July 26, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Some of you may recall that, earlier this year, we came very close to buying a new home. In a seven-day span, we found a wonderful home, fixed up our current house, and wrote an offer … only to have to walk away when we got bad news from our accountant about how much we owed Uncle Sam.
It sucked.
For me, probably the biggest attraction about the other house was that there was nothing behind it but mountains and sky to the west. I took this photo tonight. This is what could’ve been:
If we’d bought that house, that would’ve been our backyard view. Every night. I’d have sat with my laptop out on the back patio and been completely unproductive.
I showed the house to Cari’s mom a couple weeks ago when she was visiting. I think she agreed with me that the house itself isn’t all that grand.
But the view is something else.
June 26, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Okay, we have tiny little baby tomatoes, but they are tomatoes, nonetheless! Look at these:
Those are from the tomato plants in the front of the house. The plants in the Topsy Turvy gizmo are doing well, but are only about half the size of the plants in the front. And there no tomatoes anywhere to be found right now on the Topsy Turvy plants.
June 16, 2010 at 10:14 am
Yesterday marked one month since we planted tomatoes at Casa McGee: two tomato plants in a Topsy Turvy planter hanging in the back yard, and two plans in the rock bed that lines our front patio/walkway.
I’m positively giddy to report that all tomato plants appear to be alive and doing well!
Back Yard
The plants in the Topsy Turvy planter are now pointing in the other direction, so I had to take the photo from a different angle. But they’ve definitely grown over the last month. No signs of actual tomatoes as far as I can tell yet, though.
Front Yard
Meanwhile, the plants in the front are growing like gangbusters, like they have …. steroids or HGH or something like that. (TGH? Tomato Growth Hormone?) Super happy with how this whole experiment is going, but especially how these front-yard tomato plants are doing. I think we might actually have our own tomatoes to eat later this summer.
Amazing.
May 20, 2010 at 9:40 pm
We’re gonna need your help with this. If you pray, say a prayer. If not, wish us luck or send us vibes or whatever you’re into.
We’re trying to grow tomatoes.
As you can see, the plants are already grown. So, this should be easy. But no. I feel fortunate every morning that I wake up and see green grass. I have the least-green thumb of anyone on earth. Even though we bought tomato plants, not seeds, this will be an adventure of the highest magnitude.
I took those pictures last Saturday. We went to the local nursery and bought four tomato plants. They had, like, 75 different varieties to choose from! What’s up with that??! Ummm, I’d like the red ones. That I can eat. If they manage to survive having me as their farmer.
We put two plants into the Topsy-Turvy gizmo, which is now hanging in our back yard. I planted the other two in the rock bed that runs along our front patio/walkway. I’m sure an actual farmer/gardener would’ve known better where to put them, taking sun exposure and God-knows-what-else into consideration. I have no idea how often to water them, but we’ve had a few days of rain lately, so I think they’re doing okay. All tomato plants appear to be alive as of this afternoon.
But that could totally change by the time I wake up. Wish us luck. Or say a prayer. Or both. Definitely both.
May 6, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I am fairly certain that the “Normal Wash” mode on our dishwasher is both faster than the “Quick Wash” mode, and smarter than the “Smart Wash” mode.
That’s all. Move along.
February 28, 2010 at 10:48 am
We’ve been casually looking at houses for probably 4-5 years now. That’s what you do when your wife is a real estate agent who has access to the MLS 24 hours/day, and when your “starter” home (that fit your three-person family just fine, but not so much your four-person family) gets too cramped.
But in all our looking, the “right house” never showed up. Oh, we saw some amazing homes — but nothing that had the right combination of location, looks, amenities, and affordability.
Until Saturday, February 20th.
The whole family went out to the Home & Garden Expo and then, since we had nothing better to do, Cari suggested we go see a couple new homes that were just built about a half-mile west of where we live now. And thus began one of the craziest, most intense weeks of our lives.
In the end, we’re not buying the house. But I’ve been writing a diary of the whole experience, and decided to post it even though things didn’t turn out how we hoped.
Saturday, February 20
After visiting the Home & Garden Expo in Pasco, we returned home and Cari took us to see three houses that are all less than a mile from our current home. We really liked House A, and only kinda liked Houses B & C. We went back to House A to look at it again and everyone agreed it was a great house. Not perfect, but the imperfections were certainly things we could live with. Here’s a shot of the front, which doesn’t really do it justice in my mind, but that’s okay.
Sunday, February 21
After church, we drove by The House again. Swooned again. Came home and talked more about it. I don’t remember what Cari said, but she convinced me we should at least see what it would take to make the move.
We agreed that our current house would need a lot of work in order to sell at a good price. Cari made “The List” of home improvements that would be needed here. We talked about The List, made some changes, and resolved to get cracking on it the next day. We also sorted out other things to be taken care of: financing, school boundarie questions, etc.
I spent about three hours doing yardwork to make sure we’d have “curb appeal” on our side if we decide to move. Lawn cutting, trimming bushes, general cleanup.
Monday, February 22
Cari started contacting everyone on earth about home improvements to our current home: cleaning, painting, windows, new doors, etc. She made a a couple local visits to get info and names of people who could put down new carpeting. Appointments were made for the rest of the week.
She also called contacts in the mortgage industry to get information on financing. Our problem was that banks don’t like to lend to people who are self-employed for less than two years. I’ve been self-employed for only about 18 months.
Tuesday, February 23
8:00 am: Our regular house cleaner arrived to begin work. Not the regular, bi-weekly cleaning, but a special job focusing on our cabinets (kitchen and bathrooom) and the shower in the master bath, which had years of hard water stains. She brought an assistant. They worked until almost noon, but didn’t finish.
2:00 pm: Perfection Glass showed up to measure and look at our front door and our sliding glass door to the back yard. We talked about options for replacing both.
4:00 pm: Envision Construction arrived to measure the house so they can put together an estimate for replacing all our carpets (which are 16 years old) and the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms (also 16 years old).
Having no luck with mortgage Plan A, Cari moved on to Plan B, a local credit union. Didn’t seem promising, but at least the door wasn’t shut on our self-employed faces. She contacted our accountant to let him know what’s going on and ask if he can expedite our tax returns because the bank needs our current income figures.
Cari also went shopping at Home Depot and spent about $500 on new kitchen fixtures (faucet, cabinet knobs, etc.), new lighting for several rooms, and new fixtures (showerheads, spouts, faucets) for both bathrooms.
While all this was going on, I followed the loan officer’s instructions and filled out their online mortgage application in the afternoon. I followed up with an email explaining my work situation, and that I’ve actually had my own clients — outside of my day job with previous companies — for a full two years. She called at about 5 pm for a quick, pleasant call. Unfortunately, she seemed to be saying that we’ll need to not claim any deductions on our tax return in order to qualify for a loan. Ugh.
Envision emailed their estimate on carpeting/flooring work pretty late: about $1,500, not including the actual carpet and flooring.
Wednesday, February 24
8:45 am: The guys from CleanCraft arrived. They’re a contractor/handyman service. They spent about three hours installing the new lights and shower fixtures. Didn’t finish the faucets, so have to come back tomorrow.
11:00 am: Guy named Gerald showed up to measure the house interior so he can give us a quote on painting. In our 11+ years, we’ve never done any interior painting, so this must be the original paint applied 16 years ago. Gerald calls back a couple hours later with an estimate of about $2,000. Only thing is … he’s a former contractor who’s no longer licensed and insured.
The loan officer, meanwhile, is still experimenting with numbers. She knows we can’t NOT claim any tax deductions. We spoke again around Noon to get a few questions answered.
Cari went back to Home Depot for some more odds and ends.
Got our estimate from Perfection Glass on the doors: about $2,800 total for both, much more than we want to spend. Plus they’re booked into April, and we’d need something sooner.
3:00 pm: Service guy from Garrison’s arrives to look at the oven we bought last year. One of the burner knobs is jammed. He used cardboard to make a temporary fix and said he’ll have to make some calls to find out why this one knob has a problem. (They’ve been out several times before for this same reason.)
In the late afternoon, we got great news from the lender: We may be able to qualify even with our normal deductions. We agreed to wait to see the final tax return. Our accountant said he should have it done by the end of the week.
Thursday, February 25
9:00 am: Guys from CleanCraft return to finish the work started yesterday. Replacing faucets is apprently much more involved than lighting. They’re here until about Noon. I spent the next hour talking with them about more work we’d like done.
4:00 pm: Window cleaning service arrived to do the exterior windows, which have years of hard water (from sprinklers) building up on them, not to mention general winter dirt.
I checked the school district’s web site and confirmed what Cari had said earlier in the week: By moving, we’ll be pulling Tara into a different elementary school zone. Even though we’d only be moving about a half-mile, and even though the current school would be a mile from the new house, she’d be zoned to attend a school that’s more than three miles away. I emailed a district official to ask how we go about keeping her in the current school if we move.
Friday, February 26
No visits scheduled today, so we played a waiting game on our accountant. We have estimates for painting and carpet/floor upgrades, but can’t commit to spending thousands on that stuff until we know what our tax hit will be. Unfortunately, our accountant told Cari this morning that he won’t have anything done until sometime over the weekend.
In the afternoon, we learned that someone else was interested in The House, so the mad dash was on. We decided to write an offer now even without knowing the financial side of things, but the offer will have a few contingencies in there that let us back out next week if we get bad news.
Within an hour of submitting the offer, the builder made us a counter-offer. They changed the closing date — moved it up a couple weeks from what we want, which will give us almost no time to sell our house. We have until Sunday night to reply to the counter-offer, so hopefully we’ll hear from our accountant by then.
Saturday, February 27
11:01 am: Our accountant called with preliminary tax return numbers. Unfortunately, we owe more in taxes than we hoped to. It’s a nice problem to have — we both had a good year in terms of income, but now it’s time to pay the piper. Even though we pre-paid a lot of taxes during the year, we still owe enough that the deal is dead. Cari emailed the seller’s agent. I contacted the people who were waiting to hear if we needed the house painted.
Kinda sad. We made a fundamental home-buying mistake: We fell in love with a house before we knew our full financial situation. We got emotionally attached to it. And now we’re letting it go.
We’ll learn and make sure this doesn’t happen again.
February 21, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I spent the day cutting the lawn. First cut of the year. About five weeks before normal.
January 9, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Very early in our marriage, I used to tell Cari that someday I wanted to live in (or build) a development where everything that mattered to me was, like, really, really close to our house. I wanted all of my best friends to live on the same street so we could hang out without having to travel far. I wanted all of the important public services close by — stores, gas stations, our church, schools, etc. I basically wanted my own little, 3-square-mile version of utopia where nothing important was more than a five-minute drive away. How cool would that be, right?
Here we are, married 18+ years and slowly it’s starting to happen here in West Richland! Have a look at the map:
Our house is inside that big circle. When we moved here in late 1998, the area was pretty dead. But as you can see, we’re slowly getting most everything we need right around us.
Elementary School: A little south of us is the elementary school where both kids have attended. This opened the first year we lived in West Richland. It’s less than a mile away.
Middle School: This is where Sean goes now, also less than a mile away. It opened … 3-4 years ago, maybe?
Fitness club: This will open on Monday. I just signed up yesterday, because about a week ago I stepped on the scale and weighed more than I ever have. Yikes! That bicycle purchase I made a year ago didn’t work out as far as helping me lose weight and get in shape; just never rode it often enough.
Grocery store: A Yoke’s grocery store opened up about 4-5 years ago, I think. It’s also less than a mile away. We don’t do all our shopping there because, frankly, the prices are pretty high. But it’s super-convenient for quick shopping trips.
Gas station: Once Yoke’s opened, all kinds of new businesses opened up around it, including a gas station that also has a Quiznos inside. Nice.
Fire station: This was already here when we moved in, but it’s comforting to know that fire trucks are a mile away, God forbid anything happen.
Sports fields: Also already here when we moved — it’s a nice little sports complex with four baseball fields, a soccer/football field, and a concession building. Very convenient when Sean spent a couple years playing Little League. And it also has a nice park with playground equipment that our daughter always loved. Back before I started working from home, the daycare that we sent both kids to was right across the street from the sports complex — again, super convenient to have that so close.
Post office/Public library: These were also already here when we moved, but again – nice to have them so close. There’s also a nice restaurant right across the street from the post office, and a good pizza place right near the library (that many say is the best in the Tri-Cities).
Still Missing
First and foremost, all our friends. I haven’t been able to convince anyone to relocate here. Yet.
Our church could be a bit closer. It’s about … maybe five miles away and not on the map.
The nearest branch of our bank is way too far away. It’s a 15-minute drive to the mall for that.
We also need an urgent care-type medical facility. A new medical office opened last year about two miles away, but we need a walk-in facility, too.
A dog park for Sparky would be cool. There’s one in Richland, about 6-7 miles away, I think. Wish that was closer.
Guess that’s about it. No place is perfect, but this place keeps getting closer with all the new stuff being built.
April 3, 2009 at 4:33 pm
For the past four years, I’ve been telling myself that this is the summer I’ll get around to cleaning up the corner of our property. The trees and bushes (and weeds) have grown out of control, and it was nothing short of ugly. Worse, it was the first thing people would see of our property if they were coming our way from the south or west.
And for four years it never got done. Whether it was writing a book for two summers, or going through major career turmoil (last summer), I never got around to it. And it just got worse and worse.
About five weeks ago, we went to the Pasco Home & Garden Show, and I used that as my opportunity to scout out some local landscapers. I put my name on a contact list for A-1 Landscaping and picked up a coupon for their services. They came out and gave me a quote, and today was the big day:
Here’s a side view, and another side view.
Possibly the best $800 I’ve ever spent. We love it. Should’ve done it four years ago!
March 29, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Those are two things I really can’t stand doing, but love when they’re done. I love my hair super-short, and I love my lawn looking freshly cut. It’s just the actual haircut and the lawn mowing that I don’t like much.
In any case, despite predictions of a weekend full of rain and high winds, today was almost perfect … and plenty good for the first lawn cutting of the year.
Maybe best of all, the lawn mower started right up with a new tank of gas and last year’s oil. Gotta go get some new oil, though. After the lawn, I fixed two sprinkler heads that needed to be capped, and ran out to Home Depot to buy some much-needed tools.
Spring is most certainly here.
Only downside is that I’m dead tired and sore from head to toe. I’m gonna pay the price tomorrow for this sudden burst of energy. Good thing Sean’s just about old enough to start cutting the lawn. One more summer and then it’s all his….
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