Lessons learned: new home ownership

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I owned a home with my (former) husband. You would think that I knew the intricacies involved with home ownership, correct? This past year has been.......interesting.......in owning a home again. (I had about 10 years where I was a renter, so I was quite spoiled with not having to do quite a few things such as mowing the grass, snow removal, ohhhh, paying the water and trash bills, etc).

Lesson #1 learned: keeping on top of outdoor maintenance is a pain in the ass. Mowing the grass, weed wacking, snow removal, keeping sidewalks clear and slip free in the winter. While we're at it: pulling weeds, mulching, maintenance of the flower beds/flowers/trees. Don't get me wrong - I love gardening. However, when you have a homeowner's association, you also have certain standards (gag me!) that you have to live up to. Or else you get nasty-grams from the HOA. Yeah, I've had nasty-grams (several) in the past year. All about how a certain tree isn't alive. I beg to differ - it certainly is alive, and does not need replaced. Just because the leaves have sprouted out from the base of the tree versus the top of the tree, does not really make the tree dead. It just makes it "different".

Moving on...........

Lesson #2 learned: keeping walls clean is no joke when you have a messy 8 yr old kid who likes to touch every-single-wall. I love me some Magic Erasers from Mr Clean! Or, perhaps repainting the walls will look better? I'm not a fan of these white walls.

Lesson #3 learned: one cannot run a cool mist humidifier in the winter, with closed windows, and not expect to see mold develop on said windows. Yes, totally gross. I have scrapped the cool mist humidifier for now (and changed it out for a air purifier), but in the winter time, it gets awfully dry in the house. I was also up at midnight last night scrubbing the nasty black mold off of the window sills. Gross. Mold = worse allergies. Dry air = dry nasal passages. It's a catch 22 situation folks.

Lesson #4 learned: it's going to be expensive keeping up with the yard. Yes, back to the yard work. I didn't really think about the fact that I will need several "scoops" of mulch each spring to keep the flower beds and landscaping looking fresh. Sigh. So much for the "free upgrade" of the outdoor landscaping when we were building the house. I didn't really consider the years of maintenance to keep up the "free upgrade" of the extra landscaping.

Lesson #5 learned: water, sewer and trash is expensive. Holy crap!

Lesson #6 learned: annual property taxes. Need I say more?

Lesson #7 learned: maintenance for the central air/heating unit. Keeping on top of this is important, otherwise, God knows how expensive it would be to replace it.

Lesson #8 learned: electricity problems? Yeah. Great. We have problems with the electricity in the basement already. Three outlets have gone out. Electrician coming next week to fix it. Luckily, it's still within our one year home warranty.

Lesson #9 learned: if something breaks, we have to pay for it to be fixed. Self explanatory.

Lesson #10 learned: it's hella more expensive to have electricity for an 1800 sq foot home versus a 900 sq foot townhouse. Shut off the darn lights when you leave a room kids!!!!

Lesson #11 learned: while a hardwood floor certainly looks beautiful, and you think it's less maintenance than carpet, it's really more maintenance.

Lesson #12 learned: well, it's still a mystery. Where the heck does all of this dust come from? Baseboards, floor, counters.........it's just all over the place! The filter gets changed every month in the forced air furnace, perhaps it's time to clean all of the vents out again?? I mean, flipping heck! Every single baseboard trim needs wiped down AGAIN.

No matter how much I complain, I would do it again. I just step outside, look up at our house and say...........wow, this is OURS!!!!!

Sunset

Hi honey, I'm home!

Here's a little update on life in general in the Cervix household:

Our move into the big and beautiful new house is FINAL! Yessiree Bob! We are in the new house, and are completely out of the old rental house. You would not believe just how much stuff I threw away when we were packing and moving. I swear to you, for each box of things that I packed for us to take, I stuffed an equal number of trash bags full of broken/unwanted junk for the trash man. I should have taken pictures of the process, but I honestly just wanted to be done.

I literally found a stack of over 12 phone books that I tossed. More than 12 PHONE BOOKS! Just how many phone books does one household need? Why do 4 different phone companies send multiple phone books to each house every year? Time for phone books to go digital. Think of how much paper we could save by not printing phone books.

(Then again, why did we save over 12 phone books??)

Of course, now I have to try to find where exactly I packed everything so I can then figure out where to put it all. At least we have much more space. ::big smiles::

I still have a list of items that we could really use, but plan on buying them slowly over the next year (or less, I hope). Things like a washer and dryer. You never really notice just how much wash you do, until you don't have a washer and dryer to do it. For now, it's the laundromat. A real pain in the tush, but necessary for now.

Our youngest daughter also still needs a real bed. Yeah, she doesn't have a bed. Hasn't had one since she outgrew her toddler bed. We've co-slept for the past 4-5 years now, and enough is enough. She has made this nest of her sleeping bags and assorted blankets on her bedroom floor and has been having a blast sleeping like that for now. However, she definitely needs a real bed. Now, to find a place that is reasonable, and will ship it to the house, since our car is an itty bitty thing.........

There are a few other things I'd really love to invest in, but I won't bore you with my sundry list of furniture and miscellaneous household things I'd like to buy.

My neck, back and shoulders ache from all of this packing and moving. But I'm so glad to be done.

Moving on

Packing, moving and unpacking is really tiring and time consuming! The only saving grace is that I love our new house. Love the space, the new house "smell", the private area for studying (weeee!!!!).

Don't like: how much stuff we have accumulated over the years, hauling it from the old place to the new one, trying to figure out where to put it all, trying to remember WHERE I put something after I put it there. Don't enjoy the aching back, shoulder and neck muscles one bit.

Do like: losing 4 lbs from all of the physical exercise.

Back to hit the books and study to make up for lost study time!!!

Just breathe

I will never again ask "what more can go wrong?" because that is obviously the key to making things go from bad to worse.

God-willing, we will get this house.

I found out that my former attorney did some bad things. And it has affected how I can access some funds that I was going to use for closing costs and related moving expenses. Now I have to petition the courts for a document change allowing me access to those funds.

::breathe::

Then I received a letter from one of my student loan holders that my school sent them documentation that I graduated. And that my loan has entered it's grace period of 6 months before repayment begins.

No, I haven't graduated. Now I need to fix this (big) boo-boo.

::breathe::

My loan broker is having his own family and personal medical crisis, and I'm waiting on how much exactly I need to pay at closing, which is less than one week away.

::breathe::

I have to pay the monthly bills and see how much is left over out of our general household funds that I can use towards closing and moving expenses. At least, until I can get a release on other funds that are frozen.

::breathe::

And classes start on Monday.

::breathe, don't hyperventilate::

And I have my own personal medical problems that are requiring further medical testing (and patience while waiting for the results to come back). Could be an acute issue or a chronic issue. Might need further medical testing and treatment.

::just breathe::

Things will get better. Yes, they will get better.

The little engine that could.......lose her sanity

Good afternoon everyone!

Well, I've been quite the busy girl with printing up just some of the assignments and notes to read for the beginning of the next school term. My poor printer has no clue what's coming in the months to come. I'm surprised the printer has lasted this long.

New ink cartridge? Yep.

New reams of paper? Yep.

New humongous 3 ring binder? Yep.

My sanity? Debatable.

Whose idea was it to buy a house and move at the beginning of a term? Yeah, that would be my idea. I've been having to print out document after document to appease the loan Gods (ahem) for all of the little proof of this, and proof of that so they will allow this mortgage to go to settlement. I had no idea of the paperwork involved in the purchase of a home! It's worse than being a nurse! (There - I said it! There IS something worse than a nurse's paperwork.)

I would love to be able to snap my fingers and magically have all of our furniture and boxes of stuff moved to the new house after we close. And boy, do we have a lot of stuff. I think there is going to be some serious weeding out of this huge amount of belongings!!

I am ready to be back in the swing of studying, test taking, and life in general. I always swore that the last time we moved, it would be the LAST TIME WE MOVED. Yeah, not so much. Six years later, we are feeling very confined in such a small rental property. Need more space!!

On the work side........

Where are all of these pregnant women coming from? We are standing room only at labor and delivery! It's not just where I live either, I'm hearing the same issues with full units all over the place.

Oh, and I was able to catch a baby recently. A big, fat, cute baby. So totally awesome!!!!

To be honest, I love being present on so many "birthdays"!

Looking ahead

I am DONE with this term! WOO!! Go me! I feel some sense of relief that another term "bites the dust", but also apprehension. Why? Because for my Midwifery Community Assessment course, I submitted a big-a$$-mo-fo paper that is more than half of my grade. I turned it in yesterday.

I must say, when I hit the "submit" button on my school interface --- it's like a huge pit in my stomach. It's the "oh my gawd! I can't believe I submitted it! I take it back! ACK!"

Anyway. What's done is done. I either get a good grade to pass the course, or I don't. Life goes on!

Speaking of life going on --- with no school for me until Jan 10th, whatever will I do? Oh yes, work :-) I have plenty of shifts in the school break time, with plenty of on-call slots open that I could sign up to make some extra moolah. Perhaps I will sign up for more time. Sure is nice to have that extra boost in the paycheck.

Christmas cards: still haven't written any out. Guess I should be doing that in the next few days. I'm not very good at all about sending Christmas cards out each year.

We also have very minimal decorations up this year. Not even a tree. Bah! Humbug! you might say. Let me 'splain the reason why.

We're building a brand spanking new house!!!! I am so super excited about it! But in the process of it being built, our rental house, which is too small to begin with, is practically busting at the seams with our belongings. Also, I've been bringing home oodles of empty boxes from work to start packing, so needless to say - we have very little empty space left around here. We go to settlement in mid January. Fingers crossed that everything with the mortgage goes smoothly. It has been a very bumpy ride so far in trying to get a mortgage approved.

Would you like a sneak peek of our new house?


3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths (with a rough-in in the full basement for another 1/2 bath to be built in the future).

I can't wait for it to be done!!