Tuesday, April 14, 2009

House Hunting, Books, Great Deals, oh my!

Greetings from the floor of my brother's house in Utah. LOL I am using hubby's laptop and for some off reason I planted myself on the floor rather then sitting in a chair. We have had a nice trip so far. The drive here was uneventful, which is to say, very good. We didn't even argue which we normally do when we are both tired and ornery and stuck in a car for a long time. ;) We spent the first two days at Jacob's mom's house. While there we got to meet our soon to be sister-in-law who came with hubby's brother (her fiance') for dinner. I showed them the picture of this cake I found and want to do for them. They loved it. Hopefully it turns out the way I am hoping. Hubby's sister and another brother and his wife were also there so it was so nice to catch up with them. After the weekend at my mother-in-laws house we came to my brother's house.

For the last two days we have been house hunting. While our intention was to just look for now and actually buy in a few months, we think we may have found the house for us so we are going to talk about it and pray about it and weigh some pros and cons and decide whether we want to put in an offer now or not. If we do we would request a closing date of July 1st which seems like a long way away, but really, it's only a little over two months. We figure if we close then, we will owe our first mortgage payment right around the beginning of Sept. which is when we plan to move back here to Utah, so the timing should work out perfectly. So we'll see what we decide. It is between two houses, one is just about perfect and wouldn't need any work done to it other then wall color (it's all white). It has new flooring through out, completely renovated kitchen and bathrooms, and a great backyard along with a 1 car garage where hubby would have his wood shop. 4 bedrooms, 2 bath, and a livingroom, and a family room. It's also a Tri-Level which would be great for me, I wouldn't have a huge amount of stairs to climb, which is tough for me to do on my bad days with my back. But this house is also a little more then what we wanted to spend. The other house is a lot less money, has the same amount of bathrooms and bedrooms, has a livingroom and a family room, but has an office that would make a great craft room. The kitchen and bathrooms all need updating, it's a split level which hubby hates, but for he likes this one, the backyard isn't very nice though and it also has no garage or wood shop so we would have to build a garage along with all the other renovations that we would need to do eventually. So we have to weigh the pros and cons of both. Both are good locations, good schools, nice neighborhoods etc. So we will see.

Anyhow, now, on to my great deal! We weren't going to get anything for the baby until we were officially approved for adoption (our case worker assures us it will be any day now) but, we were out shopping today and just looking at baby stuff for fun and we found a stroller/carseat combo regularly $170, for $104. We couldn't pass it up! Hooray for great deals! Not to mention that my mom just called and saw a listing on Craigslist for a new crib and mattress for $50 which would be awesome if we could get that!

Oh, and to top off the day, my mom gave me a present that she bought the baby while at a thrift store. She found one of my favorite books from growing up. I had several, you already know about Goodnight Moon, Stand Back Said The Elephant I'm Going To Sneeze and of course, The Runaway Road. But I haven't told you about another of my favorites, The Monster At The End Of This Book. It's a classic tale starring the lovable Grover who reads the title of the book and is so scared that there is a monster, monsters scare him. Over and over he tries to stop the reader from turning pages and tries tying the pages together, building a brick wall, and even nailing the pages shut. But the reader (who is so strong according to Grover) gets to the end of the book and they find the monster........ they find....... Grover himself. Grover says that he told you not to be scared (even though he is the one who was scared! hehehehehe It's too cute! And she found it in mint condition, not even a bent page. I love it! She is going to get the Runaway Road for me too. *grin*

5 comments:

Anne said...

That was one of my favorite books too. :)

Andrea said...

Hey! I have that Grover book, I don't know where it is exactly but it's in the house somewhere.

Where are the houses you were looking at?

Sharon said...

We are looking in the Hunter, West Valley, Taylorsville, West Jordan areas. Actually one of the houses we were considering was only a few miles from you guys Andrea.

Anonymous said...

I love that book!! I inadvertantly donated it to work, though :) If you are having trouble finding any books, try Ebay. I got one of my childhood favorites(that I still have!!) for my cousin's baby on there.

I have been watching the house hunting shows on HGTV and your descriptions of the houses reminded me of that!! Good luck!!

Janele Williams said...

Stand Back Said the Elephant... Is a favorite of mine as well. I found it at a thrift store a couple years ago and was absolutely thrilled. My kids love it too.