Wordless Wednesday

Wow!

We have been so busy lately, I haven't given a real update!

J started his new job last Monday. He has to leave the house around 6:45 in the mornings! It is an adjustment to waking up earlier. It is very different from his previous job, so it will take some getting used to. There is a lot more freedom with this job though- he can text me or call me whenever, he can eat lunch whenever he wants, and they don't care too much if he is a little late. (A wreck caused him to be a few minutes late today, but it wasn't a big deal.) The drive is something both of us are going to have to get used to. Knowing he gets off work at 5, but not seeing him until after 6 is torture since I know the traffic is heavy. I know I'm a worry wort.

I have been busy with lots of meetings. Hopefully, the last of my meetings are occurring this week. I had one today, and I have another Wednesday. Although there is talk about me getting 2 more students, so we'll see!

As you can see from the previous updates, we are under contract for a house! Last week we spent Tuesday and Thursday evenings in Fuquay doing a second look and completing the offer. Wednesday was negotiation day, then Thurs we signed the official paperwork. Friday, we were officially under contract. It was an exhausting week. J didn't even get home until after 8 most nights!

Friday, we rented The A-Team, cooked some burgers and just relaxed. Between the house and getting up earlier for work, we were both tired! I am no ashamed to say we were in bed by 9:30.

Saturday, we did a little shopping. J got some more pants, and I got some to replace my worn out ones! Then we ate at The Flying Biscuit (thanks Groupon), and headed to the movies to see Hall pass (thanks LivingSocial!) The daily deal websites helped us have a cheap date night! Total cost was $25.

Yesterday after church, we went to eat with the others that live near us (2 couples + 1 family). We had some home cooked roast, baked potatoes, lima beans, and banana pudding! Our house will be about a mile from the family's house where we ate. We made it home in time for a 45 minute nap before heading back to church. After church, we ate at Chipotle and Skinny Dip (self serve frozen yogurt.- like Fresh Berry from a couple of weeks ago.) I had strawberry and vanilla yogurt with cake, a brownie, kiwi, strawberries, sprinkles, butterfinger, and reese's. Perfection!

I have already started packing a few things, but I hope this week to get a lot more done. We mainly need to clean out some things that we don't use. I am planning to have a yard sale in a couple of weeks- so I have lots of stuff to go through! Our landlord can't stand not to have a month's rent, so she says she will be showing the house while we're still here. I have left notes on the stove, microwave, and fridge that we will sell them to the person moving in. Hopefully we can get rid of them that way!

So it's only going to get crazier around here, so sorry if the updates are few and far between!

House Tour!

We are officially under contract, so I thought I would share a quick tour of the house. We have to get an inspection and an appraisal, have two walk throughs, and find out about needing flood insurance before it is ours. Whew! Going to be a long 3 weeks. (Yes, we are hoping to close in 3 weeks!)

The Master Bedroom


Where I will spend lots of time...


Double Sinks and an Expanded Shower (in the reflection)


Living Room


I told John I might just sleep in here...

(It has a dishwasher! storage! a pantry! counter space! no washer and dryer! We won't know what to do with ourselves!)


Dining Room (off kitchen)



Bedrooms #2 and #3 (basically the same)

If it's not obvious, here is why we chose this house:
-KITCHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Layout (split floor plan and very open)
-Ready to move in
-Lot, you can't really tell much from the pictures, but in a subdivision- this is about as good as it will get. No one can build behind us since there is a creek (although we may have to get flood insurance.) We are the last lot of our subdivision, and next door will be another subdivision's community area (no house!) And there is a line of trees between our house and where the community area will be.

Drawbacks:
-Lot (wait, wasn't this a plus!?) We might have to get flood insurance, which will cost $$ each month. And the backyard is pretty steep since they build it up so the house wouldn't be in the flood zone. We will have to put a fence in before any of our friends' kids come over (or we get a puppy...)
-It was at the top of our price range, but thankfully, we didn't have to pay list price.
-We will be in a construction zone while they are building other houses. Thankfully, the subdivision is in its last phase, and there can only be construction on one side of us!

So, assuming everything goes well... we will have a dishwasher by next month (although it should be sooner than that!)

Next Steps

What are we going to do now???

Hope that everything goes well because...


Our offer on this house was accepted!



It is contingent upon home inspection and figuring out if it requires flood insurance. We are going to sign the official contract tomorrow night, then we have to start the loan process, order home inspection, and see about the flood plain that runs through the bottom left corner of the lot (which is waaay downhill from the house.) Latest closing date: March 30, but we are hoping sooner.

The Short Sale

This was one HUGE house! The key wouldn't unlock the doors, but J managed to get the garage door open and the door to the inside was unlocked.

The Entry

The Dining Room


The Kitchen


The View From Deck


Living Room


1/4 Bedroom


Master Bedroom

Why is this one a no go?
-Short Sale. We don't want to wait months.
-Too big! While it might have been a good investment, it was over 2500 square feet! That is a lot to heat, cool, clean, insurance, and furnish!
-Backyard. There is no helping it. It is a STEEP SLOPE. You can kind of see that from the Deck picture.
-It just didn't feel right.

The Foreclosure

We looked at 9 houses yesterday. Here is one we didn't choose (although we haven't made our choice for sure yet). We didn't know it was a foreclosure until we got there. And it needed lots of help!



Dining Room



Entry


The Kitchen


The Living Area, which is HUGE!


Laundry Closet


Master Bedroom


Little Cove Area on Second Floor



So why did it not make the cut?
-All flooring needed to be replaced. Immediately.
-Trim and walls were damaged, so would need TONS of TLC and $.
-Not fenced in (This wasn't a requirement, but it was just more $ we would have to spend.)
-All bedrooms upstairs
-Fireplace needed some help
-Had to walk through living room and dining area to get to the kitchen from the garage

So all in all, it would have cost lots of money and love immediately, which we just aren't up for. We want something that is liveable, so we can make changes slowly- as time and money allow.

The House That...

Could? We're not sure yet...

more tonight!


************************
So I didn't take many pictures, and it was too dark to take pictures of the outside... but really the backyard is amazing. Backs to a pond, fenced in, has a deck (which would need to be completely replaced), and it even has a willow tree. But-

The inside feels very small. Weird layout. Needs some updating. AND.. the garage (and bonus room over the garage) isn't permitted. So after much thinking, it's just not worth it. There are plenty of other houses in our price range where we won't have to deal with all the issues of that house.

On the Hunt...

It has been a beautiful week here. Sunny and 60s and 70s- and it's supposed to continue that this week.

I had a stressful week with 4 meetings and lots of paperwork. I have 4 meetings this week... not looking forward to it!

This is J's last week at his first big boy job. He starts his new job next Monday. Exciting and stressful!

And to add to all that stress, we have added in house hunting. We have contacted a Realtor, and we are going to look at some houses Saturday. But first, we are going to look at one tomorrow night. The one we are going to look at tomorrow is a new listing and a foreclosure. But it has basically everything we want, just a little smaller than we would like. So hopefully the layout will work in its favor. It backs up to a big pond/small lake and even has a willow tree in the backyard. It may not be the house for us, but we are excited to look at it and start the hunt!

Spring?

It is 5:30 in the afternoon and currently 75 and sunny. It has been like this all week!

God is so good! He knows we have had enough winter and need a peek of spring!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I confess the reason I have been skipping out on blogging is because.....

we have been waiting....
.
.
.
.
.

for John to get a job offer! He finally got it at 7:30 this morning!

J interviewed about 3 weeks ago for a position in Raleigh. It is at a bank doing marketing- which is what he really wants to do (not necessarily at a bank though.) He starts in 2 weeks!

All that means- that we are considering buying a house. We have been casually shopping for a week or so, browsing around online and driving through neighborhoods. So we have lots of decisions to make. How big of a house? Budget? WHERE is the biggest decision since I will keep my job, but J will be working north of Raleigh. So please keep us in your prayers as we start yet another phase of our lives. :)

P.S. J will be buying me a puppy, too! He just doesn't know for sure yet. ;)

Happy Belated Anniversary, NC!

During the somewhat of a blogging break, we hit our one year anniversary here in North Carolina. I haven't lived in the same place for that long since I was in high school! We can hardly believe we have been here a year.

I have officially applied for graduate school. My application is complete. Now I must wait! It is kind of nerve racking!

I have been pretty busy at work lately. February and March are when the majority of my IEP meetings are, so I have been working hard to get all the paperwork ready.

J has been super busy at work. If you are a member and qualify, they will do your taxes for free. So needless to say, J has been doing lots of taxes at work! Apparently, other branches call their branch the H&R Block. They have done the 3rd most in the state! We still need to file ours... but at the end of the day, J is tired of doing taxes! :)

Last Monday, Redbox had a code for a free rental (and they will again tomorrow!), so we got Dinner with Schmucks. While it made me want to beat up a character in the movie, it was pretty good. I don't think I would care to watch it again though. We plan on getting one tomorrow night, too.

Yesterday, we went to Raleigh to hang out with Anna and Danny. We ate at her apartment, then went to Umstead to walk around. We walked to the airport overlook, which is more like an on-look with trees blocking the view. It was nice to talk and get some fresh air, even if it was still a little chilly! After our walk/hike, we went to Fresh Berry. Amazing. They have 8 or 10 different flavors of frozen yogurt and a million toppings. You get whatever you want, then pay by ounce. Yesterday, we went a little overboard and spent almost $10! Here is a sample of the topping choices: Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, white chocolate chips, sprinkles, strawberries, raspberries, mango, and kiwi.

Here is my strawberry, raspberry, and tart frozen yogurt topped with kiwi, mango, strawberry, sprinkles, cinnamon toast crunch, and whipped cream. Oh, yeah!



If I get into grad school, I can see running over there for some frozen yogurt. (It is across the street from campus.)

We have also caught ourselves up on our daily Bible reading. We have been doing the one year plan together and keep getting a few days behind, then catching up all at once. Hopefully this week, we can do it DAILY so we don't have to keep reading 4 days at a time!


This week-

-I have 4 meetings this week, so I will stay pretty busy.
-We are hoping for some good news!
-I should get my complete GRE scores.. kinda scary since State already has them!


I will try to do better about updating :)

Krispy Kreme!

We hadn't had Krispy Kreme in months. That all changed Saturday when I ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge! I ran with Anna and one of her friends. It was 37 degrees and raining. Yet, we still ran 4.77 miles and ate a few donuts. I am incredibly sore today, but it was actually really fun... I might even do it again! Running with 7,499 other people is something to experience for sure!





I know we have been bad about updating... I promise more to come later.

A week in NC

Too bad the title is missing a Y... We have been missing the cheesecake!

Thankfully, this was a short week! My week wasn't too bad other than 3 back-to-back meetings Wednesday. Friday, I had a workshop, so my week seemed super short!

Friday was date night. We went to Cary to see Little Fockers. It was very funny!

Saturday, we rented Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Wall Street started our month long Netflix subscription a couple of months ago. We were glad the new one was finally in the Redbox!

Today, we talked to an elder about placing membership. We will probably have to meet with them in a couple of weeks to make things official. :) Hopefully one day, we will live closer so we can be more involved.

This coming Saturday, I am taking the GRE. I have been studying, but please say a prayer for me to do well!

Last Day in NYC

Monday-

We wanted to do a few things, but not stress too much since we were flying home. We got up around 9 and headed to Crumbs for breakfast. I got a Lemon Poppyseed muffin, and J got a Carrot Cream Cheese muffin. Then we decided to go see the secret subway station we read about on yahoo. So we hopped on the 6 train and rode it all the way. For a minute we were scared because it just sat there, not moving. It then slowly turned around and we saw the blink-and-you-miss-it subway stop. It was barely lit up, but at least we can say we saw it! J almost missed it. We rode the train to Union Square and went to Filene's Basement (which is actually 4-6 floors UP). I got a purse, and J FINALLY got a sports coat. Then back to the hotel to check out. Off to Grand Central to catch the train eat more cheesecake.

We decided to go back to the airport a different way, so we could see a different part of the city. So we got on the train to go catch the bus. This bus must be the most popular one. It was PACKED. Standing room only the entire way to the airport (25 min.) Whew! We were so glad to get off! After a slight misplacement of my driver's license, we made it to our gate. We ate a sandwich and some chips at the airport and headed home. (P.S. The chips Food Should Taste Good. And they did. I am now a little obsessed with them. They are on sale at Kroger!)

We landed and waited for what seemed like forever for our shuttle to the parking lot. On the way home, we ate at Tripp's- and they actually had NYC cheesecake on their menu (from the rival of the place we ate at.) But we didn't get any. :)

So that wraps up our trip! We had a great time and saw almost everything we wanted to see. What a great weekend trip! A check off the 'Places We Want to Visit' list. :)

Sunday in the City

Sunday, we slept in again. We decided to walk to Times Square to eat a real breakfast. We walked and walked and walked until we found something okay. (We did go in a couple of places, but I didn't like them...) We ended up, oh about 10 blocks from Times Square. Oops! We visited a souvenir shop, where I bought a I <3 NY shirt! Then we were off for shopping. J has been on a kick where he wants a suit.

So off we went- Zara, H&M, Brooks Brothers, J Crew, Sarar,Charles Tyrwhitt, and some others... we ended up with 2 more ties! Oh well. We stopped back by
the hotel to drop off our few purchases, then we headed to Central Park. It was SO neat! There was still lots of snow on the ground, and several kids were sledding. We saw a young group of girls ice skate in the rink. We ate hot dogs from a vendor... then decided to take the subway to Grand Central... for some cheesecake! We were so exhausted... We had walked over 5 miles already.



After some good cheesecake, we walked to Rockefeller Center. We bought tickets for Top of the Rock and headed up. We timed it just right! 4:35 was sunset! It was beautiful. And FREEZING! I, of course, made J stay at the top until I got some night shots. We were so tired, so we grabbed some Pronto Pizza. Just a small little place where you buy it by the slice. I ran in Dr. Pharmacy to get some drinks. Then we went back to the hotel to eat and promptly pass out. Mile count for
the day: 7+

A Piece of Cheesecake A Day...

We had an awesome time in New York.

Friday- We left around 12 to head to the airport. The flight was uneventful, and we landed in NYC around 4. We made our way outside to catch the bus. We got our metrocard and hopped on a bus, then transferred to the subway. It was a relief to have navigated it all. We arrived at Grand Central and walked to our hotel to check in. We then headed to Times Square.


We ate at Film Center Cafe for supper. Nothing special, except for that cheesecake in the previous post. It was the first of many pieces! After supper, we wandered around and hit Macy's. We didn't buy anything, but we did ride the wooden escalators all the way to the top! Then, we went to the National Comedy Theater. It's improv and family friendly. We had a good time. I would definitely go back!

Saturday- We slept in, then caught the subway to Wall Street. We made our way down to the Staten Island Ferry, which is Free! :) We rode over, then came straight back.


We went to Century 21 and saw how much progress they had made on the new world trade centers. One was pretty high already! Then we rode the subway to Brooklyn. We has hoped to eat at Grimaldi's, but the line was long, it was 2:00, and we had reservations for supper at 6:15. So we went around the corner to Ignazio's, which was basically right under the Brooklyn Bridge.



When we finished scarfing down the pizza (which was SO good), we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It is divided into walkers and bikers. Because of the snow and amount of people, many had to walk in the bike lane. About halfway across, a Frenchman came skating through yelling, "Look at the floor!" Do skaters count as bikers? :) We finished walking, then went back to the hotel for a quick nap and to get ready for WICKED! We had reservations at Dervish, a Turkish restaurant. We wanted to try something different... and it was. I had roasted eggplant salad, which was pretty tasteless, Sultan's delight (mashed eggplant and lamb), and baklava (which was really good!). J had crab cakes, doner, and cheesecake (yes, at a Turkish place...) Service was incredibly slow; we were afraid we would be late for Wicked. We made it with a few minutes to spare. The show was INCREDIBLE. That was my favorite thing we did. Thanks Santa for the tickets. I would like to see it again, and again, and again.....



Sunday and Monday to follow in another post.... later. Here's a hint, there was more cheesecake!

Sneak Peak

Our weekend looked a lot like this...

NYC here we come!

We are leaving tomorrow afternoon.
Hope we don't freeze!

White January?

Another slow week here in NC.

J had class two days this week for taxes. Tax season is coming soon, so J will be plenty busy!

Saturday, we went to Fuquay to Chick-fil-a for a free spicy chicken biscuit! It was pretty good! Not that I would pay for it, but it sure was good for free. :)

There was a chance of snow twice this past week, but other than a flurry yesterday-nothing. That will likely change this week. Tomorrow around noon, we are supposed to get snow/ice. Right now, it is predicted there will be more ice than snow. :( Just pray that it won't impact our trip to NYC this coming weekend! I am SOOO excited!

I was supposed to go to a workshop tomorrow, but it was canceled due to the weather. Friday, all of us itinerant teachers are going to interview interpreters before I head to the airport. So tomorrow, we are going to get together to go over questions we will want answered. It will be exciting to actually be a part of the process and decision.

Going to be a great week! Praying that the weather won't delay our trip to the Big Apple!

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year simply this year. We went shopping Friday morning, then came home to nap. I woke up about 8:30; J woke up around 11:30. We watched the ball drop, then I went back to bed! We are such party animals. :)

Saturday, we drove to Raleigh to eat black eyed peas with Anna. It was fun to just hang out.

I enjoyed the last few days of my break. Cleaning the house, putting up Christmas stuff, reading... studying, which wasn't as much fun.

School started back today. Man, it was hard to get up! I suppose I will start the countdown soon. :)

J has passed all his tests (modules and insurance)! Yay for progress. Still hoping he will find a job that he likes more closer to Raleigh.

Not lots of updates for now.. hopefully once I get all my grad school stuff together, I will have some exciting news.