Adjusting to our new home

Last Friday, Paula and I began moving into our new home. It's pretty exciting, but we're sort of making it painfully drawn out by moving over in the little loads that our mini-van carries. But, we're nearly finished and we're all beginning to adjust to our new place. We christened the house with my mom, Eirik, Heidi, and their son Skye who were in town.

Due to the heat wave, Paula and I are adjusting from our quasi-finished basement where temperatures feel like they're 30 degrees cooler. Our pets on the other hand have been having a more interesting time.

Maddie has been coming over and hanging out while we've worked on the house for the past month. So, she's quite at home in her back yard now. Gordon (aka. Fat-tastic), is the easiest going cat in the world and essentially thinks everything on the planet is for his benefit, which is making his transition go pretty smoothly. However, Cleo and Gus (our two neurotic cats) have their own methods.

(Maddie in her back yard)
(Gordon and his dominion)

After letting Gus out of the pet carrier, he ran directly into the return air duct system associated with our furnace. While he eventually came out, he then hid above the duct system in the basement for another day. The bad news is that Gus (typically a white cat) is now gray. The good news is that we've had our HVAC system cleaned out.

(Gus is in there, somewhere)

Cleo (a small black cat) has found every small nook and cranny for her to blend into the darkness and shadows. Her favorite spot in our old place was below the guest bed, which seems to be a prime location for her again.

(Camouflaged Cleo)

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And so it begins...

We've got the keys to our new 1956 house! So, let the chores, projects, and to-do lists begin.

First on our list is remove the carpet and refinish the oak hardwood floors so we can move in. This is what I and the pooch started on Saturday afternoon while Paula was off saving kids lives. So far so great. The carpet has been coming up pretty easy. It's just time consuming getting all the tacks and staples up, but that's what books on tape are for. Already, the floors are looking so much better. However, give us a couple weeks and I'm sure they'll be even sweeter!

(Living room with carpet)

(Living room without carpet, but still with padding)

(Maddie enjoying the new/old oak hardwood floor)

We're excited to start planning out the project list, building the house in Google SketchUp so we can play around with future design ideas, and generally working on the house. Although its in good condition, I'm sure there's going to be a lot that we'll need/want to do.

I've also met some of our neighbors too. Seems like the whole block are full of good, friendly folk. Especially when they're having an ice social in early August! It's like they already know what my weakness is.

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It's official, we're HOME OWNERS!!!

We just got the call that all the paperwork is complete and we're now terribly in debt. We're so excited to start pulling carpet and get the renovation show going. The Radmakers have another 10 days in the house to move out and settle up with everything. So, that puts us into moving on July 12th, if we want. However, I think we'll probably stick around where we're at through July and slowly move over while having our floors refinished. We're looking forward to having a house warming party/bbq as soon as we can. I guess that means we'll be needing to buy a bbq in the near future...

Bring on the tax breaks!

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Rounds 1

As I write this, Dr. McPoland is in the middle of her first day of her residency. She's on Team 1 (don't exactly know what that means) making rounds on wards. I think her situation is that she's working with a team who's handling the kids that are admitted into Children's for certain ailments. This is a Q4 schedule, which means that she's on call every 4th day. Today is her first day and she's on call. The double wammy! I expect she'll be a little tired after her 30-hour shift that will end around 2pm tomorrow.

If you read this today, keep her in your prayers and send her a text telling her good luck and not to fall asleep while inserting an IV... I'm sure she'd appreciate the thoughts.

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Strange Timing

Looks like we haven't been the only ones impacted by bad appraisals. Turns out our realtor's office has had 5 low appraisals this week alone! The Seattle Times had an article about the situation as well. Looks like its become a national issue and is slowing home sales.

Timing is a funny thing with houses. 2 years ago, Paula and I had to pull out of the housing market because of the uncertainty with Paula's residency and where we would end up. That's after making 4 offers on houses that we may not realistically have been able to afford. So, God hooked us up there and the timing worked out perfectly for us to buy in a depressed 'buyers' market. However, just as we make an offer, we get on the front-end of a crazy increase in mortgage rates and weren't able to capitalize on the really low 4.75% interest rates that were steady for a couple months. Now, we're on the front end of a really crappy appraisal issue that's slowing down sales and/or terminating contracts. At least we've been on the front of these issues and not at the pinnacle of them.

Moral of the story: Life is funny and timing is everything...I guess.

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