Buying a House

So uh yeah, we bought a house!

Okay, not quite, but we're very very close. Maybe I should back up a bit? At the beginning of this year, my husband and I finally agreed that we were ready to get our own house (read: I finally talked him into it). We started poking around on Zillow (here's a link to their homepage, if you are interested), just to see what was on the market.

We found a few houses that we liked, but not much. So my mom asked if she could hook us up with her agent, who had helped her sell my grandfather's condo after he passed away. I said sure, have him send us some listings, it can't hurt.

So he started sending us listings. A lot of listings. Like, 10 a day. And granted, some of these were updates to previous listings (like price changes), but still, we were quickly overwhelmed. We tried to sort through the listings and keep track of our favorites. Luckily, we knew exactly what area we wanted to be in, so that helped.

We quickly found one that we liked, just slightly outside of our preferred area. We asked the realtor about it, and he sent us more information. Then I called my mom to tell her. But when I gave her the address, she said she had to check on something and she would call me right back. Turns out, my cousin owns that house, and he's not actually interested in selling. Okay, back to square one.
We found another property we liked, and once we ascertained that this one was in fact for sale, we made an appointment to see it on Monday March 9th. Perfect.

Sunday the 8th was my birthday, and since the weather was so nice, my husband and I decided to spend the day at the zoo. At around 12:30 we get a call from the realtor. There was another offer on the house we were interested in. He could fit us in that day at 2 to look at the house, but the seller was ready to make a decision, and if we liked it, we would have to put an offer in before 5pm. No pressure, right?

So what did we do? We went to the giraffe house to sit and think about the situation (and to vent our frustrations to a very nice docent). We decided that we should at least see the house, after all, maybe it wouldn't be what we liked and we would have no problem passing on it. Just in case we liked it though, I called my uncle the contractor and asked if he could come walk-through the house with us, and let us know if there were any glaring issues with the structure or the foundation or the roof, or anything really.

At 1:45 we were parked in front of the house, nervously wondering what the protocol was. At this point I had never actually met our realtor in person, and didn't actually know what he looked like. I guessed however, that he was the guy standing on the front stoop waving at us. I was right. We took a deep collective breath, and got out of the car.

We looked over the house, and it was every bit as charming in person as it had been in the listing. We fell in love, we wanted it. Our relator looked at us like we were nuts when we told him that we wanted to put in an offer.

"Are you sure?" He asked. "After all, this is only the first house you've seen..." But yes, we were sure. It was in the exact location we were hopping for (literally down the street from my BFF), and had everything we wanted in a house, including an unfinished basement that we could fix up. So off we went to my in-law's house, where my mother-in-law (the attorney) helped us look over all of the paperwork before we stupidly signed our lives away.

We sent in our offer, and 20 minutes later, it was accepted! We were now officially on our way to being home-owners! The whole thing still feels like a dream, especially since it all happened so fast. I woke up Monday morning (the day we were supposed to see the house) in a state of shock. I turned to my husband. "Did we really buy a house yesterday?" I asked. "Yeah, I think we did."

There is still a lot to do, and nothing's final until its final. We have our inspection on Sunday (though I'm not anticipating any big surprises, after already walking through the house with a contractor & an engineer), and then we're closing on Tax Day.

So let the countdown begin!

35 Days!

2014 Wrap-Up

Okay here it is, my year-in-review post for 2014. Just a few days late, no biggie. I had a lot of fun sitting down last year (err, 2 years ago? err, Dec 2013) and thinking about all of the wonderful things that had happened to me, and that I had done over the year. I got married in 2013, so I figured that was going to be the highlight of my year, but when I sat down, I got a chance to review all of the other amazing things about the year.

So of course, I couldn't wait to do it again for 2014. I didn't get married this year, but it was still pretty damned fun. Let me tell you all about it.

In January, my husband and I got to go to Washington D.C. for a conference. We turned the whole thing into a mini-vacation that we both badly needed. We got to see the National Zoo, and more Smithsonians than you can shake a stick at. (Seriously, all of the Smithsonian museums have free admission, you're welcome). We also got to spend time with my aunt & uncle who the train up from Baltimore to spend an afternoon with us at the National Air & Space Museum.

The National Air & Space Museum, and yes, it was free!

In March I celebrated my 26th birthday (and my 1st as a married lady), and got my brand new Asus laptop (it has a touch-screen & a back-lit keyboard), that I love so so so much!

In May we went to New York to dance at my niece's wedding! It was so much fun, and so beautiful, and it was a wonderful chance to get to celebrate a happy occasion with my husband's side of the family. I also got to meet my sister-in-law (who lives in Israel) for the first time. It was a wonderful time, and I know that the "new" couple is happy because.... baby is on the way! She's due this March, and I've already got plans for a baby-blanket for her!

Of course we visited the New York Public Library!

May was also the month that I started graduate school. I'm working towards getting my Master's in Library and Information Science (yes, I want to be a librarian... shocking). This is by far the single biggest thing that happened to me in 2014. Graduate school was a big decision for me (historically, school and I have not gotten along all that well), and it took the rest of the year for me to figure out whether or not it was the right decision.
Even though it's still sucking up all of my free time, I'm 4 classes in (1/3 of the way through), and I finally know that I made the right choice. (Remind me of that in about 3.5 months when finals roll around again, will ya?)

In July we went to the 43rd Pennsic War, my second one ever. We had a blast, and got to spend time with some friends who I hadn't seen in over 5 years. I'm already making lots of plans for next Pennsic, and we'll have a lot of SCA-related projects coming up over the next few months, so keep an eye out for those.

The field battle

In August we celebrated our first anniversary. It was a very special day, and of course, we spent it at the zoo.

October brought a promotion at work. I went from being a page to being a Library Assistant. I'm working in the same department, with the same people, but more hours, more money and benefits! It's an amazing job, and I love it every single day. Even when I'm dealing with "Problem Patrons".

In November my mother and I made our own Thanksgiving for the second time ever! It was a little stressful since my in-laws were coming over, but it was a lot of fun and everything came out delicious, if I do say so myself.

These are just the leftovers!

And I think that's about for big events this year. I did a lot of crafting this year, and of course, made a lot of delicious food (I'm looking at you turkey), played some amazing video games, and over-all had a blast. I don't want to talk about every single awesome thing, 'cause that's what the last year of blogging was for! Go browse, take a look. I'll wait.

In the mean time, I'm going to go ahead and get started on making 2015 just as amazing (if not more so) than 2014 was! Bye!