We did it.

Tonight, after waiting over an hour because other appointments ran late, we bought a house. We signed all of the contractor paperwork/contract (just got the mortgage paperwork to fill out) and have our new address. We have chosen the color of our siding, shutters, doors and trim. I can't wait to go to the design center to pick out the flooring, counter tops, ect.
Move in date is set for August 1st.
Tomorrow we get to go put our 'SOLD' sign up on our lot! Hopefully it will be nice out.

Holy craziness!

So let me just recap this past week for you:
Friday - we both worked then met Cara at Applebee's for dinner and drinks. Then it was off to the mall to buy Chase a few new work shirts. Success!
Saturday - Sleep in, grocery shopping, also stopped at Target and Sterling Optical to find me new glasses. Then Knighthawks game with Cara and her whole family.
Sunday - Lazy day. Convinced Mom to drive out here to bring me ice (we don't have an ice maker and use a lot of ice, Mom has an ice maker but hardly uses any ice so she brings it to me). While her and John were here we decided to go look at the models at Ryan and Faber Homes...they're right down the street from us. We loved them. I'd been wanting to look at Ryan because they have a neighborhood out in our desired location. We decided to make an appointment for Monday evening to talk to Pat about financial stuff, just to see where we sit. After looking at the ones here we decided to drive out to Farmington to check out the one we want to live in - dreaming. They only had 6 lots left, sad.
Monday - Work for both of us, meeting with Pat at 6pm. We were there until 8, kept him an hour late, and left with the financial breakdown for two different floor plans. We fell in love with the larger one and my hopes started soaring - I want to live in that house!
Tuesday - Work, went to Gates/Chili to look at glasses with Cara and had lunch at Subway, then went to Greece to pick up my trial contacts. At 5:30 we had another appointment with Pat at Ryan Homes to walk through our desired floor plan, they're building it as a model. We ended up leaving him a check to hold a lot.
Wednesday - Work, interview at Hemisphere Management, dinner with Mom and John to get their opinions on our building a house that is well over what we thought our price range was. Conclusion = We can afford it and still put money away into savings.

Saturday we go back to Ryan to sign the contract and work through all that. We're bringing Mom and John to make sure we don't miss anything and to show them the model that's being built.

Yea, we're building a house. So much for getting a cheap starter that needs tons of work! I'm quite excited. & terrified.

New Job

So lately (ok, for the past few months) I've been thinking about getting a new job. I keep going back and forth on it and I just can't seem to make up my mind.

Pros of my current job:

• I've lost 20lbs and am in the best physical shape that I've been in in about 3 years.
• I work about 5-6 hours a day M-F so my afternoons and weekends are free.
• Come summer time I can spend my afternoons out on the lake in Dad's boat.
• I get to work with horses
• The pay is good for only working 20-25 hours a week
• Once the snow all melts and the ground hardens up and grass starts growing about half my horses will be living outside = less stalls to clean.
  

Cons of my current job:

• My boss is crazy...like should be institutionalized crazy.
• It's a lot of physical work and I come home every day barely able to walk because my back hurts so bad.
• The next 2 months are probably going to be Hell with the melting/freezing/raining/Spring so the horses won't be out that often which makes stalls awful
• Inadequate help. I have more horses and more work to do than when I started in August yet am expected to get everything done in the same amount of time without help.
• My new car is already dirty after only a week.
• When it's cold, it's damn cold.
  

Humph. It's really a lot to think about. I think I'll probably stick around for a while and tough it out. When the weathers not bad, like today, I quite enjoy my job. My boss was even pleasant today.
Decisions, decisions.

New car!!!

Today the temps jumped up to about 50 degrees which was fabulous....perfect car shopping weather! I of course had my heart set on buying a car today. I didn't want to go out shopping all day and then come home with nothing. We dragged Mom and John out with us, John is a great negotiator and really we needed some opinions since this is the first time we've bought a car.

We had our sights sent on Nissan Altimas and Mazda's (3/6). Starting out at Ideal Nissan we found a fabulous Altima which was EXACTLY what I wanted, but the salesman would not work with us at all. So we headed over to Marina Dodge Mitsubishi to look at a few Mazda6's that I had found online. We went in and talked to the salesman and never even saw the Mazda's. He mentioned he had a car in mind after discussin the things that were important to me. He went out to the lot and pulled up in a navy 2008 Nissan Sentra with high 19K. Not exactly what I was looking for, but we took it for a test drive and really liked it! Turns out that one had already had a deposit put down on it, BUT he had another one in black...same specs and all only it has 14K on it. We also test drove this one and it was great. So today we bought a new preowned car! They originally came at us with a monthly payment of $287/mo which was about $87 more than I was wanting to spend. We talked them down to a payment of $210/mo.

I'm all sorts of excited to go pick it up on Monday evening!

I didn't take any photos of it, but here's some from the dealership:

I'm a real cowboy

I learned two things tonight.

1) I kick ass at riding a mechanical bull. That bull was my bitch.

2) My wife looks hot on a bull of the mechanical variety. Seriously, guys get your wife on a bull. It's damn hot.

We saw a comedian tonight with some friends from work, the second wife, and the Becky. He was very loud. Good sound FX though. Apparently, you CAN remove the black X's they put on your hands for people under 21. Although we couldn't get Becky on the bull, seeing Cara and Luen on it was awesome. I really enjoy getting charged much less than what we actually drank (Alcohol is waaaaay overpriced anyway).

I am very big on rock remixes of rap songs. It's my firm belief that rappers are not musicians, rather they are very flamboiant speakers. Framing Hanley's version of Lick it Like a Lollypop is proof that a rap song can sound good on so many different levels when there is actual music behind it. Jay-Z and Linkin Park had it figured out.

I am proud of myself for not letting myself go once I got married. I keep in shape, she gets the goods, it's really a win-win. My wife has lost a little bit of weight (none of which she had to lose in the first place) and is looking very good. I'm really proud of both of us. Some would say it's the "Newly wed" phase, but, in reality, we've been living together for four years. We've done the newly wed thing and come out on the other side.

I'm excited to get a new car tomorrow...even though it's not for me. I suppose you could say it's for me since I get the CRV (a giant step up from the '93 Olds). She's going to look sexy in our new (gently used) car.

Groundhog's day

I don't believe the groundhog.
The horses (and dogs) at work are shedding their winter coats already.
I think they would know better than a silly little groundhog.

Eh...

Apparently I'm rather boring. Last night Chase and I were watching Interview With A Vampire and by 9 o'clock I was passed out. I slept downstairs until about 11 then moved up to bed and was out until about 9 this AM. I didn't even hear my cell phone ring when Dad called me last night...my cell was in my lap. I'm a good time.

This morning Chase did our taxes. We were going to have them done but because we don't really have any deductions Chase decided to do them himself on Tax Slayer. We're getting quite a bit back and I'm pretty thrilled about that. It'll be nice to see the savings fill up again so soon after I empty it to buy a car. Speaking of which, we're going car shopping next weekend. Hopefully we'll find something good.

Anywho, it's off to my mom's for a tiny Super Bowl party with her, John and my grandparents.

Go Cardinals!