long time....

for those of you who thought that i might have, again, fallen off the face of the earth....let me assure you, i am still here.

we finally (after some more frustrating paperwork snafus) got everything closed and ready to purchase the house. then we had the oh-so-joyful task of moving all our stuff to the new house.
(speaking of which, we'd love to see any of you who would like to come by, but please don't expect everything to be unpacked and put away just yet).

in fact, i'd love to post some pics for you of the place. but, much to my chagrin, i discovered today that the battery is dead on my camera, and i'm not quite sure where the charger is at this time. great! so, pics are forthcoming, i just don't have an e.t.a. on those. =)

hope you're all doing well!

it's official!

we are scheduled to close on the house this friday....so, there will be an interruption in our service (internet, phone, etc) for a little while.

please forgive me if i don't get back on and post anything for a bit....

hope you are all doing well!

we don't have the official paperwork in hand yet, but we have a verbal agreement with the seller. we have come to terms on a price....

which means that all that's left is some of the technical stuff, and we'll have a new house! i'll try to get on here and post about when we'll be moving, 'cause i'm sure there will be an interruption in posting while we get all our utilities transferred to the new place.

hope you are all having a great week!

house update...

first of all, thanks for all your comments! i appreciate having some feedback on the whole issue.

now an update:

remember how i said that C. is one of those people who needs to take an idea and kick it around in his head for a little while...chew on it some....before making up his mind? well, he had told me that he liked the house that i liked, at least enough to go and look at it again more carefully.

we went last week to look at it again. we spent a good 45 min to an hour there...him going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. i took a notepad (thanks, shelly!) and a tape measure, and we looked at all the things that were good and all the things that might need to be fixed. i decided not to ask C. what he thought about the place, because i didn't want him to feel pressured into choosing that house if he wasn't wild about it. i agree with all of you that it needs to be something that we both love!

so, we're driving back to our current home afterward. he looks over at me and asks, "so....you wanna buy this house? 'cause i really like it!!!"

WOW! so, we submitted an offer on friday. we haven't heard anything back yet, but we should know by the first part of next week whether we'll be living in that house soon. either way, we'll be leaving this place (our buyers are willing to close before june if we find something sooner). so, i've started packing the non-essentials.

who knew we had so much crap!?!?!?!?!

thanks again for all your feedback! i'll keep you posted!

new news on the home front...

it's no secret that i have wanted to have a house with an honest-to-goodness yard. not just for the four-legged kiddos, but also for any potentially future two-legged ones. plus, i've lived in apartments, dorms, or condos since i left home at 18....so the idea of a real HOUSE appeals to me on many levels.

C. bought this condo/townhouse just before we met, and has made some amazing improvements to it. he had some gorgeous renovations done to take it from nauseating disco-fabulous to old world and victorian....rich fabrics and deep warm colors....it's great! but, it still doesn't fill that "house" need completely for me. i have been content to stay here for a while longer, knowing that we both agree that a move was sometime in our future.

then, a couple of days before my birthday (yeah, it was the big 3-0, but we're not talking about that), some people called us out of the blue and asked if we'd be interested in selling the condo. apparently, they had lived in this area years ago, had moved out to a bigger home further from town. now, that their kids are grown and gone, they are wanting to downsize a little. they want a condo setting, since they don't need the space anymore.

anyway, so after some negotiations, C. and these people have come to an agreement on price and a closing date of june 1. which is cool, but of course means that we now have to find a place to live!

june 1 seems like forever from now, but when you factor in that we have to search for a house, decide on one together, make all the necessary arrangements involved in the business negotiations for said house, close on it, pack up all of our crap and then move.....it just doesn't seem like a lot of time! yikes!

after having been all over the place about 5 times with our realtor, we have found a place that we like (or that i like really well, and C. is considering.....he takes longer to decide internally about stuff like this). now the big question is this: do we go ahead and move on this one? or do we wait a little while longer to see if "something better" comes along? we ARE coming into the time of year when more people are selling their homes.....and just because something is not on the market now, doesn't mean that it won't be in a few weeks.

what do y'all think?

Tearing out my hair!

ok, so i stumbled upon this site last night. weffriddles! dammit!!!! it has become apparent to me that it's been around for a while, since there are TONS of posts about it on the "help" forums and all over the net. but, being behind the curve as usual, i have just now discovered it.

i do take some degree of pleasure in noting that after finding it, and over the space of about 3 hours, i managed to make it all the way to level 29!

now, i'm totally stuck on level 30. i can't figure it out, and it's starting to frustrate the hell out of me.

it's not really a game, per se. it's more like puzzles that you have to solve. you have to be fairly computer savvy (but i'm no code-writer myself). i'll just tell you now that you will enjoy it, but be prepared to be frustrated....

daddy and the pooches with the tree... 

so, i'm apparently the...

worst blogger in the world!

i just looked at this page and realized that it has been some 2 months since i put anything here.

one of two things must be happening:

1. you have all missed me terribly; you've been wondering if i have fallen off the face of the earth, and you've been pining for my words....

or (more likely),

2. you haven't really noticed. oh, you click on my page from time to time to see if i've added anything, but you are not surprised each day when you find that october entry about M's baby as the last one....

alas, i have nothing really exciting to say!

C. has been studying for this certification test that will allow him to explore areas of his work that were previously not available to him. so, he feels like he's back in college: going to denny's to fill himself with coffee and cheap food while reading until his eyes bleed about bonds and the government agencies that regulate them (or something like that).

the pooches are doing well.....now. miss beretta is healthy as a horse, always has been. she's got the stomach of a goat...she'll eat ANYTHING! sam, on the other hand, is a bit more delicate. we'll chalk it up to his age. he's an "old man" in dog years, and has all the accompanying health issues. we give him glucosamine supplements in his food. also, he has a little "piddle" problem when he sleeps. so, we put some anti-piss liquid on his food too. then, in the last two weeks, he has manged to scratch his cornea (good thing i'm equipped for that), and eat some (what we thought was yummy) bbq and sauce that C. gave both of them (just a little mixed in with their food). the vet called this a "dietary indiscretion." what a bunch of p.c. bullsheet! but what that translates to is days and days of intestinal issues. and, i mean the kind that crude kids sing about in elementary school..."when you're walking down the hall and you feel something fall...."

one word about that......YUCK!

but he's better now. he's on, you guessed it, more medicine! this coming monday we will be giving him his last dose of antibiotics and tummy-settling meds, and we get to start feeding him his real food. (he has been on a high-maintenance/bland diet of boiled chicken and brown rice for the last week). we had a little scare there for a bit when the vet's blood work machine was on the fritz and he couldn't give me results. he calls and tells me that the worse-case-scenario is pancreatic cancer. sheezus! we've had this dog a little over 2 months, and we get this kind of news?!? it would have broken my heart to have to put him down now (guess it still will someday).

but the good news is that all's well on the canine front here. we took them for a long walk today (about 3 miles or so) and they are both crashed out downstairs! hopefully, they'll still be tired tomorrow, as it's the big Christmas gathering for Mom's side of the fam, and we'll be gone all day.

hope you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season so far (and that you have successfully avoided mall traffic). if you're interested, i'll try to be more consistent about updating....