Today was another busy day. Steph and I got the cleaning done at the old house. We started at 8:30 and worked until 4:00. The carpet cleaner showed up at 10:00 and was there until 1:00. We went to Subway for lunch and I had a Chicken Bacon and Ranch melt with double cheese and avocado. That along with a 32 oz full on HFCS Dr. Pepper trashed any potential for eating well today. Let's not mention the three strawberry shortcakes snacks I had. I didn't tell you about the Chinese food I had last night and then ate the left overs tonight. :/
When we got home, I let the boys go swimming in the pool. They were excited, even though the temperature of the water was only about 73F (23C). They jumped in at 5:00. Tyson and I hope they haven't upset the neighbors by how much noise they were making. Ryan finally got out about 6:30. Conner climbed out about 7:00. Devon finally crawled out as the sun went down about 7:30.
Tyson and I got some boxes put away. There's still several to deal with around the house and a whole storage unit full of them across town.
I didn't accomplish any writing. Tomorrow's another day......
Once again, I'm not counting my calories for the day. I'm way off track. I think I'm back to square one. At least it's a place to start from.
See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat channel
Showing posts with label buying house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buying house. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Update April 1, 2015
Hello all.
I haven't written in a couple days. Sorry about that. My mother-in-law and two nieces were here. We've been very busy.
Monday we finally signed the closing documents. In California, however, you don't get your keys right away. It can be up to 72 hours afterwards. In our case, we got our keys at 5:15 last night. We were working until midnight to get everything moved. Fortunately, lots of people from our church showed up to help us. If they hadn't, we would have been still moving today.
My mother-in-law, nieces and my granddaughter, Ryleigh, all climbed in the van and left for Salt Lake today. I'm not built for toddlers anymore. I've been exhausted having her around. However, I know I'll miss her. I was bawling today as she left. :'(
After they left, Stephi and I went over to the old house and started cleaning. My mother-in-law and a friend from church had already done a lot of the kitchen work. I am so thankful for their help. However, we focused on the carpeted areas of the house so the carpet cleaners could get their work done tomorrow. Tyson was in and out, taking a load over, running errands like going to the post office, etc. He finally joined us all the time about 4:30. We cleaned until 8:00. We met the goal of getting all the bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry room and hallway completed. We even did the windows. Ack.
That leaves the refrigerator, oven, counters, dishwasher, mantle and hearth, three more windows and waxing the kitchen, dining room and living room. I think we can get it done while the carpet cleaners are there.
Another NaNoWriMo started today. There's a competition on the internet. To join, you must be willing to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. The main one is in November. There are secondary ones in April and July. I enjoyed this last one in November so much, I wanted to do another one. These secondary ones allow you to set your own monthly word count. I stepped mine up to 60,000. I didn't get anything done today so I'm already behind!! Tomorrow doesn't look good either. I guess we'll see how the day shapes up. It's better to stay on top of it instead of falling behind.
Well, my diet has gone back to old habits. I've been drinking a lot of pop, eating more sugary things, and just eating more in general. Eating is how I handle stress. Now that the moving stress is almost over, perhaps I can get back on track.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Same Bat time (maybe), same Bat channel.
I haven't written in a couple days. Sorry about that. My mother-in-law and two nieces were here. We've been very busy.
Monday we finally signed the closing documents. In California, however, you don't get your keys right away. It can be up to 72 hours afterwards. In our case, we got our keys at 5:15 last night. We were working until midnight to get everything moved. Fortunately, lots of people from our church showed up to help us. If they hadn't, we would have been still moving today.
My mother-in-law, nieces and my granddaughter, Ryleigh, all climbed in the van and left for Salt Lake today. I'm not built for toddlers anymore. I've been exhausted having her around. However, I know I'll miss her. I was bawling today as she left. :'(
After they left, Stephi and I went over to the old house and started cleaning. My mother-in-law and a friend from church had already done a lot of the kitchen work. I am so thankful for their help. However, we focused on the carpeted areas of the house so the carpet cleaners could get their work done tomorrow. Tyson was in and out, taking a load over, running errands like going to the post office, etc. He finally joined us all the time about 4:30. We cleaned until 8:00. We met the goal of getting all the bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry room and hallway completed. We even did the windows. Ack.
That leaves the refrigerator, oven, counters, dishwasher, mantle and hearth, three more windows and waxing the kitchen, dining room and living room. I think we can get it done while the carpet cleaners are there.
Another NaNoWriMo started today. There's a competition on the internet. To join, you must be willing to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. The main one is in November. There are secondary ones in April and July. I enjoyed this last one in November so much, I wanted to do another one. These secondary ones allow you to set your own monthly word count. I stepped mine up to 60,000. I didn't get anything done today so I'm already behind!! Tomorrow doesn't look good either. I guess we'll see how the day shapes up. It's better to stay on top of it instead of falling behind.
Well, my diet has gone back to old habits. I've been drinking a lot of pop, eating more sugary things, and just eating more in general. Eating is how I handle stress. Now that the moving stress is almost over, perhaps I can get back on track.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Same Bat time (maybe), same Bat channel.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Update March 28, 2015
Good evening!
Today has been a wonderful day. My headache went away after I rested last night. I've been very tense about the house/loan situation. After learning we could move forward, I relaxed quite a bit. My head and neck ached last night so I took plenty of ibuprofen and laid on the hot pad for a while. That seemed to help. Sleep did too.
My mother-in-law came today with my two nieces. It's been a nice visit. She took us out to dinner tonight to Olive Garden for my birthday.
Therefore, I am not counting my calories tonight. It would be outrageous.
See you tomorrow!
Same Bat time, same Bat channel
Today has been a wonderful day. My headache went away after I rested last night. I've been very tense about the house/loan situation. After learning we could move forward, I relaxed quite a bit. My head and neck ached last night so I took plenty of ibuprofen and laid on the hot pad for a while. That seemed to help. Sleep did too.
My mother-in-law came today with my two nieces. It's been a nice visit. She took us out to dinner tonight to Olive Garden for my birthday.
Therefore, I am not counting my calories tonight. It would be outrageous.
See you tomorrow!
Same Bat time, same Bat channel
Friday, March 27, 2015
Update March 27, 2015
Today was a roller coaster. But it wound up being a good day. Lots of packing done and the LOAN WENT THROUGH. We're done with "It has to go back through underwriting. It will be at least another five days." HOOOOOORAY!! We will sign Monday or Tuesday and move probably later that day.
5:45 - two pieces of turkey and a string cheese stick - 180 cal
7:15 - two chocolate chip cookies a friend made me for my birthday - 312 cal
11:45 - two of my burritos - 726 cal
4:00 - a string cheese stick - 80 cal
7:00 - two pieces of stuffed chicken, bacon pizza (two pizzas one on top of the other) - 730 calories
1 20 oz diet Dr. Pepper and 1 12 oz diet Pepsi
48 ozs of water
total calories for the day - 2028 cal
5:45 - two pieces of turkey and a string cheese stick - 180 cal
7:15 - two chocolate chip cookies a friend made me for my birthday - 312 cal
11:45 - two of my burritos - 726 cal
4:00 - a string cheese stick - 80 cal
7:00 - two pieces of stuffed chicken, bacon pizza (two pizzas one on top of the other) - 730 calories
1 20 oz diet Dr. Pepper and 1 12 oz diet Pepsi
48 ozs of water
total calories for the day - 2028 cal
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Update March 25, 2015
I didn't update yesterday because I failed miserably.
Today I did well. I'm still very frustrated with the loan situation. Waiting is difficult. Buying a house is emotional.
5:30 - two pieces of turkey and a cheese stick - 180 cal
1:30 - two of my burritos and a 12 oz diet Pepsi- 726 cal
7:30 - two burritos with chicken chili, cheese, sour cream and guacamole and a 12 oz diet Dr. Pepper - 522 cal
Total calories for the day - 1428!! SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?
Total water for day - 48 ozs
I was busy today. A friend from church came over and helped me pack up the kitchen. I laid Ryleigh down for a nap late, at 1:45 and I slept until 3:00. Then we went to Stephi's swim meet. I guess I didn't give myself time to think about eating.
Interesting.
See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat channel
Today I did well. I'm still very frustrated with the loan situation. Waiting is difficult. Buying a house is emotional.
5:30 - two pieces of turkey and a cheese stick - 180 cal
1:30 - two of my burritos and a 12 oz diet Pepsi- 726 cal
7:30 - two burritos with chicken chili, cheese, sour cream and guacamole and a 12 oz diet Dr. Pepper - 522 cal
Total calories for the day - 1428!! SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?
Total water for day - 48 ozs
I was busy today. A friend from church came over and helped me pack up the kitchen. I laid Ryleigh down for a nap late, at 1:45 and I slept until 3:00. Then we went to Stephi's swim meet. I guess I didn't give myself time to think about eating.
Interesting.
See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat channel
Monday, March 23, 2015
Update March 23, 2015
So today was quite the day. I'm not going to go into my eating today, I'm finicky and don't want to.
This afternoon, I felt prompted to go by the mortgage office to see how things were going. We're supposed to close on the 30th, but we've been pushing a little bit to see if we can close early. The landlord of the place we're living in wants to sell the house and we just want to be out of the house and her hair (and vice-versa). Because of this, we turned in our notice for the 31st. I know it was cutting it close, but there was really no way we could financially swing closing on a house AND paying another month's rent.
Anyway, three weeks ago we laid this on the table. The title company said they could be ready. The realtor said it was possible on that end. The mortgage company said it was possible if everything went well. Our file looked clean and should be good, five to ten business days.
That was ten days ago. Okay, really early as far as the closing date was concerned but we didn't think it was impossible. That day, a Friday, we received a phone call telling us all we needed was an up to date bank statement. Done. Five more business days. Thursday, we call. Haven't heard anything yet. Expect late Thursday or Friday. Friday, midday, no, but should be in by this afternoon. LATE afternoon, nada.
So I go down this afternoon at 1:30. Yes, they have our loan approved but there's four things that need to get taken care of. The loan application and the loan paperwork have two different account numbers on them so we need to sign a new loan application. Need some paperwork from the realtor. Need to verify if a student loan was really paid off (even though its been paid of for FIVE years). Need to have verifiable two years of job records (uh, hello? Info on the loan application and we told you we had six years verifiable, all you had to do was ask.) And why didn't this come up ten days ago when all we needed was a bank statement?????
Now, it HAS to back in through underwriting which will take four more days and then one to two days for loan docs to come to the office so we can most likely close on the 31st, get the keys on the 1st!!
WHAT????
In California, we must wait 24 hours for the buyer's money to go through and clear the bank. (This is what they're telling me....)
THAT'S WHY I PAY IN CASHIER'S CHECK!!!
But, as we look this over, most of this should've been taken care of and they're really insignificant so there's no real reason why we can't move forward, but we still have to go back through underwriting.
Oh, and I spent 3.5 hours driving around today, getting the signatures needed so it didn't take an extra three days.
And then I was told we were lucky to be closing only ONE DAY LATE.
Lucky?
Apparently, it's common practice here to have to move the closing date, one, two or even three times.
Ohhh, SERIOUSLY??
Why do they accept doing half-ass business this way? Why do customers accept it? Why is it good business practice to sign deals late?? How can someone make the plans necessary to move their family if nothing is firm? How can you trust these people? HOW DO THEY GET RECOMMENDATIONS?!?!?!?
I may be a hick from a small town. Things work different in a small town. I get that. In fact, I miss that. At least I could trust the person sitting across the desk from me to DO WHAT THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO.
And I'm not even talking about closing early. I'm talking about CLOSING ON TIME!!
Okay. I'm done. Rant over. I'm looking forward to having this moving thing done so I can sit down and write more than just what I'm eating.
Oh, I had two packages of Swiss cake rolls and a small chocolate shake from McDonald's today so my calories are shot for a couple days now.
OH WELL.
See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
This afternoon, I felt prompted to go by the mortgage office to see how things were going. We're supposed to close on the 30th, but we've been pushing a little bit to see if we can close early. The landlord of the place we're living in wants to sell the house and we just want to be out of the house and her hair (and vice-versa). Because of this, we turned in our notice for the 31st. I know it was cutting it close, but there was really no way we could financially swing closing on a house AND paying another month's rent.
Anyway, three weeks ago we laid this on the table. The title company said they could be ready. The realtor said it was possible on that end. The mortgage company said it was possible if everything went well. Our file looked clean and should be good, five to ten business days.
That was ten days ago. Okay, really early as far as the closing date was concerned but we didn't think it was impossible. That day, a Friday, we received a phone call telling us all we needed was an up to date bank statement. Done. Five more business days. Thursday, we call. Haven't heard anything yet. Expect late Thursday or Friday. Friday, midday, no, but should be in by this afternoon. LATE afternoon, nada.
So I go down this afternoon at 1:30. Yes, they have our loan approved but there's four things that need to get taken care of. The loan application and the loan paperwork have two different account numbers on them so we need to sign a new loan application. Need some paperwork from the realtor. Need to verify if a student loan was really paid off (even though its been paid of for FIVE years). Need to have verifiable two years of job records (uh, hello? Info on the loan application and we told you we had six years verifiable, all you had to do was ask.) And why didn't this come up ten days ago when all we needed was a bank statement?????
Now, it HAS to back in through underwriting which will take four more days and then one to two days for loan docs to come to the office so we can most likely close on the 31st, get the keys on the 1st!!
WHAT????
In California, we must wait 24 hours for the buyer's money to go through and clear the bank. (This is what they're telling me....)
THAT'S WHY I PAY IN CASHIER'S CHECK!!!
But, as we look this over, most of this should've been taken care of and they're really insignificant so there's no real reason why we can't move forward, but we still have to go back through underwriting.
Oh, and I spent 3.5 hours driving around today, getting the signatures needed so it didn't take an extra three days.
And then I was told we were lucky to be closing only ONE DAY LATE.
Lucky?
Apparently, it's common practice here to have to move the closing date, one, two or even three times.
Ohhh, SERIOUSLY??
Why do they accept doing half-ass business this way? Why do customers accept it? Why is it good business practice to sign deals late?? How can someone make the plans necessary to move their family if nothing is firm? How can you trust these people? HOW DO THEY GET RECOMMENDATIONS?!?!?!?
I may be a hick from a small town. Things work different in a small town. I get that. In fact, I miss that. At least I could trust the person sitting across the desk from me to DO WHAT THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO.
And I'm not even talking about closing early. I'm talking about CLOSING ON TIME!!
Okay. I'm done. Rant over. I'm looking forward to having this moving thing done so I can sit down and write more than just what I'm eating.
Oh, I had two packages of Swiss cake rolls and a small chocolate shake from McDonald's today so my calories are shot for a couple days now.
OH WELL.
See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat channel.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
It's been four weeks
It's been four weeks since I've started this adventure. I've learned a lot about myself and my eating habits. I've worked at it. I've changed some things. I've definitely struggled. I move forward two steps and step back one and a half, BUT there's forward progress.
I estimate I've lowered my calories to about 2200 to 2500 per day. It's about 500 to 1200 calories less than I was eating (see this blog and this blog). I seem to handle that well without feeling like I'm starving. I've gained some energy back. I'm blogging regularly again (although I missed yesterday....it WAS Friday the 13th.... LMBO!)
My rough idea in my head is to try and maintain at this calorie level for a couple weeks and then lower it again. Of course, there's always the exercise that I haven't even TRIED to fit into my day. We are supposed to close on the new house on the 30th (We are trying to get it moved up). The next couple weeks are going to be really busy. I'm using that as an excuse to not start too many new things.
I did finally speak to my friend who is the physical trainer. She suggested this week I start adding in more fruits and veggies. Okay. I've heard of those...... 8^/ We have an "appointment" to meet up on Tuesdays. It'll be good.
So, this morning I weighed myself. It said 305. 4 pounds, one per week. Not bad, considering all the struggles I've been having. And I doesn't feel as if I've really done anything. So here's the pictures I took this morning (I tried to smile today):
I don't see much difference (it's four pounds) and the pictures suck. I may have to ask my hubby for help.
More to come. See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat
channel.
I estimate I've lowered my calories to about 2200 to 2500 per day. It's about 500 to 1200 calories less than I was eating (see this blog and this blog). I seem to handle that well without feeling like I'm starving. I've gained some energy back. I'm blogging regularly again (although I missed yesterday....it WAS Friday the 13th.... LMBO!)
My rough idea in my head is to try and maintain at this calorie level for a couple weeks and then lower it again. Of course, there's always the exercise that I haven't even TRIED to fit into my day. We are supposed to close on the new house on the 30th (We are trying to get it moved up). The next couple weeks are going to be really busy. I'm using that as an excuse to not start too many new things.
I did finally speak to my friend who is the physical trainer. She suggested this week I start adding in more fruits and veggies. Okay. I've heard of those...... 8^/ We have an "appointment" to meet up on Tuesdays. It'll be good.
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| March 14 2015 |
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| Feb 14, 2015 |
I don't see much difference (it's four pounds) and the pictures suck. I may have to ask my hubby for help.
More to come. See you tomorrow.
Same Bat time, same Bat
channel.
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| Feb 14, 2015 |
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| March 14, 2015 |
Friday, February 20, 2015
Today Is One Of THOSE Days And How I Handle Stress
Today was one of those days that I just wanted to go back to bed. (I did take a nap, so technically, I did go back to bed.) I've had that feeling all day. I just want to send up a finger and tell the world to leave me alone.
The day started off with a fog delay. Stephanie, Tyson (when he's here) and I get up at 5 a.m. to get her to seminary. She gets ready and I make school lunches and breakfast.
We have a neighbor that we carpool with and it was their turn to drive. Five minutes until six, Mrs. Peterson called to tell us there was a fog delay. When that happens, school starts two hours late and there's no seminary.
So, we were happy, we could go back to bed. We changed the alarms and laid back down. The boys slept in.
At 8:00, Tyson got up and went to the house we're trying to purchase for an inspection. At 8:30 I got everybody up. At 9:10, Stephi, Ryleigh and I got into the car. The twins had instructions to leave by 9:20 and Ryan to leave at 9:40.
I dropped Stephi off and headed across town to the inspection. When I got there, I received a phone call from the house phone. That shouldn't be happening, everyone should be gone. I answered and it was Devon. Apparently, his school didn't have a fog delay today so the twins went home. That also meant Ryan didn't have one either.
(Explanation, the school districts here are set up weird. The high schools are all combined into a separate district from the elementary and middle or junior high schools. Those are grouped together in districts based on areas of town. So, when Stephi's school district has a fog delay, the other ones may not. This was weird at the beginning of the year. Stephi started school two days after the boys. This was remedied when the boys all had a week off for Thanksgiving, but Stephi didn't.)
So, back to the day. Tyson had been walking around the "new" house with the inspector all morning. They were almost done when Ryleigh and I got there. I made the appropriate calls to schools while they finished.
Inspections are nerve-wracking. There are some minor repairs that Tyson and I could take a few hours and take care of ourselves, but since it's not our house yet.... I know, it's to protect us in case something falls through.... But, there are exterior forces that are pushing us to get this done and we just want to jump in, fix it ourselves and move on!
So let me back up and explain the house. Two weeks ago, even though I didn't realize it at the time, Heavenly Father was prompting me to look at houses. A For whatever reason, around the beginning of the month, we started looking at land to purchase. We miss the open feel of Wyoming. The town is crowded. We found this great piece of land, about 20 acres, about 30 minutes to the north. There were hills and a small creek. We could even see the snowcapped Sierras in the eastern distance. We miss seeing the mountains.
When we called the realtor, she asked us about pre-qualification for a loan. We have been pre-qualified since November. However, that expired, ironically, the day before we found the property. So, we needed to fix that.
Two Fridays ago, we went in and got our pre-approval, reapproved. We were also informed they don't finance for more than 10 acres. (There is either nothing that size around town or it is grossly overpriced.) So, after getting the re-pre-approval I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town, eliminating houses mostly based on neighborhood.
I called the realtor later that day. I had narrowed it down to three, but I my eye on a five bedroom house on the far northeast of town. Five bedroom houses are extremely hard to find, especially in the mid $200's. She needed to make an appointment because the house is rented. She also wanted to do it for a time when Tyson could go, which is difficult. (Tyson is on call 24/7.) But, he's usually done by mid to late afternoon, so we were shooting for early evening. That worked for her too, she had an afternoon open house.
Well, she never go a hold of them. The next morning, I got on the mls to check on one of the other three houses I was watching. (This market is extremely fast with decent houses.) A new house popped up down the street from that one. The price had just been lowered into our price range that morning. I called the realtor.
Tyson and I loved the house. It has four bedrooms with a dining room that can be transformed into a bedroom (5!). Only two baths, but that's workable. 2300 square feet, which is big for this price range. A pool in the back yard, which makes the yard smaller, but not unworkable...at all. It was built in 1976 and is just east of the college in town. The crime rate is comparable to the area we live in, which isn't bad. The schools are okay. We could do worse, I'm told. (I'm also told the schools we're in now are the best ones in town..........that leaves something to be desired, in my opinion.)
Anyway, we weren't sure about an offer. We didn't have the tax return yet so there was no down payment. And it felt like we were jumping really fast. (We actually jump into a lot of things, it seems that's how our life goes.) So, we decided to drive around town and look at numerous other houses that fit some of our criteria and think about it.
Well, the other houses were in our price range for a reason. They were NOT in good areas of town. I mean SCARY. There were a couple worth perhaps considering, but they were ify.
We went home and prayed about it. While we prayed together, we asked if we should put an offer in on the house. I got two distinctive answers of "yes" during the prayer. Tyson still wasn't sure. So, he took a nap. :)
The realtor called us at four, right when her open house was done. As the phone rang, I told Tyson we needed to decide. He was half awake and said his gut said yes.
The realtor told us there was two other offers in since that morning. The sellers were asking $239, so I told her to offer $242 and ask for half of closing. We signed the offer that Saturday evening and sent it off.
Well, the realtor called me the next day and told me she needed a copy of the -pre-qualification letter. I told her I didn't get one so we'll have to call on Monday morning.
It took me until 12:15 to finally get a hold of the guy. He had concerns. Tyson works a lot of overtime and that worried him, especially since his hours (and income) has come down since we've come to California. He needed to see his latest paystubs. I don't know if this guy is new or not, but I had all that information in front of him the previous Friday. Why didn't it come up then?
Well, the 2:00 information call turned into 4:00. Then it turned into 9 a.m. on Tuesday. GAHH.
Tuesday morning (the 10th) I got up and prayed, like normal. I just told Heavenly Father that I was prepared for His will to be done. If we didn't get the house, well, we could stay where we are and pay some things off. It'll be okay. It really didn't make sense to be buying this house yet anyway. We didn't even have the down payment, for the love of Pete.
At 9:10, our realtor called, saying the loan had gone through. The only conclusion I could come up with was Heavenly Father wanted us to buy a house. Now, if the seller of this house accepts our offer.....
Well, the seller had surgery on Wednesday, so they didn't get the offer until Thursday morning. We had a call that evening that we had a counter.
The counter was minor. The seller wanted to use their own geologist and look at the inspection bids so they could put their input in. Uh...okay.
We opened escrow on Friday with a closing date of March 30th.
Oh, here's the plot twist. On the 10th, Tyson received a text from our current landlord. She's apparently buying another house in a different state and needs to sell this house. She hates to sell it out from under us and put us in a bind. But, if we could, please move out asap. Oh, and would you consider buying my house? For $275? (Only three bedrooms and 1800 square feet.)
Now we understand why Heavenly Father was prompting us to look at houses.
So, that brings us back to today. After the inspection, Tyson and I went down to the mortgage brokers to select a loan and put things in motion. There's a few minor fixes, like I said above, but the hitch is we should get them done before the appraisal so we don't have to pay for the appraiser to come out again. The news about the inspection and appraiser isn't necessarily bad news, it just puts us under another time crunch with something that is beyond our control.
We came home and ate lunch. Then I put Ryleigh down for a nap and stayed for about 20 minutes. Then I went and picked Stephi up from school and took her to swimming.
At this point, Tyson and I are on overload and are grumpy. Stephi has been a moody teenager lately. Between 5 am starts, swimming after school and a high school campus the size of a community college, she is tired and grumpy. The two of us in the same car and grumpy didn't mix well.
I came home and got into a hot bath. It didn't help.
Tyson's began working on gathering loan information about his overtime hours. He was stressed.
It's now 4:30 pm and time to pick up Stephi and cook supper. We had a family invitation to a friend's house tonight so I wanted to be eating by 6:30. I didn't plan well and now my time is short. I'm stressed.
Tyson's my go-to when I'm stressed. I can melt into his hugs and feel the stress drain away. Tyson will respond to hugs when he's stressed, but he's more of a fixer. He's not completely stress free until the situation is fixed. My bid for a hug didn't go very far.
So, I leave to go get Steph but I stop at the 7-11. I go straight for the Dr. Pepper, which are 2 for 2.50, and grab a bag of cheese puffcorn. The Dr. Pepper has always been a stress reliever for me. The puffcorn is a newer development.
Well, neither are a good choice when one is trying (barely, it feels like) to loose weight. However, the endorphins that flowed through me as I was eating and drinking felt wonderful. In the 30 minutes I was gone, I polished off both the bag and the bottle. Wham. Like 800 calories in one small binge.
But I didn't feel guilty. I didn't care. I got my endorphins and I didn't feel as stressed. That's what I wanted and that's what I got.
I came home and went to the bedroom. Tyson was sitting on the bed with his laptop on his lap, still trying to figure out everything with his overtime.
I purposefully walked over to him and removed his laptop, with some playful resistance from him, and put it to the side. I gathered his hands up and pulled on his arms so he would get the hint to stand up.
I walked him to the middle of the room and said, "I need my best friend. Not my husband. Not the man I'm buying a house with. My best friend."
His face softened as he realized what I was asking for. He hugged me. A true, focused hug. I felt the remainder of my stress wash away. I could feel him relax. It was good for both of us.
Here's what I learned, or relearned, today (after this huge, long rant):
The day started off with a fog delay. Stephanie, Tyson (when he's here) and I get up at 5 a.m. to get her to seminary. She gets ready and I make school lunches and breakfast.
We have a neighbor that we carpool with and it was their turn to drive. Five minutes until six, Mrs. Peterson called to tell us there was a fog delay. When that happens, school starts two hours late and there's no seminary.
So, we were happy, we could go back to bed. We changed the alarms and laid back down. The boys slept in.
At 8:00, Tyson got up and went to the house we're trying to purchase for an inspection. At 8:30 I got everybody up. At 9:10, Stephi, Ryleigh and I got into the car. The twins had instructions to leave by 9:20 and Ryan to leave at 9:40.
I dropped Stephi off and headed across town to the inspection. When I got there, I received a phone call from the house phone. That shouldn't be happening, everyone should be gone. I answered and it was Devon. Apparently, his school didn't have a fog delay today so the twins went home. That also meant Ryan didn't have one either.
(Explanation, the school districts here are set up weird. The high schools are all combined into a separate district from the elementary and middle or junior high schools. Those are grouped together in districts based on areas of town. So, when Stephi's school district has a fog delay, the other ones may not. This was weird at the beginning of the year. Stephi started school two days after the boys. This was remedied when the boys all had a week off for Thanksgiving, but Stephi didn't.)
So, back to the day. Tyson had been walking around the "new" house with the inspector all morning. They were almost done when Ryleigh and I got there. I made the appropriate calls to schools while they finished.
Inspections are nerve-wracking. There are some minor repairs that Tyson and I could take a few hours and take care of ourselves, but since it's not our house yet.... I know, it's to protect us in case something falls through.... But, there are exterior forces that are pushing us to get this done and we just want to jump in, fix it ourselves and move on!
So let me back up and explain the house. Two weeks ago, even though I didn't realize it at the time, Heavenly Father was prompting me to look at houses. A For whatever reason, around the beginning of the month, we started looking at land to purchase. We miss the open feel of Wyoming. The town is crowded. We found this great piece of land, about 20 acres, about 30 minutes to the north. There were hills and a small creek. We could even see the snowcapped Sierras in the eastern distance. We miss seeing the mountains.
When we called the realtor, she asked us about pre-qualification for a loan. We have been pre-qualified since November. However, that expired, ironically, the day before we found the property. So, we needed to fix that.
Two Fridays ago, we went in and got our pre-approval, reapproved. We were also informed they don't finance for more than 10 acres. (There is either nothing that size around town or it is grossly overpriced.) So, after getting the re-pre-approval I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around town, eliminating houses mostly based on neighborhood.
I called the realtor later that day. I had narrowed it down to three, but I my eye on a five bedroom house on the far northeast of town. Five bedroom houses are extremely hard to find, especially in the mid $200's. She needed to make an appointment because the house is rented. She also wanted to do it for a time when Tyson could go, which is difficult. (Tyson is on call 24/7.) But, he's usually done by mid to late afternoon, so we were shooting for early evening. That worked for her too, she had an afternoon open house.
Well, she never go a hold of them. The next morning, I got on the mls to check on one of the other three houses I was watching. (This market is extremely fast with decent houses.) A new house popped up down the street from that one. The price had just been lowered into our price range that morning. I called the realtor.
Tyson and I loved the house. It has four bedrooms with a dining room that can be transformed into a bedroom (5!). Only two baths, but that's workable. 2300 square feet, which is big for this price range. A pool in the back yard, which makes the yard smaller, but not unworkable...at all. It was built in 1976 and is just east of the college in town. The crime rate is comparable to the area we live in, which isn't bad. The schools are okay. We could do worse, I'm told. (I'm also told the schools we're in now are the best ones in town..........that leaves something to be desired, in my opinion.)
Anyway, we weren't sure about an offer. We didn't have the tax return yet so there was no down payment. And it felt like we were jumping really fast. (We actually jump into a lot of things, it seems that's how our life goes.) So, we decided to drive around town and look at numerous other houses that fit some of our criteria and think about it.
Well, the other houses were in our price range for a reason. They were NOT in good areas of town. I mean SCARY. There were a couple worth perhaps considering, but they were ify.
We went home and prayed about it. While we prayed together, we asked if we should put an offer in on the house. I got two distinctive answers of "yes" during the prayer. Tyson still wasn't sure. So, he took a nap. :)
The realtor called us at four, right when her open house was done. As the phone rang, I told Tyson we needed to decide. He was half awake and said his gut said yes.
The realtor told us there was two other offers in since that morning. The sellers were asking $239, so I told her to offer $242 and ask for half of closing. We signed the offer that Saturday evening and sent it off.
Well, the realtor called me the next day and told me she needed a copy of the -pre-qualification letter. I told her I didn't get one so we'll have to call on Monday morning.
It took me until 12:15 to finally get a hold of the guy. He had concerns. Tyson works a lot of overtime and that worried him, especially since his hours (and income) has come down since we've come to California. He needed to see his latest paystubs. I don't know if this guy is new or not, but I had all that information in front of him the previous Friday. Why didn't it come up then?
Well, the 2:00 information call turned into 4:00. Then it turned into 9 a.m. on Tuesday. GAHH.
Tuesday morning (the 10th) I got up and prayed, like normal. I just told Heavenly Father that I was prepared for His will to be done. If we didn't get the house, well, we could stay where we are and pay some things off. It'll be okay. It really didn't make sense to be buying this house yet anyway. We didn't even have the down payment, for the love of Pete.
At 9:10, our realtor called, saying the loan had gone through. The only conclusion I could come up with was Heavenly Father wanted us to buy a house. Now, if the seller of this house accepts our offer.....
Well, the seller had surgery on Wednesday, so they didn't get the offer until Thursday morning. We had a call that evening that we had a counter.
The counter was minor. The seller wanted to use their own geologist and look at the inspection bids so they could put their input in. Uh...okay.
We opened escrow on Friday with a closing date of March 30th.
Oh, here's the plot twist. On the 10th, Tyson received a text from our current landlord. She's apparently buying another house in a different state and needs to sell this house. She hates to sell it out from under us and put us in a bind. But, if we could, please move out asap. Oh, and would you consider buying my house? For $275? (Only three bedrooms and 1800 square feet.)
Now we understand why Heavenly Father was prompting us to look at houses.
So, that brings us back to today. After the inspection, Tyson and I went down to the mortgage brokers to select a loan and put things in motion. There's a few minor fixes, like I said above, but the hitch is we should get them done before the appraisal so we don't have to pay for the appraiser to come out again. The news about the inspection and appraiser isn't necessarily bad news, it just puts us under another time crunch with something that is beyond our control.
We came home and ate lunch. Then I put Ryleigh down for a nap and stayed for about 20 minutes. Then I went and picked Stephi up from school and took her to swimming.
At this point, Tyson and I are on overload and are grumpy. Stephi has been a moody teenager lately. Between 5 am starts, swimming after school and a high school campus the size of a community college, she is tired and grumpy. The two of us in the same car and grumpy didn't mix well.
I came home and got into a hot bath. It didn't help.Tyson's began working on gathering loan information about his overtime hours. He was stressed.
It's now 4:30 pm and time to pick up Stephi and cook supper. We had a family invitation to a friend's house tonight so I wanted to be eating by 6:30. I didn't plan well and now my time is short. I'm stressed.Tyson's my go-to when I'm stressed. I can melt into his hugs and feel the stress drain away. Tyson will respond to hugs when he's stressed, but he's more of a fixer. He's not completely stress free until the situation is fixed. My bid for a hug didn't go very far.
So, I leave to go get Steph but I stop at the 7-11. I go straight for the Dr. Pepper, which are 2 for 2.50, and grab a bag of cheese puffcorn. The Dr. Pepper has always been a stress reliever for me. The puffcorn is a newer development.
Well, neither are a good choice when one is trying (barely, it feels like) to loose weight. However, the endorphins that flowed through me as I was eating and drinking felt wonderful. In the 30 minutes I was gone, I polished off both the bag and the bottle. Wham. Like 800 calories in one small binge.
But I didn't feel guilty. I didn't care. I got my endorphins and I didn't feel as stressed. That's what I wanted and that's what I got.
I came home and went to the bedroom. Tyson was sitting on the bed with his laptop on his lap, still trying to figure out everything with his overtime.
I purposefully walked over to him and removed his laptop, with some playful resistance from him, and put it to the side. I gathered his hands up and pulled on his arms so he would get the hint to stand up.
I walked him to the middle of the room and said, "I need my best friend. Not my husband. Not the man I'm buying a house with. My best friend."
His face softened as he realized what I was asking for. He hugged me. A true, focused hug. I felt the remainder of my stress wash away. I could feel him relax. It was good for both of us.
Here's what I learned, or relearned, today (after this huge, long rant):
- One of the best forms of stress relief for me is my relationship with Tyson;
- When Tyson isn't available to help me with my stress, I either deal with it by sleeping (I didn't really talk about this problem) or I turn to sugary, carb-inflated, calorie stuffed junk;
- When I look at the past six years of Tyson being gone for 2/3 of the time, I can see why I've steadily gained weight.
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