It's really fall

I just noticed that the days are getting shorter. It's dark when I leave in the morning now.

And as if that wasn't weird enough, it's raining in Austin! It must be the apocalypse.

PS It can rain for the next 40 days but starting October 23, I'm gonna need 3 days of sunshine. Thanks.

48 days & counting

Here's to hoping that in 48 days I'll be a married homeowner. We're down to the nitty gritty on the wedding and have placed an offer on yet another house.

The wedding plans are down to dress fittings, RSVPs (ahem, if you haven't RSVPed, you totally should b/c its way fun to get RSVPs), bridal showers and vendor confirmations. However each day that it gets a little closer I get a little more anxious. I hope I'm not a basket case by the week of!

The house we've put an offer on is 3 bed 2 bath in a really nice new-ish Pflugerville neighborhood. The neighborhood is one of my favorite factors. The current owner hasn't done much in the way of decor or upgrades so its kinda plain jane now but I think it has a lot of potential. With a little paint, fun light fixtures and maybe some new floors one day, it can really be OUR home. And I'm at the end of my househunting rope so I hope it comes through.

Now 2 points of commentary on current events.

1. Colt McCoy, QB for UT, was just on the news commenting on a teammates injury. He texted the guy that he was praying for him. All about prayer and good thoughts, but how sad is it that now we can just text each other and that's perfectly acceptable? What happened to a good old fashioned phone call or God forbid, a visit? Sigh, at least he didn't Facebook the guy with his prayers.
2. What's so wrong with the President encouraging kids to finish school and reach for the stars? There are two districts in Austin not showing tomorrow's speech. Democrat or Republican he's our president and encouraging kids to get an education. Goodness, kids have so many bad influences that it amazes me we are debating a GOOD influence/message in their lives.
   

My new mission

As if having a job, puppy, hubby, wedding and buying a home weren't enough. I needed a new mission. This is my personal social media mission.

Today I read a Boston Globe article about the new "dorm" at BU, Student Village 2. Student Village, or StuV as those in the know say, opened while I was at BU and it is a pretty dang sweet residence. But BU, being the good steward of funds that they are, has gone and upped the annie with StuV2. I now am fully confident that I know where my thousands and thousands of dollars in tuition money went - to a 26 story high rise luxury college residence along the Charles River.

Ooo do you hear a tinge of jealousy in my voice? OK sure, maybe you do. But dang it, every month I make a payment toward my BU education/the fancy dorm and all I want is to stay one night in that super fancy residence hall that I helped pay for. Is that too much to ask?

So my new mission is to lobby the heck outta BU til they cave and say "fine Cheryl! Damn girl! Quit hounding us on Twitter/Facebook /Blogger! You and Ross can stay one stinking night in this dorm!"

If BU will succomb then I will be forever sold on the power of social media and might even become a BU donor one day...so that other students can have swanky residence halls and laugh at the kids like me who stayed in the BU ghetto on Ashford Street. Until the swanky residence hall kids realize that despite paying $13K for 9 months of housing, they still have to swipe an ID card to get into their own residence, can't have overnight guests and sleep on twin size beds. Then who will be laughing huh.

PS Poor Ross probably won't even be laughing then since he doesn't know the horror of the BU guest policy and actually just sees the loan payment bill every month...yeah BU, I'm gonna need that free night to appease my soon-to-be-husband. Thanks much.

I'm marrying that guy

iphone camera test
Originally uploaded by cheryl_lynn425.

NEXT MONTH!

Woohoo!

Waiting Game

This weekend we're having some estimates done at the Framingham house. We can't do anything, make any decisions or anything else until we have these estimates. Needless to say I am very anxious. We don't want to take on a house that requires more work than we can afford of course. But I do really like the lay out and location of this house. I'm willing the work to be minimal and the seller to be willing to cover it. Either way we'll know by Friday what the story is.

And if it doesn't work out? Hitting the pavement to find one more house and hope its the one. Between the option money and the inspection I think we can only afford to go as far as we have once more. I'm very thankful that we set a goal of finding something pre-wedding as now we do have post wedding time for a cushion.

Ross is at the firehouse today so I may try to do some wedding things. I'm down to the details and ready to knock them out. The next 8 weeks are filling up quick and even though its a decent amount of time, I'm thinking I should buckle down when I can. Next weekend is Labor Day...and if the house doesn't work out, a weekend of house hunting. The weekend after that I'm in San Angelo for work and the weekend after that is my bridal shower hosted by Nancy's friends. September 26 I have a bachelorette party to go to and then we're into October! We have weddings on October 10 and 16 then ours on the 25th. See, it may be 8 weeks but its 8 very busy weeks. Yeah, I should probably knock some of it out today while Ross is gone...

Framingham Circle

We put in an offer on another house and after a couple days of negotiations, we agreed to terms with the seller. Woohoo! We wrote a couple big checks and now that baby on Framingham Circle is off the market and ours for the taking.

Today we had our home inspection. I don't know why I didn't anticipate this just being a bad meeting by definition. You go to meet with this guy whose only job is to tell you everything wrong with your future home. How could that go well? I suppose it could have been worse but the house has some issues we're not wild about. We have a little more investigating to do before we're able to decide what our next step is. We're perfectly fine putting some money and time into basic repairs but we need to make sure these are basic repairs that are in our price range. Cross your fingers.

I'm excited to buy a house but I'm understanding more by the day why this is cited as one of the most stressful decisions ever. Whew.