The Italian Basil grew so quickly after I raised the lamp to the last setting that overnight it grew into it and scorched through one of the leaves! I trimmed it back as soon as I noticed (hence the strange stalk in the middle.) Looking great!! We’ll start using some of it very soon.

Some of the best news ever: we made an offer on a house that we really loved and although the sellers countered it, they still countered for less than the asking price! This is fantastic news because it means that the house is ours pending an inspection and financing going through!

Our agent has been so fantastic during this short process thus far; she has been available at all hours and more than willing to answer the flurry of questions we’ve thrown at her. Since we had done so much looking online prior to meeting with her, we had a pretty clear idea of what was available in the area in our price range and were certain that this was the right house for us. Nevertheless, she took us around to a handful of other places for comparison, which only solidified our conviction.

Just to give a bit of detail on the place: 2 bedroom, 1.5 1.75 bathroom, superbly finished basement, sunroom, detached 3-car garage in the High Point neighborhood of West Seattle. It seriously is the most unique and interesting and well-maintained house we can afford! It’s old (built in 1925) but the renovations it has undergone have been dramatic. I will post photos as soon as we know all the paperwork goes through. There is still a chance something could cause the deal to crumble but it’s very unlikely at this point.

So YAYS! Within a month we’ll very likely be homeowners! Thanks so much to our families who have been so generous and helpful in making this happen for us.

A bit delayed on posting this one (photo was taken on Monday), so my apologies. My head has been in the clouds all week.

The reason for this is sort of suddenly Jules and I are in the process of looking for a house to buy. We have just re-signed our lease for another year but after getting a call for loud video game playing after “quiet hours” we decided that we are tired enough of apartment life that we want to do everything we can to get a more private space of our own. I want to get back into painting again and be able to customize our living space in my way without worrying about losing a security deposit. After quite a bit of research, we discovered that because we qualified for a FHA (government-subsidized) mortgage, it is actually within reason for us to use our savings for a down payment since the requirement is only 3% minimum (rather than 10%.) Today I went for it and got pre-approved for a mortgage! We have been looking for houses in the West Seattle area and have found several we are interested in, so now all that’s left is to start touring. We have the first tour booked for tomorrow night, so hopefully that will go well! I am beyond excited right now!

Garden coming along very nicely now. I’ve already raised the lamps 2 notches this week! The cats are (generally) leaving it alone too, which is amazing.

Another tidbit of interesting news: this afternoon I purchased our plane tickets to London for Christmas! It must have been meant to be as Northwest Airlines was having a special sale for travel to Europe during the timeframe we were considering! That made the tickets each about $200 less than they were when I looked last week. Very happy and excited about the trip! It will be so great to finally see England and to be with Jules’ family again (who are all such amazing people–I am incredibly lucky to have married into such a wonderful family!)

On a related note, I painted a face on my luggage on Saturday to make it a bit more distinguishable from all the other black rectangular prisms on the conveyor. I might make it a bit more elaborate eventually but that’s yet to be seen. I’ll post a photo once I decide.

Upgrading my phone right now to the newly released iPhone 2.1 Software Update. Let’s hope these things really are fixed.

The following message pops up on the first screen of the EULA dialog:

iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved battery life for most users
• dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• faster installation of 3rd party applications
• fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
• improved performance in text messaging
• faster loading and searching of contacts
• improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

Garden is going strong! The chives are about 1 inch from the lights so we will be raising the lamp this evening.

It was a nice, quiet weekend, which we desperately needed. I spent yesterday cleaning the apartment and reading while Jules played Spore. I pulled out the Gazelle with intent to begin exercising again tonight. Jules has decided to get back into Wii Fit. I think the main thing that pulled us away from that was the fact that we couldn’t both do it simultaneously so someone was always stuck waiting. Hopefully this setup will work better.

We also started playing Kingdom of Loathing again after a 4-year absence. It’s still fun and there’s a lot more to do now, so it seems less likely that we’ll quit out of boredom this time.

I’m partway into book three of the Stephenie Meyer “Twilight” saga. I feel a bit torn about the series because I am now hopelessly addicted to it but a bit embarrassed by that fact since it’s teenage fluff. I intend to see the movie when it comes out and Jules even agreed to go with me even after I assured him he didn’t have to.

PAX was phenomenal this year. Jules and I had a fantastic time all three days. The highlight for me was definitely seeing Jonathan Coulton live, and luckily for me we had a great view. I’ll post my videos to youtube as soon as I get a chance.

Happy birthday, Mom! Here is our garden on week two. Things are looking quite nice and the cats have generally left the plants alone thus far.

More posts recounting the past weekend as my brain wakes up.