Thursday, February 21, 2008

Official!!!

It's official!
It's ours!
We OWN a house!
Whoa!
It's itty bitty
It's a corner lot
It's a little shabby
The outside paint color is a cross between sea foam, booger, and radioactive ooze
It's still at least 40 minutes from my work,
and
IT'S OURS
and
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh yeah, and we're broke. Like, really.
But we have a house!

Friday, February 08, 2008

The Kindness of Not-quite Strangers

So, I promise you I'll blog more about the topic of my last post. I actually have one started on my computer at home that is likely waaaay more than you'd like to know. But for now I am at work and am simply astounded by the kindesses shown to me recently. Here are some things for which I am IMMENSELY grateful:

1. Boxes. I am amazed at how much "stuff" we have managed to accumulate in just a few short years. It's simply astounding. Thus, we need boxes to (in a timely and safe manner) move said stuff into the house. Shaun talked about going to neighborhood stores, a co-worker suggested the 50 cent boxes at a nearby copy store, I procrastinated. Finally I made one short request in our communication log at work, and was bombarded with boxes! Boxes from the janitor-angel, boxes from my boss (along with handy-dandy biodegradable packing peanuts!)... boxes galore! It's been great!

2. My husband. The moving expert. Seriously. We don't close until the 20th, and he's already on a schedule. Yesterday we packed the spare room closet. Today we'll pack 2 bookshelves, our knick-knack shelves and their corresponding knick-knacks. Tomorrow is the storage closet and half of our dishes. Once our life is packed and we get the keys, each evening we'll move another part of our life. It's a little anal, but it keeps the sanity, and I appreciate that SO much right now!

3. Cashed in favors! My wonderful moving expert aquired his wonderful moving skills by helping many people move many times. And these wonderful friends of ours are now more than willing to return the favor. It's especially wonderful because I would never ask.

4. Free Stuff! At the house we are without stove/oven, fridge, dishwasher, washer or dryer. A (wonderful amazing kind wonderful) man who rents space in the warehouse where Shaun works offered to us a range and dishwasher. In working order, for nothing in return!!! We're getting his Mom's old fridge, too. So now all we'll have to buy are a washer and dryer!

5. MORE free stuff! There have been some unusual occurances in our lives over the last two weeks that have lead to some unusual activity on our phone bill. We usually come in WAAAAAAAY below the 500 minutes on our phone plan (somewhere between 200-300 is normal for us). But with my step-dad going to Korea for a year, my mom's been a bit lonely, leading to more frequent and lengthy calls (which is great! i love talking to my mom - it just requires lots of minutes), and the whole house-buying process (calls to family and friends to keep everyone posted, calls to our realtor, calls to the mortgage guy, the inspector guy, etc. etc. etc.) we were over limit. Well, almost. By the time I even thought to check, we had used 499 minutes. Yeah, that left one minute for 17 days! And in those 17 days we had a house to finish buying! Shaun called the phone company today with a last-ditch plea to add a few minutes JUST this month for less than the 40-cent-a-minute-overage-fee.
And guess what? Because we've been such good customers, they gave us 200 extra minutes PER LINE than can even be rolled over for three months!

There's more, but this is already waaaaaaaay longer than anticipated and I need to get back to work.

Bottom line: God is good and I thank him for using these wonderful people to bless us!