Tips

I'm thinking that if we buy this house, we're going to place ourselves in a bit of a money pit. Too much stuff that *has* to be done, rather than things we just *want* to do. The offer is still on the table, negotiations are still being made, but we can walk away. And my gut says that we will.

So, tomorrow afternoon we are going back out with the realtor to look at more houses. Today, as I sit at my desk, digesting my lunch and pounding through a pile of miniature chocolate treats, I'm thinking about the dead animals I've seen in the homes we've seen so far.

As a general rule, I'd say that it's not a good idea to keep your stuffed dead birds, dead deer, dead raccoons, and zebra skin rug out for prospective home buyers to see. I'd go a step further and say that it's also probably not a good idea to keep all that live ammunition (bullets and the like) in your linen closet, for prospective home buyers to see. You know we're looking in your closets. You know we're walking through the house.

You just might consider that not everyone likes mounted dead animals. Put them in the garage, maybe, or under the bed. I mean, I doubt it will hurt the animals' feelings. No more than it did to shoot them, slaughter them, stuff them and mount them.

All I'm saying is that you have to consider your audience when you're trying to make a sell, you know? Todd and I, for example, will likely have to take down all of our Def Leppard and Tom Cruise posters when we sell our house. Just in case not everyone likes that type of thing.

Reality TV

Do networks actually have to hire actors anymore? Reality TV has taken over. I noticed this last night while scrolling through the TV schedule and thought to myself, "How interesting? They must be making tons of money now, now that they're just filming regular people in the privacy of their homes and bathrooms." Then I wondered why they don't want to come and film Todd, Jack, Lily and me? I mean, we're terribly interesting and live such exciting lives. Just this morning, I unloaded the dishwasher and told Jack he was a "bad boy!" for dragging the shit out of Lily's poo box. Then Lily vomited on the bathroom counter. This is quality stuff.

Now, I love me some Wife Swap, Biggest Loser, and Nanny 911. So I'm not complaining. I do wonder where in the hell they find those people, but...I'm just saying, what was on TV before reality TV, and why don't we miss it? Our obsession with other people's lives goes beyond buying trashy magazines to read up on the latest news about Britney, her husband and baby...we want to know about people just like us. We have to know. We have to Tivo.

We have to start reading more, that's what we have to do.

Casa Luckey

We just put an offer on a house.

Assuming that all goes well, please get in touch with me if you can:
- build a fence
- paint the exterior of a house, repair the woodwork
- "gut" a bathroom shower and re-tile
- install a sprinkler system
- replace kitchen countertop tile that currently has tiny paintings of herbs on it
- rip up linoleum

Of course, we'll need all of this done, for free.

Keeping fingers crossed.

House Update

The update is that there is no update. Spent several hours today with the realtor looking at houses, in people's pantries and at their toilets, and we didn't find anything.

We have found two great houses now, though, that have railroad tracks behind them. Nice.

Last week, because I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I created a spreadsheet that included an evaluation criteria and ranking system for the 17 houses that we wanted to look at this weekend. From this, I was able to statistically rank each house by location, "overall look and feel", price, size, price per square foot, etc. I felt really good after making this list, because I was able to rank the houses and make sure that, in the short timeframe we had today, we'd be able to see at least the top ten. Checked my email this afternoon before meeting the realtor and the top five houses were already under contract. Talk about a blow.

So I'm enjoying a glass of wine as I'm typing this. To take a little of the edge off.

Back to square one. Again.

You have to ask yourself, are you smart enough to be a parent?

This is really an embarrassing story. So of course I'm going to post it online for the entire Internet population to enjoy.

I've taken three pregnancy tests in the last 24 hours. Not because I didn't trust the responses I was receiving, but because I am an idiot and can't follow simple, illustrated instructions. Illustrated.

The reason this is so strange to me -- I've given probably 100 urine pregnancy tests in my lifetime - to patients at the doctor's office where I worked in college. But these new ones, they're tricky. They've got newfangled, fancy digital readings of "pregnant" and "not pregnant". There's a whole "plug in the strip-make sure the arrows line up-look for the light to blink-wait 5 seconds for this-wait 15 seconds for that-make sure it's lying flat-put your left leg in the bathroom sink-roll toilet paper around your wrists" thing going on. When you're tired and dying from allergies, this is too much to handle!

Thank goodness I bought the box that contained three tests, or I would have run out of options the first or second time.

I think, that even if you aren't sexually active, if you've never even thought about sex, that taking a home pregnancy test is the most stressful thing in the world.

Never My Love

I hear this song on the old 98.7 all the time, and every time it comes on, I remember how much I love it.

You ask me if there'll come a time
When I grow tired of you
Never my love
Never my love

You wonder if this heart of mine
Will lose its desire for you
Never my love
Never my love

What makes you think love will end
When you know that my whole life depends
On you...
Never my love
Never my love

You say you fear I'll change my mind
And I won't require you
Never my love
Never my love

How can you think love will end
When I've asked you to spend your whole life
With me...

Names and Spell Checker

You're blessed today. Two posts from me in one day. I mean -- luck-y.

I need to say up front that what I'm going to type here, it's just an opinion. Your opinion might differ greatly from mine (and it likely does) so please don't be offended. Again, just my preference, my opinion. (I am obsessed with not offending, hence, not responding to my realtor's emails and calls all day today in case I choose to buy a townhome without her assistance.)

I like names that are traditional in nature. I like for a name to be spelled the way it has always been spelled, not throwing extra y's or vowels into it to give the name its own unique flavor. For some reason, this really gets to me. Grates on me, actually.

Does this mean I'm a conformist? God I hope not. I tend to buck the system in every other corner of the world around me, except when it comes to how names are spelled. (Notice I didn't say, "how you spell your name", because 99% of you likely didn't choose the spelling of your name, your parents did.)

Nice segue. So if you've had a name your entire life, you may not know that it's spelled differently than most. This never occurred to me until today. MY PARENTS SPELLED MY NAME IN A NON-CONFORMIST NAME SPELLING MANNER. Lauri. Not Lori, not Lauren, not Laurie. Just Lauri. Without the "e". I started noticing around my office that even though I've been here three years, some of the employees (my day to day co-workers) still spell my name with an E. Many of my clients do it. Vendors. My realtor. People who send me junk mail.

The reason I know that my name is spelled differently is because it's not spelled the way almost everyone assumes it is.

Of course, my thoughts on the spelling of someone's name always go back to the parents. I don't dislike Jynnifur because her parents misspelled her name. It's not her fault. I don't dislike a baby because his name is all jacked up, I just ask the parents what they were thinking when they signed the birth certificate? I mean, really?

So I've got Lauri. And now Luckey. A common word, with an "e" thrown into it. Perhaps I should take the "e" from the last name and attach it to the first, then I will be a normal girl. And people will spell it the right way, the first time.

Nah, I still think Lauri is normal; it's everyone else that's absurd.

I can't take it anymore.

This home buying, home shopping, home inspecting, home searching...it's wearing me out. On Friday, we had pretty much narrowed down our choices to two homes -- one, a nice new home with tons of updates and a neat little backyard, everything perfect. The second, a friend's mother's home -- she is going into a nursing home and they're needing to sell the home quickly - a perfect "fixer-upper", great floorplan and great potential.

Home number one is near a railroad track. Well, the track is right behind the backyard fence. We went back to look at it yesterday and per the advice of our families, not a good idea, considering that if we had to sell it quickly for any reason we should be prepared for it to sit on the market for a while until someone else who doesn't mind trains comes along and takes it. It's really a great house - the lady who is selling it has done some really neat work on it. But, she can't rip up the train track and make it a great home in a great location.

Home number two. At first glance, perfect. We'd be able to get a great deal on it from our friend and go in and fix it up just how we like it...Until my cousin came to look at it yesterday and found that the stains on the carpet are actually coming up from the floor where there is clearly some major foundation issues. We can't have that, obviously.

So we're back to square one. The clock that's ticking for us is the apartment lease clock. We have to tell them by March 31 if we're going to renew or stay here - it's just not enough time.

Yesterday afternoon we stopped by a new development that is near Todd's parents' house that has "garden homes" (zero lot line) and townhomes. We'd never investigated this because we thought they were out of our price range, but after more research and looking at them, it seems that the townhomes might be an option. We're doing more research this week, but again, it will take some time for them to build the one we want. It'd be a great starter home - not an apartment, not a full-blown house. And it would have great re-sell value. Jack wouldn't get the yard we've been promising him, but he would have his own little patch of grass to go potty on.

So then there's the realtor dilemma. She's been helping us for a year, she's driven us around the metroplex searching for just the right home. If we go the townhome route, she won't get paid and won't be involved. I emailed her last night to let her know that we were looking into the townhomes and she responded asking if we'd still let her handle the transactions. We won't be able to, and this is really making my moral compass spin off the charts. I know that it's "just business" and that we have to do what's right for us. But I hate that she's worked so hard for us and is getting nothing. As a matter of fact, it makes me a little sick to my stomach.

Quite simply, I'm tired of throwing money away in rent. But I know that we've got to keep looking, that right now just isn't the right time. I am so preoccupied with all of it that I can barely sleep at night. If I fall asleep on the couch in the evenings, Todd just leaves me there, because waking me up means that I get in bed and stare at the ceiling all night. Last night was one of those nights, and this morning I woke up fully clothed under a blanket on the couch that he put on top of me. Poor guy, he's probably wondering what made him think it was a good idea to marry such a basketcase.