Rants, Recipes, and Running

Today I am thankful for our house. We are so blessed to have gotten this place! Here are a few reasons why I love this the steal we got!: 1) It happens to be in a neighborhood in the part of town I've drove to to run the trails for the past year! Now I don't have to drive 10 minutes to go for a gorgeous run, as it's right outside my back yard! 2) It backs into a golf course. Some people (our realtor) would say that's not a good thing. I disagree. AZ doesn't have a lot of green grass...and that's what we look at every day, and we don't have to maintain it either! (maintaining grass in this state is a headache ...) We are located in a spot where very few balls end up in our yard too, so it works out. 3) It's a very friendly neighborhood. (but not too friendly..so it's a nice balance. No annoying neighbors!) -- The weekend we closed, our neighbor came over with a plate of cookies to welcome us. It warmed my heart. And people are already working on...

36 house showings. 1 year. Probably 1,000 different homes viewed on Zillow, Trulia, and TARMLS 3 different realtors. 4 offers. Hours of looking through home magazines, perusing around Home Depot, touring model homes, watching HGTV to really pinpoint what we value in a home. And we have a winner, folks!!! As you may know, we've been in the process of a brutal house hunt for a few weeks. I kind of quit talking about it, since so much was changing. Everyone calls this a "buyers market". And yes, it is throughout the country. But I will say in the area we are looking it is a sellers market. Every house we placed an offer on, had at LEAST 4 other offers we were competing against. When I felt like giving up.... Our realtor called. A house we had wanted to look at back in July we chose NOT to look at because it was under CAPA. (it's a short sale). So we said "Let's not waste our time" Well, those buyers got antsy, and cancelled their co...

The Living Room/Great Room of the Dream House. My first thing I would like is for the living room to be attached to the kitchen. I often see people don't like this feature. One of my favorite things to do while watching a movie, is cook/work-away in the kitchen (I cannot sit and watch a movie...) I also think the 2 connected is nice for entertaining. Maybe a bar separating the two? ( http://www.tuscanyvillasredding.com/ ) I am assuming this kitchen bar looks out into the living room. Another detail I am particular about is the flooring . The home we were building have tile floors - since it just seems to be the best flooring material in Arizona. The dryness, the extreme heat, the sand .... tile works best. However, our dreamhouse has wood floors. I'd prefer a darker flooring. Or something like this.... I have decided I definitely like the addition of a fireplace in the living room. It just adds a nice ambiance in the winter! My favorite type of fireplace is a stone ...

Do you remember last fall when we were building our dream house? Then the builders and the plumbers had a "oopsy daisy" in communication. And busted/damaged/screwed over our "post-tension concrete". Ryan & I were the one's to discover this one dreamy Sunday evening. And we got out of the contract, thank you to the benefits of a VA loan. We now live just a few miles away from that house. When we 1st moved, we'd check it out every once in awhile. I'd cackle, saying "Thank God we got out of that trap!! It's not even that nice" Well, yesterday I went for a run - and I happened to run by our "was gonna be home". And there was big, yellow "SOLD" sign in front of it. It was standing there exactly how we desigend it. It had the gorgeous bricks, the warm tuscany-style colors, the Birds of Paradise plants in front as we chose. I got a little sentimental..... I then realized that house is NOT for us. Our dream ...