Houses

Ryan, Tammy and I went out last Saturday to look at houses with a realtor. Sadly, I think the one I posted before has been sold. :( But that's okay. It might take time to find the right one. We looked at about 5 houses. Probably only 1 or 2 of them were ones to think about.

This is one of them:

We like it and the price is right within our range but it's only a 2 bedroom and we prefer a 3 bedroom. It also just seemed sooo teeny all together. We would be downgrading in size for sure. We liked the size of the back yard - not too small, not too big. But, it just doesn't make sense for us to move somewhere much smaller for more $ even if it means we own it.

There isn't a ton of selection out there for our price range so I'm having trouble finding good stuff in Chico. It seems like everything I find online either is already in escrow or already has an offer on it OR it's a "short sale" which we're trying to avoid for various reasons.

Here is another one in Chico that I'm interested in seeing. It's a little bit out of our price range, though, so we'd have to just watch it for a while and see if it goes down. We'd also have to offer less than the asking price even if it goes down a little bit. It's about 20 thousand higher than the top end of our price range. But, you never know! :) (It's been on the market for almost a month. No price change so far).

We decided to look online at houses in Paradise, just to see the prices and selection. As far as we can tell from pictures, there are some houses in Paradise that are similar to or better than the houses we've looked at in Chico, and they are a good 20 - 50 thousand dollars cheaper! We prefer not to live in Paradise - we LOVE Chico, we work in Chico, and Chico is much more convenient than Paradise, but with house prices that cheap we at LEAST have to look. It wouldn't kill me to be closer to the two cutest boys in the whole wide world (James and Joey) :) We have to keep in mind that despite the price difference, we might be making up for that in lost TIME with our work "commute" every day AND another 200-ish in gas money each month, too. So we just have to see. We have an appointment on Sunday to look at a couple of houses in Paradise. If there are any that we like and we decide that we can put up with the inconveniences of living in Paradise, my guess is that we'll make an offer lower than the asking price and just see what happens. Then if we don't get it then I guess it wasn't meant to be! Right?

Here are two of the three that we'll be seeing on Sunday...

This one is a little bit higher in price than the other two we're going to see, but still well within our price range. It says it's a 2 bedroom but but that there's a den that could serve as a 3rd bedroom. I guess we'll have to see it. Me likey that kitchen. Again, downsides and upsides to all of the ones we find:

This one is totally within our price range. 3 bed 2 bath. Perfect little back yard:

Tammy will hate us if we do move to Paradise! She will call us "The Others" like on Lost. We much prefer Chico for a number of reasons but, we can't just ignore the good prices. So we'll see. Right now we're just praying for direction and for the right house for us at the right time and the right price! We're excited, but it's time consuming and it also consumes my BRAIN! I go to bed thinking about houses and prices. I sit on the computer for hours looking for houses. It's crazy! But we're excited. :)

Anniversary

Last Friday, Feb 19th, was our 4 year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been 4 years. I just know I'm going to feel the same way when it's like our 25th. We didn't take a trip or anything but we still had a wonderful time celebrating together.

We decided to keep it pretty simple. I told Ryan I'd get him candy if he got me flowers. :) Flowers are my FAVORITE! He got me beautiful orangey roses and made sure to get the kind that fade from light to dark because he knows I think those kind are pretty. They are beautiful!

I decided earlier in the week that I was going to take a vacation day keep it a secret from Ryan so that I could stay home and clean the whole house as a surprise for him! When he got home I was upstairs and he brought my roses up there. He was surprised and happy that I took time to clean (yay!) I was majorly excited about my beautiful roses, too. I got him his fav - reese's PB cups I even got them in a heart-shaped box since our anniversary is only 5 days after Valentine's day.

We went to Christian Michael's for sort of an early dinner. It was the first time we had been there. They have pretty good food and a nice atmosphere. I got the bacon wrapped meatloaf which was something that Ryan's boss suggested or else I probably would've tried something else. Ryan ordered ribs. I also got a lemondrop. :) Yum! Afterward, we planned to see a movie but we had a little bit of time to kill. We were about 3 blocks from work, and Ryan hadn't seen our new office yet (except for pictures), so I dragged him over there to show him. It was a nice little walk and the weather was nice, too, which was great because I thought it was supposed to rain that day. Plus, we had a minute to burn off (2 bites of) our food. We still had a little bit of time to kill before our movie so we drove over to baskins after our food settled a little bit and got ice cream. After that we got to the movies in time to get the row that's right behind that bar thingie which is great because you can rest our feet on it and no one sits directly in front of you and makes you move your feet. We saw Valentine's Day and it was pretty cute! Probably not Ryan's favorite type of movie but I think the big cast (including his girlfriend Jessica Alba) was at least a little bit appealing to him. I thought it was a cute movie and I had a great time with my sweet husband. :)

Afterward, we returned home to a CLEAN house and we were able to relax on the couch for a little bit and talk and watch TV together before we went to bed. It was such a great night! Ryan is my best friend in the whole world. I love spending time with him even if we're not really doing anything. I'm am so proud to be his wife. He cares deeply for me and he makes sure to show me how much he loves me every day. He's affectionate and sweet. He's worked hard to move up at work and show his "skillz" and provide for us. I am so thankful each night to have him next to me, and in the morning to wake up next to him and wish him a great day at work. I love coming home to him - even if I have to cook him dinner! :) I love to hear about his day and his goals and accomplishments. I love to make him happy. I love to tell him what a great husband he is. Our 4 years together so far have been GREAT and I can't wait for more and more years together.

House

This is the house we want but it's definitely on the HIGHEST end of what we could afford. And to be able to afford it we'd have to do some string pullin'. :) We would have to do it in time to get the $8000 tax rebate which ends April 30. We read that you still have time to close after April 30th, so I guess we'd have to make the offer by then I guess? But April 30 will be here like, TOMORROW practically. We'd also want to borrow the $8000 from a grandparent or something, put it down as part of the down payment to bring our monthly payment down, and then pay them back a couple of months later when we get our return. We would ALSO ask that the seller pays the closing costs. I think it's fair to offer the asking price minus closing costs, don't you?? :) So it would take some work. I have no idea. I emailed a realtor about seeing houses possibly this weekend but I haven't heard back from her yet. :(

3 Bedroom, 2 Bath in South Chico (about 10 mins closer to Paradise). I mostly love the yards. It also has a little storage shed outside, too. I like the wood floors too (even though they're probably not real!) I'd eventually want to paint the outside because that brown color is ugly. I'm not getting too excited because we proooobably won't be able to get it, but we'll see!

Books / Music

Greetings from the living room couch!

This is just the beginning of the stack of books I'm reading or are on my "to read" list.



Bright Lights, Big Ass is a book that Jessica Jackson got me for my birthday. Yep, back in November. I started it a couple of weeks after I got it. At one point I cleaned my house pretty well and cleared all of the clutter off of our coffee table including that book. After putting it on my book shelf, it was kind of an "out of sight, out of mind" situation and I forgot all about the book! I've never been much of a reader so it's not constantly on my mind to pick back up a book that I've started. Anyway, I finally picked it up again. I've been reading it while I do my foot detox bath. I usually just read one chapter at a time. Now I only have 3 chapters left. Yay! It's a very entertaining book. One that isn't deep, but more like reading an amusing journal or something. The book is basically little stories about the author's life. She used to have a kind of high-profile job but decided to pursue writing instead and was forced to keep up temp jobs in the mean time. She says her shopping "holy trinity" is Ikea, Target and Trader Joe's. My kind of girl! Anyway, she's pretty much hilarious but she kind of likes the F word. :-/ Like I said, it's been a go-to entertainment book, like watching TV, and not something that is going to GROW me. :)

The Lyme Disease Survival Guide is a book that I realllyyyy wanted for Christmas, and Nae got it for me. :) Connie, the author, has a lyme blog here on blogger as well as a video blog on Youtube. She seems smart and has Lyme herself, so she's done a lot of research and tried a lot of different treatments. She talks a lot about detox as treatment for Lyme. She's also a Christian and I think she has similar experience with me (and probably other Lymies) where sometimes she just has to give up and not think about Lyme at all. Leave her treatment in the hands of God instead of the hands of antibiotics. :) I just think she's going to have good advice and another perspective. I'm sad to say that I haven't even started the book yet. I skimmed through it on Christmas day on the way from Magalia to Chico after we picked up Ryan's grandpa. I think part of the reason that I didn't start it yet is because I kind of got sick of thinking about Lyme 18/24 hours a day! (The rest was spent sleeping, ya know). The antibiotics made me feel all yucky and messed up my stomach BIG TIME so after I went off of them I just wanted a break from thinking about meds. I still feel that way a little bit but I'm starting to get on track again; mostly because I want to be DONE with Lyme. I have a doc appointment in a couple of weeks so we'll see what they wanna do with me. *sigh* Anyway, I am looking forward to reading it.


On a similar note, I've read most of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia (also a Christmas gift from a previous year, haha), but I never finished it. Oh wait, I have a picture of my "excited" face to get a sicky-book from my husband for Christmas. LOL.



Back to the book - So, it has a treatment regimen that includes taking guaifenesin (found in lots of cold medicines), while eliminating all sources of salicylic acid. I'd explain the science behind it but 1, I don't really remember everything and 2, I'm not smart enough to explain it in my own words. It's a treatment I might have to resort to just to TRY if nothing else works. It wouldn't be too bad but it would require a lot of prep. Salicylic acid is in EVERYTHINGGG and I'd also have to eliminate anything with natural oils/extract/etc which would mean my beloved chapstick, minty toothpaste, certain shampoos, conditioners, hair products, etc. I might end up with really fluffy hair and orangey-scented teeth, but if it means I'm better then I don't care. :)

Dear John and The Last Song are both Nicholas Sparks books. Yes, he wrote A Walk to Remember and THE NOTEBOOK. Dear John and The Last Song have also just been made into movies too! Dear John just came out but I haven't seen it yet. I'll probably end up reading that book AFTER I see the movie. The Last Song comes out sometime in the next few months, so I can probably read that book before I see the movie. Even though it's going to star Miley Cyrus (BLEH!), I still think I want to see it. I won a lot of 5 Nicholas sparks books for pretty cheap on Ebay, so I will have a lot of his books on hand to read in the future if I ever get bored of our endless TV show addictions. The other books I have from him are The Rescue, The Wedding (sequel to The Notebook), and The Lucky One. They'll probably all be made into movies since so far the following movies are all based on his books: Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, and The Last Song. DANNNG!

One other book I'm interested in re-reading is The Catcher in the Rye. I only thought of it 'cuz ol' J.D. Salinger kicked the bucket a few weeks ago. :( I'm guessing he was pretty old. Yep, looked it up... 91. That book is funny.

We've been downloading stuff from iTunes lately because I got a GC for Christmas and Ryan got one today. We're different about how we choose our songs. Ryan usually tries to pick all 15 songs or whatever all at once and searches through all kinds of artists until he finds all the songs he wants. I just pick a song here and there and download it when I want to and then leave the extra 8 credits or whatever until I think of another song I want to get. I think that way I don't "settle" for one. haha! I heard "Chicken Fried" by the Zac Brown Band on the Grammys and for some reason I really liked it even though it's the most honky-tonk country song EVER! I downloaded it. Even though it's not really my type of music I just think that they're really talented and the guy's voice is EXCELLENT. Recently I think Ryan developed a crush on Taylor Swift, and she also has 3 songs on our newest guitar hero game so I started to like her music, too. :) We just bought her CD today. I'm listening through it right now and it's pretty good so far. I like that she writes all of her music, especially for a young pop-ish girl because usually they need some serious help when it comes to writing. But she's good. I like that the songs come from her own mind and experiences. I just never though I'd be purchasing country CDs and songs, and especially that RYAN would like some of them, too. Although, I don't believe he's into the Chicken Fried song. haha! I've never liked country music much unless you count when I was little and I tried to convince myself that I liked it because my bestie liked it. Nope, doesn't count. Or when Lynae and I would turn it to the country station when we were in the car and try to guess the lyrics and sing along even though we didn't know the songs. For some reason we thought it was super duper hilarious. :) 'Member that, Nae?

A few other songs I downloaded recently: Rock & Roll - Eric Hutchinson, Angel - Jack Johnson (sooo cute. fav lyric is: "She can make angels. I've seen it with my own eyes. You gotta be careful when you've got good love, cuz the angels will just keep multiplying" He's talking about babies. awww!), umm, let's see... I'd Rather Be With You - Joshua Radin, Live Like We're Dying - Kris Allen, Always Be My Baby - Mariah Carey (heck yes!!!), Breakeven - The Script. Good stuff. I read an interview yesterday from John Mayer and it made me feel all Barfy at what a weirdo/sicko he's become (or maybe he always was..?). Whatever. I still love his music! I used to - I know this sounds really funny - but I used to pray for him every once in a while. Just because I don't know him doesn't mean I can't pray for him! I think I should start again. He sounds confused like he doesn't know who he should be or how he should act. It kinda sucks. I'm happy when people are successful but I hate when fame ruins someone.

I guess I should go now. Now that you're thoroughly bored if you made it to the end of this. :)

http://www.lala.com/#song/360569470939005376/Zac_Brown_Band/Chicken_Fried

http://www.lala.com/#song/432627056443841271/Jack_Johnson/Angel

http://www.lala.com/#song/504684642129748704/Joshua_Radin/I%27d_Rather_Be_With_You

http://www.lala.com/#song/504684673844808514/John_Mayer/Edge_Of_Desire