Tuesday, March 30, 2010

House hunting

Ryan has been looking at real estate since we were in college, just browsing through listings when we weren't really looking to buy anything was fun, which made me think actually looking for a house would be fun. I was wrong, house hunting is hard, and it costs so much more than you first think it will. You set a budget and think, if we pay this $xxx for the house then the mortgage will only be this $x a month and we can do that no problem. But then you have to add in the property tax and mortgage insurance and all this other stuff. Which in turn brings the budget down and makes it almost impossible to find a house with the number of rooms that we want that isn't in a 55+ community.

We thought we found a good house, it only had 2 bedrooms, but it was 1,700 sq. ft. and right on the Perkiomen creek. Unfortunately the yard was minuscule, even for Jasper it would have been too small and when we get another dog there really wouldn't have been any room for them to run around. Plus Ryan crunched some numbers and it turned out it would have been too far out of our price range anyway. Also not working in our favor is the fact that there are practically NO houses in this area for sale that are anywhere near our price range, I think there is one and its a little smaller than we would like.

So we've been looking at foreclosure listings and bank-owned homes. There is one in particular that we really like, at least from the outside, we haven't seen the inside at all yet. We're gonna talk to a realtor and the bank that owns the house and hopefully we can get it for lower than market value. Plus it has a ton of land and lots of trees, so fingers crossed that this one works out. The only thing that I feel a little bad about is, there are still people living in the house, even though it was foreclosed and the bank owns it, so if we bought it, we'd have to kick them out :(

I've also been watching a lot of HGTV, so I really want to paint some walls, or tile something, it's getting a little ridiculous.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Jasper's Birthday

My little boy is two years old today!








Thursday, March 11, 2010

People friendly dessert

Let me do you a favor and tell you about this amazing new sorbet and gelato that I happened across in the grocery store last night. Talenti:

I had read about this on a random blog that I found in my wanderings around the blogosphere. I never actually thought I would find it in the store though. When I saw it in my Giant last night I figured I would give it a try, it's a little more expensive than what I would normally spend on a pint of ice cream, but its about the same price as a pint of Ben & Jerry's, so its not too bad. Plus its comes in this sweet clear plastic jar with a screw top lid, so the container can be washed and used again. The best part though, is it is delicious and people friendly. Definitely worth the $4 I spent on it. I had the Roman Raspberry sorbet, there are only 6 ingredients, all of which are pronounceable. It is all natural, gluten free, dairy free, fat free, vegan, made with pure cane sugar not high fructose corn syrup, and its kosher. It doesn't get any better than that.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Tired

Ryan is gone for the week, he left around 3 this afternoon and he won't be back until sometime Friday night. He's out a the Penn State campus in Clinton county, wherever that is, taking a course on pesticide maintenance or something like that. Basically he's gone all this week, then he comes home for a few days and has to go back out there next Tuesday to take a test. Once he passes the test he will be certified to spray pesticide on trees, which is good be cause that guarantees him a job year round (or at least its supposed to, we'll see if that actually happens) and he should be getting a raise as well.

In other news...I'm tired. Tired of work, tired of this apartment, tired of crocheting (though I am determined to get this blanket finished on time), basically I'm tired of life at the moment. Money troubles and real estate disappointments have been weighing me down lately. Especially since every car we own seems to be broken, even the new one is having problems, and since Ryan hasn't been working I've had to manage paying all the bills by myself, not something easily done....

Being an adult is not an easy thing, and mostly I think its over rated.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Dreams and new pictures

So I had a dream last night that got me thinking...I miss my friend, I haven't talked to him in a long, long time. I was going to send him a message on Facebook, but apparently he no longer uses Facebook, and I have no other way to contact him. I've tried emailing him before, but he claims he never got it...he shares an email address with his wife....I have a feeling someone got my email, it just wasn't the person it was intended for, though I have no proof of that. I think my dream has something to do with this song. I had the CD on in the car and it repeated a couple times....

In other more interesting news Ryan's car died a couple weeks ago, and since my car died in September, we were left with just the truck. So Saturday we went and got me a new (to me) car so that I don't have to drive the truck to work anymore, and Ryan can leave the apartment during the day:
Ryan's parents were nice enough to buy it for us so that we can pay them back and not have to worry about bank loans and interest and what not. Though apparently that is now causing problems...Ryan's mom called this morning saying that his dad is 'pretty put out' that I didn't say thank you, which I did, and he's 'pretty put out' that I'm still afraid of him. It's not that I'm afraid of him per se, its more that he just makes me uncomfortable....what exactly am I supposed to do about that? I can't control the fact that some people make me uncomfortable, it happens, I'm not the best people person, especially with adults (yes, I know I'm an adult, but I mean older adults).

Also, less depressingly, I am making some progress on my brothers blanket. I just need to pick up the pace a little since I have to have it finished by the 2oth.