we bought a house!

Buying a house Looking at model homes is a lot of fun. 

While buying a house isn't nearly as difficult as many people make it seem, it also isn't the most pleasant of experiences. Granted, we have been lucky enough to have an easy go of the process, and I am sure that it is really hard for some people.

Having a budget is probably the hardest part. We knew that we wanted to buy new so it was really hard to walk into model homes that were $50,000 outside of our price range. Because all of those homes fit our every want and need. Unfortunately when you have a limit there will always be sacrifices that need to be made. In our case, we fell in love with a house that seems to be just one room too small. While this house will be perfect for us for quite awhile, if the time ever comes that we have more than one kiddo running around, it might be a little cramped for us. There is a lot to love about it, though, and I can't stop daydreaming about how I want to decorate. I have so many little projects already started in my head!

The most ANNOYING part of buying a house is the home loan. Now, we were not really planning on buying a house, it just sort of happened. We met a realtor and he took us to our dream(for the budget) house and we ran some numbers and our credit and found out we would be paying only about $70.00 a month more than we are at our rent house. For 1,000 square feet more, and for something that is our very own. I think that is worth it. So with that in mind we took the plunge, with no prior loan approval or anything. Had we planned ahead we would have done that totally differently. We would have shopped around, we would have been pre-approved. Because the last month has been the longest pain in the ass of waiting to see if we are approved while being sent on a crazy scavenger hunt for tons of paperwork that of course we have no idea where we put it since we just moved into the rent house and haven't unpacked yet.

Another thing to note for the future: Don't trust anybody. Even our realtor (who I think is shady as all get out, but Dan doesn't see what I see) is only out for himself. I mean, really, who tells their buyers that they don't need to do an inspection since the house is brand new?! We had an inspector come out and it was the best decision, he found some issues with the roofing and with the gas exhaust pipe that I am sure we never would have found in our walkthrough. And those are some big issues! Not big enough that they can't be fixed before we move in, but the exhaust pipe could be a potential fire hazard!

Well, we move in 9 days and I feel like we will be moving for the billionth time this year. But I am SO DARN EXCITED because I can't wait to start my life, in my very own home, with the man I love.

I can't wait to sign those papers on August 24!

I'm back!

Well, after a MUCH longer than anticipated hiatus, I am back!

As of my last post we were moving and I was on the job hunt. I am happy to announce that I DID in fact get a job! The same one that I was interviewing for! I love the company that I have been with for the last 4 months and I just filled out my paperwork on Friday!

It has been wonderful to have a stable schedule, nights and weekends off, and much better income! ...So much better that Dan and I are trying to buy a house! I plan on documenting that process in a different post. It has been a lot of fun planning and thinking about decorating and organizing my very own home.

I'm keeping this short and sweet even though there is a lot I want to write about. I will be back soon with something substantial!

hiatus.

as much as i hate to do this, i will have to put the bloggy on hiatus. i just do not have the time that i want to dedicate to updating this. i have way too much going on in my life right now. i know that in the coming weeks or months i will have time to update regularly, but at this point i know that is not going to happen.

so what is going on that i have no time to update? well first, we are moving! which means i have to pack, clean, move, clean, unpack, and decorate a whole new house! overwhelming and full of fun at the same time! we are very, very sad to have to leave the house we are in but there is nothing we can do about it as it is definitely being sold. we hope the buyers love it as much as we have come to love it in the past year. there isn't really any way that they couldn't love it! but we do have to move (next monday, to be exact) and all the fun stuff that goes along with that.

also, i am on the serious job hunt! i had an interview today and really loved the company. perhaps i will get a call back from them in the next few days and begin a new career there! whatever happens, i do know that i need to get a new job fast. wish me luck!

well there we have it. i have way too much going on. i can't promise any updates for at least the next month, so i must put the blog on hold.

be back in a while :)

no pictures... yet!

well, i cant post pictures yet because i don't have anything really done yet to take pictures of!

i have been spray painting the frame of the cork board allllll day. it is almost dry!! hopefully i will be able to do the ribbon tonight. and i made the laundry detergent today! the house smells sooo good! i got the inspiration and the recipe (loosely) from pinterest. i changed it a little bit to fit our needs, but i think it will work just fine. i'm going to put the recipe here so i don't forget.

laundry detergent:

• 1 box arm and hammer washing soda
• 1 box 20 mule team borax
• 1 box arm and hammer baking soda
• one medium tub of generic brand oxyclean
• 3 bars fels naptha soap

the hardest part of the recipe was the fels naptha. literally. it was a hard brick of soap that you are supposed to grate. the edges of the soap were so sharp that they hurt my hand when i tried to grate it. and the soap was so hard that it took forever to grate! so after the first bar i got out a hammer, broke the bar into quarters, put each quarter into a ziploc bag and hammered away. it made the soap into a finer powder than grating it did so i was actually more pleased with how that came out. once that was done all i had to do was put a trash bag into an old powdered laundry detergent box and pour all the ingredients into it. i rolled the trash bag around on the floor for a few minutes to mix everything well and then i was done!

this detergent is supposedly good for sensitive skin, it is eco friendly, and it can be used in high efficiency washers. and the best part is that all the ingredients together cost me about $15.00 and only one tablespoon of the mixture is needed per load. i should be set for awhile.

limbo

well, i never did post those pictures. that is because dan hid the camera from me! that isn't true, i just don't know where he put it. i will get to those pictures eventually!

i started on my little list of to-do's. we bought a cork board and some things to decorate it with, but forgot the stuff to hang it up with. we can't put holes in the walls here so we have to use those things that are easily removable. i suppose i will get some tomorrow. and some black spray paint to paint the frame.

dan wouldn't commit to any of the organization ideas i came up with, even though i dragged him to lowe's to look at some storage solutions. he has so much work to do that he doesn't even have time to build anything, let alone organize the mess, and i think that thinking about it just depresses him. but i am tired of looking at it so something needs to be done soon. especially if we are going to move!

i also want to add making homemade laundry detergent to my to-do list. we are about out and i have seen so many posts on pinterest about it, and it looks so easy and inexpensive! dan is skeptical but i have high hopes. i plan on becoming the queen of laundry, second only to daina, who is the all knowing laundry master.

i promise pictures tomorrow!

starting to get there..

It has been a few weeks, which i don't want to make a habit. i want consistency. unfortunately my schedule at work got jumbled around so i truly did not have the time to update.

well, in the last few weeks a lot has happened and nothing has happened. the most important thing to happen was when we had to show the house to a couple that is interested in purchasing it. for me that meant a couple of things: oh my goodness i have to clean! and oh my goodness what if they buy the house and we have to move?!

so i got around to the cleaning pretty quickly. by the time they came, the house looked a billion times better; a billion times better but still with a long long way to go. i will post pictures tomorrow. i took down the christmas decorations in the front room, i went through all the junk mail and left a big pile of stuff for dan to go through. we shall see how long that takes. though i did get him to clean the floor area of the office, now the shelves remain and that is his project, not mine. the bedroom has never looked better and the living room and bathrooms are all clutter free, cleaned and dusted. i didnt get to the laundry until today and that has been about an 8 hour project so far with a few hours left to go. but cleaning was just the first hurdle; now i have to figure out an organization plan and put that to use. i need to get into a daily routine and make sure that i stick to it. i know that will solve many of my problems but just getting to that point is very daunting.

now about potentially moving. i have so many mixed feelings about this. on the one hand, we would be saving money living somewhere else; it would also be nice to start fresh in a new place with both of our things there, instead of having to squeeze my things in alongside his. but on the other having to find a new place, pack, and move both of our houses at the same time is a lot more than i may be able to handle. and we are comfortable here. nelson has a great yard to play in and we have so much space. we will never be able to live in a house like this again so it would be nice to enjoy it for as long as possible. what a dilemma.

well that is my little rambling update. tomorrow i will post pictures of the tidy house. there are a few projects i want to complete in the next few weeks:

• make a message center for dan, nelson, and i
• find some sort of organization system for the lego hoard
• go through the hall closet by the garage
• finish going through and throwing away all the mail in the front room

the proof is in the pudding... (picture heavy!)

i wasn't kidding. this place is a mess. though to be fair to myself, it doesn't ALWAYS look like this. this is a particularly bad snapshot, which is part of the reason i've decided to document it today - to see what it is like at it's WORST. it's been hard to get motivated since our Disney trip... yes, the trip we took in the middle of JANUARY. sad but true. and that is something that i promise i will always be with this blog: truthful. no matter how ugly the truth is. i'm going to spare myself the trouble of writing out all the gory details and just post some pictures. it is embarrassing but it must be done.

one day i will be able to look back at this post and say to myself "i can't remember the last time my house looked like this!" and then it will all be worth it.

so here you go, the ugly truth of my disorganized chaos!

the living room. yep, still decorated for christmas. tons of empty boxes. lego creations. general clutter.

this is where clutter goes to die. junk mail, empty boxes, packing material.

the awkward pantry. it is in no man's land in a hallway, separate from the kitchen. we do not use it as a pantry, we use it for dog food/accessories and random storage. i haven't figured out how to rotate pictures yet, sue me.

 this house has amazing built in bookshelves. we have a lot of books. still, random clutter accumulates on the shelves. why?!

the kitchen... this is probably the most embarrassing picture for me to post. clutter is one thing. food mess is completely different!

 i wasn't lying about the dust mop in my first post...

this is mostly to illustrate the lack of design in the house. there is no real vision here.

 empty walls, no vision, lots of clutter.

dan's office, easily the most disorganized room in the house. never fully unpacked and a catch all for everything as it is right in the middle of the house and you walk through it to get anywhere.

a blah bedroom. full of space, full of clutter.

believe it or not, this is all clean laundry.

just a bunch of clutter. the contents of those boxes used to be in my trunk and i've never gone through them since i cleaned it out.

bathroom counter. full of clutter. no organization process at all.

 the pup, Nelson. he gets excited when he sees a camera.

that's better. handsome boy. you need a training makeover, mister! it's gonna happen!