We found our new house. It was there from the beginning of our search. But for some reason it has been overlooked by us and every other house hunter looking for a 3+ bedroom house in our price range. I'd like to think that God has been saving it just for us. I feel so abundantly blessed.
We had the inspection today and met the owner (not really supposed to happen, but it did). He is a man in his late sixties who has been meticulously maintaining his house for 17 years. He has kept a file with all his updates on record and is going to give it to us. I am just going to say that it is perfect for M and I who have never owned a home and probably should not be trusted with too extensive of home repairs yet. That being said my quicktakes today are seven things I want to do with this house before we move in.
1. Carpet the steps to the basement. The basement is finished and carpeted, but the stairs remain unfinished. Since I plan on the basement being kid heaven, I want carpet on the stairs.
2. Install a bench and find a small table for the eat-in kitchen.
3. Create a great system for storing shoes by the back door next to the eat-in kitchen.
4. Living room: Find matching chairs and complimentary couch, paint walls (who knows what color?), rug.
5. Master bedroom: I would love it if I could finally afford a bedroom set instead of folding table nightstands and no headboard or dresser, but for now I am going to at least figure out the perfect wall color and curtains. Since we are buying a house for our 5 year anniversary, maybe the bedroom set can wait until our ten year...
6. Girls room: paint their thrifted dresser (which lives in the closet in their current room) white with green trim and paint their walls a color we can all agree on.
7. Refinish dining room table and find a matching bench.
Confessions of a Catholic Mom and Philosopher's Wife
Friday, March 8, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Random Tuesday Post Because I Have Time to Blog
I like to write nice, neat, and tidy blog posts and I have been sitting at the computer for an hour waiting for the baby to be ready for her nap so that I can put her to bed and write something. She is almost ready and I have accomplished commenting on and checking Facebook a billion times, reading a few short emails, and finally getting L to stay in her bed and go to sleep...
Now I will entertain myself by writing a narrative:
G comes out of her quiet time a few minutes after L has fallen asleep telling me that she has to go to the bathroom. I send her in and tell her to be quiet and not wake her sister who is on the other side of the wall from the bathroom. About 10 seconds later I hear a huge crash and G start to yell/cry (not exactly quiet, huh?). I rush to the bathroom, primarily to get her silent, secondarily to find out what is wrong. She had fallen into the bathtub while climbing on the toliet. I really don't want to know exactly how it came about and work on calming her down, praying that L is not woken up. G asks me why I came running into her when she fell, and I explain that I love her and that she is my precious child and I don't want her to be hurting. I have been trying to emphasize to the children how they are loved lately since I realized that when I am stressed I forget to do that. She appreciates what I say and gives me a hug. We get her off the toliet and I carry her back downstairs.
After I come back up I start to write this and the baby is finally ready to go to sleep. It is great when I just be patient and wait for her nap to overtake her because then I can get her sound asleep within 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes. I pick her up to go to the bedroom, but pause a moment to watch the college student from the house next door attempt to drive is little blue Mini Cooper down our unplowed-8inches-deep-in-snow street. I leave him with his wheels spinning. I change the baby, rock her, and nurse her. She is out like a light. I lay her down and slip out of the room. G comes up to ask how much longer she has of quiet time. I tell her and then come back to my seat on the couch. The Mini Cooper is gone; I guess he made it. Maybe I will have 45 minutes of silence or so. It is golden I tell you.
Tonight I am making a new recipe. We are meatless again this Lent. I think I am going to combine this and this one. I hope it will be enough food though. M shoveled snow and is walking to and from school up hill both ways in snow from work today (1.5 miles each way). He is going to be hungry! I am trying to think of a way of supplementing the meal from the empty refrigerator. I am supposed to go to the store tomorrow. The snow-plow just ineffectively went barreling down our street. I really wonder why they don't plow this city and still have school when most of the other schools cancel. I am really hoping that we get that house in West St. Paul we put an offer on yesterday. I am trying not to give up on finding a good house. The first one we offered on was not right for us after the inspection made us realize we know nothing about houses. The second offer was outbid, and this one has not been responded to for longer than a normal offer is out. At any rate, hopefully we will know soon. No response is better than a negative one right? Anyway, I will tell you all about the house we finally settle on once there is an offer, acceptance, and positive inspection...
I think I have said enough for today. Have a happy Tuesday. :)
Now I will entertain myself by writing a narrative:
G comes out of her quiet time a few minutes after L has fallen asleep telling me that she has to go to the bathroom. I send her in and tell her to be quiet and not wake her sister who is on the other side of the wall from the bathroom. About 10 seconds later I hear a huge crash and G start to yell/cry (not exactly quiet, huh?). I rush to the bathroom, primarily to get her silent, secondarily to find out what is wrong. She had fallen into the bathtub while climbing on the toliet. I really don't want to know exactly how it came about and work on calming her down, praying that L is not woken up. G asks me why I came running into her when she fell, and I explain that I love her and that she is my precious child and I don't want her to be hurting. I have been trying to emphasize to the children how they are loved lately since I realized that when I am stressed I forget to do that. She appreciates what I say and gives me a hug. We get her off the toliet and I carry her back downstairs.
After I come back up I start to write this and the baby is finally ready to go to sleep. It is great when I just be patient and wait for her nap to overtake her because then I can get her sound asleep within 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes. I pick her up to go to the bedroom, but pause a moment to watch the college student from the house next door attempt to drive is little blue Mini Cooper down our unplowed-8inches-deep-in-snow street. I leave him with his wheels spinning. I change the baby, rock her, and nurse her. She is out like a light. I lay her down and slip out of the room. G comes up to ask how much longer she has of quiet time. I tell her and then come back to my seat on the couch. The Mini Cooper is gone; I guess he made it. Maybe I will have 45 minutes of silence or so. It is golden I tell you.
Tonight I am making a new recipe. We are meatless again this Lent. I think I am going to combine this and this one. I hope it will be enough food though. M shoveled snow and is walking to and from school up hill both ways in snow from work today (1.5 miles each way). He is going to be hungry! I am trying to think of a way of supplementing the meal from the empty refrigerator. I am supposed to go to the store tomorrow. The snow-plow just ineffectively went barreling down our street. I really wonder why they don't plow this city and still have school when most of the other schools cancel. I am really hoping that we get that house in West St. Paul we put an offer on yesterday. I am trying not to give up on finding a good house. The first one we offered on was not right for us after the inspection made us realize we know nothing about houses. The second offer was outbid, and this one has not been responded to for longer than a normal offer is out. At any rate, hopefully we will know soon. No response is better than a negative one right? Anyway, I will tell you all about the house we finally settle on once there is an offer, acceptance, and positive inspection...
I think I have said enough for today. Have a happy Tuesday. :)
Friday, March 1, 2013
Seven Quicktakes: March 1
1. IT IS MARCH ALREADY!?!??!?! This month we have two birthdays (back to back) and two name days... Also, Easter! But it is still Lent, so lets not forget to eat fish today.
2. I think I need to read this again and again and again and then stop being annoyed at myself for not doing "home school" with my almost four year old most days.
3. Today an insurance issue looks like it is going to finally be resolved. Last March (so it has been nearly a year!) L needed a nebulizer for some wheezing she was experiencing. It was the third time in her life she had needed it so we decided to go ahead and get one especially since our insurance was supposed to cover it. It turns out the one the doctors office provided was not covered and the company took it back at no cost even though we had used it for a week and had recycled the box it came in. So, the next time we went to the doctor for L I got a prescription for a new nebulizer and called the insurance company to find out exactly who to get the machine from so that the cost of it was entirely covered (we had really nice state employee health insurance in NY). This was in June. I called the company and they had a guy deliver it. The thing is, he did not take the insurance information (this was my fault I suppose). A month later we got a bill for the full price. So we filled the insurance information in and mailed back the paper. But they continued to send us bills every two weeks or so. Finally I called them and explained that the insurance would cover it and they just needed to bill them. After months of exchanging phone calls and finally getting them to bill the insurance we got an EOB in the mail last week. Claim denied. Ugh. Today I got the time to make that important-phone-call-you-can't-make-when-the-kids-are-around-because-they-yell-and-scream-if-they-know-you-are-making-an-important-call (M held down the fort and I hid in the basement). When I finally got the right person on the line I explained the situation that I had been told this would be covered. The lady put me on hold and looked over the information on the claim. Expecting to have to talk it out more, I waited... She came back and said that the claim had been wrongly denied and it would be reprocessed. What?!?!?!?!??! It made my day. I guess having insurance works out in our favor sometimes.
4. G has only seen one Disney Princess movie (Sleeping Beauty), but I can't help but wonder if the movies are truer to what little girls are like than I first realized. She sneaks up the stairs multiple times daily from her downstairs quiet time. After the reason for coming up is addressed, she goes very slowly back down the stairs and she sings softly to herself, moving her arms gracefully about her, touching the walls as she goes along. All that is missing is the plethora of animals surrounding her. In fact, Sunday she asked to where her poofy white and green dress she wore on Christmas. Once it was on she decided that she was a princess and danced around until Mass singing, "I know you, I met with you once upon a dream!"
5. We are looking at another set of four houses tomorrow and I have great hopes for at least three of them. A friend is watching the kids so that should make it easier. It seems we prefer the 50s ranch style with a finished basement to the rest of the house styles available in our price range in the cities.
6. The baby went to bed the earliest she has yet! 9:15 PM! She slept until 3:30 AM in the cosleeper and nursed right back to sleep until I woke her for First Friday Mass at 7:20 AM. Then she fell back to sleep at church and I made a successful transfer (with a nursing session) to the cosleeper at 9:00 AM and she napped until 12:30 PM. What a good sleeper. She is just what I needed for a third baby. She will be four months old next week. And I have realized that it takes me a good four months to really feel healthy and strong after pregnancy. Well, on with life! I think I can take it on now.
7. My next post will be number 100. Over half of those were written last year, the year I decided to make this blog at least a weekly commitment. It has existed since 2008. Well, I hope to keep on going strong with it. Thanks for reading.
For more Quicktakes head on over to Jen at Conversion Diary.
2. I think I need to read this again and again and again and then stop being annoyed at myself for not doing "home school" with my almost four year old most days.
3. Today an insurance issue looks like it is going to finally be resolved. Last March (so it has been nearly a year!) L needed a nebulizer for some wheezing she was experiencing. It was the third time in her life she had needed it so we decided to go ahead and get one especially since our insurance was supposed to cover it. It turns out the one the doctors office provided was not covered and the company took it back at no cost even though we had used it for a week and had recycled the box it came in. So, the next time we went to the doctor for L I got a prescription for a new nebulizer and called the insurance company to find out exactly who to get the machine from so that the cost of it was entirely covered (we had really nice state employee health insurance in NY). This was in June. I called the company and they had a guy deliver it. The thing is, he did not take the insurance information (this was my fault I suppose). A month later we got a bill for the full price. So we filled the insurance information in and mailed back the paper. But they continued to send us bills every two weeks or so. Finally I called them and explained that the insurance would cover it and they just needed to bill them. After months of exchanging phone calls and finally getting them to bill the insurance we got an EOB in the mail last week. Claim denied. Ugh. Today I got the time to make that important-phone-call-you-can't-make-when-the-kids-are-around-because-they-yell-and-scream-if-they-know-you-are-making-an-important-call (M held down the fort and I hid in the basement). When I finally got the right person on the line I explained the situation that I had been told this would be covered. The lady put me on hold and looked over the information on the claim. Expecting to have to talk it out more, I waited... She came back and said that the claim had been wrongly denied and it would be reprocessed. What?!?!?!?!??! It made my day. I guess having insurance works out in our favor sometimes.
4. G has only seen one Disney Princess movie (Sleeping Beauty), but I can't help but wonder if the movies are truer to what little girls are like than I first realized. She sneaks up the stairs multiple times daily from her downstairs quiet time. After the reason for coming up is addressed, she goes very slowly back down the stairs and she sings softly to herself, moving her arms gracefully about her, touching the walls as she goes along. All that is missing is the plethora of animals surrounding her. In fact, Sunday she asked to where her poofy white and green dress she wore on Christmas. Once it was on she decided that she was a princess and danced around until Mass singing, "I know you, I met with you once upon a dream!"
5. We are looking at another set of four houses tomorrow and I have great hopes for at least three of them. A friend is watching the kids so that should make it easier. It seems we prefer the 50s ranch style with a finished basement to the rest of the house styles available in our price range in the cities.
6. The baby went to bed the earliest she has yet! 9:15 PM! She slept until 3:30 AM in the cosleeper and nursed right back to sleep until I woke her for First Friday Mass at 7:20 AM. Then she fell back to sleep at church and I made a successful transfer (with a nursing session) to the cosleeper at 9:00 AM and she napped until 12:30 PM. What a good sleeper. She is just what I needed for a third baby. She will be four months old next week. And I have realized that it takes me a good four months to really feel healthy and strong after pregnancy. Well, on with life! I think I can take it on now.
7. My next post will be number 100. Over half of those were written last year, the year I decided to make this blog at least a weekly commitment. It has existed since 2008. Well, I hope to keep on going strong with it. Thanks for reading.
For more Quicktakes head on over to Jen at Conversion Diary.
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