it's a good offer and it sounds like the buyers are in LOVE with the house, so I'm feeling good about this one. I'm crossing all fingers and toes and saying many prayers that it will go through. If it does, it causes major stress because the buyers want to close on October 15th. (I KNOW! What the crap?! That means I have to move this weekend and I haven't even packed one single thing!) However, it means we don't have to pay ANY double house payments. So, here's to hoping it works out and that I don't die of the moving stress this week!

You have all been so great during this entire debacle. Thank you for your words of encouragement, your funny comments and most of all your stories on your blogs that got my mind off of my issues for a few minutes. I love blogging.

Seriously. What a great day.

Reject

So, yet another buyer thinks they can get a better deal on a house. And maybe they can . . . we're just not desperate enough to just give our house away I suppose.

Here's to the weekend and another contract! (Since we seem to get about one a week these days!) Hopefully, this time it will stick!

I had a fun experience today with the morons at the mortgage company, but that also has to do with the house and I don't want to talk about it anymore. It seems to be all I can think or talk about this week. And, for the record, I'm as sick of talking about this as you guys are of hearing about it. Just so we're all clear on that.

I go to Vegas for a week for work on the 17th and while I'm excited to have something else to think/worry about, this is our biggest show of the year and I always end up getting sick after this one, so I'm praying this year I can make it through without getting the illness of death like last year. When that's over I get to come home and start packing up for the move. Just the thought of it is so overwhelming I'm going to stop thinking about it right now.

And end this lame post right now.

I Hate Waiting

We got another offer on our house. Unfortunately, it was embarrassingly low. Lower than an offer we received from an investor about a month ago that we laughed hysterically at.

So, yesterday we just laughed again and then countered with a more reasonable (yet compromising! See!? We can compromise!) offer.

Now we are waiting. They are a young couple, buying their first house and they are thinking it over. If only we'd had that luxury when we were a young couple, buying our first house! Stupid market. Stupid allowing buyers to think it over market. Wish I was in their shoes.

I'm trying hard to enjoy the fun new things that appear in our new house every day. The granite and the tile are in (and GORGEOUS if I do say so myself), as are the light fixtures and my glorious, wonderful huge tub. It's looking so beautiful. I can't wait to move in at the end of the month, yet I'm anxious because we're still waiting.

We're confident we can sell, confident that we'll get a good offer. The house was on the market for two days before our last offer and then only two days before this offer. It feels good to finally be wanted . . . but someone needs to want just a little bit more.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

Starting Over

First of all, thank you for your well wishes and prayers for us with regards to this post.

Unfortunately/Fortunately (depending on how you want to look at it) the kid backed out and the house is back on the market.

I'm not gonna lie, I was FURIOUS on Thursday when we first heard. We offered the A/C as a "diving save" maneuver. I screamed and cried (in a house by myself because Matt was on a plane to Utah) and, as I mentioned on IM to my friends, I was in such a state that even the Cheesecake Factory Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake sitting in my fridge sounded gross. I prayed my guts out on Friday night, but rather than praying for the kid to change his mind, I prayed that I would be OK with whatever happened and told the Lord that I knew He knew best.

Friday morning I woke up feeling much better. I called our Realtor and told him that the kid had until noon to decide if he wanted to take us up on our offer and then after that, it was off the table and the house was back on the market - no more negotiations with the lame-o. Our Realtor agreed with my decision and called the other Realtor.

Turns out, the other Realtor is ready to smack that kid upside the head. They've been looking for six months and the other Realtor thinks our house is an amazing deal and the guy is stupid for not taking it WITHOUT the free A/C. Apparently the guys older brother is jealous because our house is nicer than the one he lives in and he doesn't think his little brother deserves a nicer house than he has. I guess it's turned into quite the family drama for the buyer's family and now he just doesn't want it. Period. BUT, his Realtor is afraid that in two weeks he's going to realize our house is the best one out there and he'll come back. And guess what? No closing costs and no A/C for you, pal.

Good riddance, says me. After we dropped the price, we got an offer within two days. I have no doubt that someone else will want our house AND I very much doubt we'll have to pay closing costs OR put in a new A/C, so I really think it's going to be much better in the long run.

So we're starting over. The house is back on the market and now I'm praying for another, more REASONABLE, less of an idiot buyer. And honestly? I believe it's going to happen.

------------
Just FYI, I'm on vacation right now, so Soap Opera Sunday may be up later than usual (if I can even decide which story I'm going to write about!!!).

And then she slit her wrists

OK I'm not THAT dramatic.

But today, we got bad, bad news.

The guy who was going to buy our house is backing out of the sale.

Why? You ask? Because our twenty year old house has an "old roof and old AC unit."

Um, knock knock. Idiot? thehouseistwentyyearsoldofcoursetheACandroofareold.

We're currently trying to sway his decision by dangling a NEW! LOOK HOW FANCY! Brand new air conditioner! in front of his greedy little eyes. Who needs $5k anyway? That and us paying 50% of his closing costs aughta do it, right?! Right? Please tell me I'm right . . .

So I'm asking all my readers to do me a little favor. Whatever God or Greater Being(s) you believe in, please ask him/it/them/whatever to help convince this guy to take the pretty new AC and buy my house so I can stop crying and ripping my hair out in chunks.

Bless you all (and your little dogs too! Brillig, that one is for you)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking Up . . .

Yesterday . . . we got an offer on our house!

It's a "full price" offer, but they are asking for us to pay closing costs (HAHAHAH yeah right) and they are not a "prime" lender, so to speak, so we're not positive it will go through, but it's an OFFER and we can NEGOTIATE and I think it might work out.

Seems like there was something in the water, because yesterday was an incredibly good day for my dearest Brillig too.

Phew. I'm feeling very relieved that, even if it doesn't work out, another offer will be shortly behind, because we've had more traffic in three days than we've had over the last five months.

Oh wait. Now I have to move.

Crap.

Add this post to the list of reasons I'm lame

So, um, for those of you who read for my brilliant (hahah) writing, I am afraid you will be disappointed today. This is a "catch-up" post of sorts, and unfortunately, probably one of the only posts I'll have time to do for a while. Because . . .

THIS WEEK IS THE ANNUAL LADIES SOIREE! I am so excited. For those who don't know, I have a slew of fabulous girlfriends and we get together once a year for a vacation with just the girls. (There are more than I linked, but some don't have blogs and some have private blogs.) Jewels does the amazing job of planning the event every year, and this year, and she is SO amazing at it. She picks a theme every year (Year 1 was Diva Las Vegas, Year 2 was Divafornia) and organizes and plans everything. She sends out "Diva Packets" and makes sure we all have some piece of coordinating clothing or accessory. (Accessories? Eh, whatever.)

This year, I think she's outdone herself.

We are going to Utah, to the place where we all went to school at one time or another, so the theme this year is Diva U. Jewels sent us all admission packets with an invitation to join the sorority "Phi Omega Diva" and we have ID cards, a pom-pom, a DVD of songs to pump us up, a DVD with pictures from last year and also HILARIOUS pictures from the past 12 years or so that we've all been friends. I laughed and cried. It was way better than Cats.

Check out all this sweet stuff! Oh and did I mention she pulled all of this off 7 months pregnant?? Uh, hello, Superwoman!

So, I leave on Tuesday for the trip. It's going to be awesome but I won't be having time for the 'puter, but it will be so worth it.

In other news, we've finally had some traffic on our house, but it still hasn't sold, but I'm feeling good about it selling before our new house is done. We're saving up just in case we have to pay two mortgages for a little while, but we have lots of options right now and so we're feeling good.

SPEAKING of the new house, it's been forever since I posted pictures. So here are a few to catch us up. They have made TONS of progress and we're scheduled to close at the end of September. Only five months after our original closing date, but what can you do!

June 25th we were here:

Um, this is the front of the house, in case you couldn't tell.

The kitchen! Weeeeee!

July 8th we were here:

Um, white stuff on the outside! I know so much about building homes . . .

Wires and water and gas lines, oh my!

As of this afternoon, we were here:

She's looooong and narrow!

DRYWALL!!!!

So, there you have it. The lamest blog ever, but at least I feel like I've done some updating! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Maybe I Should Just List My House as a Meth Lab

Ah the joys of the Phoenix housing market.

When we bought our house, it was a sellers market. We fought tooth and nail and made several overs before bending over backwards and paying out the tuckus to buy our house

Now, two years later, it's a buyers market. There are gazillions of houses on the market and we're going to have to, once again, bend over backwards and pay out the tuckus (from our equity) to sell our house.

But whaddaya do right?

Persevere. That's what you do.

So Saturday, we had our second open house. I must say that we outdid ourselves cleaning this time. I just got a new vacuum, so I still think of it as more of a toy . . . so I vacuumed EVERYTHING. Couches? Check. Rugs? Check. Carpet? Check. Drapes? Check. All spotless and vacuumed. The house smelled beautiful . . . looked beautiful. The yard was gorgeous, Matt has done wonders with the grass in this blasted heat. I reorganized all the cabinets, everything was perfectly in it's place. I even organized my plethora of prescriptions, cold medicines and vitamins.

So at 11 AM we left the house for the day to go shopping and do some other fun things. Rhonda joined us and we went furniture shopping with my friend Stacey, then went to lunch. Then we saw the new Pirates movie (so good by the way!) and then we headed home.

We talked to our realtor on the way home. The open house was a bust. Only one person stopped by. A guy by himself . . . my realtor didn't feel comfortable being in the house alone with him, so she stayed outside and he went inside (random I know. I don't want to talk about it.). He came back out a few minutes later and said we had the nicest house in the neighborhood, said he would go get his brother and come back. He left his name and number and left.

He never came back . . . and our realtor went and visited with the other Realtors in the neighborhood (three of whom were also having open houses) and none of them had seen the guy. Weird right?

Well, our realtor had his name and number, so she was going to call him back and try to schedule a private showing for he and his brother.

We came home late Saturday evening and settled in for a boring night of TV and calling it an early night. We're so exciting right?

Sunday morning, I went downstairs to take my antibiotics. (I was diagnosed with bronchitis last week. Fun right?) I opened my perfectly organized cupboard and immediately noticed a problem. There was a hole. A hole that used to contain my favorite prescription bottle. My cough syrup with codeine. When one gets bronchitis twice a year like I do, this is the most glorious of all glorious medicines to have. And it was gone. Usually, I'm not extremely organized and this wouldn't be strange. I misplace stuff all the time. But not this time. I knew exactly where that bottle had been the day before because I had gone as far as to organize my medicines by type and by frequency of use. It was most definitely missing.

Holy crap right???? Some guy had come to our house posing as an interested buyer and STOLEN MY FAVORITE DRUGS. We, of course, started madly searching the house for other missing things, and came up with nothing. Everything else was in it's place. Stupid guy just took the cough syrup.

What's funny is that I don't feel like my privacy has been invaded, because I don't really have a strong sense of privacy. I'm not scared that he'll come back looking for more. Want to know what I am?

I'm PISSED that he stole my CODEINE. There was perfectly good doxycycline and steroid cream in there. Take that!! Take anything but the codeine! Do you have ANY IDEA how sick I had to get to be allowed to get that stuff?

Secretly, I'm almost hoping Matt gets sick now so we can go get some more, just to have it on hand.

I'm not a druggie, I swear. I just play one on Blogger.

If Walls Could Talk . . .

If walls really could talk, first of all, the walls in my current house would be saying the following:

"Ouch hothothothot oww hot owwww"

"Who is that coughing wretch inside? Tell her and her phlegm to SHUT UP!"

"My self esteem is taking a serious hit because no one wants to buuuuyyyy meeeeee"

Basically, that sums up to these three points: I am sick (and it sucks but I plan to be better soon thank you for caring), Phoenix is getting VERY HOT (shocking, I know) and in this crap for a market, no one wants to buy our house. We are dropping the price (which is fine for now, we listed high on purpose) so hopefully that will help. We've had a couple of lookers and all had very positive feedback, so I'm not ready to kill myself YET.

Second of all, the walls of my new house would say:

"WAAAAALLLS WE ARE ACTUAL WAAALLLSSS!!"

Yes folks, almost exactly one year after signing our contract to build our new house, we.have.walls. And window holes! And a single story house behind us who's view we TOTALLY block. Oops! Our bad!



It's sad that I'm so proud of my little cement pad and mish-mash of walls. But I am. Oh so proud.

And just to be random, knowing this has NOTHING to do with my current post, I give you a picture from our anniversary trip! Just for kicks and giggles. This is us at the Hotel Del Coronado, enjoying the beeeeutiful evening sunset. Sorry about the weird lighting over Matt's eyes. While he looks hot in a hat, it doesn't really make for a great picture that includes his eyes!

And now, without further adieu, off I go to be sick and watch old South Park episodes. Because yes, I am twelve.

The . . . other . . . house that Kate built

It has begun. It only took them a freaking year. They have like . . . done stuff to our lot. We have, like, a perimeter and some, like, holes. So it's like, not longer just flat dirt. It has like, stuff.

Gosh I'm articulate.

Here are some pictures, for boredom's sake.

This is our lot about four months ago during the "utilities" phase . . . when there were lots of large trenches open in the roads. It was basically a dirt pile with a retaining wall. OOOOH exciting.

Look! A Pile of rock! And Matt's Jeep!

Showing here, Matt's favorite feature: A huge saguaro cactus in the wash north of our lot. I myself do not like cacti. Reminds me that I live in HELL.

Below is our lot on Saturday, with the perimeter for our foundation and lot of holes for pilings (huh?). As you can see from the other frames, people who bought WAY after us have seen TONS more progress. What can you do, right?

View from the back of our lot (look! No one across the street from us!)

View from the front of our lot. Look at that HUGE 30x50 backyard! And our backyard neighbor's frame. They bought eight months after us! Bastards!

In great news, we discovered that we got the deal of the century on our lot. We paid a very small premium, and it turns out we have five extra feet on one side of the house (Five measly feet you say?! In Arizona that's like an extra football field) as well as no one for almost 1/2 acre of a landscaped wash to the north of us and absolutely nothing and no one in front of us. We totally lucked out because normally those features would have added an extra $12k or so to the price of our lot. And we didn't have to pay it. YIPEE!

Now, in case you've forgotten or have never seen it before, here's what the finished product will look like. Except flipped with the garage on the other side . . . and a different color (more of a sage greeny feel). And with less cool landscaping. And a carriage garage door. And stuff.

Stay tuned next week when we show you . . . red and blue tubes stretched across the perimeter!! This is taking forever . . .

This is the House That Kate Built

Ok . . . Matt helped a little. OK, a LOT.

So folks, the day has come. I am putting my house on the market today. It's bittersweet. I can't wait for our new house to be done and to have ALL THAT CUPBOARD SPACE! But at the same time, we've put blood, sweat and tears into this house and we've made it ours and, in my opinion, we've made it beautiful. But, the time has come to try to introduce it to it's new owners. Now if our neighbors can just ignore the ghetto neighborhood and find the INNER beauty.

And because I'm that vein and in need of reassurance, I present you darlings with (drumroll)

Pictures of my house! And it's as clean as it's ever gonna get, so look fast before the dust settles!

Um, don't mind the dead grass! We live in Arizona where the grass don't grow!! But PALM TREES!! We've got PALM TREES!!

Freshly painted front door accompanied by a loverly hydrangea wreath purchased much on sale. Because that's how I roll yo.

Aaaaand I present . . . the inside view of the front door. Ooooh! Ahhhh!

Windows! We've got your windows! Clean windows!

The bathroom of exploding toilet fame

My beloved, blessed dining room. How I love thee.

Room with a view . . . and a sweet telephone!

The kitchen of the pain in my butt refinshed cabinets

The stairwell that no longer sports the grey/blue blinds

The bath o'the guests that the o'masters had to use for an o'long time

Le Study (aka Man Cave)

Man Cave, view dos. Complete with two monitors for your computing convenience.

Oh how I LOVE MY BED. And we got a new mattress this weekend so now it's even TALLER!

Tall dresser, and yes, more corner windows.

Refinished master sink . . . and, wait for it . . . more hydrangeas. Seeing a pattern?

Matt and I decided the closet looked bigger with just my stuff, so now it's MINE! ALL MINE!

I wanted to cry the first time we turned on this shower after the remodel. It was like . . . breathing air for the first time! We hadn't had a working master shower since we moved in.

And finally, the back yard, complete with confused lemon trees. They have mature lemons, baby lemons, blossoms and buds. Wha??? But this yard is actually huge for Phoenix, so we're going to miss it.

And that's all she wrote, er, built. We are now officially selling the house, and it should be listed by tomorrow at the latest. I am thinking of offering a finders fee to anyone who finds a buyer for us, so . . . know anyone in Phoenix interested in living in the North Valley? She's for sale! Good price for you, today only! Ok, for like, the next six months.