We might be getting a sewer system today!

Ok, so it might take them all week to install it but it appears that our block might finally be getting a sewer system installed which is awesome because that means we might soon get curbs, a driveway and a walkway from the curb! Wohoo! I had to share because I was excited. I will post a picture later, but I don't want to take one now and seem nosey.

Let's see what else - I am bored, needed to take a break from applying to jobs. I might have an interview next week. That's all I am saying because I am no longer getting excited about these because I have been let down too many times.

I made homemade apple sauce yesterday. 1st time ever! It is really good its like apple pie filling. Although, its no Grandma B's applesauce though - best applesauce ever. (I remember inhaling it, sometimes not pausing long enough for it to thaw.) I will have to try that some time soon too but I think she purees it and uses McIntosh apples and I didn't have those on hand.

I was exchanging emails with my sister yesterday and today, you have to see what her kitten (My nephew kitty: Luca) did! He's a tad bit on the naughty side, although I hear he's not as naughty as his twin brother. He's aggressive around food, despite the water spritzing he gets, and he may have burnt off his whiskers while he was trying to get at the soup she was cooking on the stove. Ha, if you click on the picture you will get a better look at the curly Q's. (Apparently, someone doesn't like the paparazzi.)

Mike and I started playing Super Mario's World on SNES. I forgot how much fun it is! We beat 20 levels last night... it seems way easier than I remember it at age 11. I might have to copy some pages out of our top secret book that we have on all the SMW levels. I already think I surprised Jake with some things he didn't know existed and beat a few levels I was never able to beat as a kid! Watch out Bowzer you are next! (I only managed to beat him once.) :(

Apple Picking!

I went with Angie, Angie's boyfriend Chris and Kathy to the an Apple Orchard in Jordan, MN on Sunday (durng the Packer game). It was called MN Harvest or something on old 169? It was so much fun! I wish we had pictures. Wagon ride out to the orchard. The apples towards the ground were all gone so I climbed trees and dropped down apples. It was a blast.

We bought apples, apple cider (YUM!), apple pie, apple pastries, and even pumpkins! Stop by later for pumpkin carving pictures. I am going to try to make Mike and Jake carve one each - I told Mr. Michael I'd de-seed his if it encouraged him to carve it. I am so excited to make my first apple pie in my house today or tomorrow, but I am for sure making homemade apple sauce today for the first time ever - Grandma's recipe! Hooray!

Falls in Minnesota (and Wisconsin) rock! Its so beautiful and it has that smell. The smell of October. The days are warm but not hot. Although today is rainy and cold - 43 degrees, yuck! Which reminds me we turned on the boiler system for the first time on Sunday. Easy and no problems... makes me wonder - nothing has been that easy!

P.S. Is it time to vote yet? I AM SO SICK OF POLITICAL ADS!!!

1st Dead Body

Ha, we did find a dead body in the backyard but it was a mouse. I just had to mess with everyone because that's what everyone keeps asking me about -- Any dead bodies yet? None of the human kind. We found a bird skull too.

This past weekend we were working on the backyard again... we were moving dirt from the backyard to the street. Shh - city doesn't need to know we were getting rid of some of our dirt via their unfinished project. It's what they get for it still looking like they've done anything. We dug up 31 2.5'x2.5' pavers from the South West corner. It was an area about 6' wide by 10' deep and we pulled out 31 pavers!!! Not to mention they weren't visible (like 3-4" deep) nor were they just one deep some of the pavers were 2 and even 3 pavers deep - why would you layer pavers? I just don't get it. But I should know better than to ask questions.

We can't figure out why they were buried. Mike's hypothesis is that the beds were so high with dirt and the walking area was so low that when no one took care of it, due to erosion it just kind of spilled over and covered all the pavers. There were also plastic ducklings buried under the pavers. Its so odd. We dug up dog toys, balls, and miscellaneous garbage. We dug up some kind of gutter system next to the driveway leading up to the garage. We think it was to keep water out of the garage - but it was full of dirt so obviously not working too well. What a mess.

What else did we do? I started removing the rocks from the top of the biggest flower bed - ironically there was another layer of rocks below the top layer. We got rid of some more wood chips. I began bundling the branches from this summer. We removed the sides of the "compost bin" so all that is left is the branches and mess that they had in it. I am beginning to get a feeling for the backyard and I think its going to take us all of next summer to get it to a tolerable place where we can put in grass. *SIGH* For that reason also, we probably won't be getting a dog anytime soon either. I need a job, we need a finished fence and he'll need grass to do his duty on. But the more we work on it the better it looks and its satisfying to see the changes.

We bought a wheel barrel - best purchase ever! I cannot believe how much of help it is. We used it to haul dirt from the side of the house and the back yard to dump in the street. I used it to haul the recycling and yard waste to the street. Mike used it to move the pavers we dug out. It's awesome!

I was talking with my neighbors again. Jerry, next door to the North, thanked us again for getting rid of the pigeons. He seemed pretty happy about it. He said he also cannot believe the changes we have made to it. Said in the summer it just looked like a jungle. Ha, its funny cuz it was true. Also, I talked to the lady to the South - I have been told her name once and already I forgot it. I have to write it down next time. She said he dad used to complain that the city should've ticketed the previous owners. She also said that the husband who died apparently was some kind of horticulturist of some sort. Which is hard to believe but the second time I've heard it. I guess he also worked at the U of MN too. Which might explain the Gopher we found in the attic when we were looking at the house.

It's Official

Today I finally received my new driver's license. I only had to wait 4 weeks and a day to get it lame. I was told 3-4 weeks and when it didn't come in 4 I called and was told that it was really supposed to arrive in two but that mine, for no explainable reason - according to the lady on the phone, got detained and didn't even get processed until 10-10-08 and went in on 9-19-08. Boo. Whatever I finally received it and I no longer have to carry my old license and 3 sheets of paper saying I can drive.

I'd have to say it looks better than the Ohio one, but its sooo flimsy and it has a weird texture to the surface so it collects dirty and grossness pretty easily. You should see Mike's he's got black junks stuck all over it. You can't see them but it has loon (state bird of MN) holograms on it. I also laughed because you'll notice it no longer states what your hair color is... looks like MN caught on to the fact that hair color doesn't really help anymore. It's a bit of a better picture too, but my hair is so puffy on my fore head - they should really provide people with mirrors or allow them to look at their pictures once its taken so they can have the chance to make it look semi-decent come on, you are stuck with it for 4 years! So anyhow, it looks like I am officially a resident - now if only I can find a job! :)

The Destruction Begins

Always got to make a funny face. Oh well, yesterday we randomly got the destruction itch. It started on Saturday I believe when I decided to start pulling down the UGLY brick wall paper. Got a good chunk of it off but its not coming off very easily so its taking some time.

Yesterday, Mike and I were replacing a few more ugly light switches and recepticals. What happened was in the dining room Mike peeled back some of the paper so that we wouldn't have to remove the switch plate cover again when we were pulling the paper off and that's when it all started. The corner was loose and the child in me couldn't help but keep pulling, and pulling and all of a sudden, no more wall paper in the dining room.

It was funny too because while I was reveling in pulling off the wall paper in the kitchen, I over hear Mike removing the ugly plastic (nope not real copper) panels in the kitchen. I caught him in the act and complained because I don't know if I got enough pictures of the kitchen before he had a go at it. But I am glad they are down - although now the kitchen is very yellow. But I think its so much more tolerable now.

The dining room has lots of interesting things to note... like why are there FOUR LAYERS OF WALL PAPER ON THE WALLS!? FOUR! I counted. There's the ugly Blue on top, the ugly pink with flowers below, then there's the shiny gold with flowers below that, then below that it appears to be white with palms and flowers and finally below that is a pastel green paint. Lovely. The top to layers came off easily, but I am not looking forward to removing the bottom to layers - they are really old and brittle and seem to have been made of real... paper believe it or not. Who wants to deal with easy to remove viynl wall paper anyways? (I do!) The pink paper below the blue crap that was patchwork quilted on appears to look like they tried to paint it and it didnt work too well, so they just wall papered over it. I also noticed in some places it was taped (the wide brown almost transparent plastic crap) to the wall because some seams were no longer holding. It at least seemed like it was put up with more care than the top layer. I still can't believe there's four layers.

Then of course there's the radiator... how do you remove wall paper from behind the radiator? Apparently, this was an interesting problem for the first owner too because there's no pastel blue-green paint on the wall behind the radiator - just wall paper on the sheet rock - so that's going to be fun to remove. I honestly think we are going to have to drain the radiators and take it out just so that we can remove the paper and paint back there. Mercy - why did I want an old house with "charm". So, we may paint the rest of the room once all the paper is removed and have to leave what's behind the radiator utnil next summer. HA!

No More Kitty

Although Freckles, Brandon's Cat, had a tendency to drive us crazy - with her MEOW-ERING. I still miss her. She did us a solid and only puked twice in 6 weeks so that was much better than her every other day puking streak at Brandon's. I like to think it's because she liked Jake and my company during the day. She could be quite cute when she wanted to be and I miss petting her while watching TV. Her absense has been noticed, in more ways than one. Although Mike has pointed out that I only miss the good things and if she was chewing on my spider plant at the moment I may not miss her as much. I just hope she's enjoying Brandon's deck now that she's home again. Much love to the Freckles.

Minnehaha Falls

Believe it or not, this is 5.5 miles from our house. It's hard to believe that this is really in an urban area. It's very close to the West side of the Mississippi river and is nearly across the river from the St. Paul Ford Plant, where they make Ford Rangers.

The same park also has a trolley, which if I am not mistaken, connects to the trolley line in the park by our house. It also has Longfellows house, which surprised me, I didn't know Longfellow resided in Minneapolis. Along with a home of the first settler of Minneapolis.

It was a very cute park. You can rent those funny little bikes that kind of look like an open four person car, that you'd see on Macinac Island (spelling?) They had a playground and a seafood restaurant (which I thought was odd). It was fun we walked around down the river and around the park for an hour or too before we returned home.

Loona Strikes Again

Just when I thought I was rid of our Loan Officer I get a call from her assisntant. Apparently the City Living Program needs a certificate saying we both went through the first time home buyers class, even though it was never mentioned and we closed without it, one month later its a necessity -- wow thanks. WHY IS THIS COMING UP NOW!? ARGH.

I went to the class, so its not a big deal they just had to contact the person who did the class for us and get her to send them another document, but still its really annoying that we are still dealing with this when we thought the deal was done - what are they going to do take our loan away!? Seriously. So needless to say the first call explaining that I had gone to it but that she'd only made out one certificate but that we'd both gone, I was civil. The second call from the assistant after she clarified that she did in fact need one form me too, I got agitated and explained that I didn't understand why this was coming up now and how they didn't know I needed this off the bat? She passed me to Loona and I had to hear the incredibly sweet voice, that still had that edge of attitude, that I never wanted to hear again. So I let Loona have it too and she took care of it because "she didn't want me to think that she wasn't trying to provide the best customer service possible." Hmm... wonder if that means that she read our critique of her. HA!

So they took care of it but did they even need to call me, couldn't they have immediately called Strickland and Associates and gotten it straight from me rather than bothering me first? That woman drives me nuts - she sent us the appraisal that we had paid for and with it two of her brochures and business cards - yeah, like I am passing those on, HA!

I have a new 2nd Cousin!

That's what you call it when your cousin has a baby, right? Who cares, because he's adorable!

Look at him! Little Rylen, welcome to the family! He was born Saturday September 20th @ 8:30 AM. He weighed 6lbs, 14 ozs, was 20 inches long and is as cute as can be! Congrats Jennie, Dave, Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jim!

Hope he likes his little Gophers shirts! Can't wait to see it all on him. (Ha, can't wait to buy more things for him since he's the only baby I have to spoil!) :)

The Lovely Yard

Oh the yard...

<---(Front Before) So the yard will be the bane of our existence for a while. My mom came to town while my dad was working at the RNC for the AP. Her and the puppy, helped us do some major damage to our yard. The front yard is COMPLETELY leveled. Some things have returned so we will have to dig them back up but we plan to seed in the spring. (Front After--->)

The backyard still needs some major work - there's so many raised beds and wooden things they built I just don't know what we are going to do with it all. I think once we remove some of the raised beds, sweep the driveway and clean out the garage we might actually be able to park our car all the way back there. Just imagine a garage, the door doesn't go down, it might be too small for a car and it has the aroma of cat urine, but its a garage. :) HA! Actually, according to crazy lady it is the only garage that was still standing after the 1981 tornado went through our neighborhood and that's why the door doesn't work anymore because something got twisted by the wind. Whatever seems like there's tornado every 50 yrs. We read about them on the information boards in the park a few blocks from our house -- it has a timeline. (<---Back yard after my mom got to it.)

As for the yard we found a lot of interesting things. They used panyhose to tie back a LOT of things. So gross. The had broken birdbaths, pedestals, pots, plates, etc. EVERYWHERE. There's a place in the backyard that has soo much broken glass in it we might just have to dig the dirt out and throw it away. There's also random metal buried in the dirt. For example a 6 foot tall snow fence stake buried 5 feet deep -- that makes sense doesn't it? There's also metal wire fencing buried uber deep too. It's so deteriorated and deep though it was just breaking when i tried to pull it out so there's going to be a lot of digging in the backyard. They also built the raised beds, I mentioned earlier, and buried a tree 4 feet deep -- that's a quick way to kill a tree no wonder it looks like hell. My mom found army men and other action figures. There was also a ball some poor kid probably lost in the yard and never retrived because they probably thought the yard was haunted -- which if you told me I might actually believe because we found head stones!

Yup, you heard me right HEAD STONES (see photos). She was using them to keep the dirt in the raised beds in place. They're all imperfects I think but creepy none the less. One actually is complete another, doesn't have any writing and the more you look around the backyard the more you see pieces of polished granite etc. We are going to haul at least one of them to the front yard for halloween decoration and we are going to mound up the dirt like a body is buried there, I hope it creeps some little kids out it, like it creeps me out! But how do you get rid of them when halloween is over!? How do you get rid of any of it? We have so much dirt, rocks, paving stones, bricks - I don't know what we will do with any of it.

This lovely specimen is Japanese Knot Weed. It may be still sold at some garden centers, if you ever see it. Run from it screaming. It's an evil vile thing that some crazy people (previous owners) mistake as some wonderful hearty bamboo, that you could sell because its so grand. Bamboo does not grow in our climate. This crap is a weed. It's extremely invasive just a small portion of a root can grow into a huge plant. We have a huge clump of it in our back yard and our side yard and after looking it up on wikipedia after my mother's warning that it is an invasive exotic weed, I found out how difficult it is to get rid of. We cut it back and painted the stems with an herbicide (Ortho Weed-be-gone) and it still came back and that concetrate stuff usually kills anyhting. One website suggested digging what you could out, then covering the ground with a tarp to deprive it of sunlight, cutting it back when it grewback and painting it with weed-be-gone to get rid of it. Can you believe it? And I thought the raspberry bushes in our front yard were going to be a pain to get rid of.

In three days we managed to change the look of the property completely! All I have to say is THANK YOU MOMMY!!! And... When can you come back? HA! We haven't been as motivated since she left, she was so motivating seeing her tear up the yard. I must admit we almost miss some of the brush only because the back yard was more private and you couldn't see right into our front windows before. But I would never wish it back! I'd definetely say its one of the more impressive things we have done to the yard thus far - but then Mike and Jake will be replacing 1/2 of the roof this weekend -- which I think might trump the yard. Check out the before pics and semi-after pics in the slide shows on the right hand side. If I ever get around to taking more detailed shots of the house I will some up of the terrible wall paper, etc.

Stay tuned, there's always more to come! :)

Neighbor Gossip

So our neighbors and mail-woman are both nosy and informative. Well, the neighbors aren't really nosy but the mail lady is, but they all have good gossip to share.

First of all, everyone and their brother wanted to know if the rumor that we have a secret room in our house is true - Yes, it is true, I have seen it with my own eyes and it is CREEPY! There's a trap door in the floor or the first landing in the stairs to our attic. We don't know who put it there - but its great for getting at the plumbing in the bathroom. We also don't know how many people have owned our house - when I have some free time I'd like to research it, but for now... The story goes the people who lived in the house before Sharon used it. Not the wife, but the husband. Apparently, all that is down in that room is a step ladder (we saw that it's missing rungs) and a chair. The husband, who was a doctor, was also a drunk. His wife didn't like him drinking so he would hide up there and she had no clue where he was or that he was drinking - so she must not have known it existed. Apparently according to a neighbor, when Sharon and her husband (Jeffery) moved in she went down in there and pulled out both empty and full bottles of Wild Turkey Whiskey. How nuts is that!?

Then there's the pigeons. Sharon and Jeffery used to raise them -- in our ATTIC!! They actually let them in the house. At one point, our neighbors said there was as many as a few hundred! Jeffery, who apparently was very reclusive, really like animals so he would actually fill the drain spouts as if they were troughs for cattle full of bird seed! There's still seed in them and all over the floor of the attic (needless to say we also have mice because of the seed which we are trying to get rid of). We saw pigeon cages in the garage at one point and there still are about 3-6 that still hang around. There was a flock of like 15-20 when we first moved in but since we aren't feeding them like Sharon was I think they have almost all left. But how gross is that!? The mail lady said at one point when she would come to the front door to drop off the mail she would actually have to cover her head! Who raises pigeons!? They are some of the dirtiest grossest animals around. Hell, St. Paul wants to feed them birth control.

Then there's the woe is me my dead husband. If I had to hear about Sharon's dead husband (Jeffery) one more time I was going to hit her. It was always a sob story. Well my husband died, so I couldn't finish the roof. Well my dead husband this well my dead husband that -- I get it you are a widow. But she kept dropping it like he died last week like we should be shoveling pity all over her. It almost reminded me of Bonnie at Nielsen -- always breaking out the dead husband line when she wanted someone to take care of something for her: I missed a bill can you fix it for me because my husband died... a year ago!!! Anyhow the ironic part is apparently when he passed away she wasn't even living in this house, because they were separated preparing for a divorce. Wow, I feel really bad for you knowing you were trying to leave him, geesh! Esepcially since it seems like she's been with the other freak for at least 5 yrs which is right around when she would have left her first husband. When we got that bit of news I was astonished considering the way she was laying it on.

Then there's the yard. Apparently, she had people believing that it was all top class gardening - wait til you see the pictures. I guess Jeffery even considered himself a horticulturist - fat chance! My mom is a horticulturist and if she wasn't even willing to save anything - that speaks for what a shit show it really was. (Just wait I have pictures.) You should see the things they did. Three layers of wood that served no purpose. Many different types of weeds planted as plants. Our next door neighbors Viva and Jerry and the people who live above them (can't remember their names) showered praise upon us when we hacked it all out. Even the plant guy down the street, Dwight, said that he would have done it too (but not to tell Sharon that - like i talk to her on a regular basis?)

Apparently Sharon didn't get along with many people either. Dwight sounded scared of her. Viva apparently had many squabbles with her. And Sharon refered to the lady behind us as her "Fat bitch nemisis". There are all kinds of broken glass and plates by the back fence -- I am wondering if there was some kind of war going on? The lady is pretty wide though - I saw her in a tight biking outfit - yikes! I didn't know they made those in obese. So, compared to Sharon I think we will be great neighbors if they can handle loud music from time to time and a few too many maroon and gold decorations (which reminds me I have to find our MN flag).

Our First Home

Good god! I haven't posted since the day before we closed? GEESH. Well I guess I have a lot to catch everyone up on.

So, the day we closed Kevin and I went to the house to make sure everything was still in the same order as before. It was. (Although I think someone tried to clean, so some more crap was gone and some of the light bulbs were missing and maybe a door knob?)

So we show up to closing (Kevin and I) and we wait and wait and Mike isn't showing up so I call him... not only is he running behind but he's also lost so he showed up about a half an hour late sporting his pimp suit (Dropping a 1/4 of a million on a house might as well show up in the black Calvin Klein suit). But while I was waiting for him we got to see the previous owner walk up - WOW they were a pair of FREAKS!

Direct quote from Kevin, "I don't know if she knows what the word 'Bra' means." HA! So she's like 55-60 and so is he. She looks like a cross between a hippy and piece of white trash - i still haven't decided what term fits her better. He on the other hand just looks like a big dumb oaf. When he talks i feel like i am talking to a 5 year old and on top of it things kind of slur and I began to wonder if he was a drunk. Probably, later I found out that he returns to the cities every Tuesday night for a "meeting" -- AA anyone? All I know is they look like life has been rough on them and they both are major idiots so I don't feel so bad.

So while we are at closing Mike is seething because A) the previous owners were idiots and tried to fix things themselves but because they are so inept at life they made everything so much worse (you'll see from the photos) so he could barely sit on the other side of the table from them because every time she spoke to us he wanted to punch her. AND B) our loan officer is a complete idiot - she told me to get a check for $12,000 for closing because her estimates had us at paying $11,500 and this way if any was left over they'd write us a check. GUESS WHAT!? We owed $13,200 at closing and Mike had to leave closing to get another cashier's check because the difference between 12 Gs and what we owed was above the amount they could accept for a personal check. Need less to say Mike was pissed and not very nice on the loan officer review form we were given. So needless to say STAY FAR AWAY FROM LOONA ESPEDAL - she reminds me too much of the HP character who her name is eerily close too.

But the previous owner was a GEM! So she, I think, remarried to this piece of trash that she showed up to closing with. She owns a hobby farm (which we were going to sue her and put a lien on if she didn't show up to closing) out in the sticks where she has a bloodhound kennel. She sounds like she has all kinds of crap on the farm ATV, etc. Which is why she didn't have any money to pay the taxes or anything else on our house which is why it went into foreclosure by the time we were buying it. We think she must have taken a loan out on our house because she owed $199,000 on the house after owning it some 36 years. Anyhow she's nuts! I mean it literally. From what we heard after her first husband and mom died (right around the same time) she sort of started to lose it and make even less sense than before - which was 4-5 yrs ago so she's had time for her mental state to continue to disintegrate.

Everything she talked about I had to will my self not to roll my eyes or smart off to her. She talked about the custom (shitty and ugly) door they put in the back -- yes thank you if I ever want to replace it (which I will) I have to either replace it with another custom way too large back door or fill in some of the space and re-stucco it. Or all the electrical they re-did -- You put in aluminum wire you dumb ass! The guy piped in and was saying how he made custom insulation things for the basement windows for the window, "You know you can use those if you'd like." No shit?! I just bought them! Or the tiling don't even get me started on the tiling. The garden -- I had my mom identify it -- IT'S ALL FREAKING WEEDS! Oh but we could sell the special bamboo in the back of the yard and make money if we wanted to - it's not bamboo its Japanese Knot Weed and its nearly impossible to get rid of (more to come in the future about our crusade against the evil knot weed.) Yeah, thanks.

The whole time she was acting like she was doing a real big favor for us. It was irritating the hell out of me and Mike. I pretended like it wasn't happening and continued to be sweet and responsive because I wanted to get this over with, Mike he just turned red and didn't say anything. I mean she was trying to force her contractors on us. Call these people and just tell them it was Sharon Quam's house they'll know exactly who you are and what's going on. Oh call these people they gave us an estimate for the back half of the roof (that we now have to replace) they'll give you a good price if you mention your in Jeffery Quam's house... UGH! They just kept going on and on I am like I didn't even want to meet you let alone talk to you can't you just shut up so that we can close on this damn house!? My god I wanted I just wanted it to end. And Mike had to run to the bank so Kevin went with and they left me alone with the poor closing agent and the two freaks. I think closing agent was as freaked out by the crazies as much as i was.

Whatever, we closed and all is history. Except the crazies dropped some paper work off the next Tuesday while i was home alone. The crazy chick hugged me! I was like I really don't want to hug you can you just give me what you want to give me so I can lock the doors and windows and go back to cleaning? Too this day I fear them.

So we moved everything the next weekend. And I started cleaning. I spent ALL DAY Friday just washing the floors upstairs. Nothing else, it took me all day. I admit there's so much junk downstairs I still have only washed the floors in the front sun room. It took me a week to clean and organize the kitchen. There was mouse poop everywhere and four years of dust. Plus 4 years of people tracking in dirt from showings - ugh it was a mess. Plus I don't think they were cleanli-folk, I can tell that from the pigeons - don't worry I will get to neighbor gossip soon. Lets just say I don't know when the last time some things were cleaned and some things still haven't gotten clean and I think it will take me months to get it to my standards because the basement and attic are gross and creepy.

So far though the office is nearly organized - we still have to find a place to put some of the things that used to be in my desk which we gave to Tracy. We got a nice rug in it too (Thanks Brandon! We just used our gift card you gave us from IKEA, for our wedding, to get it.) The bedroom is almost there - I have been lazy and haven't put away all of my things yet. The kitchen is nearly there, I just have to wash the floor better when I wash all the floors on the first floor. The bathroom - ugh mess, I did a quick clean but I am putting off the hard core clean because its just and old cruddy bathroom that will just hopefully go away before I have to clean it - right Mike? :)

The buffet is all full of all of our neat pieces that we have collected since the wedding - although we did find out that half of our champagne flutes are the wrong kind -- this is why we should have opened all of it when it got shipped to us from Marshall Fields but someone thought that was a bad idea because it was all packaged up why unpackage it -- All I have to say is I TOLD YOU SO! :) HA! But that was one of the worst things we have un-covered while unpacking. Mike lost a Belvedere glass shot glass bowl (fill with ice and matching shot glasses) and I lost a hand me down glass candy bowl which i had two of. So we're going to go talk to Marshall Fields soon and hopefully they will exchange them for us. Keep your fingers crossed.

The front sunroom is set up for TV watching but it needs a rug. We also need a rug in the bedroom and the living room once it has more furniture. We found an absolutely perfect rug that we both love (believe it or not we both agreed on it) but its pricey as hell and the wrong size - why are american rugs all the same size!? Jake I believe is completely moved in. So at least someone is, although we moved all his stuff from one of his closets out when we started pulling cable the other day -- yeah something to keep in mind when buying an old home -- does it have cable jacks? Because if not guess who gets to pull the cable - You! Lame. Oh well it seems to be going semi-ok. Better than it being all on the outside of the house like Dish Network wanted to do.

There's a lot less but we are making progress -- SLOWLY but surely.

According to the Bank - we're set

Ok, so the one thing we were worried wouldn't go through on time has now gone through. The last piece, the Mortgage Insurance, came in this morning. So we're set... as long as the sellers actually show up. Wow. This sucks. Haven't heard from Kevin yet, he's flying in today. Hopefully it all ends up working out and they are there tomorrow morning. I can only pray it does.

Really? (Is this really a good idea?)

Ok, granted I am not a Bengals fan and this has nothing to do with buying my first home, but -- Really? Chris Henry? Marvin Lewis, are you kidding me? Do you really think this is the best move for the team? I know you guys are short wide recievers and all but there's reasons why you cut him in the first place, even if the current charges get dropped, what's the chance he's going to get into trouble again in the future? I mean come on, I'd take that bet and I don't like to gamble. The Cinncinati Bengals need to rebuild their team and their image. Rehiring one of the convicts is probably not a good way of doing that. I mean the guy couldn't pay for a $300,000 house in Kentucky when he makes 3 times that in a year - he's just plain immature. Sure he can make some great catches and your team needs wide recivers, but mark my word - you'll be wishing you hadn't. Now that I have spoken my mind on something completely unrelated, granted it made me feel a little better, I am going to take my P.H.D in sportsology and go biking. :)

There's an elephant on my chest

ARGH! I think I am losing my mind. So now we are dealing with a pain in the ass loan and pain in the ass sellers. So if it wasn't bad enough that our loan has like 80,000 hoops to jump through - I cannot tell you how many letters I have signed saying I am working from home and I am not using my money for work supplies and I am using less than 15% of the house for the job and every other request under the sun -- NOW, the sellers don't want to sell, they'd rather go into foreclosure.

Ok, so today we found out that a) there's an assessment on the house for 2009 for the road - that's fine we knew that was coming and b) the sellers who are in deep doo doo when it comes to money were told by the bank that the bank wants ALL of its money back not just the money we are giving them and the seller's don't have it and now want to go into foreclosure.

So here's the story: The idiot couple took out money against their home to do some repairs. They took the money and instead of doing repairs they spent it other ways. (Kevin said this is very common right now - people taking out money against their homes for updates and then using it to buy a car, rv, etc.) So they took the money out and then realized they were running late on their mortgage. So they were like crap we cannot pay our mortgage we better use this $20,000 to pay off our mortgage. Well, the $20,000 ran out, they didn't make any repairs, and they still owed money. So a great idea dawned on them - let's get a credit card and use it to pay for our payments. Well, $9,000 later they are $29,000 in debt and still have no end in sight.

So that's when the bank stepped in and they decided to sell the house. This way the sellers don't go into foreclosure and the bank gets rid of the loan. It's called a short sale. Well, apparently they owe more than just the $29,000 because once they get the $228,000 from us they STILL owe the bank money -- This is where it gets interesting -- the bank must have recently reminded them: hey, we're getting $228,000 for the house BUT we want the rest of our loan back too because you didn't put it into the house. So now the sellers who have no money to pay the bank off are now deciding (AFTER THEY SIGNED A LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT TO SELL US THE HOUSE) never mind we'd rather go into foreclosure than sell you the house. They have owned the house for 36 years (what in the world did it even cost back then) and 36 years later they still owe the bank more than $228,000 on it? I just don't understand this situation at all.

So now we are kind of up a creek w/o a paddle. Kevin believes that this whole time the seller's agent has known about this situation, knew it might end like this and failed to tell us... which is a huge breach and makes the sellers agent liable too. Which at least makes the situation a little better because what's the point of suing bankrupt people for breach of contract? So we could sue the seller's agent too. Then again is it really worth suing them if this all falls apart? Would we waste more money than we would gain? Is it really worth the revenge? All this pain and suffering -- all this waiting and worrying and we may not get the house. I honestly felt like I was having trouble breathing after that conversation.

SO! Kevin is checking in with his boss and keeping us up to date. So far the guy... (there's a man and a woman -- we don't think they are married and at this point they may not even be together either if the seller's agent has to confirm with two separate people that they are coming to closing.) ...like I was saying: so far the guy is coming to closing. Which does us no good if the chick doesn't decide to sell. So she was supposed to get off of work at 4pm CST today and the seller's agent was going to try to convince her to come too. So we are waiting to hear from Kevin about her. Mike wants to punch these people in the faces when we see them at closing for screwing us around like they have - I don't blame him I want to too! This is ridiculous that this comes out Tuesday before we close on Thursday. I mean I don't even know what to say.

So that's that. Then there's this whole loan not getting finished in time. It was supposed to be final today but then they needed one more letter signed saying I won't be using more than 15% of the house for my job. So I sent that in but because it was one more thing they cancelled our closing. So now Lonna got it in as soon as I had sent it to her and is trying her hardest to get it back on track. So she thinks she can but we won't know until its approved -- which is why I am feeling a bit freaked out at the moment. I mean if it wasn't stressful enough before Kevin called now this. LORDY!

So I am trying to be patient but you can't help but wonder if this is some kind of sign from god. ***Psst - Don't buy the house.***

Well - One monkey off my back as of 5:37 pm CST our mortgage is approved. They ordered a mortgage insurance at 1-2 pm so they are waiting for that administrative piece to come in tomorrow morning before the put the closing back on the books but she said not worry about it and that she'd be calling back tomorrow with more details. Now that this is cleared - which originally was the scariest part - if those jerks don't sell us this house I am going to have a fit. I swear to goodness!!! Well I've worried about this enough today, I'll update this if I find out anymore, but until then I can't think about this anymore -- I am going to ride my bike a couple of miles or something.

3 Days left

So we're closing in 3 days. I haven't talked to Lonna since Friday but on Friday we were just waiting for final approval on the loan - UGH! Isn't it over with yet? I'll call later to see how we are doing because we have to close on Thursday seeing that Jake's dad is flying up just for this. I have some questions about the cashier's check and what we need to bring to the closing insurance wise too.

So we thought we'd be proactive and set up all of our accounts with utilities a head of time - Apparently, not so possible. I called Xcel and they won't set up your account until the moment you want to start service. Center Point's phone number doesn't even work! Minneapolis wireless you save money by signing up online (for immediate service) and to be honest I didn't even bother to call the City of Minneapolis to set up Water and Trash because I gave up. I'll just call on Thursday, but super lame. We wanted it all set up ahead of time so they could just turn/switch everything over when we called to turn on service. This weekend is going to be nuts isn't it?

Construction Begins

Today when I went to our house to meet the plumber and real estate agent -- I couldn't get to my house. I drove down Lyndale headed towards 38th Street and all of a sudden I look up and there's a road closed sign on 38th Street! I was like uh-oh this can't be good. :) I think its open to local traffic which will be good for us when we move next week! But if we waited any longer we might have trouble because they are ripping out all of the concrete down to the piping. Although they don't expect to have it done until Septemeber. But how scary was it when I drove up to find our street closed! I was like uhh... how are we going to move in!? :)

Its ok, the sooner its done the sooner we live on a PARKWAY! :) So that will be awesome!

If you want to check out the project go here: http://www.co.hennepin.mn.us/lyndalenorthofcreek

I want to hurt someone...

OK, Lonna is on my last nerve. SO! The Truth In Housing report (Or TISH report if you want to irritate Kevin - HA! He doesn't like Lonna either) mentioned something about an open waste line - but there is no open waste line. So we had to get a plumber come in and look at it today. Fun part was no one really knew what needed to be looked at/checked. So while the plumber was looking around the seller's agent and I were calling around trying to get a hold of Lonna, the Loonie Loan Officer, to find out EXACTLY what needs to be taken care of because she's the one who said something needed to be taken care of before closing. So we were also trying to get a hold of Kevin too because we thought he might also know... So after about 15-30 mins waiting around Lonna called the seller's agent and the seller's agent put the plumber on the phone for sale. So they talked for a while and he explained the situation and clarified there was no open waste line. So she was fine with that and instead of capping everything off which would have taken 1/2 a day and $750 we got a signed piece of paper saying that everything was fine. Of course that cost $150! $150! And it turned out he didnt even write down what she wanted to have written down and we couldnt read it.

So I get it to good ole Lonna and she claims she can't read it. Granted the penmanship was AWFUL but I could still read it. So she got all excited and then she realized it didn't say what she asked him to write - and it made it seem like a repair was still neccesary (PS thanks ya douche bag I paid you $150 and you couldn't even write things down right - Don't use Standard Plumbing). So she's kind of getting dramma-ie, talking about how i just wasted my money and how it was worhless and how it was a bad use of our money - WELL NO F*** B**** any money spent on a house I don't own yet is not a smart use of my money but you demanded it!!! So i am sitting here going what the f*** is going on, are we going to be ok or what!? So she called the seller's agent who was supposed to tell him exactly what to right and complained to her. Then she calls her appraiser and talked to him and explained the situation. They talked about things and he was going to go back and look at it and write an anadendum to the first report totak say everything was ok. She said that this would take care of everything. So according to her its ok now. Everything should be fine. WE'LL SEE!

But here's the kicker... As I was leaving she goes - "I don't know why they had you hire a plumber... I never told her (reference to the seller's female realestate agent) to hire plumber. I told her to go over there and check to make sure it was capped. She must not have known was that was and assumed we needed a plumber." At this point I nearly lost my temper. I was thinking you GOT to be kidding me!? Not only do I have a worthless piece of paper that doesnt do the job that it was purchased to do but I didnt need to get it in the first place!?! So I left furious and had to speed to let off steam.

When I got back to the townhouse, I got a call from Kevin. As I was telling him about everything that happened and explaining why I didn't understand why the real estate agent had us get a plumber when we didnt need one because all we needed was for her to go out to the house and confirm the lines were not open. I mean why am I spending money if I dont need to? That's when he dropped the bomb and I decided that US Bank was going to get a nasty letter. On top of which, I was going to find every place where I could rate a loan office so I could rate her poorly on ALL OF THEM!!! Apparently she specifically told Kevin that we needed to get a plumber to make sure the line was capped. SHE TOLD HIM WE NEEDED A PLUMBER. Why is Lonna telling me she never told anyone to get a plumber when she specifically told Kevin that we needed one? Hmm... something tells me that I am going to trust the father of the Best Man, who isn't making a dime off this deal.

That stupid f***ing b****, she straight out LIED to me. How dare she. And she's been string us along, not being forth coming and dicking Kevin around since we started. I am so pissed. I am going to write a letter immediately after we close. This is ridiculous. I'll wait to get a response from US BANK and then I am closing all my accounts and we're moving to Well's Fargo. In fact, I might open a Well's Fargo Checking account the day we close.

Moral of the story: LONNA J ESPEDAL SUCKS A**!

No customer service
Completely disorganized
Won't respond to calls or emails
Just plain useless

Don't get a loan officer who works at a bank! Go to an indepenedent mortgage broker who actually has to work to get clients. You'll be much more appreciated and they will treat you how you deserve to be treated.

Post-Inspection

Kevin said that after talking to the seller's real estate agent we didn't have very many options. We can pay for the roof ourselves, we can try to write a new purchase agreement to have the bank pay for it and find out they won't, or we can try to write a new purchase agreement to have the bank pay for it and find out they will pay for it... but it could take 3 weeks to find out if the board would approve it and on top of it apparently the seller's agent has recently gone through a similar situation and the bank rejected it. OR we could walk away from the property. So we had really 3 options: walk away and start over, say screw it and we'll pay for the roof, or postpone things for three weeks hoping against hope that the bank would approve it. So we are going to do it ourselves. Mike's going to get quotes on the roof and then also look into actually roofing it himself which seems like a huge undertaking to me (a person afraid of heights) but Mike seems pretty psyched about it. So I'll concentrate on weeding and plant material removal. :)

Let's see Lonna annoyed us again, she failed to mention when we needed a home insurance quote so of course she called today wondering when she'd get that and it was like well if you would have told me to get it I would have gotten it but since you didn't... YOU ANNOYING JERK... we didn't start the process. So, today we called our agent in OH to get an agent in MN and Mike is working on the quote. So annoyed. Why does it seem like we never find out about these things until the last minute? COME ON! I don't know what I am doing and your supposed to be experienced - you got to tell me when you need things. I am not a mind reader. She also wanted a letter from Nielsen on Nielsen letter head saying that I work from home. I guess the undewriter needed it. I just hope this whole process is on track for the 21st. I'll have to check in with Kevin to see if he's gotten an honest update on the timeline from her because he needs to know for plane ticket reasons. ARGH, she annoys me.

So if you haven't noticed I like changing my template... I can't decide on something. Also, here's the house if you'd like to see it: http://www.edinarealty.com/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?Search=3b4f920c-63d9-477d-8294-0790c4e8299a&Listing=30219554&IRPAgentID=&Image=1&First=1&Last=1&pagesize=10&SearchType=&ListingDistrictTypeID=&FirstLetter=&Sort=6&Cookies=&UseColorBar=false

The Inspection

Bright and early at 9 am on Sunday we were at the home on Lyndale to go through our inspection. (Needless to say after a long weekend - I passed out on the in-law's couch later that day!) We got an inspection from Residential Inspection Services (952.929.7323) and he was really great. Very knowledgeable very thorough he made me feel better about some things because it gave me a much better understanding of many things. At the same time, he pointed out other things that I didn't even know about or notice - which caused me some anxiety. One being that the roof "which was replaced in 1999" was only a half truth. The front was replaced but the back was not and is in extremely poor shape and needs to be replaced immediately. So that's lame. (In fact, he said the front of the house looked rather worn and he suggested if we had the money to replace the whole thing, but he did say we could potentially just replace the back.)

I mean we were under the impression that this house was in decent shape and now out of the blue we have to fork out thousands of dollars for a new roof? So Kevin is contacting their realtor to get a feeling for their stance because he's mad too - when you say that a roof was replaced and don't mention it was only have replaced? I mean that changes everything - the house is no longer worth to us what we agreed to pay for it - but it's sold as-is so that's going to make things difficult. So we are waiting to hear back from Kevin. What a mess.

Other than the roof, everything was expected. There's some basement windows that have rot, which we knew about, that need to be replaced at some point because they have their gardens way above grade. The bottom board on two or so windows needs to be replaced. The gutters need to be cleaned and in some cases extended to do a better job of getting the water away from the house. The original garage door doesn't work which is fine at the moment because we have a shed to lock things in. The boiler and water heaters are new and running well. The windows are original and at some point need to be replaced. I mean it is old and the people who owned it were old - things weren't taken care of the way they should have been. And did I mention they had pigeons?

Ugh, who keeps pigeons as pets? The city of St. Paul is giving the pigeons birth control and our sellers are trying to encourage their existence. No wonder the next door neighbor has screens everywhere. The more I learn about them the more I think they had to be weirdos. I just can't wait to get into the house and start working on it. There's a lot of things that can be fixed without costing a lot of money. I am just worried about the roof, we didn't expect to have to replace something that intense and expensive right off the bat. *SIGH* I know this is totally cliched, but owning a house (and we don't even own it yet) is a lot of work! HA :)

It's ours! ...kind of. :)

So yesterday was a busy day... The sellers initialled the increase, so its all up to the bank and the inspection. So, its ours as long as the stars align.

I signed a Consent to Lock form locking in our interest rate. Which in a way is annoying because we were told our interest rate would be 5.8%, then 5.99% and now when we are actually locking in its 6.125%. I wish we could have locked in a while ago but I guess you can't until after you have a purchase agreement, oh well. Another thing we didn't know - when the rate gets locked in. So Mike signed that yesterday to make it final (they only needed one signature to lock it in) and now its official as soon as he faxes it to her.

We also set up our inspection. Its taking place on Sunday. I think as soon as that happens and it turns out ok, I'll be more excited to tell people its ours. I haven't told many people yet because I'd hate to tell a bunch of people and get all excited about it and then find out the foundation is crumbling or something. You never know with old homes. It will be fun to see the house again and I hope to learn as much about the house as possible from the inspection report. It will be good to know what needs to get addressed first and what can wait. Hopefully there's nothing scary or surprising that comes out of the inspection. We need a ton of copies of it too, so I hope that its not too big. Mike has to fax one to Kevin and we need to give one copy to Loona for loan purposes - glad she mentioned that the last time I was there because she had never mentioned it before.

You know I can understand the City Living Program is ever changing especially amidst the "housing crisis" but really? There's got to be some consistency - there has to be enough that they can give new home buyers a pamphlet of things to expect in the future - Something that tells new home buyers what paper work is due when and what things to expect. A timeline or something. I feel like every time I see my loan officer there's something else she wants that I didn't know was required before.

I feel like even when people know your a first time home buyer people still expect you to know whats going on and to understand all the terms... HELLO - Just because you do this every day of your life doesn't mean I do. Slow down, explain things to me that's what I am paying you to do - I really am getting annoyed by this woman - sign this, send me this - WHY!? What am I signing? It's like she hasn't taken any time with me, I think I deserve that. I was really impressed with her at first, which is why when we heard we could get a really low interest rate and she seemed extremely together and knowledgeable - we didn't check out the Well's Fargo people who have the same program which in the end I am now regretting. Well - At least she's better than the TCF kid - He was a JOKE! "I'll call you tomorrow and let you know what you qualify for." 6 weeks later, he still hasn't called back. *SIGH* No wonder there's so many problems with home loans - there's no customer service - no attentiveness - just come in let me take your money and get out and keep paying me for the rest of your life.

That's why I like Kevin Bosley, he sat down and explained everything to us. We went through the purchase agreement line by line. He stopped periodically to answer questions and was super helpful. Whenever we need anything he's always willing to help. He's been terrific. He's always willing to give us his opinions and suggestions too when we want another person's opinion. I'd definitely recommend him to others.

I am excited for the inspection - Vicki and John recommended with glowing reviews after purchasing the townhouse and their home. So I am hoping for good things from him.

All I know is the faster this all gets done, the faster we get the house - there better not be any delays because we have to close on the 21st at the latest - I am not sending in a new offer.

Lonna ordered the appraisal yesterday so interested to see what its worth. The city of Minneapolis has it listed at $310,000 which is well above what we are paying for it. Mike's irritated that we have to pay a PMI when we obviously have 26% equity before we even buy it. We can get rid of the PMI in 2 yrs but again Mike is irritated because we have to order a new appraisal so the first one is kind of a waste, other than for the purpose of ensuring the bank that the house is worth what we are paying for it.

Ugh, what a pain, at least its all getting done and the last time I talked to Lonna she said we could get it done on time. It better be! I don't think anything else will come up today and with me going to Megan's wedding over the weekend I don't expect to get back to this until Sunday when there will be a full update.

The Call about The Offer

Mr. (Kevin) Bosley, our agent and the father of the best man, called! Good and bad news... Good news is it's basically ours, the sellers are meeting tomorrow at 12:30 to initial the increase. Then Kevin is sending our loan officer Loona the last page so she can get going on the last steps of the loan.

Bad news is all of a sudden our loan officer needs more time, which is bogus. I think she's really irritating Kevin and she's really ticking off Mike. First she doesn't know if we need a PMI or if we can do two loans (80%/15%) - we found out later we do need a PMI, which is lame because she waited to the last minute to tell us. NOW, she needs more time to complete the loan which is lame because she initially told us 2 weeks to get things done then from that point 2 weeks to close. Now she needs 3 weeks to 30 days to close and she doesn't know if she can close on time. Why did she tell us one thing if it wasn't right, we would have written our offer different if we would have known. *SIGH* If we had time at this point, I'd look for a different loan officer, but at this point we don't have that kind of time. Thing is, Kevin says if she can't get it done in time... we have to give them a new offer. A NEW OFFER!? We have to do this process all over again? And on top of it, they liked our offer because it had such a quick turn around. ARGH, its so irritating. Plus, Kevin can't book his trip to the cities until he knows for certain what day we are closing. So the longer she waits the more expensive it gets. She's kind of screwed us twice now. Mike wants to give her a bad review. All I know is this loan process is a lot more annoying than I thought it would be.

I have always heard that the first house is the hardest, the next one better be all down hill...and years from now.

We were hoping to get this done before the 21st and now it may push out beyond that. Its just kind of disheartening, we are so eagar to move in and start painting and deforesting. :) Just got to stay up beat.

The Offer

So we've been to the first time home buyers class. We've been to the bank. And finally we decided on the house... Now we just got to get it. We were a little worried when we found out that the one house in the area that we were even interested in had a "LOW" ball offer already in on it. So we offered a fair price. We understood that it might take a while to hear back about our offer seeing that the bank is involved because its a "short-sale". (Realestate speak for: Just about in foreclosure, so the bank and seller are working together to sell it at a price they can both be happy with -- As quick as humanly possible.) We were prepared to wait a week or two to hear from the seller and their bank, because banks are SLOW, but hours after placing the offer we were already countered by the bank! Which was great because the counter offer wasn't too bad, so we accepted it. Then the sellers accepted the counter and it was all up to the bank accepting our acceptance of the counter, but when it got to the bank - they decided to counter again!? Apparently the loan officer who made the counter thought it was good enough but when the bank got it they decided they need $1,400 more. Really, at $1,400 you think it wouldn't be worth their trouble to counter, but I guess it was. So we accepted and now we are waiting to find out if they will accept this acceptance, but our realtor (and friend) says they will since it was the BANK who made the last counter, and not a loan officer.

Moral of the story: When working with bank owned properties, or in our case nearly bank owned properties, don't be surprised if there are a few bumps in the road. It happens.

And don't worry, even with the counters we are still basically stealing this home.