These days

I haven't blogged in a long time. I've been busy. and I just haven't felt like it. I'm having conflicting thoughts about it. I'm trying to figure out the purpose for it and what I want from it. But in any case- this blog is not gone as of this time. I still need to edit and post our California pictures, which by the way, the Redwoods were incredible, and it was a very nice time away over all. In other news- we've been looking at houses, hoping to find one to buy. It's a very long story as to how it came about. Currently we are renting the house I grew up in from my parents. Everything is great with it- minus the location and size. The size has been good for us, but we are slowly growing out of it, and it is about 20-30+ minutes from everything we would ever want to do (except visit my parents who are 5 minutes away). Basically we are the last suburban housing community in the metro Denver area right on I70 before you hit nothing and go into Kansas. Just kidding- Kansas is a good few hours away, but we are almost rural how far out we are. I just don't love the location/community and it takes us at least 25 minutes one way to get to work, which is just a lot to us.

But we've been fine here. We have a yard the doggies play in, we get to decorate/paint however we want, we get discounted rent, we didn't have to start out in an apartment which means we got to have 4 animals, and it's been a great place for us since getting married. About 2 months ago we saw a house close to my parents house on the canal going for pretty cheap. We wanted to see it to see if it would even be a possibility as a fixer-uper and to get us into the market. The realtors selling it never called back, so we got in touch with my friend's mom who is a realtor. She said that house was already under contract, but what did we really want in a house if we were to buy? So we thought about it and what we really want is to be more central and in a bit of a bigger house. So we went looking and put an offer in on one. Long story- but after our offer didn't get accepted, we decided not to make a second on it. We went looking again and found this town home, in the same community as one of my best friends for pretty inexpensive. Why? Because the whole thing needs to be gutted and redone. We're up for it though! and for the last two weeks Colin and I have been planning and thinking about all that we could do to make this place nice again- not to mention going to home depot and lowes and getting contractors out to price flooring and all of that. It's all up in the air and getting pretty frustrating. The day we put our offer in they dropped the price by $5000, but we found out today that they did this to see how many contracts they could get and now are just waiting to see what comes in... so we're waiting to see. We decided today not to resubmit a higher offer. To be honest- what we put in is a good price and since everything (and I mean everything) needs to be replaced, they shouldn't expect more for it. But I guess we'll see. It hasn't been the most positive first-time-buying-a-home experience. And to be honest, if this house doesn't work out, I am leaning more towards staying put for a while until we have more saved. So that's been happening. Will keep you posted.

In other news, Lent started today. I am not Catholic, but did decide to give up some things, including chocolate, pop, and watching TV/movies. Pop is the easiest as I only have it every so often, but would like to eliminate it completely from my diet. Chocolate will probably be reasonably hard, as I love chocolate and eat it weekly at least :( I did pass up chocolate frosting on my yellow cake today we had in work. The hardest thing is forgetting though. That's usually how I fail at Lent- I will forget, then be in the middle of eating or doing it and then just throw in the towel, but this year- if I forget and slip up, I am planning on just keeping on going. And TV will be the hardest. We watch TV a lot and I love just zoning out (bad I know) but I've said I can watch it if I'm at my mom's house and when I'm at my sister's in a couple weeks. Did I mention that? I am going to spend a few days with my nephew Peenix in Las Vegas while my sister's out of town. I am super excited! But what does someone do all day while kids are at school? I plan on cooking for him and reading and working out, but since I don't know the area, I'm not sure I'll be doing too much else? I guess we'll see. Anyways-that's been the main things the last few weeks.