Top 10 things about getting my own house/moving

OK, following up on yesterday's top 10, here's my favorite things about getting my own house. I can't do an adequate top 10 of my soon-to-be new town yet, but I can tell you the things I'm excited about getting a new house.

10. Yard work - I know this one won't last, but for now, I'm excited about doing my own yardwork. Luckily, the grassy part of my lawn is not that large, so it shouldn't take that long to mow my lawn. But I can also plant some roses (which I plan on in front of the living room window - nice to look at and for security)

9. I can wash my car in my driveway or on the grass instead of at a car wash. The auto washers scratch my car and I hate how Seven Flags arranges the controls for the do it yourself car wash. Now I can wash it by myself.

8. Washer and dryer - For the first time since I lived at Mom and Dads, I'll have my own washer and dryer and won't have to scrounge around for quarters to wash my clothes. Plus, I usually ended up doing my clothes at 10 PM, meaning I didn't get to go to bed until after midnight (since I didn't want to leave the clothes over night). Now, I can do it late and put the clothes in the dryer in the morning and have warm clothes in the winter. Believe me, I'm not excited about doing laundry, but since it's gotta be done, this will be so much better.

7. I'm not that far from my friends. When I moved to V-town, it took about 40 minutes to get there from where I used to live, and I didn't know anybody. So I drove over there all the time until I made friends here. Now, I'm only 20 minutes away, and still plan on hanging out with my friends from the area, as well as hopefully making new friends.

6. Having a yard. OK, to tell you the truth, when building this list, #6 is my last item I'm putting in. #10, #2, and #1 are similar, but I really like having actual land. When I look at my parcel on the county maps, I realize that my parcel is on top of another parcel. Now, this is mine! I love my redwood trees, and I love that I have a bit of other yard I can do other things with. Maybe I'll get my self a small garden, although I'll start with the roses and see if I can keep those alive.

5. Having family around more. Living in a one bedroom doesn't exactly encourage my family to come visit. Now when they come, I can set up both rooms for them. I plan on setting up one of them as my niece's room, and the other as the game room, with a futon in there, so it could be used as a room as well.

4. Nobody living right below me or right around. Now I can crank up my speakers a bit more when I want to watch a movie. Even when I finally get next door neighbors (the economic downturn wasn't very good to the former occupants of my house and the next door neighbors), they're not that close. Of course, that's always a worry - who will end up being my neighbors?

3. A garage. It's nice having my own dedicated spot with my carport, but it'll be even cooler with a garage, and my garage door opener. I like that I can do some things like vacuum out my car or other things in my garage. And it should be easier to organize my camping gear and be nice to just have my bicycle in there instead of locked up in my storage.

2. My dogs can run out and do their business without me having to be there. Now I have to get dressed in the morning and take my dogs out to do their business. Soon I'll be able to just let them out.

1. I'm getting a new doggie, a golden retriever. It's not a usual guard dog, but it'll be good to have a bigger dog to help protect the place, and for me to play with.

Top 10 things I'll miss about V-Town

To keep Internet predators from easily finding too much information about me, I'll not mention the actual town I currently live in nor the one I'm moving to - not that it would take much to find out, but stilll.

I'm going to miss V-town. Sure it has a reputation for not always having the best elements, but then again, neither does my new town. Here are the top 10 things I'm going to miss.

10. Papa Murphys - Over the years, I've bought a lot of pizza there, and I know the owner. I really like the people there. Luckily there's one on the drive home from work to my new home, but hopefully it'll be as good.

9. WalMart - It's a bit of a drive to get to WalMart now, but I like the new Supercenter. The one in my new town is old and it's also a long drive to get to. However, they are building a Supercenter that will end up being about a mile away, but that could still be a couple of years with all the legal entanglements these things go through.

8. 'V-town' - sorry, you can't call every town just by their first letter. I mean, 'F' town? P-town? Just not the same

7. A&W. We finally get one, and now I'm moving away. I love my A&W.

6. Costco. My new town has a Costco, but from where I live, it's closer to go to the next town up to go. I imagine I'll actually go to V-town's Costco as I go to visit friends, but it was very convenient from where I live.

5. Luckys - or any good grocery store close by. OK, Luckys is about a mile away from my home, but it feels close, and is on the way to or from the freeway. I kind of have to go out of my way to go to a Raleys, or drive even further to go to Safeway. No Lucky in the town I'm moving to.

4. The hills - they're not great for me for biking, but I like the hills around town and around the freeway. Very pretty green from January until June, and then a different beauty when the hills turn copper (OK, yellow, but that's not as poetic)

3. This is kind of a subset of #1, and maybe should be #2, but I'm going to miss Teresa and her family being so close. Of course, I'll live close to her brother, so I'm sure we'll see a ton of them with me visiting them or them coming up to her brother's house.

2. The marina - I love water, and although it's not like the water here is beautiful, I love taking my dogs down to the marina and going for the walk. Amy and I once even walked from one end all the way to under the bridge to MI,a nd then some. It was very fun and I love it. I'm seriously thinking of once in awhile driving down and going for a walk with my dogs once I move. No more night trips, I imagine, but a Saturday afternoon.

1. My ward! Hello, I love my fellow church members. I really wish I could still go to my ward, but at the same time, I'm single in the LDS church. I don't think the new town will have a lot more in terms of men, but the well was pretty dry in V-town. So I'm excited for the new people I'll get to meet. But I expect I'll make plenty of visits to my current ward. I think Megan would kill me if I didn't. It only takes 9 more minutes to get there from my new house as from my old one.

I'll do a top 10 of things I like about the new town when I move there. I will probably do a top 10 list of what I'm excited about with my new house soon.

Check out my house

So, the bank accepted my offer (well, I accepted their counteroffer), so it looks like I'm moving to a new town. That's both exciting for the new opportunities and new people I'll get to meet, and sad, as I'll really miss my ward and my stake. But it's not like it's that far away. I'll be visiting them all the time. And I'm going to be able to go FHA, so I can put less down and have more in reserve for any unforseen circumstances. That of course makes me happy.

Some people have really liked the garage door, but I'm replacing it with a modern rollup one and a garage door opener. It's safer and I think will be better for resale value.

This kitchen is a lot bigger than my little galley kitchen in my condo. It looks like the bank replaced the window with the duct tape covering a hole (as well as a boarded up bathroom window), although I'm going to replace it with a garden window. That'll be cool.

Here it is from the outside.

And here's a better view of the front of the house.

And another view from outside looking at the kitchen.

This is the living room. We're also going to replace this window, and we're going to take out the carpet and refinish the wood floors throughout the house. Two windows in the room will provide a lot of light. I might get some special curtains, though, to black out the light when I want to watch a movie during the day.

Here's the master bedroom. For some reason, they decided on green trim. I like green, so we'll see how it goes with everything else.

My parents are happy about the driveway for their RV to go. I want to replace that gate, although that might be awhile.

Now here's an exciting picture. This is the windows of the two bathrooms. The bank replaced the window on the left - it was boarded up when we viewed it.

You can't see it that well due to the reflection, but this is the little den and fireplace. I'll put my kitchen table here.

And now for the part that really made me fall in love with this property. It is one of the houses at the end of a cul-de-sac, and there is a lot of land. There are kind of two backyards, one that's foresty, and one that's more traditional.

Foresty:

Traditional:

That's the same tree there. There's some storage and what looks like a little welder's shop (spelling) around the fence. We're going to take that out and have more of a larger yard.

Putting down an offer

So, this weekend I did some more house hunting, and found a property I really love. What do I love about it most? There are several redwood trees growing on the lot, and this house is on the end of a cul-de-sac and has a large backyard. In fact, due to the position of the house and the property, there are kind of two back yards, separated by a gate. The one back yard has most of the redwoods and really feels like you're up at camp in the Sierras. There's some lighting that I imagine is cool when it's lit up. The other yard is more grassy (see below)

The outside of the house has some to be desired. It's not my favorite color and it has these weird diamond shapes on the garage door. I would have to replace three windows right away (kitchen window is broken, as is master bathroom, and front living room window just for security and looks), and the fence needs some looking after, but after that, that garage door is getting replaced! But I like the inside too. Wood floors under the bad carpet in there, so I'd want to change that, but a nice kitchen and dining area, plenty of storage, and that great feeling of getting away in the forested back yard is just awesome.

So I put a bid on it, and we'll see. I offered less than the asking price, because I'm trying to keep it low, but we'll see. I can go up. But I hate all of this paperwork. It gives me a headache and reminds me of all I had to go through for my condo. Aiy! The sad thing is the house is in Fairfield, which means not only would I be leaving the ward, but my stake as well. I really like my ward and stake, even when I don't get to go to camp! But maybe this is good for me. Maybe I'll get to meet a new group of guys. You never know. At least my dogs will like it.

Careful when praying

***Warning, if blood makes you doozy, don't read this one***

This morning I woke up to my three alarms (that's how many it takes me now), and kneeled down to say my prayers. Unfortunately, there was a shard of glass I missed before, but it didn't miss my foot. It hit right between the big toe and the next toe over. It hurt, but I pulled it out, thinking it was just a little blood, and went back to saying my prayer, but then realized there was something wrong. I opened my eyes again to see a lot of blood on the carpet and my foot. I guess I hit some sort of artery, the blood was pulsing out a bit. So I ran to the bathroom, blood trailing, and after about a minute of putting my finger on the wound, it finally clotted. I cleaned the bathroom (tile) and hall (laminate wood) flooring, but I still need to clean up my bedroom carpet. A friend told me something that will get it right up. Hopefully.
Here's my injured foot. The white on the side is from my painting my kitchen. As usual, I get more paint on myself than the walls.


So moral of the story - uh, definitely still pray, and kneeling is always good, so I guess, make sure your room is clean before you kneel to say a prayer, or it might hurt you.

Bummer...

Well, it looks like the house I really liked is off the market now. I guess I was a little too overcautious, as it's taken me awhile to get my financial information in order for the mortgage broker, and now that I decided I really wanted that place, it looks like it's gone. I know there's all of this 'If it's meant to be...' but I think I really needed to get more in gear earlier. But it did take me some time to decide for sure I wanted to buy a house, so now I'll look again and just wait until I find something better and not settle for anything less.

In the meantime, I'm painting my kitchen in anticipation of someday soon renting it out. I had painted it red, but never really liked it, especially for my small galley kitchen. I'm now painting it yellow and so far really like the results.