House Living

2 weeks have gone by living in the house and I still love it. I think I would be worried and stressing if I didn't. Chancho hasn't been home much, at all. I'm not sure he's seen the house in the day light hours yet. However, I can't blame him because TG was supposed to be moving in with us and she has now backed out. Therefore instead of splitting the mortgage 3 ways, it's down to us two. Which is fine, we made sure we would be able to do that without relying on TG, but we may have spent a little more than we should thinking she would be splitting it with us. She told us yesterday that she wouldn't be moving in.
As far as the house goes, we had our lawn mowed, bought a tv, received a Yankee toaster from Chancho's sister, and finally got cable/internet! We have received a few house warming presents that I am very grateful for. I'm not gonna lie, we are incredibly broke right now and with these gifts, they are just what we need. They couldn't have come at a better time. They seem to know exactly what we needed, but then again, we need almost everything so anything would have been perfect. Ha.
I know I said in the last post I'd put up some pictures so here they are. These were taken prior to moving in. 

One of the two bedrooms

The one and only bathroom

The bay window in the Living Room

View of Living Room from Kitchen

Kitchen

The upstairs

The basement

Our cute little house

The lake

I have tried to start a routine to get myself back in the norm of things, but it's been difficult with work. I now have to be up at 3:45AM in order to be at work by 5am. My body is rebelling against it. And that's only 15 minutes earlier than when I had to be up before. When I get home I'm exhausted now and will sleep til about 4pm. The entire day is gone. I'm really upset with myself about that. So I'll have to see what I can do. I'm hoping my body starts to realize this isn't going to change will shape up. Speaking of shaping up. I have started to run, but I hate it here. The hills are ridiculous. I feel like I will die. I am running straight up and down, but the views are gorgeous. I run around the lake that is next to the house. The first time I went out for a run, I wound up getting lost. Thank goodness I was using my phone to track myself. I had to use the gps to get back home. What a laugh that was.
As far as an update on Chancho, he had a scare the other night. There are a few times when he doesn't come home, he sleeps at the pct now because the drive isn't worth it when he has to be to work early and he's working late. It happened to be the second night that he decided to stay over and work a midnight tour. It was the weekend of the 4th of July. So there were tons of people out and illegal fireworks. He had a partner, not his usual, since this was a sign-up overtime. He called to say that they were doing fine, avoiding large crowds because it was just the two of them and it wasn't worth it and he would see me the next day. Well I woke up in the middle of the night with a strange feeling. I wasn't sure if it was being in the house alone or if I had a bad dream or what it was, but I text Chancho. Well what do you know he doesn't respond. You all know that feeling, that gut feeling that something just isn't right. I did all my usual sentences to calm myself down. It's his turn to nap, he'll be up in a half hour and respond. He's out talking to someone. His Lt. is there and can't respond. He just didn't hear the phone go off. He's ordering food. The list goes on, getting a little more ridiculous as the time passes. But he never responds. I eventually drift off to sleep knowing I have to be up early for work. The next morning still no word from him. I shoot him a quick text asking if he is okay, that I'm worried. He finally responds. He says, shit went down last night. 5 guys wound up in the hospital. My mind is going crazy. He's still working out the details from last night so his texts are short and sporadic. Not good for my wandering mind. All of those damn what-if's are flying through it.What I got out of the texts was that he and his partner responded to a call of back up. I hate those calls. That means shit is already flying off the wall. Cops showed up to disperse a loud and large crowd shooting off fireworks. They had asked them to just call it a night. Didn't even take the fireworks from them, just asked them to stop and move along. That was when some drunk fool started it all. The crowd charged the police officers and people in the buildings above helped them by throwing glass bottles down on them. 4 police officers were injured from the glass bottles (will be out for 4 weeks) and the 5th police officer was almost choked to death by a perp trying to get his gun. Chancho stepped in and stopped the guy. Chancho had to go to the hospital to get checked out. He had scrapes from glass as well, but not nearly as bad as the others. He is fine, he got an arrest from it and came home to me later that day. Thank the Lord.

Quote of the Day: "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins … not through strength, but through persistence."

Obstacles

Things have been going so amazingly smoothly for the past month and I've been so happy that it was only a matter of time for things to start spiraling downwards. I may be a little pessimistic and depressed about this, but today has just not been a good day.
This morning was a bit of a huge disaster at work. The spark notes version is this: The night crew did not complete their tasks and in fact only half assed it, so not only did I have to do their work this morning, I had to do double the work to fix their mistakes. I pride myself on being efficient, quick and accurate when doing my job. I live by the phrase "If a task is once begun, never leave it till its done. Be thy labor great or small, do it well or not at all." It really helps me do what I need to do and I make sure it's done right. Otherwise, you have to come back and do it again right, wasting everyone's time. Anyways, we were way behind schedule and my supervisor was having a mental breakdown. I have never seen her act the way she did before. She was crying, muttering under her breath and then laughing hysterically. I didn't know if I should run and hide or laugh. So I diverted my attention to the job at hand and kept telling myself to stay positive.We were able to finish just as the store was opening because we had a few extra hands to help out (thank goodness). I did have to stay 2 hours after to put on the finishing touches, if you will. 
I tried reading when I got home to help calm my mind from such a crazy morning, but wound up sleeping for about 3 hours. When I woke up I had a few texts from Chancho. The last one saying "Call me when you wake up please." That's never a good sign. Him wanting me to call him while he's at work. It always means he has something to tell me that is serious and needs to explain to me. And sure enough he needed to tell me that we might not get our dream house after all. They had the appraisal done and it came in under the price that we're buying it for. Therefore, the bank won't give us the loan that we need. They will only give us the loan for the amount that the house was appraised for. Our options aren't very hopeful. We will 1. have to come up with the difference in cash ourselves, 2. ask the owners to bring down the selling price, 3. hope that the we can use some of the money we put aside for closing costs. 
None of those options seem very realistic. The first option is just out of the question. We can't afford to spare any money at this point without having to go into debt in 3 months. The second option is a reach, but we're pretty sure the owners don't like us. Plus they have backed out on us before. There is a tiny hope that they want to just keep going and will help us out on that. The third option is very unlikely because we have no idea what the closing costs are and won't until the actual day. If we can't afford it we loose whatever money we put down already. 
Just a long day full of disappointments and discouraging news. I've been on such a happy high that this brought me back to reality of how quickly things can turn. Chancho has been supportive as usual saying that we will get this house and even if it doesn't happen, he responded with my motto of everything happens for a reason and we will get a house we love just as much. I did say that if this all does go way downhill and we wind up losing the house, we won't be looking in Middletown any longer. We'll be searching somewhere else.  But that is the worst case scenario. 
Tomorrow will be better.


Quote of the Day: "I asked God for strength and he gave me obstacles to overcome so I can build that strength myself."
Listening to: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel

The Calm Before The Storm

Spoke with the lawyer a few days ago and we got our tentative closing date for May 15th. Tentative as it could take a few weeks to get everything ironed out. It doesn't matter to me because we can't move in until the last week of June anyways. It is nice to have things rolling again after they were put on hold because of the vacation. I have a feeling this will come a lot quicker than expected.
I went to Macy*s one day sale and bought some plates, bowls, and mugs. Then went back the next day with Chancho and we bought a 10 piece set of pots and pans. We figured we might as well start to slowly build up our inventory of things that we need to survive the first few days of living in an empty house. We also stopped in to Crate and Barrel to buy some cups. My sister works for Crate and Barrel and because she loves me so much she's gonna hook us up with some silverware :) I have a small pile going in the corner of my room of all the stuff that we're going to need to pack up and I'm loving it. Seeing that pile every day reminds me that this is actually happening. What I didn't like was I opened my closet and realized that I needed to put all of that stuff into boxes. I have a ridiculous amount of things that need to be packed. I'm debating if I should do that now or later....
We're buying our furniture tomorrow from Bob's Discount Furniture. We'll have at least a couch waiting for us when we move in. 

Bob's Discount Furniture's Vise Versa sectional

Chancho has taken on a ton of overtime to help pay for all this new furniture. I said goodbye to him yesterday as all of his days off will be spent working from now until who knows when, but it's all for the house. And I know that I'll see him every now and again when the Yankees start up again on the 31st. He always makes time to go to Yankee games.


Quote of the Day: "It hurts to find out that what you wanted doesn't match what you dreamed it would be." ~R.K. Milholland

I See The Light

The end of the tunnel is near! We just finished our house inspection and everything is in great condition! sigh of relief  Woohoo! While Chancho was taking care of the "important" stuff, TG and I were taking measurements for the couches, curtains, rugs and anything else we could think of. I also took a bunch of my own pictures to share with people that I can't send a link to. Things are actually coming to together and FAST. The down payment is already taken from our account.
I dropped the bomb on my parents yesterday. I was...terrified to tell them. They aren't the most easy going parents out there. Ones that believe living together before marriage is unacceptable and buying a house with a boyfriend is basically committing murder. However, they were surprisingly okay with everything. I think they might kill me in my sleep after it settles in. My father was upset that I didn't tell him sooner so he could have a say in it all. My point exactly as to why I didn't. I didn't want the trouble of him getting offended when I didn't take his advice. I have set up an appointment with the sellers this Friday so that I can take my parents to the house and they can have their own private tour. They can ask whatever questions they want and see for themselves what a great job we've done in picking this house out.
Next step is having the lawyer write up the contract for everything and then once we sign it we can close on the house and it is ours. We will own a house. Holy crap.
So now for the pictures of the house! I took a lot so here are the main aspects of the house.

Dining Room - View from LR

Fireplace

Full Bath - Upstairs

Half Bath - Downstairs

Kitchen

Living Room - View from Sun Porch

Our Bedroom - Bedroom 1

Sun Porch

TG's Room - Bedroom 2

Yankee Room - Bedroom 3

We have the majority of our furniture picked out, we just have to save up for it now. We also have the colors picked out for each of the rooms. We took a trip to Ikea and found a handful of things we want to get, lamps, pictures, mirrors...
Another addition to our life: Chancho sent in his request for the DVO, SVU position. Apparently they need a DVO to help handle cases over in SVU so he thought "why not?". His application is waiting on someones desk right now. He probably will hear back when we get back from our cruise.

Quote of the Day: "Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while." - Simon Fowler

House Update

THEY ACCEPTED THE OFFER!!!

Backing up to last week we got pre-approval for our mortgage and were able to figure out what our max loan would be and placed our first bid on the Wisner house. We put it in low, but not too low that they didn't think we weren't serious, and never heard back. We called up our Realtor and asked what the deal was thinking that they weren't going to accept the offer at all. Our Realtor asked us to come see him that Saturday to discuss our options and to look at another house.
This past Saturday we went up with Chancho's mother and sister to look at another house and to see what we could do about getting them to accept our offer on the Wisner house. After looking over all of the options, we decided to place a higher bid and see if they would accept. The owners are selling their house because they're building a house in a 55+ community. However, the house won't be ready until June. So in placing the bid we also offered that they could live in the house until their new house is ready if they pay our monthly mortgage payment for every month they're there.
This morning we heard back and they accepted the offer! They didn't like the part about paying our mortgage so we decided to charge them the going rate for a 3 bedroom in that area. Once they accept that we can start planning for the home inspection. We'll have to work out the kinks in the contract after the inspection is done. I am so excited! I can finally start looking at furniture and paint colors for all the rooms. This is so surreal. I can't believe that this is happening. 

This is the Wisner house that will soon be ours.

In the midst of all this, it's been snowing like crazy. We have so much snow we can't see over the snow mounds at the corner of every street. I am so sick of shoveling snow and shoveling the car out when it gets stuck. And we have more snow coming tomorrow night. This cruise can't come soon enough. We got our packet in the mail with our itinerary and boarding passes. So much going on this month!

Quote of the Day: "When life finds you down on your knees, remember you are in a great place to pray."

Emotional RollerCoaster

These past couple of days have been mentally exhausting. Chancho and I have seen over 15 houses and have been able to narrow it down to 3. That was the rules put in place by our wonderful agent. I feel like we've met the agent from heaven. He's an elderly man who has sold a million homes. He really is on our side looking for what we want. We sent him one house that we liked and from there he was able to find about 5 other houses that matched what we wanted. Today, we braved the weather (sleet, freezing rain, snow and slush) to go (45 mins) view the house that we want to put a bid on. When Chancho and I got back in the car from looking at it again, we both said "I want it." Our agent had about 3 other houses to show us though just to get an idea of what other houses similar to that price range looked like. The first house, we liked. It had big bedrooms and a beautiful kitchen. However, it didn't have that feel to it. You know that feel that makes you feel home. The second home was a fixer upper. The third home was a winner. We put it on our list as 2nd best. So now we wait for our mortgage guy to tell us what our max loan can be. Once we get that amount we can place our first bid on the Wisner home. I'm going crazy. I can't sleep at night. I have a million and one thoughts racing around. If I'm not imagining what the house looks like and falling in love with it again, I'm thinking about the cost of it all or what furniture we need. We're at the point where not much can be done, but wait and well...I hate waiting. I hate not having something to focus on so I'm going a little nuts. All I've heard though is that there is a lot of waiting. A lot of emotions thrown around because you get close to something and then you're turned down. (good thing I can handle rejection) So I'm trying my best to keep busy with planning ahead. I've looked at furniture, what styles I like, the color, and the theme. It's hard though because we don't have the house yet so I'm planning for 2 houses, which is becoming a little frustrating. However, I love that we are doing this. I love that we are moving forward and I am beyond excited.

Some even more exciting news...For those of you who love The Biggest Loser...Chancho had Bob Harper (Yep, THE BOB HARPER!) visit his precinct today!!!! His CO started a competition within the precinct and has Bob Harper doing one on ones for 16 weeks. If you win the competition you get a free year at the gym around the corner from their precinct. 2nd place gets an ipod. Chancho wants the ipod. I am still stunned that he's going to have Bob Harper train him! BOB HARPER. I'm in love with Bob. He says he's short. I made Chancho promise to get me an autograph. My sister is a huge fan of Bob Harper and is just as ecstatic as I am. She wants Chancho to film their work out sessions.

Tomorrow, I begin my new role at The Container Store as the lead sign and prop lady. The most responsibility that I've been given. I won't have any supervision and I'll be on my own. It makes me a little nervous, but my supervisor prepped me today about what I have to do and how to do it all. I also know that I'll be able to ask for help if I need it. I'm excited that they're finally trusting me for something.

And I have begun the countdown for our cruise. Less than a month away and I'll be laying on a beach getting my tan on!

Quote of the Day: "I know it feels like you have all these options and when you make a decision, you lose a world of possibilities. But the reality is, until you make a decision, you have nothing at all." -Janet Finch