House Update

I am getting closer and closer to becoming a home owner. My house inspection was today, and it went much better than it did last week. The main problems were cosmetic due to the sellers not taking care of the house, but I was aware of that. It is structurally sound, which is nice.

I will have to replace the paint, carpet, and most of the appliances. Kevin and I went window shopping for those things, so that I could get an idea of how much it is going to be. For the appliances it is going to be about $2200 because I have to replace everything except the stove, which may need replaced, but currently it is not broken, nor are the owners taking it with them. I'm not sure how much the paint and carpet will be because we mainly were checking out colors. I think I like the subtle multicolored carpets in either blue, green, or dark tan-ish. It sounds kind of odd, but the carpet samples were pretty cool. I'm not sure what colors I will use for paint. I want to paint the kitchen a pale yellow, but Kevin hates that, and since he may someday be living there, I should probably choose a color that he doesn't detest. I have a few weeks to decide what exact colors I want because I won't close until the middle of November, so hopefully I will be able to make up my mind by then.

It's crazy to think how close I am to realizing my year-long dream of owning my house.

Plan B

Both Kevin and I have been sick since last weekend, so we decided that going to the BYU vs. TCU game and sitting in the cold for four hours would not be a good idea. So we sold our tickets and hung out here in Salt Lake.

We first went to the open house for the Riverton Hospital. I have been on quite few IHC hospital tours lately, and I have to say that this hospital did not compare to IMC and Park City. First of all it was much smaller than IMC, and did not have all of the cool extras that IMC has because it is the "flagship" hospital. Park City hospital just has an elegant beautiful-ness to it, while this hospital felt like a hospital. It did have some cool murals in the pediatrics area, but for the most part, it was just a hospital. The tour was also much more rushed because Kevin does not have patience for such stuff, especially since he helped install all of the furniture, so he had already been through all of the hospital. They did have a really cool bubble machine outside that blew giant bubbles in various shapes such as stars and teddy bears.

After the hospital tour, we went to Red Robin, where we paid for our meal with the money from the sale of our tickets. It was there that we first saw the score of the game, and we realized that it really was a good thing that we didn't go to see the game, it was just painful. The food at Red Robin was good, as usual. I also got my very own bottle of Red Robin Seasoning Salt, which is the most amazing stuff on the face of the planet.

We rounded out our evening by watching Transformers with Shane and Tiffany, Kevin's brother-in-law and sister. It was a pretty fun evening.

Pig Flu

My parents have been very paranoid about me contracting the H1N1 virus, thus they are always encouraging me to go get vaccinated and telling me where to go to receive my shot. Anyways, yesterday morning I decided to appease my mother, so I attempted to attend a flu shot clinic. Yes, you read that right, I attempted to go. I drove to a health department clinic out in West Valley at 6:45 in the morning to be there in plenty of time for the 7:00 start time. (I only was up that early because of Zyrtec-D and its fabulous side effect of only letting me sleep six hours.) When I got there, cars were parked up and down 5600 W for 2-3 miles. I had to park a mile away from the end of the line, and then the line was probably a mile long when I got to it. After waiting in line for an hour and a half, moving only 60-70 feet, and receiving word that they were going to run out of shots a long time before they got to my position in line, I decided that it wasn't worth it. It was cold. I was wearing flip flops. And I felt on the verge of hypothermia, so I left. I guess I probably should have stayed, but I decided that it wasn't worth making my cold worse.

I hope that I can someday get the vaccine prior to getting the flu, but I don't think I will participate in one of these mass clinics again. It seriously felt like Black Friday, but the prize at the end was getting stuck in the arm with a needle. I am just not a fan of long lines, especially when I am all alone. Hopefully they will be able to coordinate these things better, so that they won't turn into this type of crowd control nightmare again.

Bambi’s Cousin

As many of you may already know, we are currently in the midst of deer hunting season. My dad is an avid deer hunter, although he is at the point that he enjoys the drive more than the actual shooting of the deer. He has gotten Kevin into the deer hunting mode, and Kevin has gone out with him twice now. Anyways, on Saturday, my cousin donated his deer to us because the whole family had shot deer, so their freezer was already full. However, the meat was not cut up yet, and was actually in the form of two hind legs and a front leg, so Kevin and I spent four hours Saturday night learning the fine art of meat processing. I don't think either of us have a career in that field. We ended up throwing away more than we saved because we got sick of cutting out all of the veins, tendons, and fat. We haven't tried any of our final product, so we are unsure of how it tastes. Kevin has never had deer meat, and I have only had it once, so we will see how it goes.

House Hunting Update

The last week has been very eventful in the house-hunting search. On Monday, I got a call from my realtor telling me that one of the houses I had placed an offer on had received bank approval for the short sale. It wasn't my favorite, so I had him call the agents for the other houses to see how close they were to securing bank approval. Only one other was close, so I decided to go for it. Wednesday, I had to sign papers with the real estate agent, and then I met with a loan officer on Thursday to secure funding. While I wasn't totally in love with the house, I figured that it was good enough for a first home and I could live with it.

However, today I had it inspected by a home inspector, and decided that with all of the repairs it wasn't worth it. I would have to replace the all of the carpeting and windows, plus the water heater and dish washer, in addition to the other appliances I would have to buy. To make matters worse, there was a leak in the kitchen and basement bedroom, plus mold in the crawl space. The carpeting and windows alone would cost $6000-$8000. The price of the house pretty much wiped me out, so I decided that it would be a no good. Fortunately I was not completely tied down yet.

When we got home, Kevin and I started looking up houses on the MLS site. We found a few, but my real estate agent called and talked me into looking at the other house that also had bank approval. At first I was not crazy about this house because of the location (I thought it was in Kearns.) and the fact that it had an unfinished basement. However, it is in a newer development, and it is not even in Kearns. Another advantage it has is the fact that it is a newer home, which means that the windows are all good, plus there is a much smaller chance of leaky pipes and mold. All of the carpet will have to be replaced due to it being filthy, but at least they did not allow their dog to poop and pee all over the carpets. The paint will also need to be touched up and redone, preferably not in so much white. It is also $10,000 cheaper than the first house, plus it will require less money up front to make it livable. Plus, finishing the basement would increase its value a bit, so we could sell it for more than we bought it, especially if you are optimistic and have faith that the housing market will improve someday.

So now, instead of closing next Thursday, I may close a bit later, plus I have to pay another $250 to get this house inspected. Hopefully, there will be nothing majorly wrong with this house for the inspector to find, so that I don't get talked out of it. I just love house buying. I will keep you posted on how the house hunt is going.

Birthday Happenings

This past Friday was my twenty-fifth birthday, and it was a pretty good day, plus weekend.

First, I got called off Thursday morning, so that afternoon Kevin and I went to Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake. We went there in March for my dad's birthday, so we were both excited to go back. We went during the lunch hours, which was more cost effective, but they had fewer servers because there were fewer guests. As a result, we got fuller faster, so we were unable to engorge ourselves quite as much as we would have like, but on the bright side, I avoided looking five months pregnant like I did last time.

Friday, I used to PTO and basically did some tasks around my apartment until Kevin and I went to the BYU vs. USU football game. We had a slow start, plus the traffic was horrendous, so we didn't get there until the second half was starting. However, by this time they had stopped patrolling the parking lots, so we were able to park in the parking lot directly west of the stadium, which is much closer than I normally park. The downside of this was leaving. There really wasn't a convenient way to get out of Provo, so we didn't arrive at my parents' house until midnight.

Saturday and Sunday were mostly spent watching conference. I was able to watch all of it this time, so I enjoyed that quite a bit. I am looking forward to the November Ensign. I always get much more from reading it than I do from watching it, despite the fact that I take notes.

Saturday night, my parents took us to Don Pedros, an excellent Mexican restaurant in Heber. It was yummy as usual, although I've almost decide to downgrade from the Strawberry Margarita (virgin of course) to the strawberry lemonade. Being around Kevin has helped me become more frugal, which is always a good thing, I guess.