It's on

On Sunday, we started officially looking at houses with a realtor. We saw 6 and liked only one. We took my parents to see it and in the end decided we need to keep looking. There doesn't seem to be much in our inital price range that's not disgusting. So then we started bumping up our price range in our searching. The quality of the homes seems to increase exponentially for every 10K you go up in listing price. I'm not sure this is a good idea, as I just have a hard time believing we could get approved for much more than we have. But it is fun to go look at houses I could actually imagine us living in.

Today I finally got canceled for a whole shift. It had been me leaving at 7pm almost once a week for 2 or 3 months now, i.e., totally lame. Since I didn't have to work, we were able to go around and look at some more places with our realtor. Earlier today there was a crazy rainstorm and on our way to the first house, some dude directly in front of us on 275 spun around about 3 or 4 times across 2 lanes of traffic and miraculously hit nothing but a sign post. Anyway, we looked at 8 places today. Rating them from 1 to 10, we saw a 9, 3, 7, 2, 5, 4, 8, and 7. I hate looking at houses with the occupants at home. It makes it a rather awkward situation.

Desired house #1

We loved the first one and would love to get it. Unfortunately it's listed for more than I think we'll be approved for and I don't know if they would accept our offer. Our realtor is supposed to check to see if our offer is in the ballpark they're looking for. If not, we may make an offer on another one that's good, but not as great. It's listed for the same price but it's not a short sale. On the downside with that one, it's only been on the market for a few days and so they're not going to be desperate to sell it.

1st Runner Up


Kitchen of Runner Up #2


Sigh. This is rather stress-inducing!

Pomp/Circumstance

On Saturday, Mark finally graduated with his MA!

The ceremony was very early in the morning and rather underwhelming. I understand that they had a lot of people to get through, but they read the names of the masters candidates literally one after the other in rapid succession, leading to the accumulation of 5-10 people on the stage at any one time.

A clusterfuck of graduates. Hey look, there's Mark!

Since they read the names ridiculously fast, it took only an hour for the entire thing. We then made our way out of the Sundome and into the sweltering heat.


We had a fun but exhausting day with lunch at CPK, dinner at the Melting Pot and then drinks later at a bar by the house. Got up early the next day to have breakfast with Greg at the Vinoy before he went back to TN. Then, we officially started our house search. That will get its own post later.

Active with contract

Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of homes we've found online are under contract, including that 2-story house we liked. Figured out that Realtor.com tells you if there's a contract or not, so now we can very quickly rule those out. We're also ruling out houses that are in low-lying hurricane evac zones - if it's not an D, E, or non-evac, we're not even going to bother looking. We have a realtor now, and are going to see some houses this weekend!

Mark's family is in town for his graduation. I used my incredible Priceline-fu and got them rooms at the Vinoy (AKA the nicest hotel in St. Pete) for $55/night. I'm very proud of that rate!

Hunting

Took a 4 hour cancel this evening, so we got to drive around some neighborhoods and check out houses before it got dark. So far, we have definitely found that pictures do lie as it seems only one out of 10 or 15 houses we drive past will actually be worth looking inside. So far we have one front runner in the all-around competition:



I really, really want to tour this house STAT. The pics of the interior are good but I need to see how it flows! It's in a decent neighborhood (walking distance to the Italian market!) and close to just about everything. My only concerns are that the bedrooms will be very, very small and it could have been built with Chinese drywall (what with it being built in 2004 and all). We both really like it and it's hard to not get my hopes up that it's as good as it seems.

There's another house that I like (though Mark's not too impressed) that's in a less desirable location, and is much, much older and not very attractive from the outside. The kitchen, however...


Love. So. We need to get a realtor and start looking inside some places. I did email one person today, so we shall see what happens with that.

All of a sudden I feel much more grown up. It was an instantaneous realization last week. Here we are, at the beginning of the distal end of 20-somethingness and we won't just be the apartment-dwelling perpetual college students. Now we may soon be home-owning professionals. RN. College instructor. Eventually we'll both have master's degrees or even doctorates. We're still young but it makes me feel old.

Hell hath frozen over...

Because I've been pre-approved for a mortgage.

I'm not talking "prequalification". No, this is full on, credit checked, W-2's examined, pay stubs submitted, actual pre-approval for an acceptable amount of money that would allow me to purchase a home that's not in the middle of the ghetto.

Holy crap.

...

So this all started yesterday, during my random browsing of houses on the interwebs. Thanks to Google Streetview, now you don't even have to leave your home to drive by places and check out neighborhoods. It's probably still advisable though, as we did go drive around a bit and boy, pictures can really lie! Anyway, I found a house online that is gorgeous inside, so I decided to stop all the wondering about the possibility, and to just apply. And, to my surprise, the woman whom I spoke with on the phone did not hang up on me, nor did she stay on the line only to laugh in my face. No, she did the unbelievable, in that she said I would be able to borrow X amount, pending my submission of some documents. In the end, I'm not going to go with that company as since it is now only 22ish hours later and I've gotten several better offers - more $$, lower rates. One company I've actually been pre-approved with, the other is local and I agreed to wait to work with this guy next week. He was very helpful on the phone, explained a lot and advised me to get a buyer's agent realtor.

So. Mortgage approval is possible! I need a realtor. I'm going to buy a house!

Mark turns 26

I married a younger man. Mark turned 26 today and to celebrate, of course we went to Orlando. Since we are still blocked out at Disney until the 14th (le sigh), we went to Sea World, what with our newly-acquired 2 year annual passes. Didn't get to Sea World until almost 5, but that's ok. We didn't do much, but once again, that's ok. We went on Kraken and the new OMG SO TERRIFYING Manta. This thing straps you in like a regular inverted coaster, then whoa - your feet are flipped up behind you as you're turned 90 degrees so you're hanging from your seat, FACING THE GROUND. That same ground slowly becomes further away as you proceed up the incline to your imminent death first drop. Did I mention that you're hanging there, suspended face down? It was exhilarating, but to me at least, in a "omg I don't want to go splat, please don't let me die" kind of way. It may be a while before I get back on it. Of course, Mark loved it.

We wanted to take advantage of Disney's "get in free on your birthday" promotion, but since we have seasonal passes that are blocked out during both of our birthdays (joy), our options were pretty much just limited to one. We stopped at Guest Relations at the Magic Kingdom to pick up Mark's ticket to use to renew his pass next month. Flaw in the plan though - they wanted us to renew then, with us forking over the big bucks that we weren't prepared to do. Luckily we talked the lovely cast member in to giving us a ticket that will be valid for the next 2 weeks and we can renew then. Victory! Plus, I just found out that renewals are now good for 15 months, not 12. Score!!

Our next stop was at 'Ohana for dinner. In all the years we've been going to Disney, we had never been to 'Ohana and it's a shame! We got seated right next to the windows, which face the MK (yay!) and the fireworks started at 10pm. They dimmed the lights and played the Wishes soundtrack. It was the next best thing to being in the park. Plus the good food didn't hurt!

I Pricelined a room at the Vinoy for the MIL this weekend - $55! That is ridiculously low, and totally awesome. I get so excited when I get to use Priceline!

Tomorrow is my orientation for grad school. I have to be there at 11, so I need get up early - like 9? Guess I better get my shit together and go to bed.

Take Two

I'm going to give this blog another shot. It lasted, what? All of 3 posts! Even my Livejournal has been neglected in the past year or so as I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say. I am hoping my life will soon be more interesting, though!

So in the last year, not much has happened. My last post left off with the Rays, who did make it to the World Series for the first time. Mark and I were at Disney World when we found out they were going. We probably should have gone to the game instead! Hindsight. Anyway, they are doing good this year, but not great. Still hoping we can pull off a spot in the playoffs!

My best friends are both getting married this year. The first wedding is in California, in about 6 weeks, and I am driving myself crazy with anticipation. I love to travel, the problem is that I don't really get to do it! We go to Orlando, we go to Atlanta. Last year we really broke tradition and went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, only because my father-in-law recently moved there. I have not flown anywhere since 1997. This flying thing is really getting to me. I'm not scared, per se, but I have a desperate need to know exactly what to expect at every point in the process. Thus leads to my constant Googling and Flickring and other noun-to-verbing that is somewhat all-consuming. And it didn't help that Delta changed our flight schedule AND the type of planes, of course after I spent countless hours researching the original plane seat layouts and pictures of the interiors and pretty much everything else that is even remotely related to a Delta Boeing 767, steerage class. And don't even get me started on rental cars! I'm just praying that what we have reserved will work out at the price it's reserved for.

So, we fly to San Francisco on September 16th. On the 18th, we drive to Yosemite National Park and check in at Tenaya Lodge. My friend gets married on the 19th at Glacier Point, which from what I can tell is a cliff. On a mountain. Foreign concepts to a Floridian. The next day, we drive to the O.C. and hopefully check-in at Laguna Cliffs, pending me actually reserving a room there using my secret weapon, Priceline (Name your own price)! We are actually going to freaking Disneyland. We have discussed going to other parks for the last 7 years or so, basically when we started going to WDW, but it never seemed like something that would actually happen. Some far off future event that you talk about, but somewhat never expect to happen - like winning the lottery.

In other news, I'm starting my MSN in August. Mark graduates with his MA next Sunday, he got two adjunct teaching jobs at colleges here to start this fall, we are possibly going to be buying a house pretty soon, and I think we are about ready to try for el bebeh. All of a sudden I feel somewhat like a grown up!