7 things

Unusually Unusual Farmchick posted a thing where you're suppose to divulge seven things others might not know about yourself. So I'll let you in on seven things about me:

1. I was purely left handed for quite a bit of my life, actually right up until elementary school. They saw fit to fix that. My father is a lefty. I seem to have adapted into quasi-ambidexterous. I drink using my left hand, switch with utensils, grab and hold with either hand but when it comes for writing I am a righty and as for the computer mouse I can do either way but I am more comfortable using my left. My desk at work is set up lefty style. But Bill is a righty so thats how it is set up for our computer here.

2. I currently own 3 pairs of jeans, thats it. I also only own a total of 4 pairs of shoes.

3. I listen to everything thing imaginable when it comes to music. From Les Miserable to Pantera.

4. My favourite dessert is a tie between Tiramisu and Honey Glazed Chocolate chip croissants(only found at Panera so far) it's funny that I rarely ever get to have any though.

5. I am NOT a morning person without massive amounts of caffiene. On the occasion that I drink coffee it has to be with LOTS of sugar, usually I opt for diet Coke or Mountain Dew.

6. I have never owned a coffee pot as an adult on my own. We had one here at the trailer but it was J's.

7. Every female on my mom's side of the family is somewhat "gifted", heavily intuitive (to a creepy point sometimes) and have all had run ins with "weird" stuff happening to them. It's all pretty much accepted yet quite a few of these women freaked out when I came out as a pagan LOL.

I tagged a few people I read but I will leave it open to anyone who happens upon this post, too. Just leave a comment to let me know who to visit.

The blob, bucket style

To update, the laundry soap was a gelatinous thing with little liquid, maybe i needed more water?? It also was on the floor so it might just have been too cold. Moved it to the laundry room on top of the dry we'll see how it does. Teen got her drivers license. And we haven't heard anything from the real estate agent yet. J moved out and S hasn't been home much. So I got super industrious tonight and cleaned like a mad woman. Here's my proof....

The place only looks this nice when I do this; otherwise, it is a sad, sad sight. My own mother can attest to this. Bill will be pleasantly suprised when he gets home. When I wake up Thurs I am tackling Teen's room..she's had more than enough time to avoid this. Now Im off to find my body lotion as my hands are screaming dry.

Making my own laundry soap

So I came across a recipe on The Family Homestead to make my own laundry soap. I've been chomping at the bit to do it and finally got to do it today. Took me a bit of running around town to find the Washing Soda (Schnucks had it) and I got a deal of the Fels Naptha bars at Arnold's. The borax was easy enough. Anyway, I gathered my ingredients up. I got out what our group of friends affectionately call the "Mongolian Pot of Doom". Cleaned out my 5 gal pickle bucket that my friend G salvaged for me when he worked at Burger King. Then I had to wait for time to make it cuz we were super busy today too. I lamented to Bill today that I didn't want to leave the detergent in the pickle bucket but I didn't have a container big enough to hold it all. Bill smiles and lets me know that in all this super windy weather he spotted a huge cooking oil container running down the highway on his way home so he picked it up and brought it home for me cuz "I know you could use it somehow." So it's in the back of his Blazer waiting. How cool is that? Anyway about 7:30pm I got to make my soap, and yes I took a few pics. I added geranium oil for scent and let it sit. Checked on it at 10pm and it was already gelling up :) So we will see how it looks when I get up and then its ready for use around 7:30pm Wed. We can't wait! My next project will be trying to find a dish detergent recipe.

Grrrrrr

So we found out that there was a little more wrong with the house than we anticipated. Bill freaked out a little I freaked out a little but its a 108 year old house for crying out loud. Today we are better but we put in what we want done with the house and are now waiting again. It's not that we couldn't do them ourselves eventually but some of it really does need to get taken care of right away. The Rural Development and housing appraisal should be happening soon Im worried that it wont pass and that will bring on a new set of headaches. So we are in a holding pattern. If you have energy or prayers to spare, we wouldn't object some thrown our way.

House inspection ...take 2

So I realized I never told you how the first house inspection went LOL.. It was a riot a la the movie "The Money Pit" but not that bad. In a nutshell, the water had been off, the propane had been off and when the water turned back on the faucet exploded in the kitchen...it was cool to watch. The seller went straight out bought all the stuff for a new one and installed it while we waited for the furnace technician to come out and bleed the propane lines and light the pilot lights. Found out that the pipe trap in the bathroom had also cracked. Pretty sure he was fixing that as we were leaving. So with all that the inspection didnt get finished but we meet back up with Mr. Inspector tomorrow so it will be done. Im just waiting to hear about paper work after that.

In other news Im going to attempt to make my own laundry soap out of Washing Soda, Borax and Fels Naptha bar soap stuff. I will take pictures as I finally got new batteries.

Overtime went well. They may offer more towards the end of the week. Came home and found out Heath Ledger died, I am heartbroken, he was one of my new fave actors...damn sexy, damn shame. I was suppose to get the disclosures for the house emailed to me with the square footage of the house. I dont have it and Im kinda torqued off. I made lasagna today with low carb noodles by Dreamfields. It wasnt half bad, not as good as my first batch though. I like cottage cheese better than riccotta I guess. I worked in a salad for everyone as well. Teen is making me slightly irrate. She promised to clean her room and hasn't so I gently reminded her that its not about a messy room, its about keeping her word. Who knows, I just might go in there while she's at school and clean it. She absolutely LOVES that. (Yes that is sarcasm) But thats what you get when you fall back on a promise and then complain about it.

Does anyone live by me?

So I was wondering if anyone lived by Southern Illinois. Im in Carbondale, which is about 45 minutes from Paducah and 2 hours I think from St Louis and 6 hours from Chicago. Just wondering where people are. I guess Im feeling just a little lonely tonight.

Here I go again....

The washer drain froze....again. I told S and nothing was done. Hopefully it will be warmer tomorrow and I can do some laundry. On another S note. He bought some CFL light bulbs for the house. Yeah maybe I made a mark :) I spent 10 bucks on a pair of new jeans from Wal-mart and felt guilty. I always do when I buy myself stuff I need like jeans but never when I buy stuff I dont need like a small thing of Hagen Daaz...go figure. Been working overtime and I go in at 11:30am and work 4 hours on my day off. I have to be up in 5 hours cuz I want to spend some time with Bill, who proudly states that he now wants to be referred to on here as Big Daddy. Go ahead and laugh I did. This is the only time Im gonna even put that down :) Got the house inspection scheduled for Wed. I am calling the bank when it opens to see if the realtor sent the paperwork yet and to drop off the stuff I have here. Im a nervous wreck. I just want to know if it's going to pass the Rural development thing and be mine. I'll have no problem waiting after that cuz I'll be too darn busy packing. Trying to plan garden stuff but my family doesnt eat things like bok choi or raddiccho. I have a hard enough time getting salads in our meals :( Is it kinda like Field of Dreams...ya know...if you plant it they will eat it???

So we found a house, put in an offer and had that accepted. We expected a counter offer but they suprised us. Its a 2br 1bath old farm house built in 1900. It has a detached 1 car garage that has a summer kitchen in it. Its not huge and it needs some re-decorating type of work but we believe it to be a good solid house. It's going to be less that what I was approved for which is great. Its about a 25 mile drive from work, a small town and my neighbors have not only chickens but horses. I will blog more about it and I vow to remember to take pictures. I keep forgetting to take the camera out of the car and then I forget all about it. Now its down to frantically trying to get everything that needs to be done, ie inspections etc finished. We didn't expect it to go THIS fast and my W-2 hasn't come in yet which was going to be instrumental in it but it's covered now, THANKS MOM!!!!! The house has to pass a checklist, a home inspection, and an appraisal. Lately our middle names have been STRESS.

On a side note I got my Johnny's seed catalog, so far the only one I've gotten :(

House hunting sucks

So my head is going to implode if I look at anymore listings. We are frustrated. We've driven around a LOT and as we all know gas isnt cheap. Nothing has really clicked. We have a few of "lets get a showing to see the insides and see if they can be worked with". But nothing that really grabs me. I'm trying to balance out money and what we want. The houses we want to look at are a bit of drive. I worry that it will be too much. It's insane what people want for houses/land and this is an economically depressed area of the state. I have to make some calls Monday morning and then I want to not worry or think about it for my days off, just take a break.

One a side note does anyone know how easy/hard it is to convert a propane/gas heater to wood or multifuel? What are your opinions on them?

Yeah baby!

So I got the call today. My credit is good and I have been approved for $50k went to a local realtor and we chatted them up. Most of what was in our price range didn't have a lot of land but there were a few over half an acre and I think there was actually one with an acre. Not sure if the Royalton place would pass with inspections and I would have to haggle prices but you never know. I was hoping to find something with some more land even if that means rehabbing the house a bit but these people seem against it. He's still working on the IL dept of housing stuff and the Rural development places as well but I was pretty sure that I had to be unable to get financing by traditional means for the Rural development. I will have to call and see.

So it has begun

Went to the bank talked for about and hour and left. I should know Thursday night or Friday day he said. Bank Dude is checking three possible routes, a conventional first time home owners, one through the Illinois Department of Housing and one through Rural Development which I believe is a USDA thing. He said I really need to put my tax money in the savings instead of using it to pay off the credit cards because #1 I dont have that much debt and I really need to have about $1-2,500 to use for things like closing costs, inspections etc. He's basically punching me up for a $50,000 house that includes taxes and insurance. God I think I might die of embarrassment if I get turned down. That and dissapointment, which is FAR worse than embarrassment.

Oh and ya know how I was complaining about the weather??? Yesterday it was 63...it really sucks to go from 10 degrees to 60 degrees in a few days..But we found out what the problem with the washer was. The drain pipe had frozen. Yep an ice clog.

Sweating bullets

Phelan do you remember this song? LOL Well Wednesday I go to the bank to see about getting pre-approved for the house. Im slightly terrified. Got all my paperwork though. Monday when I wake up I have to call around about a local area program that supposedly helps with up to $10,000 in grants for down payments and closing costs for housing in this area. Wish me luck.

Wrapping up 2007 and starting off 2008

Ok so after I wrote the last post Teen decided she just had to take the decrept(sp?) particle board entertainment center/armoire out of her room and I had to help. Not that I mind, I LOVE when she takes her own initiative to clean her room...it is is a complete disaster much of the time. So now its after 4am. But anyways... I got caught up with peoples' posts here's whats going on. It's your typical mix of good and suckage that everyone deals with.

Christmas in Decatur went well. I got my food dehydrator from my parents and 2 extra trays. I also got a hot stone massage kit and room fragrance set and enough money to pay for gas and snacks home. Bill made out like a bandit. He got a circular saw, new screwdriver set AND a gift card to Sears. My family is all about tools :) Teen got great gifts that teenagers like to get and she uses her camera we got her a lot.

The Recycling bins have been a success in the trailer. I have clear glass, tin, plastics #1 and #2. We have a lot of plastic containers that we are repurposing as tupperware stuff. All of them seem to be plastic #5. I don't know what the differences in them are but I do notice more now.
I put all my canvas totes in the car tonight. Teen and I had gone grocery shopping and I had forgotten them on the countertop but I had 2 in the trunk and we used them. Bill has used the giant book tote that I got from my workplace as well. I will have to do another shopping run this weekend so the plastic bags are going to the recycling box they have set up at the grocery store. Hopefully its the end of platic shopping bags for us at least.

The house thing is slow in coming. I haven't applied for a loan yet, Im still trying to get stuff paid off. Medical bills from two admissions and subsequent unneccessary medical procedure have made it frustrating. For my birthday last May I got kidney stones...yep 2 of them. One that I passed (they couldnt find it when they did the cystoscopy Fun!) and one that is hopefully not going anywhere..oh and an ovarian cyst. But thats nothing shocking, I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I'm down to about $300 in medical bills that Im still trying to pay off along with my credit card bills. I shredded the one card and put the other one up so I can't use it. Bill actually helped pay on my radiology bill today, which made me almost cry. He said "This is OUR bill, we're getting married ya know" that is a HUGE thing for both of us. I've contemplated taking on a second job which he is completely against. He knows I'd probably burn out. Right now Im working full time 2nd shift. I signed up for as much overtime as I could for the holidays but they had so many people volunteer that they drew names to see who would work and I didn't get picked. I want to get this taken care of before I start applying for a mortgage loan but I don't think we'll have that much time, things here are still going downhill.

Thing here are sucky to put it mildly. J is waiting to hear back about if she got the place she wants, its flipping cold as hell out and the duct work doesnt work on one entire side of this double wide...guess what side our bedroom and teens bedroom is on? I mean the outside cats get in there for the love of Pete! Mainly its just really cold air that seeps up out of them, we try to keep them covered. I dont even want to know what the power bill is gonna be like. Oh and today the washer decided to spew water all over the floor because something is wrong with the drain. I dont know when or how S is going to get that taken care of as he's leaving for the week soon. So Teen and I had to take the rest of our wash and all our towels that got used to soak up the water to the laundry mat.

On my last note I made lasagna for the first time tonight and it was divine :) I am trying to cook more often and stuff that actually takes more effort than a pizza or hamburgers.

I haven't been online lately Im going to catch up reading everyones postings and then make some hot chocolate and talk about whats going on here.