Saturday 28 September 2013

Catching up...and a "real" look at first time home buying.

I am not gonna spend too much time on the catching up, most of my readers are Facebook friends, so you know that I we have obtained two more dogs



I found the bigger one on the right (Capone) along the road, and the smaller one on the left (Gotti) was re-homed with us due to a lack of time his previous owner had to work with him and she decided it was probably in his best interest  to  come live his days out where he could be a dog and be bad,...WELCOME TO SHARPE ESTATES.  Dillinger is still holding it down as the most awesome and well-travelled dog to ever walk this earth, albeit a little but slower but still holding it down like a boss.

We also bought a house...a little house...an awesome house..



This little house is waaaaay out on the border or Perry County and Juniata County...literally, our mailbox is in Millerstown, however the house ACTUALLY sits in the Evendale/Richfield...yeah try and digest that a little bit.  We have one bedroom, and a huge bathroom.    We def bought this house with our hearts and necessarily our brains.  So I thought I would type up a little house buying guide that you might not find out MSN anytime soon.

1.  DO YOUR RESEARCH- honestly, do it, read everything you can on house buying, financing a house, fixing a house, who in the area can fix a house (if you or your spouse can't fix it), what your neighbors are like...don't be afraid of bad  news, hey at least you will know before you end up in a house you hate with neighbors you don't like.

2.  Just because you can afford a 6 bedroom house, doesn't mean you need a 6 bedroom house-  I bought a small house, I had the fore sight to think about who was cleaing it (me), who was paying to heat and cool it (me), who was paying to fix it (me).....you might have big dreams of a workout room, a steam room, a library, or a billiards room.  Just remember all those rooms need maintained in some capacity and if you aren't planning on having a family the size of the Duggars, then just consider what you will really need and can afford now and 10 years from now.

3.  Please know that home inspections are not worth your money-  The sad fact is you still need to get one mostly for insurance and appraisal purposes.   Our home inspection guy must of worn an eye patch on each of his eyes when he came out to look at our house, because he missed the 90ft garage monstrosity that sits beside our house, although it looks new it has some SERIOUS structural flaws. He did find a non-existent leak under our kitchen sink, Go Figure.    Also white paint and beadboard hides a lot of flaws.  If something looks strange or feels strange, ring the dinner bell about it.  I thought I saw a wet patch on our bathroom ceiling the very first day we saw it , on the next visit the ceiling was painted because "there was a leak but is now fixed so the white paint was just to get rid of the stain"  BS, they just painted it white and left us the problem to fix.  My best advice is to get a plumber, an electrician, and a general contractor to come out and look at the house you want to buy and let them tell you the ugly truth about what you are about to drop 30 years worth of hard earned cash on.  We didn't do this (yes I know my brother is the plumber of awesomeness) but we didn't have a whole lot of time to get him out to look nor did we really want to hear the bad news he might of told us.  Don't worry we are paying for that decision now.

4.  Save a down payment and then save another $5,000-  Houses are expensive, fixing houses are expensive, furnishing a house is expensive...you see where I am going with this.  Be prepared.

5.  Figure out how scary you want your monthly bills to be-   The best financial advice I got in terms of what size of mortgage I wanted was from Suze Orman, although most of the time I find her a stuck up bee-hive,  the fact is she does know her ish.  Her strategy is that if you think you can afford let's say $1200 a month mortgage bill, start saving that each month on top of all your bills you have now, if you can't afford it no harm and at least you know before you make a huge mistake.. If you can afford it weeheey you have your down payment ready in a few months.  I did this, and found out that in fact I could not afford the mortgage I thought I could and still eat . I had a pretty good chunk of our down payment by the time I found out so it was a good lesson to learn.  Don't kill yourself financially for a house or property that you KNOW you can't afford, I am sure that would really suck.

6.  Start to make friends with people with skills-  Start befriending plumbers, electricians and anyone handy...make them your friends, you will thank me later.

7.  Love the place you eventually get-  When things go wrong houses suck and you hate them.  Just know things can be fixed, extensions can be added, garages can spontaneously combust...home is where the heart is..


There is seriously a million other things I could write but I will let you with these few ditties.


I am back!


I am no

Saturday 12 January 2013

I love the delete button!

I had a whole other blog written, edited it over 3 days, was just about to hit the publish button, contemplated a few more days and thought...it was just too much crazy to reveal about me in one post and I deleted the whole thing...it was pretty cathartic and brought me the closure the crazy ruined me needed...  Sorry to those of you that were looking forward to reading all my actual documented psychotic episodes.

So not too much has been different with me, apart from living in a bizarro world where I feel like I am watching myself try and navigate through a sea of people that are clearly operating with a different set of goals/morals.  I try  to live by my word if I say I am going to be somewhere I, apart from sickness or natural disaster, am there and a half hour early.  If something happens to a friend I try not to one up their experience with mine, yes I do recount a smiliar experience but I try and make my experience more grand and fantastic. Other people do not seem to operate under this same moral guideline, they have to one-up everyone all the time and their experience is always MORE then everyone elses.  I also try to be who I am at all times, I hope that those of you that know me agree.  I don't try and act street-tough and then turn around and be an innocent country bumpkin and in the next second I am a career mogal and then leave the room  acting as though this is my first job and I don't know what to do.  I try and be honest but I know I hava a temper and I know I shut people out.  I find it hard to look a dishonest person in the eye and I find it even harder to take anything that comes out of their mouth with any amount of credit.   I have been looking around at people that I am around everyday and I am finding it very difficult to not get sucked into all the drama and I feel I am dragging others in the black funnel of shit with me.    I don't know how to shut it off and still function without putting the iron curtain up, I want to see the good in people but as soon as my trust is broken...it's pretty much game over.  I just feel like we are all a row of fake houses and behind the facade we are all trying to hold the picture of our pretty houses up...while I am in a tent saying..."what's the point"-----anyone understand that?  I dont!

My 31-soon-to-be-32-year-old crisis is in full swing, I am questioning myself everyday whether I am happy, whether I am/have made the correct decisions in my life, whether I am where I am supposed to be not just where I "think" I should be.  There are things I am unhappy or unsure about, I don't know if moving back from the UK was exactly the right decision but I am at a point where I can't change it now even if I wanted to.  I question the job I have, it is a good paycheck (well a steady one at least) but it is a huge corporate machine that will chew me up and spit me out and consume more like me.....it is scary.  I like to think I am corporate hard but maybe I am not that hard.  I seem to be doing well at my job and I enjoy the challenges of the work but this place really encourages my workaholism and I find the 3 hrs I spend in the car coupled with the 11.5 hours I usually work  make me crave more work and less time at home, because I can make more money that way and I will be happier right???  Also it leads to my over eating, I feel like I work all this time I should enjoy the fruits of my labor with a trip to sheetz or somewhere else yummy.  I don't smoke my stress away, and I usually don't drink my stress away...I don't have time to sleep or exercise my stress away so I eat it all....and that is an excuse. I know it...

So onto the good news, WE ARE PRE-APPROVED FOR A MORTGAGE!  We just found out and have been like squeally teenagers ever since...and I am also starting to freak about how we are going to afford it all. I know everyone goes through this, but this is a huge huge financial decision and wow now that it is i real I might be a little gun shy.  I don't want to buy the wrong house, a too expensive house, a house with huge structual problems, a house that isn't close enough to either of our work places or a house that we can afford but just isn't right for us.  Plus I get terrible buyers remorse for even little things, so it will prob take me 100 years to not feel guilty about this purchase.

That is about it kids, not too interesting and a little bit whiney for me, but love me or leave me.