New Possibility

Today we received a link to a new listing that has some real potential!

Basic Facts:
Within our budget! (This is most important!)
3 bedroom
1 bathroom
1 car carport with parking for another vehicle
1252 square feet
Nice green large yard
Good school districts

So here are a few pictures that came with the listing...

Front view of the house. It is brick veneer with a small, but covered, front porch.

I LOVE THE TREES! I hate when someone completely clears the lot - it looks naked to me.

Another view of the front.

I am especially exuberant about the cheap basketball goal.

THAT will be the first to go if it is still there!

Dining Room

 I like this because it is separate from the kitchen and has a wall for my Grandmother's secretary that holds all of her china and milk glass. I also like that there are a lot of windows and natural light.  I'm not crazy about the front door, but that is easily replaced.

Main Living Area

Small, but they have some big furniture in the space so maybe ours will fit there too?

Right now we have this monstrosoty (sp?) of a television in our living room that I am itching to get rid of and replace with a flat screen.. It literally sticks out 4 feet away from the wall and its as tall as I am. It's nice to have a big TV but I would gladly give it up for more space!

Kitchen

I like all the cabinet space - I have a bunch of kitchen gadgets and appliances. Counter space is at a minimum and I am almost willing to bet that around that corner is the washer/dryer connection. But I could make it work with a small cabinet under the nearest window on the right.

I have also mentally taken the cabinet doors off the top cabinets and displayed pretty plates and filled baskets with stuff in those newly created cubbies.

Strange Brick Structure

I'm not sure if this is a wood burning grill or what but if it is that is kind of exciting! Maybe we can start a pizza company! If nothing else, I think it is the good start to a  really cool thing on our new back porch. I don't know quite how I feel about it yet but I am trying to be optimistic.

Backyard

Pretty plain. I like the green grass and the trees!

I also like that the porch is on the side of the house but it needs to be covered.

In the sake of being optimistic, I will say it is a blank slate

My mother will have a field day (no pun intended) landscaping it!

I won't be home from work in Texas until Sunday night, but my husband is going to go have a looksie at it this week hopefully. He knows what is important to me and important to him, so I trust him. I have a really good feeling about this house and I hope it leads somewhere better than it did last time I had a good feeling. I will be sure to keep you posted!

Inspirational Thought of the Day

Go for it 100%.

Not 98%, not even 99%.

You have to believe in yourself with every ounce of your being, and you have to go for it 100%.

And just when the going gets really tough, because it will, and it feels like there's no hope- give 110%.

That's when the real magic happens!

That extra effort, and the reward you receive from it, will make all the difference in the world.

~Layla Palmer

Lemon-y Libations

Last night, I volunteered to bring a dessert to dinner at a friend's house. We were having grilled chicken sandwiches, so I thought I would bring something relatively healthy and light.

I have had a hankering lately for the combination of blueberry and lemon. I have a recipe stuck to my range hood with a magnet for Lemon Blueberry bread that has been there for weeks but I haven't gotten around to making it. So I decided last night that I would do a "quick & easy" version of that for dessert.  So, after work, I tottered of to the local Wally-World in search of three things:

1. Angel Food Cake
2. Low Sugar or Sugar Free Blueberry Preserves
3. One lemon

The angel food cake was easy-breezy. I couldn't find any low-sugar or sugar free preserves so I had to settle for the loaded down stuff but wrote it off because everything else was so healthy. The problem occured when I tried to find a lemon.

Oh, finding lemons wasn't a problem. It was the finding of one lemon that was giving me fits. All the lemons at Walmart yesterday were available in 5 lb bags. Really? Who needs a five pound bag of lemons? Someone with an insane craving for a lip-puckering citrus? Someone with a really really dirty garbage disposal? I couldn't fathom who it would be but I needed one lemon, so I purchased about 10.

What do you do when live gives you lemons?

Da da da da da da da.... da da da da DA, da da da da da (Jeopardy theme music...)
Make lemonade of course! I had never made lemonade before though so I wasn't sure where to start. And I like to always add a little twist to recipes I make up in my head. So, I bought some lemonade concentrate and diet lemon-lime soda. I bought the concentrate because I wasn't sure how many lemons I would have to squeeze to get enough lemon juice to make lemonade and I wasn't about to buy 10 lbs of lemons.

So I got home and set everything down on the bar. Mom gave me her what-did-you-buy-at-Walmart-this-time? look, one that has been suspiciously passed down to my husband, and I quickly explained that the sale of one lemon was unheard of in our overly stimulated consumeristic society. I had to buy a TON of them. So I was going to be a sweet daughter and make her some delicious, refreshing lemonade. The conversation went much like this:

 

Mom, do you have a juicer?

Yeah, look in the drawer next to the silverware.

(Rummage, rummage, rummage...)

I don't see a juicer in there. Anywhere else?

Are you sure? It's blue - it was your Grandma's. Look in the other drawer next to the stove.

(Rummage, rummage, rummage...)

Nope, not in there either.

Come look on the shelves in the living room, maybe it is in here... Or, you could look on the corner china shelf in the dining room. I know I saw it around here somewhere.

Oh forget it - I could have juiced all the 5 lb bags of lemons at Walmart by now!

So I quit looking for the juicer and went for the old "stab it with a fork and squeeze the heck out of it" method.  It worked wonderfully! I put a sieve over a measuring cup to catch the seeds and ended up getting about a cup of lemon juice out of the lemons. I combined that with about a cup of sugar, whisked the heck out of it and then added about 3/4 of the (now thawed) lemonade concentrate.

I saved 1/4 of the concentrate because I was so focused on getting the lemons squeezed that I forgot to save any for the lemon-blueberry sauce, which was the original reason for the lemons anyways.... DUH!

Anywho, I whisked that all together and then added a 2-liter bottle of lemon-lime soda (I used diet 7-up because it was majorly on sale). Voila - a fizzy, fun, lemonade sparkler. (I didn't do it, but I would imagine a little lemon vodka would make it extra fun!)

Mom said it was too tart, Dad said it was too sweet and I thought it was just right. In fact, I can't wait to get home and have a nice big glass of it while watching a friend coach her niece's softball team. Sounds like the perfect spring afternoon to me!

Oh, for those that were wondering... I didn't completely forget about the dessert. I combined 1/4 of the concentrate, about 1 tsp of lemon zest, and the entire jar of blueberry preserves in a small pan. I brought it to a simmer and let it simmer for about 10 minutes until it got thick and gooey. Then I sliced the angelfood cake into about 3/4 inch slices and drizzled the sauce over it. If I had them, I would have topped with whipped cream, blueberries and a sprig of mint. But I'm not running a 5-star restaurant! It was delish and light and a perfectly sweet & tart ending to a great dinner!

Same old, same old...

So, this weekend proved to be unsuccessful in regards to the house hunting adventure. There was one new listing in our price range. Let me tell you about it.

First of all, we were relatively excited because it qualifies for a Rural Development loan (102% financing). One, we would not have to come up with a down payment, and two, its out in the "country". The house from the outside was cute! They had done some work to update the shutters and they had painted the inside of the carport a nice neutral color.  So, without even looking in the windows, I had a lift in my spirits. If they gave this much attention to the outside, maybe they were equally attentive to the inside.

You know one of my pet peeves? You have a house for sale. You want people to come look at it and show interest in it. WHY must you shut all the blinds and curtains? I am not ignorant. I understand that they want you to call the agent and get hooked into the system.  We already have an agent, and we really like her. I just want to look in your windows and see if it is worth her calling to set up an appointment to walk through. I don't want to waste my time or her time.

So some of the windows were closed and we couldn't see everything, but we saw enough to know that these sellers thought if you put icing on a poop cupcake, someone might still buy it.

It is three bedroom, one bath and a one car carport. This may come as a surprise to some, but evidently in the 70s, people thought it was very important for the entire family to have one bathroom. It must have been a social movement to assist people in bonding with their families after the turbulent 60s. I can really think of no other useful reason for putting one bathroom in a house. But it is really hard to find a house with more than one bathroom, especially in our price range! Anyways, it had originally been all dark wood paneling, which isn't that out of the ordinary; they had at leasted painted them all STARK white. The kitchen had been slightly updated with new formica countertops that at least looked like granite or some kind of stone.  The carpet looked kind of worn, but in OK condition. So I guess all in all, the interior was "eh, so-so". The back yard wasn't fenced in and there was no cover on the "porch" (about a 8 x 8 slab of concrete outside the back door). There was also this weird tree/garden thingy right on the property line. I couldn't decide if we would potentially put the fence through it, with half of it in our yard and half of it in the neighboring yard... or if we would just fence around it and give it all to the neighbor. It was very, very ugly and I would have lost absolutely no sleep if the fence retained a slightly c-shaped bump to keep it out.

Here is by far the FUNNIEST thing:

They spray painted the air conditioning compressor in the back yard.

Yes. Instead of replacing it with a new one, they SPRAY PAINTED it black. We were highly entertained by this and spent a good 5 minutes laughing about it.

Since it didn't have a fenced in yard and only one parking spot we have essentially put it on the back burner. It isn't completely off the list but we are going to keep it around in case we need a last-ditch resort. And the day wasn't a total waste. It was beautiful outside!

Here are the things that we learned during the early stages of the process of buying a house. 1. Save money for a down payment. Chris and I are lucky that we are first-time home buyers because it will allow us to pull that money from his IRA (read more about that here), but we would really rather not have to do that. So pull it from where ever you can. I found a website that had some really good suggestions (here) but I wish I had found it a year ago! Remember that the more you can put down on a house, the less you get financed, and the less your monthly mortgage payments. It can really make a huge HUGE difference! 2. Don't fall in love with the first, second, third, fiftieth, one hundredth, or last house you look at. As much as you can, make all of your decisions based on logical choices and not emotional reactions. I say this for two reasons: A: Yes, the front porch on that house is super cute and you can already see you and your hubby in your rocking chairs watching your children playing tag in the front yard, but are you really ready to rip up the floor, replace the roof, and put a new sink in the bathroom? B: Until you are under contract, that house is as much "yours" as it is "mine." The house we just lost to other bidders I was already moving my furniture into the living room, repainting and repurposing the laundry room, and having a party on the back porch to watch the football games. I was really sad when I realized I had to move my furniture out, take my clothes out of the laundry room, and cancel that party. Talk about having your dreams crushed! 3. When you walk into a home don't let the shag carpet and harvest gold toilet scare you. Look at the bones of the house. Consider the structure and the floor plan. If it is something you love, the rest of the "problems" you see are easily changeable. If you don't love the floor plan, no amount of sprucing up will every make that house a home for you. 4. Go back and look at the house after it rains. Is there a leak on the porch that you will have to fix? Are there any drainage issues? This is really important stuff especially if you have dogs. This is one of our main concerns! 5. Get a good realtor to help you. It can really make all the difference in the world. So now, we start our adventure again. This time, I will have my own rules to follow and I will already have a little experience under my belt to help along the way.

Moving on...

Well, we didn't get the first house we wanted, but obviously God has something else better in store for us. Sure wish He would tell us what it is! James 1:2-3 ... Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Paint, Push, and Poise

My husband and I are right in the middle of buying our first house (in fact, only 1 hour and 42 minutes until we hear back on our third and final counter offer) and, in due time, neathering our fest.

Why neathering our fest? Mostly because Feathering our Nest was taken and, cute as it was, I could not convince the blogger who owned it that I really really deserved it.

Secondly, this is our first time around at this. So, it may take a little more neathering our fest than feathering our nest as we start projects, figure out that there is no way in the world it will ever really work that way, tear it out, start over and try it again. We fully expect to mess up, get paint in our eyes and on our dogs, and possibly knock a hole or two in a wall along the way.

"Honey, it's all part of the learning process," says my mom, the teacher.

Thirdly, my husband has this very cute little story about Rindercella who slopped her dripper (really - its worth telling but I can't remember it all right now) and I thought that this name injected a little bit of his personality into it too!

So, this blog is to document our journey. For us, so that when we have to start over, we can look back and see how far we have really come, and for our family, since none of them live close enough to come over and visit (ahem, HELP) on a daily basis!

I am also going to write about things and people who inspire me, so it will be a drawing board of sorts; a place to organize thoughts and pictures and ideas so that all this stuff swirling around in my head will have a place to land. Who knows, I might just make a friend or two in the process!

One main inspiration for this blog was Layla Palmer at http://www.theletteredcottage.com/, whose work I adore and her go-get-it attitude was really a push for me in a right direction.

For right now, I thank her. I hope I have the poise she does when something I attempt fails and I have to start over.

Thanks for reading, if you did.