Naturally Optimistic

I sure wish that someone would write an article about simple money saving tips that are not the obvious! Or at least not the things that I already do - * Give up your designer coffee - check, don't drink coffee anyway... * Pack a lunch for work - I almost always did this; Steve does this daily * Meal plan - do it * Cut your cable - already done * Limit your "going out" or "out to eat" expenses - we do this * Eat vegetarian dinner options once or twice a week - do it * Go to the library instead of buying books/music/movies - yeah, we do this too... You get the idea. I would really like some tips that would actually help me. I'm down to iPhones, home internet (not giving THAT up), Netflix (streaming only) & I'm trying to sell things that are laying around the house that we don't use &/or take up space....I also am bartering/trading these items for other things that other people may have/make....you get the idea. So what about me? Ho...

After nearly three weeks without internet, I'm back! Whohoooo! Thank God! I didn't realize HOW MUCH OF MY LIFE is spent online....every time I wanted to do something, know something, chat with someone, be entertained, etc. I couldn't (well, thank god for the iPhone!). Our new windows (lovely!!) are dual glazed double paned argon filled & they completely block our wireless internet signal from the tower (which is only about a block away! Our house has aluminum siding which blocks the signal from coming through the walls AND the modem we had, which worked for a minute or so after the new windows were installed, crapped out. We talked to no less than 5 different techs (at least 5 different phone calls) & received different info from each. FINALLY last Friday night we got someone who was knowledgeable & said our modem was dead....and we FINALLY got the new one last night! Now, I have to find a better place for said modem (it's currently lying on it's side in...

We have mice. Argh. I'm so annoyed. We have two totally useless cats. Aren't they supposed to take care of such issues? I've only seen one mouse (at at time) but I'm sure there're more than one. They haven't found the food yet (knock on wood) but I know they're in the kitchen and have SEEN it now on a couple of occasions (including WHILE I was standing in the kitchen about 10 minutes ago!! Argh! I *used* to be opposed to setting traps, but this is it. I've had it. We've gotta get rid of these pests!! The traps are coming out. (and by coming out I mean we have to go buy some & set them...sounds like a good job for Steve, right?)

I wanted to have a family picture in front of our house, but we just didn't get to it. We barely made it out the door late in the afternoon!!

WIN: I found a slide/climber thingy on Craigslist last night. Retails for $399, I got it for $150 (I'm channeling my inner pregnancy-twin-Sarah ) I'm so excited. Dahlia is loving climbing & sliding these days & to have something right out our backdoor this summer will be great. I was able to pick up all but two of the pieces this morning. Two very odd shaped pieces just wouldn't fit in my car. Oh well. We weren't going to put it up this weekend anyway. LOSE: While Steve was packing his car for his overnight camping trip this morning (! I know - brrrr!) the glass patio table top, sitting a considerable distance from where he was & totally unmolested, touched, stacked upon or otherwise disturbed, SHATTERED. *sigh* It is now in a million pieces & I am now searching Craigslist for a (cheap) picnic table for our backyard. You win some, you lose some....

In the past I've made excessive lists about all the things I'm going to accomplish (or at least the goals I've set) for the new year to come. Mostly I do not come close, but the lists allow me to keep my brain somewhat organized. Last year I resolved to do one thing - learn how to knit socks. Well, I was halfway successful. This summer I knitted one sock. One sad sock that still does not have a mate. Ah well. At least I was .500 for the year. This year I feel like my brain/resolutions are split in two. Pre-new-baby and post-new-baby. So here are my goals for both: Pre-New-Baby: -Patch, prime & paint our bedroom, put up artwork, acquire (somehow) night stands & a reading light for me. -Strip the wallpaper in the baby's room, prime, paint, make cute valance, artwork etc for new little peanut. Dig out Dahlia's early infant stuff. Get ready. -Paint those godforsaken ugly flesh colored bookshelves!!!!!! -Paint stairs leading up. -Live more frugally/save more mon...

I came downstairs this morning and Steve informed me that the cats had been chasing a mouse. Awesome. I have a strong conflict of interest - I do not want to kill animals AND I do not want mice in our house. hmph.

Well, at least this weekend was a *little* productive. We should've been more so but ah well. Friday? I don't remember Friday. I think that's because I went to bed at about 9pm. I'm exciting like that. I then laid there for 40 minutes watching a stupid episode of 20/20 which I wasn't interested in...like I said. I'm exciting like that. Saturday we got up and hiked up to the Chester Bowl Fall Festival. It was really nice. Beautiful day. No one on the trail on the way up there but we could hear people had parked FAR away! ha! We didn't have to cross one street to get there from our house - we went straight into the woods from our house and ended up in a festival. We had fair food (corn dog), listened to some live music, bought a few gifts and had a great time. But it got HOT! Back down the trail we went. At home we put Dahlia down for a nap, ate lunch and planned our day. Our goal was to get the radiators (upstairs) primed so we can get them painted, the walls...

Our house is a disaster! Seriously. I cannot stand it. We have all the radiators off upstairs, so that we can paint them & the walls behind them (and remove disgusting wallpaper); the wallboard in the upstairs bathroom is still incomplete, Dahlia's room is ALMOST complete, but her dresser is in the hallway & the changing table is in our room, and the rug is rolled up against the wall in our bedroom; the bookshelves are not not painted yet - so there are piles of books everywhere....the downstairs hasn't been painted so no artwork has been hung (we are approaching our one-year-anniversary in this house; the kitchen has ONE coat of paint on it but not 2 so that's not done. We have "new" (old) radiators in our basement that are waiting to be installed. ARGH!!!!! I'm so sick of it! I want to move into a house that is DONE DONE DONE!!! Because...all THESE changes are cosmetic! Just wait til we dive into the wiring & plumbing. ARGH!!!!!!

The refi is complete! Whew! I didn't think it was going to go through for a while yesterday - not because of anything we did (or didn't do) but the banks & title companies are so overwhelmed right now with everyone refinancing that things are generally chaotic. The good news is, we had to come up with about $800 less that we originally thought. Which isn't a TON but was enough to make things a little less tight around here. Our mortgage is now $6k less than it was; our monthly payments are almost $200 less. Our taxes will be going down a little bit too because I had the city accessor come out and reappraise our house (our appraisal & our tax statement were off by about 7%) - it won't be a ton but hey, I take what I can get. Now we only need to come up with another 10% of our mortgage to drop the evil PMI. I can't wait! Of course that'll take quite a while but a lot less since yesterday. We also make two payments a month which turns out to be an extra pay...

Last night I went to Anna's for Stitch & Bitch (Hi Anna!). While there we saw Andrea who moved into our old house. She invited me over to take a peek at the old digs. It looks really great! It has changed quite a bit - well, just paint & window coverings, but it's amazing what a difference that makes. Obviously things are set up a little different and the furniture is different etc. It was different enough to make me not feel bad about being there (because man, do Steve & I both still love that little house). She put new carpet (THANK GOD!) on the stairs and upstairs in two of the bedrooms & the hallway. The only disappointing things to me were that the window coverings are gone - all of them. I would've gladly kept them. In fact the ones in Dahlia's room I searched & searched for. They were longish drapes and I loved how soft & pretty (tan) they were. I haven't been able to find anything like them to put in her new room. And they were gone....

Who do you call when you have radiators, a combined furnace/hot water heater (hot water on demand-ish?) and you're not getting any hot water? A plumber? A heating person? I'm new to the world of radiators and such "fancy" (hahahaha!) hot water heaters but I am freezing cold after taking a cold shower this morning. And Miss Dahlia needs a bath but not in that water! Hmph. (carpet looks AWESOME btw, laminate...uh, not in yet.....)

It's official. We now only own one home. WHEW! Economic crisis and all. I'm so glad everything worked out okay. We met the new owner at the closing today and she seems cool. I think she really REALLY loves the house which makes us happy. It'll be interesting to see what changes she makes to the yard - and maybe even to the house. I mentioned that I visit Dustin & Anna (hi Anna!) quite frequently for Stitch & Bitch - she said - 'come on over!' Not that I will, but one day my curiosity may get the best of me. It feels like a big weight has been lifted. Sure we have oodles upon oodles of boxes & crap piles to go through here, but at least we can now focus on HERE instead of worrying about THERE and HERE. Dahlia was a peach at closing - charming everyone, as usual. That girl knows when to turn it on. She'll either be a celebrity or a politician. Ay yi yi!

Found out yesterday that the furnace... had a clogged nozzle! YAHOOO! So they replaced that and cleaned it and we're good to go. That's a $80-100 charge instead of $3-4k (worst case scenario charge). I had calls from my Mom, MIL, realtor all day yesterday asking what was going on. I was happy when I could finally deliver the good news. Whew! Thanks for the positive working furnace vibes! I think they helped!

Spent all day at the old house, pretty much...well we started the day by taking Miss Dahlia up to Grandma B's house and picking up a desk, dresser and a few other things that we had stored there (most fun - my fabric cabinet! Whohoo!). Dahlia spent the day there, thank goodness and we went to work. We packed up all the remaining CRAP (and I mean, crap, really) in the old house and then Steve brought the truck/trailer home and I stayed there and cleaned. How fun. Vacuuming, scrubbing, wiping, getting the baseboards de-dustified, more vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the oven & fridge (two of my most FAVORITE tasks. Blech. and hauling more crap out and into the garage. I left a huge pile of garbage for the garbage man. I hope they love me! haha. Pretty much everything is done - well, there's one box that's too heavy for me in the basement & some hanging coats/costumes which are too high for me. There are two cans of paint brushes in thinner which I don't know what to ...

Ugh, We're still moving stuff out of the old house. My god. I'm so sick of it. Today we were going to get an early start - but didn't. No big surprise there. We got over there and Dahlia who previously was good as gold, was whiny & clingy and wouldn't let us work! I managed to get some of the upstairs vacuumed and the bathroom cleaned but that was about it. We moved a ton of crap out of the basement (a mini-pickup truck's worth) but there's still more. Tomorrow Grandma B is watching Dahlia so we should be able to just get it done quickly. Oh and a FUN note! It was really cold in the house. The thermostat was set at 60 but it was only 59 (felt much colder). So we tried to turn it on...nothing. Steve hit the "reset" button on the furnace...it would run for about 30 seconds and shut off...we tried this a few times, him at the furnace, me at the thermostat...one time he comes flying up the basement stairs and runs out into the yard...apparently the ven...

Watching the news today does not make me feel very good. I am hoping & praying (to God AND St. Joseph) that the woman who bought our house - well, that her loan actually goes through. I have no idea if it's in jeopardy or if it's even an issue - but it still makes me worried. I just can't imagine holding on to two mortgages for more than this one month. If we do it'll be a very very tight Christmas, to say the least. I don't know what the solution is. I don't know what's "right" or "wrong" in this situation I just know that it's all pretty scary. It's also all fueled by greed which is very sad. So please keep your fingers crossed that this happens.

Ugh. I hate moving. I mean ultimately I like the outcome but this whole packing, carrying, unpacking thing? It's for the birds. We had an AWESOME turn out for help yesterday - THANK GOD. I think our whole house was denuded of the "big" stuff within an hour which rocked....but then the small stuff, the boxes, the bags of crap, the stuff that's not packed because WTF do you do with it anyway? And the stuff you were going to get later and then some AWESOME PEOPLE (hi Anna!) packed it for you (ie: pantry!!)...but seriously...I'm so over moving right now. I've been working for most the day on trying to get everything (hahahahaha) to fit into the new kitchen. It's not going to happen. We had a ginormous pantry at the old house that fit extra George Foreman grills, cake decorating supplies, thermoses, blenders, waffle iron(s) (including mine, which is the shape of Mickey Mouse!), plus the normal sundry of foods, lunch bags (reusable, duh), woks, cat food, etc. An...

Today is the last day in our house. The last day I'll wake up and after feeding Miss Dahlia we'll crawl back into bed to snuggle for just a little while longer. The last morning I'll get to putz around the kitchen with it's beautiful picture window while watching LIVE (yeah, I do so there) and wasting precious morning moments on the computer. The last day I'll come home from work to THIS house. The last time I give Dahlia a bath here, the last night I'll sleep here. *sigh* I'm very very excited to be moving but I'm incredibly sad to be moving too. This is the first house I bought. The first place that was MINE. This is where I met Steve - well, I didn't MEET him here but I lived here when I did. We had our first kiss in the doorway. We fixed the house up. The kitchen is where I told Steve about Dahlia's arrival 9 months in advance. It's where we had friends & family visit. It's where we laughed and cried. It's where we first broug...

So, we've been busy around here...between the new house, the old house, the baby and our jobs. Ay yi yi....someday we'll go on vacation...I hope. At the new house - all the carpet is gone, the wallpaper is off the kitchen walls. We have a fridge (it is FREAKING AWESOME!), and a dishwasher (yet to be installed)...the washer & dryer, which previously did not fit in the basement, will now, thanks to Steve and are coming on Saturday. In case you're wondering I DID go out and buy some high efficiency laundry soap today - to mark the occasion. The guy came to fix the carpentry after the plumbing was fixed last week; I set up an inspection with the city for next week to show them that the work is done, I canceled our FUEL OIL account (yahooo!), I met with the laminate floor measuring guy and a hardwood floor re-do-er guy. Here's the thing - we don't *have* to re-do the floors now and we *could* do them ourselves - but it sucks. We did it once and it's a tough job a...