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Monday, August 17, 2009

The long summer

Hello to all!

I apologize for the lack of posting. As does so often, life gets to me.

It's been a busy summer to say the least. There is so much travel required with The Job, and it's either too long at a place I don't want to be in (IE Fresno in 115+ degree heat) or a place I like for two short of a time (Sequoia National for an afternoon). But camps have wound down, I am actually getting two days of work off in a row instead of scattered, and life is somewhat returning to normalcy.

So, in the news for us: A house, potentially. After much looking, praying, looking some more, yelling, and a whole lot of paperwork, we have discovered a place that met our newest set of requirements. We've had to change things around a bit. Originally, our wants were:

1) At least three bedrooms
2) A yard big enough for The Dog (and, likely, a second The Dog to entertain The Dog original)
3) A nicer, quiet neighborhood

Now we were just asking for

1) Walls that aren't termite infested
2) Bathtubs that are actually attached to the wall like they should be instead of under the sink (MAN I wish I had a photo of that one!)
3) A house that does not have carpeting/paint/wallpaper/decor that is older than I am (I'll be 29 this winter, folks!)
4) A house that does not look like the set of a 1970's pornographic movie (LONG story, but yeah, it was bad)
5) A yard that does not have grass that I have to jump to see the tops of

There are some others that were interesting, but I will have to save those for another day.

I hate mentioning getting a house because, everytime I start to talk about it, we lose it. BUT it looks like, so far, this one sticks. We just have to wait for the bank to finalize their ends of it and we can start closing.

It's not a bad house at all. It's five bedrooms, three baths, just under 2900 square feet and a 6500 sq. ft. lot. The kitchen is decent sized, the living room and family room are the biggest, and the bedrooms are on the smaller side, which I don't mind at all. The master bathroom is quite large, and there are his and hers walk-in closets that are just the right size (If they're too big, I start to use them as storage units!).

There are a few downers. The family did have children/teenagers that wrote or punched a few holes in the walls, so that will obviously need to be repaired. The carpets are also in need of repair, and the whole house could use some caulking and paint. The yard will also need some lawn, especially the back, but there is plenty of shade, 6 different fruit trees, and someone already built a kennel for three dogs and a little outdoor Jacuzzi house. We might keep the tub room; the kennel has to go because there is no way The Dog will be confined there. We've also got to replace the AC unit for the chinchilla herd, since they have to be in temperature-controlled rooms.

The biggest difficulty will be Dog and his run. The side of the house is fairly large, so we can easily put in the dog run, giving him access to the garage whenever he chooses. The only problem is that our previous owners, in addition to having three dogs (likely pits, mind you) have a litter of kittens in the garage, and three emaciated strays in the front yard. The outside cats were so skinny, you could see the skin hanging off of the mother cat and see the indentations of her hip and leg bones. I had just purchased a chicken strip lunch but didn't get around to eating it the last time we visited the home, and so I tore up the pieces (5 rather large ones) and left them for the outdoor kitties to eat. The outdoor kittens were approx. 4-6 months old, and I would say the ones inside were about a month. They were smaller than most of my chinchillas, with the exception of the Pooper, who can still be held in one hand.

Sadly, we cannot keep these adorable cats for fear that they would eat the Birds, the Fish, the Chinchilla Herd or be loved to death by The Dog (Think Lenny from Of Mice and Men and you'll get the picture).

I am genuinely hoping that the occupants just haven't returned to pick up the kitties. Otherwise, we may have some temporary squatters in our home. This would be okay for now, since we would need time to touch up the yard and put in the run for The Dog. But I do not want to leave Dog forever, or cause too much of a delay in acquiring Dog 2.

This should be an exciting move. I still find leaving very hard. I cried everytime I've moved, except for the last move from out of my Parental Unit's home to our apartment. I blame the upset on having grown up and lived in the same house until I moved to college. For those who are curious, I made my first move January 2004 to Colorado, then in November of 2004 I got married and moved into married housing. December 2005/January 2006 (It was New Year's Weekend) we moved back to my Parental's home, and in July 2007 we moved to our current apartment, our first "home" in our entire 4 year marriage. Hopefully I can get a lot of pictures of the place before we pack up for good.

Well, that is enough rambling for now. Eye strain from the computer is very much getting to me. Until next time, peoples.