Look what Kyle and I found this weekend. It can be added to the ever growing list of “issues” with our house. You do not want to know what we have spent thus far on fixing things.
Yup. That is a hole in our wall and ceiling thanks to a “leaking t-joint” – whatever the heck that is!!
But... we are at the point that we just have to laugh at our bad luck and hate our horrendous home inspector and tell each other that it will eventually get better.
So. I realized my last post was really really Debbie Downer. I sounded so totally negative about this whole house situation. And, while it is a bummer and it does suck and we have not had the chance to love our house and be in awe that we own a HUGE house, this is life. Life is unpredictable and nothing that you will expect or plan for. In fact, you really cannot 100% plan life.
The mice may be gone. We have not seen any traces {aka poop} lately. Nor have any landed on the glue traps. But. We do have some sort of critter problem that we caught early and will only cost us $1280 to fix. Only $1280. Le Sigh. And... the roofer came out and said that we didn’t need a new roof, just a patch. So rather than $2000 it will be $400. ...but, like I said. That is life. Life happens. Things happen. We have our fingers crossed that we get a good tax return and most of our rental house deposit back.
In other news... I survived my 1st beginners yoga seminar/series/class this past Sunday and have 3 more till I “graduate”. And it was not bad. Different than every other work out I do and love, but I think I will like it – my core was super sore Monday and Tuesday. I have such tight hamstrings so at the least I am learning how to stretch those bad boys out.
I am going to be in Birmingham basically all week next week. Our site recruiter starts Monday and then I have to start rolling all the temporaries from their old service to ours. It will be a long 4 days of training and working – but this “project” I am on is really a new challenge and I am loving it! :) And, I get to do dinner with my really good friend from college Ashley. =D
The babies are slowly getting used to the house. Kennesaw likes to make her rounds to “protect” us and she cannot get her paws under her when she is moving fast on the hardwoods so she cries. Mulligan is loving the double doors to our master because he can lay in bed and just watch everything that is happening. They FINALLY know which bowl is theirs – which is a success.
I will try and get our house together this weekend to take pictures. I promise!!
HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok. So, yeah. Kyle and I are 100% alive. A little overwhelmed thanks to home buying and moving and learning that our house is a money pit. Now, don’t hear me wrong. We love our house. But, it seems to have a million things going on with it.
First: we had to make the garage doors automatic. That was an expensive Home Depot trip.
Second: we move in and learn we have mice. yes. mice. and kennesaw has been hunting them out and leading them to the traps. mulligan has been terrified. i am refusing to cook dinner out of fear and wear my rain boots as protection. Kyle is trying to fix that problem... with the help of Terminex.
Then: the third Terminex guy inspected our attic and we either have roof rats [gross] or squirrels. both situations suck and are very expensive to fix.
And then: we had a bad storm. tornados. wind. rain. dark skies. the whole shabang. and shingles came off our roof. So, now we’re waiting on USAA to come inspect our roof and may have to either patch it or replace the roof. Luckily, since it was because of storm damage it will only cost us $2,000 to replace the off. ONLY $2,000 ... which means Bonds will be cashed out.
....all while we are paying both rent and mortgage. so things like new furniture for our family room have been put on the back burner – the weekend getaway or our 1st wedding anniversary also on that backburner. Our furniture that looks like it belongs in a frat house basement will last longer than expected.
I may need a part time job and you all should run as fast as you can an invest in Home Depot’s stock. I am serious.
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But. Other than all that. Life is good. We really love our new house. I am starting a Yoga for beginners seminar tomorrow to find some calm for my life. Work is crazy busy. And the pups are good {despite Kennesaw escaping thanks to the Terminex guy #1 leaving our gate open. They’re slowly getting used to the new house and love staring out the big front window and barking at people who walk by. We’re not 100% unpacked, but almost there. We donated a million and one things to goodwill {hello tax deduction} and will make more trips soon enough. Now, we’re just bracing for the rain tonight and hope we have no leaks in the gimpy roof. {yee haw}
I promise, i will post pictures of the house soon!!!
WHAT A LONG WEEK! But... I survived. We survived. And it looks like the weekend will be just as long – between setting up our new house and picking up our current house since it looks like a bomb went off and we have our 6 month walk through this week. Beh. I am not amused.
.life.
Well. Most importantly. Alabama is officially back to back national champs. ROLL TIDE. And that made for the start of a great week. Monday was a long ni
I am super bummed that my #1 FlyWheel instructor got fired this week. something about “complaints from customers” – but hey hello – there are SO many other classes and teaches just take another person’s class. Duh. But –that gives me an excuse to try out the weeknight classes since I going from work is WAY closer than going from the new house.
I had an impromptu trip to Birmingham on Thursday for work and it was scheduled to be a 2 day trip, turned into a 1 day trip... making Thursday a long day. But it was good. A good productive day for the big project I am heading up. Now. Our client needs to pull the trigger so we can get rocking and rolling.
.the house.
last weekend was a mess. i will spare you the dirty details, but long story short we had appliances scheduled to be delivered and they were cancelled last minute. but. after i was a total bitchface to every best buy employee that crossed my path we had a new appointment. and then today... dun dun dun...
I love the upgrade. it was stressful and a pain, but it makes the kitchen look so much better. between the knobs i changed out a few weekends and the appliances our kitchen is a great spot. Now, I just need to get the counters upgraded to granite. And... that won’t happen for a few years. Sad. The only bad: our oven is sticking out about 2 inches because of how the gas pipe is. it doesn’t bug me – but it drives kyle crazy. he will have to deal!
I also spent HOURS putting contact paper in the drawers and cabinets and I am not done yet. And let me tell you. Contact paper is a freaking nightmare. No one warned me how pesky and uncooperative it is. And to think, that project continues next weekend or the weekend after that. Le sigh. if anyone has tips please, for the love, share.
I also decorated our guest bathroom/kyle’s bathroom and it looks great. and kyle actually does not mind the shower curtain. it is the little victories! {i promise, the walls aren’t yellow.}
And my most favorite. My wrapping paper organization from the Container Store. It was expensive, but 100% worth it to get it all organized and in one place.
But, I am going to spend the rest of the weekend lounging, packing, and trying to clean up the mess that is our rental house. Anyone want to come help?!
I have been working on this post for a few days now – I wanted serious, real life goals as well as some fun ones. And since it is 2013... I decided why not set 13 goals, that way there would be a good mixture of fun and serious goals.
1. Get back into running. I am not saying marathons or even half marathons {yet} ... just lace up the shoes. Dust off the cobwebs. Find my happy place on the pavement again. Run some local fun races. Just get my groove back.
2. Get the house 100% set up. I don’t want to hit January of 2014 and things still not be decorated or done. This includes organizing it & buying new family room couches and new bedroom furniture. We went 2 years in our rental house with curtains that were never put up. We had them, just were too lazy to put them up. NOT.AGAIN. ...then i will do a blog tour of our house! :)
3. Read more. Watch TV less. I read a lot at the beginning of last year then let myself disappear into Netflix streaming and TV shows. I need to disappear into a good book more often again! Goal: 30 books in 2013
4. Blog More. Find a direction. Be more open and honest. I feel like my blog is all over the place. i feel like it needs more direction. I want people {other than my family} to want to read my blog. I feel like I have a lot of superficial posts – I feel like I need to be more honest and put things out there. I have only done that once and it was cathartic.
5. Save More Money!! We already save a lot of money, but as a homeowner who will need a new roof and new HVAC systems in the future, it would be nice to be able to replace those things when the time comes and it not hurt too much. Plus, I want to go to the Dominican Republic before there are Shanahan kids running around.
6. Be More Relaxed – Dial back the Anxiety – have more ME time. I am a control freak. I don’t like people doing things for me. I cannot make decisions to save my life and when I make a decision I then second guess it. All of this lead me to have a crazy anxiety stress filled 2012. So much so, my doctor put me on meds. I want to learn to let go this year. I’ve asked Kyle to send me to the gym when in a bad mood or stressed. I want to take more time for myself – massages, baths, lock myself away from the world.
7. Do at least one thing that is fun per month. Now that Kyle and I have decided to stay in Georgia, I feel like we need to embrace Georgia. Make friends. and go out and do things. We have lived in the same redundant rut for years – I want to start experiencing Atlanta and Georgia and what it has to offer!
8. Accomplish at least 1 of my running goals from my 30 before 30 list. i think it would be really cool to run a sub 30 5k or something. But to do that... I need to REALLY start running again!
9. Take a vacation. Or a mini weekend trip. Just get away. Our 5 day trip to St. Lucia was just refreshing and a good way to restart our lives. We need to do that more often.
10. Be able to answer the question “what do you want for _________” I have the hardest time answering this question for birthdays and Christmas. I want to be able to give ideas easily this year!
11. Walk the dogs more. Mulligan and Kennesaw are so spoiled with walks in the spring and fall. They’re not so lucky in the winter because it gets dark and the summers because it is too hot. Now that we have sidewalks, the dark won’t be as scary and we need to do longer walks on the weekends. This is not only good for them, but Kyle and my waistlines too! :)
12. Make more friends. This ties into goal #7. We have been in GA for almost 5 years now and I really don’t have a circle of friends down here. All my friends from College realized they hated Atlanta and moved back to Birmingham. But how does one make friends?!
13. Keep my car clean! If you have ever been in my car, you know what I mean. A common phrase for the front seat passenger is “hold on, let me clean you off a seat real fast”. I’d like my car to be trash free and junk free in the near year.
....13 goals are A LOT of goals. With a lot of variety. I was really bad with my 2012 goals (the only one I accomplished was to look really pretty on my wedding day). So, Wish me luck... I want to do much better this year! :)
We had a low key long weekend. I actually had to work on Monday, Kyle was off. So my long weekend was a kinda fake long weekend. But it was long in the sense that we were busy, did a lot, and there was little to no relaxation. Guess that is the life of a new homeowner!
|| Kyle and I did NOTHING for New Years Eve and it was nice. We drank Champagne. Ate Cheese and Crackers. I made homemade chocolate covered strawberries. And I was in bed right after the ball dropped and asleep after Justin Bieber preformed! Then this morning we had cinnamon roll waffles and have been watching football! HAPPY 2013 EVERYONE!! ||
|| We worked kind of on our 2013 budget. Was hard to know our exact income for the year, not knowing if we were going to have a tax hike come the new year and what or car insurance will be like in our new city. Bah hum hug.||
|| my brother who was living with us for awhile got his own place and moved out. now i am pretty sure kennesaw is having another bout of “people leave me” since she has been hanging out upstairs looking for him. she has no loyalty. ||
|| Mulligan was a total cuddle bug this weekend and it made me the happiest lady in the world. I love when he is a cuddle monster, granted I think it is because he feels bad about eating 3 Christmas ornaments this year, not praying for his dinner anymore, and killing a HUGE possum this week ||
|| We spent A LOT of time at the house this weekend and learned Alpharetta life will be WAY different than city life. Example one: you can take your dog into Home Depot. Yes, you read that right. Your dog. Can go into Home Depot. ... we also dropped TOO much money at Home Depot. It is like Target for men. Kyle is not allowed to go there on his own. But, he does accept Home Depot gift cards for Christmas and Birthdays ||
|| we have a huge window in our kitchen with a pretty little view. ||
|| driving the back roads we saw deer – a family of them ||
|| The mantle and fireplace are decorated! we have no furniture yet ||
|| i got handy and changed the door knobs. one knob can make a huge difference. crazy how that works ||
|| i cannot wait to get the kitchen appliances in and show ya’ll a before and after of our kitchen. it is gonna be so pretty ||
|| the more time I spent at our house, the more excited i got about it. i am really going to enjoy making it our home ||
HAPPY 2013 AND NEW YEARS!!
