Yep, I'm Still Here

Yes, my adoring fans (all one of you, and you know who you are!), I'm still here. Actually, I forgot my password & couldn't get into my blog...but, obviously I've remembered it.

The big update - WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE! Well, new to us, anyway. It's the first home I've ever purchased (2nd for DH). As you may (or may not) remember, we used to live across from the country of TU (the best undefeated football team in the state, IMHO). At the end of June, we received a letter from yet another property management company that they would be taking over the management of our house. They were also changing the rules & were going to require all rent payments payable & due on the 1st of the month. This would be a big change for us as we normally paid by the 11th (per agreement w/the original private landlord). This only gave us about 3 days to pay rent, as we had already budgeted for DSD to attend Falls Creek for the first time. Well, that lit a fire under my tushy, so I walked over to QT the next day (Saturday), and picked up a paper that shall remain nameless for the World of Homes. I chose some open houses that I thought we might be able to afford and we spent the weekend looking. Now, mind you, we have been through some financial challenges in the last 3 years, so I had no idea how much we would be able to afford. For all I knew, a cardboard box would be our next home - no offense to those of you that live in one. Anyway, we looked at several homes over that weekend. On Sunday, we went to a open house of one of DH's parents' friends' house. The realtor was the same one that sold his dad's house. We decided to retain her as our realtor. She recommended someone w/Bank of America to contact about a mortgage. She told us that he should be able to get us a mortgage and, if not, would let us know what we could do in order to get one in the future. Over the next couple of weeks, we looked at houses and got our pre-approval letter. There was one day in which we looked at 5 houses, but kept coming back to the first one we looked at that day. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 car house with a double driveway, large front porch and a covered patio. We eventually put an offer in on it, then found out there was another offer on the table. At this point I felt we should be on HGTV on either House Hunters or My First Place. The sellers decided to work with our offer and came back with a counteroffer. We countered their counteroffer with another offer, which they accepted. A week before we were scheduled to close, they found out the roof needed to be repaired. We already knew this & had told them about it. They had someone come out & do an estimate, then presented us with the option of a) repairing the roof and we would keep the brand new washer & dryer that were in the house, or b) they would have the roof completely replaced, take the washer & dryer with them, and add $250.00 to the cost of the house. Hmm, new roof or washer & dryer? I think I'll take new roof for 500.00, Alex. I'll save another post to go over closing day. We thankfully had enough money left over to buy our own brand new washer & dryer...front loaders, thank you very much!

So, it's been almost 2 months now & I really love this house. We've had one housewarming party for people at my work and will probably have another one for our Sunday School class & people from DH's work.

That's about it for now...I'll also update you on the denture situation later - can you believe it'll be a year tomorrow? Geesh, how time flies!