So Here's the Thing...

I have way too many projects to be sucked in by Pinterest now.  I have avoided asking friends for an invitation to the site.  But someone on facebook invited me.  And I clicked on it (after studiously ignoring it for 3 whole days, believe it or not!).  And now.  Now I know why I shouldn't have ever clicked it.

There are self-reliance ideas, people.  You may not be able to guess it (considering how I still don't have my 72-hour kit compiled and I don't have even close to a year's worth of food storage -- not that I have anywhere to store it...), but I'm really into this self-reliance stuff.  You know what sucked me in tonight?  Gardening stuff.  Specifically how one can grow new celery by using the base of the store-bought celery.  Let's just say they had me at "never buy celery again."  Hahaha...  So then I started reading up on growing an avocado plant from seed.  And then I read up on how to use egg shells to start seeds -- and then, when it's time to plant outside, you plop it, egg shell and all, into the ground!  And, yeah... You get the idea.

Here's the problem:  I can't do really try some of these fabulous things (or it's pointless to) at this juncture, as I have no yard.  Harumph.

But here's the solution:  buy a house!  Of course.  Which brings us to one "project" I could be working on right now.  Making a pros and cons list of the house Jeremy and I went and looked at today.  Yes, seriously.  We looked at a house!!  It's way exciting.  I mean, I do a lot of online house-hunting.  Like, daily.  But this was the first house we looked at.  It's not far from my mom's, so Sue and I walked by there on Tuesday as part of our exercise walk.  I'd seen pictures of it online, of course.  Only outside shots though.  Which can mean the inside is scary.  Anyway...  It's not exactly what we want as it stands.  But there's a fabulous word called potential.  And that's why I even considered it in the first place.

See, Jeremy and I have a list of what we want.  Mostly they are not negotiable.  Here they are, in no particular order:

• a minimum of .2 acres.  To my Alabama friends, know that I envy your sprawling lands, even within city limits.  It just ain't so here in Washington.  At least not where I live.  Within city limits, it's hard to find a yard bigger than a postage stamp.  Oh, they're out there.  But they are hard to find.  Well, hard to find if you have the next restriction:
• within 2 miles of where Jeremy works.  This is because he bikes to work and he would like to keep that up.  I am fine with that for several reasons:
• it saves on gas (which saves on money)
• it is allowing us to survive being a one-car family at the moment (and possibly in the future if there is another unplanned-for event...)
• one day I hope we have a baby (or 4).  And when that day comes, I won't work.  So my opinion is that his commute is what matters.  Because I won't have one.
• It will probably shorten his commute time which means more time with his family (aka me :)).
•  minimum of 1500 square feet.  We want a family.  We want them to have room to roam.  Which is also another reason for the acreage.  (That plus we want a garden.  A nice one.).  We also want room to have a dedicated area for our aforementioned food storage.  I get excited just thinking about this.  Am I a dork, or what :)?
• kitchen size must be reasonable.  It's weird, but a lot of the kitchens in this town -- at least in the older homes -- are teensy tiny.  I don't understand it.  I love the kitchen.  And we want room for things like canning.  You know, because we'll need to do something with all those garden crops :). 
• price.  Yeah, we have a price cap.  Who doesn't?  We aren't interested in buying more house than we can afford.  Even if it meets every other requirement.  Our opinion is that that is bad math.  
• Miscellaneous things that we are more flexible on:  would prefer 3 bedrooms and at least 1.5 bathrooms.  We would prefer not to live around dogs; we simply aren't fans of obnoxious barking.  Jeremy likes houses with eaves.  Many of the older houses here don't have them.  We like uniqueness.  Neither one of us cares for the "cookie cutter" homes.  Quiet area with privacy.

So this house we looked at meets the absolute ones.  And even seems to be away from dogs that are outside dogs.  It has .3 acres.  We were so excited to see that.  And when Sue and I took a look at it and walked around the yard...  Well, it has a ton of apple trees -- that produce!  I was excited by that fact alone.  I like free food that grows in my backyard.  When Jeremy and I went back today, we realized  there is also a pear tree, a cherry tree (that needs some serious help so it can produce more than the 3 shriveled cherries that were on it), and a plum tree that isn't on this property, but we think it's on County right-of-way or easement property, and therefore we don't think anyone would care if we picked them.  And blackberry bushes, but those are pretty prevalent around here.  The house is listed as a 2 bedroom 1 bath.  That is the big sticker.  We can easily fix the bedroom thing, because the basement isn't finished.  So we can put in rooms down there.  But adding an additional bathroom will take a little more effort.  And probably be more costly.  The finished square footage is actually about 500 too small.  But.  It has that unfinished basement that is the same exact size.  So once we finish it, we would have 2100 square feet.  And a really cool thing, in my opinion, is that there is storage built into the basement walls.  Hard to explain, but I'm thinking it's a perfect place for a lot of our food storage.  Plus it has a concrete sink in the basement.  Okay, so totally not a selling point, but I think it's cool, because it reminds me of my house in Panama that had a concrete sink on the patio by the washer and dryer.  There is a detached hugemongous garage that we could use for our back-up vehicle and all our yard stuff.  And a million other things (trust me, it's huge).  It has eaves.  The kitchen is very reasonable and even comes complete with a pretty new refrigerator (freezer on the bottom).  And it's probably a 5 or 10 minute bike ride from the house to Jeremy's job.  This home feels less secluded than the other one that I really liked (but that is being sold).  But the street is quiet and the houses around it seem to be well cared for.  And we can add privacy by planting stuff.  There is a fence around the whole yard (not the garage), but it's not a great one.  It's a very short chain-link one.  And we've checked out the County data and everything seems on the up and up.  This is a woman selling who just lost her husband and she is now in an assisted living center.  She and her husband bought the house in 1987.  And they've maintained it.  It doesn't have a dishwasher, and it does need to be updated.  But the house itself is sound.  Jeremy checked out the foundation and the attic and the roof.  It's a solid house with solid beams.  So anyway, we are excited.  Oh, and the price.  The price is more than right.  But there will be work to do.  We will need to re-wire.  We will need to replace some windows, including enlarging some.  We will need to finish the whole basement.  So the question becomes:  buy the house at this price with the knowledge we will spend money to make it all that we want or wait for something more expensive that requires less time and work.  We are sleeping on it.  And praying about it.  And waiting for our pre-approval letter, which the bank didn't send, but which we need for when we make an offer.  We called the bank today to see about having them send it.  They were supposed to email it, but haven't yet.  And maybe this is one of those things that will keep us from buying the house before someone else does (it's already had 3 offers), in which case we will know this isn't the right house.  But we are excited nonetheless.  And learning.  And dreaming :).

Wow.  What a novel!  Sorry.

The other thing I should be working on (and have been a little)?  The Marvelous Monday Meals cookbook.  I'm going to have that thing done for Christmas this year daggumit.

Oh, in other news...  Due to the sudden and unexpected resignation of a co-worker (which is very sad, because she is my friend and she trained me on doing accounts payable stuff), I may or may not be changing jobs.  We'll see what happens.  My boss wants me to apply for it -- and I probably will.  She'd still be my boss.  But others may apply and have a larger skill-set that I don't have.  So we will see.  It does mean I'd work 40 hour weeks again, though.  And that's a bummer.  But I can work 4 tens.  And still have my 3-day weekends :).  So, I'll keep you posted.  And if you made it this far without falling asleep, you should give yourself a cookie :).  I'd give you one, if I was there :).