Wish list

Since we haven't had a house to live in for many years, I'd forgotten all the FUN one can have in making it a home!

I've starting a wish list for the house:

Lawnmower (electric only, no gas)
Edger (electric)
Weed whacker (same, only electric)
Extension cord to handle the electric weed whacker (the guy at Lowes told us what we need)
A million dollars (in my dreams!!)
A lawn service (that would be ME)
To be moved in NOW...(We're doing it slowly to do it right)
Cleaning service (oh yeah, me again)
A new shower enclosure (the door is kaput on the one we've got...but my bathtub is a whirlpool bathtub with a jet!  WOOO HOOO!!)
A fully seeded and green lawn (we have to plant the seed sometime soon)
Unlimited funds for landscaping
A pickup truck for the hubby (this is because his stupid car bit the dust last week! AGAIN!!!!  Alternator this time and it was pricey!!!)

Here it is....

Introducing....

 My new house.  This picture was taken last Sunday, after it had snowed on the first day of Spring.  I think it's actually kind of neat...the owners put the house on the market and got a picture of it on a snow day in February, we saw it the Monday after it went on market, offered on it by Thursday and...now we're getting ready to move in.  I'm so happy about this!!

Closing!!

I am now a homeowner!!  Woo hoo!!!  I'm so happy and excited!  I'm extremely giddy with excitement!! We signed all the papers at 1:00 and by 4:30, they'd funded the loan, so it's official!  I own a house!!

I'm so happy to be able to get out of this apartment!!  I've had more than enough of strange things here.  This apartment has charged me for an "allocated water" bill, which meant that whenever someone moves out, the rest of the community gets hit with the water they didn't pay for or use.  I'm actually looking forward to finding out what my "normal" water consumption will be now that we have a house. We have a sprinkler system, but may not run it that often.  I know that is a huge water use. 


We've started packing and purging.  My kids are learning how to pack and purge.  My daughter went through a bunch of her things, tossed out things she knew she wasn't interested in anymore and is a lot happier.  My son is just annoyed because we packed up the video games and he won't get to play them for a week or more.  (OOPS!!)


Sunday the 28th is the start of our move.  I'll take my vacuum over to the house and clean, then get busy and tape off the teenager's room and get it ready to paint on Monday.  I also have someone coming out to measure windows for replacement on Monday.  On Tuesday, we get the washer, dryer and refrigerator.  Things are moving along!!

Countdown to closing

One of the hardest things about this house buying journey is over--the loan process is complete.  Now it's on to the packing, cleaning, purging that goes with getting rid of 7 years of living in this apartment.  I have so much stuff to throw out, I'm surprised I haven't filled a thousand trash bags yet.  We have started, but haven't made much of a dent in the packing.  My husband wants to wait until mid-April to move in, but...I'm impatient and want to start moving in NOW.  If i had my way, I'd go ahead and close early, then move in tomorrow.   I have to wait another two weeks though.  Oh well.

This will give me a chance to weed through my books.   I am book collector.  I love to read, and don't visit any libraries except my own these days.  I will probably end up with 5 or 6 boxes full of books.  I think that will be my packing project for today.  If I can get my books packed up, I feel like I will have accomplished something. 

I also have to pack up the contents of my closet---I have all the belts I earned at my old martial arts school in the closet.  When we get to the house, I'm going to design a belt holder (or buy one if I'm too lazy to build it myself) and put my belts out somewhere on display.  I think I have something along the lines of 9-10 belts, not including my black belt.  In my old school, the belt rankings started with white (every school does, I believe), then went to yellow, yellow with a black stripe, orange, orange/black stripe, green, green/black stripe, brown, brown/black stripe, red, red/black stripe, blue, blue with a white stripe, blue with a black stripe, half black/half blue and finally, black.  I'm presently using my blue belt at BTK because our Dan belts are navy blue. 

 

Everything is coming together

We've now had the house inspected and all the bickering little details back and forth from each side--Side A says "fix this, this, this, this and this."  Side B says "No, we'll either fix this OR we'll fix this, this, this and this and leave out this."  Side A says "You fix this, this, this, this, this and we'll go half on this."  Side B thinks a bit, then says, "Okay, we're good with this."  So now the frenetic packing and cleaning is on.  I told a good friend that buying a house is much like gambling.  Nothing is 100% guaranteed.

Here are a few pictures of the inside of the house:

 

The dining room 

 
 

This is currently the playroom for the present homeowners.

 

The front door

 
 

The family room

 

The present homeowners are still in residence, so this is their stuff.  The walls are painted a sage green.  The kids' bedrooms are pink and white striped and blue.  We have had a "request" (demand??) to paint the pink and white room purple with yellow.  NOT *my* first thought of nice, but who am I?  I'm just a crabby old lady who doesn't want to change it.  Since we're talking about painting that room, the young man wants HIS room painted in the colors of the University of Texas.  I'm sorry, but orange is not an ideal color for a bedroom, so he gets stuck with it being blue.  I got the idea to get some cammoflauge netting like hunters use and tack it up to the walls.  That way it would stay blue, but would be slightly more masculine.  I guess we'll see.  I'm not ready to paint two rooms.  It's already going to push our move in date back to mid-April.  I'm a bit annoyed with that too, but I'll deal with it.  I want to move in as soon as I possibly can.  Unfortunately, it's not always possible to do what I want to do, as I'm very well aware of.

This house purchase is a huge step and one that I HOPE will let me finally rest the demons that have been plaguing my martial arts training.  I have taken a month off to not think martial arts, to just BE, not to train.  I am trying to put aside the hurt I felt from a friend who told me that I was really too heavy to do the things I was talking about doing (running).  I have to learn to like myself and one of the things I'm finding cathartic about moving is that I can try to purge all of my feelings of discontent that have plagued me for over a year.  I've let little comments from my loved ones ("Mommy you're 'phat'.  Not "fat" but 'phat', which is a good thing!") ("Honey, you KNOW you have to work out more and eat less to lose weight.") get to me.  
I've had a lot of self doubt, which has lingered.  I finally wound up writing my instructor an email to tell him why I wasn't showing up for class.  He pointed out that I'm not letting myself have fun (hyper critical me knows this but needs to fix it). He said I need to let go and have some fun.  I'm going to work on that.

I think the house is impetus to get my stuff together and decide what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I can either sit and be critical of myself and "boo-hoo" about how I'm not going anywhere (which is what someone else said to me recently), or I can DO something about it.  The choice is mine.  

House

I have pictures of the interior of the house posted up at Picasa.  If you want to see them, please let me know.  I'm really excited about it.  We have it under contract, paid the title company, paid our earnest monies and are on our way to having it inspected.  The next step in this process is an appraisal for the value and then we're on to closing.  We don't close until the end of March, but still, it's happening.  I'm a bit apprehensive, especially in light of finding out that there's MORE expense involved, but the hubby tells me that's my nature and I'm never going to change (gee, thanks dear!!).  I'm a natural born worrier, I guess.  I just don't want anything to go wrong!!

The oldest child wants to paint her room purple with yellow XO's on the walls.  I'm not pleased about that combination.  I don't want her to go Goth.  I guess that's one of those "get over it" things.  I'll just pick my battles and deal with it later. Right now, I've got to start collecting boxes and cleaning.  I decided that I was going to clean as I pack.  That way I don't have any issues with anything and will know what I've got to do.

HONEY I BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!

Details later.  We offered, they countered slightly, we accepted, we're waiting for them to say "cool, good, inspect."
Now to worry about packing!!

Intermittently around

I'm here...just haven't been in a writing mood lately.  Facebook has sucked me into a void with silly games.  We're still hunting for houses.  We found another nice one...it's just that I'm having issues with the thought of moving my son from his school and his very good teachers.  I know that I'll find other good teachers, but...I don't want to move him!!

There are other things going on too...some "me" issues I'm dealing with.  It's affected my mindset so I've not gone to karate for a while.  I'm letting other things happen.

If  I can get online for a short time (and not be distracted by the Olympics!), I'll write and update things.

Food for thought

We have been looking at houses lately.  We started out just out of curiosity, then poked around a little more and found a few we liked.  We found one on the other side of town that's an older house.   It wasn't too bad--from the outside.  We couldn't stand the interior of the one house...it was shades of the 1970s.  We're talking sunken living room here!  That was not our idea of a nice house.  It was even worse that we found that the floor was slanted, as if there was a huge foundation issue.  It was quickly marked off our list of potentials.

The one house we found that we really like is more than our budget can afford.  We've been pre-approved for x amount.  That's really a good thing, all things considered.  We had a few problems in the past, which might reflect poorly on our record.  Hopefully we're rebounding from that.  

I've been sick since Monday and wasn't able to go with the hubby to look at a house we couldn't get into on Saturday (the lock was jammed) and another house he was shown.  I want to see the second house.  The house with the jammed lock was okay, he says.  The second house is a little bigger than our apartment.  It seems nice from the pictures.  I want to walk through it and see what it looks like.  It's in McKinney, but is in the Allen ISD, which is good.  I don't really want to pull my daughter out of her current school.  She's happy and doesn't need to be uprooted.  Neither, for that matter, does my son.  


Spending time at home has given me time to think. I keep thinking about whether or not we want to buy a house now or wait until next year.  It's just something that's running through my mind. 

The MRI, take two

I finally went and had my MRI done on Friday.  My regular doctor prescribed a sedative for me, so I was able to sleep through the procedure.  I don't remember more than small snippets of the actual procedure. This is a very good thing, although I now know that sedatives make me totally loopy and not worth anything after taking it!  I slept quite a bit on Friday.  I was moving very slowly when I was awake, which was unusual for me.  Even my chiropractor noticed that I was sluggish when I went in to talk to him.

They got the results of the MRI the same day.  There wasn't any visible damage to nerves or muscles to attribute to the pain I've had in my shoulder/neck area.  The nerves all look great.  Now we get to talk to an orthopedic doctor and see what he thinks is going on.  In the meantime, I'm restricted from pushups (although I'm going to test the boundaries on some things), planks, running, etc.  He did say I could use an elliptical machine, so that may be in the works for this afternoon.  I can go swimming as long as I don't push it.  Nothing that will affect my shoulder.  

I'm going to the Natatorium today.  If I can't do any other workouts, the least I can do is work on getting my overall fitness up.  I WILL be healthier this year!  My goal for the month of February is to lose 5 pounds (and I'm only setting it at 5 because I don't want to discourage myself).  My goal is February 24th.  It was recommended to set a goal that is attainable and that is not unreachable, so there it is.  Now it's out in writing too, so I can't pull it back.

Not today

Went to my appointment tonight, only to find myself unable to have the actual procedure.  I panicked when they put me under the magnetic thing.  I hadn't realized that I was claustrophobic until they slid me up under that thing.

The MRI machine is an "open MRI", which just means it isn't the loud tunnel thing you always see on television.  This one was a table that slide over one magnet thing and under another.  You have to lay face up, very, very still, and they turn on the thing to take the pictures.  

I was fine when I got up on the table.  I was talking with the lady who was going to do the procedure.  We  chatted about a few things, including how long it was going to take (4 of the pictures were 3 minutes, one was 5 minutes).  She put a thing over my face that was there to keep me still and keep me from bouncing around (my head), and that was just the beginning.   Again, I was fine until she slid me under the machine and made adjustments.  At that point, I got very uncomfortable and asked to stop.  They hadn't even taken pictures!  I wasn't happy with the thing being up in my face.  We stopped the test at that point.  I rescheduled, then went home, called my doctor's office and asked for some sort of sedative.  If the doctor will sedate me, I can have the procedure done on Saturday..  We will see what happens.  I am going to be getting a phone call tomorrow with either the news that I'm getting a prescription for 1 or 2 pills (probably going to be $50.00!) or they'll send me to a "standing MRI" where you're not lying flat.  We shall see what happens.

Testing...testing...testing...

Tomorrow I'm going to have an MRI after work.  I've been fighting with pain in my neck and upper back, between my shoulder blade and the spine, plus some odd pain down my left side and in the front of my collarbone.  It's all isolated to the left side, which I found odd.  I visited my regular doctor, who found nothing wrong.  I visited my chiropractor, and he diagnosed a pinched nerve, but it didn't get much better.  I can lift my left arm now, which wasn't possible a few months ago.  Unfortunately, the pain hasn't really gone completely away, which has my chiropractor wondering why.  He's tried to avoid this but finally came down to "we're going to do an MRI".  I'm going in tomorrow after work.  We shall see in a few weeks what's going on.  In the meantime, I don't get to "play" at karate and have to be cautious about what I do with my arm.  One of the guys at work told me it was my poor posture at my desk which is probably contributing to my shoulder issue.   They all have theories about what's causing the problem.  I carry a laptop to work, but that's on my right shoulder and I haven't had any problems on the right side.   Ah well.  I'll find out what the problem is and we can address the issue from there.
I want to get back to karate.  I want to start working on the things I need to work on, like forms and sparring.  I want to get back into weight lifting, so that I can kill off the "bat wings" on my arms.  I guess I need to learn patience.  I just don't want that patience.  I want it NOW.  

 

The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

For Christmas, I gave the family a membership to the Rodenbaugh Natatorium.  I believe I mentioned that we went swimming yesterday.  Today, after I got home from work, recovered from my day and changed, we went to the Natatorium again.  This time, we used the fitness facilities.  I rode an exercise bike for 35 minutes.   I didn't fall off this time, nor did I run myself over.  (major miracle there!)

I've accomplished one small goal...I went to the Natatorium twice in one week.  My ultimate goal is to make it out there at least three times a week.  It will go a long way toward my goal of improving my fitness.  I can improve that by working out more often, as in 3-4 times a week. I plan on working out at least three times a week.  I need to get my MP3 player fired up and get my headphones back into working order so that I can use it when I'm there.

My next step is to see about the spinning class that runs Mondays and Wednesdays.  Maybe not this week, but nest week I'll work on it.

First Sunday of 2010

Time flies when you're having fun.  It's hard to believe a new decade has started already!!


Yesterday we concentrated on doing some minor house cleaning and getting Tony some new glasses.  I had to go along for him because the doctor dilated his eyes.  At one point, I joked that I was his "seeing eye wife".  I had to drive for him, which was fine.  We puttered around and walked around a couple of places, then came home to spend the rest of the day doing very little.

I was on a quest to get Miss A a new flute since she walked into the bus in August and bent her existing flute.  I found one her teacher had recommended, but nobody rents it as it's a "professional grade" flute.  We found one down at the local music store in Allen and rented that.  If her teacher says it's not acceptable, then I'll take it back.  The flute is a Yamaha YFL281.   It's a very pretty flute, but the one I wanted to get her was a Yamaha YFL461 or the YFL481.  (Yes, I know it's a lot of babbling about a flute!!)

Today we went to the Don Rodenbaugh Natatorium and went swimming.  I like to go and not splash overly much.  I'm not a good swimmer.  I never took official lessons as a kid.  I "learned" to swim by being tossed off a dock into Lake Washington in Seattle.  It was not a good thing because I panicked and to this day, I can't deal with water up to my neck or over my head.  I do best if I'm sitting at the side of the pool, or in a hot tub.  So, today, we packed everyone up and went to the pool and played.   Mr. A decided to hit up this really huge slide that was very twisty and went down a number of times.  He loves it!  I went up one time--decided that I'd TRY it.  Mr. A went down, then Miss A went down, then Tony went and finally, I decided that I'd try it.  Oh. My.  GOSH!!!  Nobody warned me that it was going to make my go really FAST!!!

I literally FLEW down that slide!  There is a downfall to being large--the more the mass, the higher the velocity, I think is what Tony said! 
I was not quite panicking, but wasn't too comfortable with the "whoosh!" feeling I had as I went toward the bottom.  That slide had twists and turns and finally, I flew out to the pool at the bottom.  I wasn't prepared to pinch my nose closed and as a result, I breathed in water.  I had a hard time finding my feet at the bottom too.  I don't understand how my son can fly down that thing and pops up on his feet in no time flat!  This is another "What was I thinking?!" moment.  I got to meet my daughter's boyfriend's sister, as she was the lifeguard who was trying to help me get up and not choke!  Not a dignified way to meet someone.  OOPS!!  LOL! 

 We spent about an hour there.  My favorite part of the Natatorium, aside from the hot tub, which I spent a lot of time in, was the "Lazy River".  THAT is fun!  The kids and I played "tag" of sorts in there.  It was fun.  We had to be careful not to run over other people since the current would just take us and drive us around on its own.  

We have since spent the rest of the afternoon and evening doing very little.  Tony and the little guy have watched a football game, I've been alternating between reading and playing on the computer.  Of course, there's also the ubiquitous laundry, which never ends. 

I'm making plans to go back to the Natatorium tomorrow.  I'm going to make use of my membership and start using the facilities and working out a bit more.  I gave the family a year's membership to the place and I fully intend to take advantage of it myself.  I have already eyed a spinning class that I want to look into.  Who knows, maybe I'll run myself over again here as well!   Should be fun! 


Tuesday is karate.  I'm looking forward to that!!  Time to get back into a "normal" schedule.  I have let the leader of my son's Scout Pack know that I absolutely can NOT go get the bags at Roundtable for Scouting for Food.  I'm not giving up karate anymore.  I have an agenda--to stay with what I like to do and work hard at it. 

Happy New Year

2010.  Happy New Year.  Happy New Decade!
 

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, everyone!
I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas Eve and are enjoying Christmas Day with family.  I hope your day is as wonderful as it can be and that wherever you are, you're finding yourselves in good health.

We've had our Christmas decimation of gifts under the tree.  We got a wonderful gift yesterday from Mother Nature--it snowed here!  This was our first snow on Christmas Eve that I know about in a long time.  I don't know if it's ever snowed on Christmas Eve in Texas, but it was beautiful!  Of course, today it's all melting off.  I took some pictures of the front walk...there was snow on our front porch and that was a big surprise.  We're on the second floor, so finding snow out there was a shock.  If I can figure out how to get the pictures off my phone, I'll post them up here.  Right now, I haven't quite figured out how to sync my phone to the computer to download the pictures.

I'll be around a little later.  The cat just jumped up into my lap and it's conflicting with my laptop.

It takes talent

I took a spinning class with a friend last night at the Y. It was a fun class.  I have to admit that I have a rare talent.  I'm the only person in the class who managed to fall off the spinning bike and run over herself in the process!  It's actually rather funny!


Went to the Y, met K there.  She introduced me to the instructor, who helped me set up the bike.  He set the height and the distance from the handlebars, then told me how to ride it so that I didn't kill my knees.  (you use your heels to push and let your knees just come up.)  He also told me how to hold the handlebars so that I wasn't killing my upper body. Then he told me to hop on and we'd ride.
Okay.  I looked at that bike when I got there and thought to myself, "this is gonna kill me!"  I was ready to try it, so try it I did.


We started out riding, just as a warm up.  He had everyone do stretches, which weren't too bad.  I liked the music he was using for the warm up.  He had us get moving a little faster.  No biggie.  I was getting good and warm.  I thought it wasn't all that bad.  When he called a "saddle up" (where you get out of your seat and stand up), I got a bit of a jolt at first because I tried just jumping up.  BIG mistake as it jarred my ankle.  I had to slow down a little.
Made it through that "saddle up", but couldn't do the up and down thing everyone else was doing, so I sat.  Not a big deal, I hope.


I lost my left stirrup (toe clip?) on the pedal and spent about 5 minutes trying to get back into it before I had success.  We did a sprint, then slowed down down to get ready for the "hill" section he promised.  O...kay!  Mind you, I was wincing as I was riding...teeny tiny seats are not comfy!


We started on the hill section and did the first "climb". I was okay, thinking, "I'm doing okay!"  That was a mistake!  At that point, I lost my right stirrup and fell out of that toe clip!  My left foot was still on the pedal, in the clip, and was going full out "zoom!!"  I fell off the right pedal, my left food was behind me under the pedal and I hit the handlebars.  OUCH!  I know I grunted and looked like I was in pain.  K asked me if I was okay and I said, "yes".  Got back up and sat (painfully!) in the seat for the rest of the class.   
We did the cool down, then ended class.  We wiped our bikes down and rolled them to the back of the room.  I felt like hobbling as I walked out of the room with K.  It wasn't a bad thing.   I am highly appreciative of her because she DID get me off my hiney and moving!   She said she'll work out with me again, so I have a new buddy.  YAY!!
"

Today, my legs are extremely sore.  I'll get over it.  I'm still laughing about falling off the bike and "running over myself".  I've told numerous people today.  Makes for a fun tale. 

Sunday before Christmas

It's been a while since I've been in to my blog.  Time flies when you're busy!

Things have been hectic at work.  We *finally* hired a new guy in to replace one who gave notice and left just before Thanksgiving.  We also got the one who had been out due to a motorcycle accident back and that's a major plus as well.  It doesn't mean that things have been great.  I'm supposed to be training the new guy.  Somehow, it seems like the other people don't have much faith in my training methods as they came over and took him off to throw him on the phones on his very first day.  He came back, so that's a plus!

On the home front, things have been chaotic as well.  We're past the marching season for band, but now we're heading into a concert season.  I found out that Miss A earned herself a place in "Second Band".  She's fourth chair.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  I'm going to *have* to get her a new flute and that's about to drive me bananas because I don't know who is holding the note on the little Jupiter I am buying.  (The company we bought the flute from was bought out and nobody seems to know anything about the note, other than it's a company that handles the rentals.  I wish I knew.  I'm a bit tempted to have them research who took over the notes.  I'm thinking I will, looking at this as I'm writing it.  I need to get that under control because this next year, it's ours 100%.  I don't want to perpetually pay for a flute.

Miss A also has another piece of news...she's got her first boyfriend.  He's another kid from Band.  He plays the trumpet.  He's a nice boy.  The girls all called him "the Teddy Bear" because he gave them all hugs last year at school.
I haven't met him yet, but the hubby took Miss A and T to the movies today.  They're seeing Avatar.  I haven't gone because I don't believe it's age appropriate for the nine year old.



I've had major car issues in the past two months as well.  I had to get the hubby's car repaired (it's here if you want to read about it.)  I just had to put another chunk of money into my own car because I had a flat tire on Thursday and had to buy four new tires.  They were all in bad shape.  The good news?  I'm driving safely again!  Yippee.

I've been cleaning up my apartment today in preparation for Yule/Christmas.  I've not sent out any Christmas cards yet.  I have the box beside the couch, but haven't made the time to write them.  With me training the new guy at work, plus things going on after work almost every day, I've made excuse after excuse not to start them.  I WILL write them out tonight.  I have to!  I want my cards to get to my friends.  My very first card of the year was from Guatemala, from my good friend, Claus.  Thank you!!  You made my day!  

So, on that note, I have to go back and clean some more.  I have too much to do today and not enough time to do it.  

Christmas parade

The band marched in the Christmas parade.  Here is one of the pictures I snagged off the site of the flutes.  My daughter is in this picture...

 

Winter dreaming...

Winter is one of my favorite seasons of the year.  I love the coolness of the air, the crispness I feel on a chilly, frosty morning.  I love seeing my breath as I walk to my car.  I have fun with my daughter, seeing who can catch sight of their breath first.  Unfortunately, those times are few and far between down here in Texas.  It never really gets cold anymore.  I remember a few years ago, when there was ice on Thanksgiving Day.  I remember watching a football game with my husband and seeing one of the Dallas Cowboys fumble the ball and touch it in the "ice bowl".  I miss that type of weather.


We have had a lovely, misty-type of day for the past couple of days.  The band marched in the Christmas parade in this mist.   I went home in the mist yesterday and came to work in it this morning.  It's the perfect kind of weather to enjoy sitting by a fireplace, doing some needlework or reading.     I won't be doing that any time soon!  Ah well.  I can dream, right?

I hear tell on the news that the weather is going to be more of the same this week.  I've heard that there will be a "warm front" that pulls through (NO!!!!) today or tonight. It's *supposed* to get cool again though.  I really would like to see it get COLD and stay that way for a while.  I love cold weather.  I know, I'm odd.  What can I say?  I have friends in Idaho and New Hampshire who are getting snow.  One of my Sales Managers, who lives in NH, said he forgot to bring me my snow when he came down here for a sales meeting.  He was going to take a picture of it just for me!  He'll send it to me when he gets back home.


What I wouldn't give for just a little bit (6 feet!) of snow, something to enjoy for Christmas.  That's a dream, I know.  It's MY dream.   I guess if I want that, I'll have to move elsewhere.