Wednesday, November 23, 2011

thanksgiving and a birthday

Last weekend we went back to my neck of the woods to celebrate my niece's 1st birthday. That's right, Miss Lola Claire is one year old as of November 16. Since Jamie and Kenny had planned a Saturday party, my dad and stepmother decided to go ahead and have a Thanksgiving celebration the same weekend. After all, everyone had planned to come for the party.



Celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on Sunday worked out great for us. We'll get to go see Chris' family tonight, and we'll make the drive to see Chris stepmother's family tomorrow. We'll come back late tomorrow. On Friday afternoon/evening Chris' mom and stepdad are coming through Kentucky to see us on the way home from visiting some family in Georgia. They'll stay the night with us and leave sometime on Saturday. We haven't seen them in a really long time, so it will be good to get to visit even for a short time. Whew! I am glad we both get a 5 day weekend! It will be packed!

I have lots to be thankful for! Counting my blessings...Christ, a place to live, food on the table, family, friends, loving hubby, smelly dog, jobs that pay us a decently fair salary, cars that work most of the time, coffee that helps me get going in the mornings, snacks, music...

Sunday, November 13, 2011

27

This Sunday it was my turn to turn one year older. I turned 27 today, and it seems okay so far. I got to enjoy church this morning, throwing a baby shower this afternoon, and dinner and a Pumpkin Spice Latte with my sweetie this evening. I had a good birthday!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

moving soon

This week was kind of stressful. We just realized that if we were going to be ready to move by the time our lease is up on January 9, we had to:

1). Give a 60 day notice to our current property management by Friday.
2). Start looking for a new home.

Then we realized that the next few weekends are already packed full, so we'd better start setting up some times to look at new apartments either in the evenings or this weekend. I'd been keeping my eyes open for rental properties for a while now, so we had already driven through a couple of areas that we knew would be closer for Chris's commute. We had already decided to stick with an apartment for now. Rental houses all seemed to be a lot more expensive. We figured our money would work better for us if we saved by doing apartment style living for a bit longer. 

One unit happened to come open in the right area with the management group we've rented from for a while, until our management changed about two months ago. We went to see the place Tuesday since Chris was off for election day. We would have had to move about three or four weeks earlier than we wanted. A deposit would only hold it for us for one month, so we would have been paying rent in two places for an entire month. Despite it being an older building with older appliances and dinged up linoleum in the kitchen, we liked it. It was a lot bigger and had two bathrooms. I was slow with the decision, but after going to look at it again after work on Tuesday night, I was ready to put down a deposit. Unfortunately, by the time I called back the next morning to tell them that I would be dropping by with our rental application and deposit on my lunch hour, they had already lease it to someone else. The next unit they had in that area wouldn't come open until April. I was pretty disappointed, but then I thought, maybe someone else needed it right now. We would have just been holding it empty for a month. I had no idea our opportunity would be so limited. I guess it's because people don't like to move around Christmastime.

Luckily, I remembered that another management company had mentioned that they had a unit in the same area. They just weren't sure if the availability would work for us since their current tenants weren't leaving until January 1st and they needed time to get it ready for the next tenant. I called them back to see which one it was and when they thought they could get the next renters in by. They said the timeline would be tight, especially due to the New Year holiday but that they thought they could get us in a couple days before January 9th. I went on my own to look at it Thursday afternoon. It was exactly the same as the one we had looked at on Tuesday. It was just one building over. The appliances and floors were in much better shape. I decided that was it, and handed over my money before they could lease it to someone else! Giving a 60 day notice without having something else lined up just wasn't going to work for me. Despite the fact that the unit is a little bit older than where we live now, I think we're going to like living there.

We'll be in one of the 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom townhouses in Covington Station. We'll have 300 more square feet than we have now. Rent will be $50 more per month. I'll be about five minutes closer to work. The best part and biggest reason for the move is that we are cutting off over 14 miles from Chris's commute. That's close to 30 miles per day. Instead of a 55-60 minute drive, it will be 45-50 minutes. It's still long, but it shouldn't be as bad. We'll be just one mile from the Natcher Parkway. The neighborhood seems nicer than many of our other options, so I am happy with it. We move in January 7.


Hopefully we'll be buying our next home, but it will take us a while to save that down payment. We're still on baby step three. For now, we'll enjoy not having to mow.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

30!

My Christopher is 30 years old today! I am now married to an old man! We celebrated by inviting his dad, stepmother and the little step brother and sister to church and lunch afterwards. It was a good time because church as awesome this morning and as usual, we all ate too much! Chris chose to eat at Mariah's because he was pretty sure his family hadn't ever been there. It was a good place for a birthday celebration. They even brought out a brownie ice cream dessert and didn't embarrass him with any singing.

After lunch we went back to the apartment for our annual cheesecake. Chris really likes cheesecake. He said when he was younger his mom would sometimes make him one for his birthday. Ever since we've been together, I've made him one for his birthday. This year, I decided to try to make turtle cheesecake. It was good, but because of the layer of caramel on top of the crust, it was a little bit hard to cut and eat. Note to self: Next time let the cake sit out for a bit before serving. Everyone said it was tasty, but we were all also still painfully full from lunch.

Chris is tuckered out now on the couch, resting for a bit before he gets back to work on his KTIP preparations. He has the rest of his first round of observations this week, so it's going to be a busy and stressful one for him. The people observing him all scheduled really close together, so he's had a hard time keeping his head above the water lately.  Teaching is tough, and when you add in all the KTIP work on top of that, it's even busier. Today was the break that I think he needed to become refreshed enough to finish this part of his semester.

This year's cheesecake creation:








Almost finished!




The birthday boy!