WOW, is my blog outdated.....

Here's the house!

Looks pretty bad in this photo, honestly! This is the MLS listing photo. Can you believe we still checked out the place based on this photo? Believe me, it looks much better right now: new roof--Thanks, Obama!--the weeds ;P have grown in (patchy ground was from replacing septic system) and are now mowed regularly, and the bushes are a little more under control!

And the Baby!

I think you've all heard about Baby, so the majority of this post will fill in the details on the house. First, though, as of today I'm 18 wks and 2 days. Yay for almost half-way there! And, yay for cleaning out the nursery yesterday! (There really is a floor in there!)

And the Cat!

Well, really, this is just a look-alike as we're still camera-less and I forgot to take a pict of her when I had access to A's camera. . . . She's a sweet-heart, but I can't keep her. (Asthma/allergies stink.) Anyone want a cat??? Please??? She's really gotta go before I go into labor, much as I'll hate passing her on to someone else, or else I'm going to seriously have to be on oxygen the entire time the way my asthma is right now. . . . (I'm looking forward to upping my med dose next week, but I know from prev experience it'll only do so much.) I'm too much of a softy to take her to a shelter, and all the no-kill shelters are full with how many people had to give away their cats in this economic down-turn. . . .

And, back to the house!

Really, the main things that sold us on the house were. . . .

1) Location, location, location: Sure, it's definitely NOT prime real estate. However, we were NOT buying it (ha, we'd have to remind ourselves) as an investment. (We watch too much TLC/HGTV--DON'T DO THAT at least a YEAR before looking into house buying! It's DANGEROUS. You'll end up buying a fixer-upper like we did! BAD, BAD, BAD!!! ;) ) For us, it's a great location. If we were going to move at this point in our lives, we wanted to do it as sanely as possible, and considering what this summer has involved, I think we did pretty good! We didn't want to leave the ward--never thought I'd say that, but considering the perk of not having to say goodbye to great friends after only 2 yrs, I learned to be quick to say it!---or have to get used to a new area of town, which affects not only having to learn driving routes, etc, but also having to get acquainted with an area's stores and "good buy" prices and re-creating shopping routines. We also needed to be able to get S to work via a safe scooter route or a short bus route (as in 30min. trip max). We're not fans of long commutes:

15-min scooter ride for S to work (12-14 min for me, depending on traffic lights since he takes a lower mph route), prob 7 min. from Kroger (was 5min from our apt), still only 5min. to the great toddler park we enjoyed when in our apt.....We thought that was pretty decent!

We always toyed with the idea of living in the country. In fact, the past two apartments we've lived in (MI & NC) were always on the edge of town, so seeing fields and farms (in MI) or trees galore (NC) was only 1-5 min. away. We're technically outside of Durham, and just a hop-skip-and a jump from the Durham County line, although I'd honestly rather be paying taxes in the county whose services I'm going to be using the most. However, it's like 2-5 minutes until we reach "civilization", depending on your definition of the word. ;)

It is off a 45-mi country road, which was a major con, but it is at the far end of a large cul-de-sac, which has turned that major con into more of a minor one. Hopefully the rest of our kids are as cautious as Hannah, or if they're not, hopefully they're more interested in the woods behind the house rather than the asphalt in front.....There's good....Oh, what's the word....You can see cars coming for a good distance both ways down the old highway, and there are 2-3 houses on each side between us and that road. So, yes, I do need to keep track of the toddlers, but I was already doing that living in apartments. Let's just say I'm grateful our oldest has a good head on her shoulders. . . . if she's well-rested I should say! ;) Today was unfortunately not one of those days. . . but I digress. . . .

2) Yard: wanted it to have plenty of roaming space for the kids (and us!), and it definitely has that! It's a mini version of my dream property: grassy play area (although, it's honestly dense weeds! :P ), small wooded area, even has a creek that runs through it when we get a lot of rain. How cool is that??? Plus, it had a fenced-in area in the back (original owners apparently had a small dog). As it's now been years since a dog's been living back there, I don't mind using it to contain the little ones!

3) House Size: 3 bedrm, sm front living room, large family room. (They turned the carport into a bonus room.) I love that it has two living areas. We wanted a small home (lol, not that we could afford anything else, at least in the safer parts of town!), and two living areas makes a small home SO much more do-able! And the 3-bdrms....the whole point of moving was to find something at least 3-bdrm. If your daughter's life battle was sleep (as in, she's been fighting it since the moment she was aware of it), you probably wouldn't have the guts to put another child in her room with her either . . . at least if you valued your own sanity! Once she's older and doesn't nap anymore (which probably won't be until she's six the way things are going!), she ought to be able to share a room with a younger sibling. (She'll be 4 in Feb, and she has to have her two-hour nap at the exact right time and be in bed before 7 p.m. each night or she starts waking up at night. When sleep-deprived, she also bounces between being goofy and grouchy, and she also becomes accident prone--as in both the "ouch!" kind and the "Uh, oh! I'm wet!" kind. My own ability to handle all the above with patience depends on how much sleep I've been getting and/or how long I've been having to deal it all. Either way, it's just better for the whole family around if everyone sleeps well!!!!)

4) Price: Honestly, it was one of two houses that was in our very low house-buying budget in the area of town we wanted to live in. . . . Yes, Mom, we're crazy. . . . ;)

So, anyway, we're loving living in a house! (And we also are learning now what it's really like to have a really tight budget. But, hey, at least we're learning to enjoy that too, right?)