House Tales

It all started in May.  I got home from visiting some friends for the weekend, and Man handed me one of those MLS flyers for a house up the street.  He thought we should go look at it.  I scoffed, laughing off the big price tag, but came around soon enough with wanting a little peek inside.  We called our realtor and arranged it.

We’d been toying with selling and moving for a long time, never intending to stay the seven years we had in the townhome – our neighbor was driving us Mad, the train nose was still waking us up and interupting conversations, and it wasn’t fun anymore.

Our first visit to the house was fairly brief, but given the opportunity, and a more impulsive husband, I likely would have signed an offer on the spot: big, open layout, all on two floors, big kitchen, yard, hot tub….etc etc.  We loved it.  We slept on it.  We visited other houses on the market to see what the comparables were.  We slept on it some more.  We visited it again.  We thought some more.  We made an offer on Thursday, June 17, and it was accepted.  I was at a yoga class while it all went down, and came out to find my iPhone exploding with texts from Man: call me call me call me call me!

June 22nd – a second offer was accepted on the same house, so we had 48 hours to remove our subjects, make the bank comfortable with us owing for two houses and a LOT of money, inspections, appraisals etc.  We did it.  With an hour and half to spare, we did it.  The house was ours.

Meanwhile, the townhouse was listed, was being shown, but the bottom was falling out of the market.  Crap.  We staged, and cleaned, and vacated, over and over and over again.  Exhausting.  Poor Baxter’s routine was upside down and he was feeling persecuted for shedding.

August 31 – we took possession and I clung to it.  I moved as much as I could to make it a liveable home as quickly as I could.  We sat on furniture we had in storage, we lived without all the stuff still staged in the other house. We waited.

After an offer that went down the toilet, we received another, and it was good.  SOLD!  Then not so much!  We moved all of our furniture anyway, then changed out the carpets to make it look buyable (word to the wise: dogs are not gentle on houses!)

Finally, we have furniture, we have each other, and we have a Home.  We love it here.  Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a home to be happy in.  There is still loads to do, and many, many before-and-afters to follow, but here are a few snaps (taken with iPhone, as camera cord is still AWOL):

Entrance etc - Master Bedroom is the door at the top right

Great Room, with Baxter

Kitchen, obviously.

Now, we get settled, and I start thinking about the next goals, plans and strategies.  It’s time to return to my school work, coaching practice (so sorry I neglected you!) and the enjoying of life.  It’s grand.

A Week Ago…at Capitalist Woodstock

…we were settling into our horrible hotel room in Omaha, Nebraska.  The hallway smelt like smoke, there were no bedside lamps, only flourescent lights over the bed.  Charming.  We were meant to arrive in Omaha Thursday night, but there was a lightning storm that closed the airfield, so we were diverted to Minneapolis, Minnesota (600 miles away).  When the pilot announced the happy news (it had already been about 9 hours since we left Vancouver), I wasn’t sure I would be able to sit on that hot, cramped plane for another second, but I was bolstered by the idea of getting to visit Minnesota and maybe hear some fun accents.  We didn’t get to bed till 2:30 am that night and rose again early to actually get to Omaha.  The room was pretty nice though…

Our free room, for 6 hours. Weeee! Minnesota!

We were traveling to such a destination in order to attend the annual shareholder’s meeting for Berkshire Hathaway.  It was something Man had wanted to do forever, and this year the pieces all fell into place for us to be able to go.  I was looking forward to the adventure of it all, getting away for the weekend with my sweetie, and seeing Omaha, of course!

We landed around 2pm on Friday, made our way to the convention center where we picked up our credentials for the meeting the following day.  Then we checked into the hotel and started snooping around the city a bit.  We had a great lunch, a stop in a cigar bar (where I was accosted by a parrot and was lucky to survive with my finger intact)(or maybe I just got a little nip when I surprised him)(no hard feelings, Dylan the Parrot).

Seems like an obvious request...? Some parts of America elude me.

We checked out Borsheim’s Jewelry store (owned by Birkshire and offering large discounts to shareholders) and I wished over and over again that we were millionaires ($8000 for a watch?  Really?  Does it GO TO WORK for you?) We walked among people who could have been extras in any rich-kid party scene in a John Hughes movie; 20 year old girls whose sole purpose in life is to shop, tan, and shop some more, and their boyfriends, oozing money with their sweaters tied loosely about their shoulders.  That particular part was a nightmare.  We finished the night with dinner across the street from our hotel, which also happened to be in Iowa.  Add another state to the list!

Qwest Center in the sun.

Saturday started early; the shareholder meeting began at 7am and we didn’t want to be late.  There were 40,000 people expected there.  To give you an idea, the whole thing was held in the Qwest Center, which is a stadium attached to a giant convention center, and the Whole.  Thing.  Was.  Full of People.  Here we are in the stadium:

At the big meeting...7am...uncaffeinated

We watched Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger on large screens as they answered questions in their folksy, friendly manner throughout the day.  I was quite engaged in it for the morning, but napped a little in the afternoon.  It was all very interesting, but next time, I’ll be bringing a book with me.

We went for a steak dinner that night, and enjoyed the city a little more.  We had perfect weather the whole time we were there, and found it to be very Vancouver-ish, less the ocean.  We’re definitely planning to go back.

Here is what we learnt for next year:

• Book a hotel a lot sooner than 2 weeks before the meeting. Or learn to appreciate cigarette smoke.
• Rent a car.  While there are still some left in the city to be rented.  Bring the GPS.
• Bring a book and assorted other Tara Activities to the meeting to keep myself occupied.
• Make  a reservation at a steakhouse.  We had a great dinner, but it wasn’t our first choice.
• Start saving for said steak dinner now.
• Bring some money in order to invest in some new jewels.
• Arrive at the Borsheim’s Reception a lot earlier. Don’t wear the schlumpy shit we’ve been wearing all day.
• Allow for more than a day and half on the ground.

Best Laid Plans

I’m not sure what I was thinking yesterday when I so ambitiously thought I would be 30 Day Shredding for (HA!) 30 days.  Boot Camp had a small change in personnel last night, and I considered my ass thoroughly KICKED by the end of it.  It was all I could do to get home and eat dinner before collapsing into a slack jawed stupor in front of the computer.  Needless to say, I still haven’t completed all the writing for my website.

So screw it. I’ll do what I can, and leave the 30 Day nonsense to a time when I actually have some, with a chaser of able to walk to the DVD to start the workout!  

It is Tuesday, so here are photos…taken with our new 50 mm lens.  We are running out of subjects (I am working on having a kid in the next year or so, because kids=photos shoots (and apparently a lot of other stuff, too).

Monsieur Serious. He's pretty sure the camera is made of cookies, hence the soulful stare. I *heart* him.

 

The pain in the ass cat (he's 400 years old, so it's OK)

Roses from the sweetest husband ever. There was much squealing and positive reinforcement...

Signing off from the living room, happy with life.

Mugs

Recap: sales meeting that went all morning, lunch that went wayyy too long, time at my desk furiously catching up that went way too quickly, 2 client meetings that went well (at which I heard the expression “Gee whiskers!” several times??), a quick stop into Costco wherein I managed to drop $100 on new sheets, new pillows, a cookbook and 3 workout videos, a yoga practice during which I realized just how little exercise I have done over the last five weeks (I did plenty of training with my fork…but it doesn’t seem to have worked – go figure), a dinner that was both well-planned and yummy, lazing about on the sofa with a napping, snoring, dreaming dog, shedding tears at the Biggest Loser.

The night also included photos with the somewhat-reluctant dog:

 

B and the Puppy - the start of the shoot

 

Blue Steel and Blue Yawn

 

Exhaustion

Photo Tuesday is likely supposed to be more interesting…but these ARE photos, and I’m the boss here.