As it turns out the inspector found an abandoned oil tank under the sunroom of the house and the sellers will have to get it decommissioned before close. I hope that works out! It seems to me it would be hard to get to but obviously that’s not my area of expertise so for all I know it is easy enough.

I can’t wait to post some photos of the house because it is delightfully cute and I’m sure you’re dying to see it. I think I will hold off until the deal is finalized in case something doesn’t work out. (We will know within 2 weeks for sure.)

Tonight we’re having dinner with friends at Maneki, the Japanese restaurant down the street from our apartment. That should be nice. I think I will spend most of the weekend packing and cleaning what I can at this point. Jules will have to work part of the weekend unfortunately, but not much to be done about that.

Started reading Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book this morning. Only a few pages into it I am already delighted, especially since coming across the term “freshly dead.” :3 And ever since reading this post from his journal in September, I have fallen in love with his house and his writing gazebo. It looks like an absolutely gorgeous place to live. Not that I’d want to move back to the Midwest, but…you know. If I had to, that would be a nice place to be!

• Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer
• Beck - Modern Guilt
• Cut/Copy - In Ghost Colours
• Danny Elfman / Various - Nightmare Revisited
• Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
• Ladytron - Velocifero
• MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
• M83 - Saturdays = Youth
• Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue
• Santogold - Santogold
• Yeasayer - All Hours Cymbals

I’ve also been using iTunes’ “Genius Playlist” feature but am finding that no matter what I choose it seems to pick the same 200 or so songs with little to no variation. It seemed extremely cool at first but I’m starting to get bored with it.

All things considered, we have been at this house-buying business for about the minimum time possible given all the procedures that need to be completed, but I’m already aching for it to be over so we can move forward. We are just waiting on the bank to do its appraisal and tell us whether it’s worth the amount we are asking to borrow. The sellers are on a really tight timeline and their purchase of their new house is contingent on the successful sale of their current house so if this somehow didn’t work out all of us would be in a bind. They have been fantastic so far in doing everything they can to make sure it works, but there’s very little wiggle room. I have been praying a lot for the success of this deal if it is meant to be. I know better than to put all my energy into something if it isn’t the right thing, and I feel strongly that this is the right place. I trust my instincts; they have put me in the position I am in now because I have had faith in them during the big decisions I’ve faced in the past.

As I mentioned before, it is extremely difficult to keep my thoughts away from all the fun things we want to do with the house. There will be room for a studio, which means I’ll get the chance to start painting again. I have missed having a strong creative outlet the last few years while I’ve been cramped into an apartment that didn’t allow me the freedom to let loose (lack of space and fear of losing security deposit by ruining walls and carpets) so this is a wonderful thing indeed! The attached sunroom will be a perfect place to set up my easel and drafting table where I will get plenty of natural light and ventilation. This room is also quite private as it is on the back side of the house facing the garage, which is enclosed in a fenced yard. Hopefully we can also use it as something of a greenhouse as well. There is a 3-car garage off the back alley which will allow room for secure parking for our car and more than enough room to set up a workshop where I can build canvas frames and other structures. The basement is completely finished which will be ideal for a media room where we can play movies and video games at any volume we choose! Never again will our Rock Band sessions keep a neighbor from sleeping peacefully (or rattling their dishes in the cabinets or shaking their light fixtures, as our current downstairs neighbors have complained!) We plan to get a pinball machine, a kegerator and full bar, and nice set of furniture for the area (Craigslist, here we come!) to make it really comfortable. Both Jules and I envision this as the place where we will spend most of our leisure time. There is also a 3/4 bathroom down there!

Additionally, my mind keeps wandering to all the things we can do to improve the house. Although the house has been extensively remodeled, it is also very old and there are plenty of things that still need to be done. I love the idea of putting money into the house to make it nicer and watching it build equity. The upgrades to the house will make it worth a lot more when we eventually sell it, or borrow against it if we need to.

I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned this before, but we are pretty sure we will have Nathaniel move in with us, at least for awhile. It will be a mutually beneficial situation because it will help all of us out financially. We will all have more space and be able to split a lot of the things that tend to go to waste. It will be Jules’ first experience having a non-family member as a roommate so that will be an adjustment for him, but I’m sure it will be fine. I’ve lived with roommates for a long time and despite all the tense moments that inevitably occur in such a situation, it has always been a positive experience. Living with other people can be really fun. We have a lot in common with Nat and tend to spend a ton of free time with him as it is now, so it shouldn’t be too rough of a transition.

Throughout all of this I have been amazed at how easy it has been. Granted, being disciplined enough to save money hasn’t exactly been easy, but thankfully both Jules and I have had help from our families to cover additional expenses. We had enough to cover the downpayment but there’s always miscellaneous costs incurred during closing that throw things off a bit. Otherwise, our agent basically found us because we had only called her to show us the house but it turned out that she was free to represent us as a buyer’s agent, and it was just our luck that she was awesome. We had done our research online and both fixated on this particular house out of hundreds of others and knew on first viewing that it was the right one. To ease our minds (and our families’) that we weren’t making a mistake we toured others in the same price range and location, but discovered that it was far and away the best we could afford. I found our mortgage lender online and had him run quotes for us over email. The house inspector and insurance agent we went with are both people our agent has used in the past and fully recommends. Most of the paperwork has gone back and forth through email (scanned PDFs and faxes) and almost everything else has happened over the phone. It’s like we’re living in the future, and thank god for that!

As it turns out, we are the first of our friends in Seattle to go forward with buying a house. We have several friends who are nearing the position to be able to do the same, but have been holding out for various reasons. It is nice to see that some of them are considering this a realistic option for them soon now that we’ve shown them how easy it has been for us. It really has been so much less hassle than I had ever expected. Maybe that is a sign that it was supposed to happen now for us, or maybe we’ve lucked out with the people involved and they have all had very streamlined processes.

Aside from all this house stuff, I realize I haven’t been too verbose the last few months about the rest of our lives. It’s kind of been samey up until the last month. Get up later than we should, get ready, go to work, come home, have dinner, watch movie or play game and then go to bed. Maybe a little kitty teasing in between, but not much in the way of deviation from that schedule. We’ve been trying to save money where we can so we haven’t been eating out as much and we’ve been staying home when we can rather than going out to events. Labor Day weekend pretty much destroyed us in every way possible so we haven’t had much desire to go out to shows since. I’ve been reading a lot on my Kindle and crocheting here and there. I started exercising again just before we started house hunting but have since stopped due to suddenly having a demanding and chaotic schedule. I expect to start up again once we’ve moved. We played some Spore, finished Silent Hill: Homecoming but haven’t yet touched Lego Batman. Saints Row 2 and Rock Band 2 will probably have to wait as well since they’ll be coming out while we’re in the process of moving. We’ve watched up to season 8 of The X-Files and finished the excellent series Simon Schama’s Power of Art which we got from Jules’ family for one of our birthdays. We’re catching up on Mythbusters. Mum Lancaster’s book on Australian women in France was published and she sent us an autographed copy! (It’s been so long since I’ve read a paper book but I will have to make an exception for this.) We booked our trip to the UK for Christmas, but have yet to create an itinerary and book hotels. We’ve watched our amazing little hydroponic garden flourish and eaten some tasty steaks seasoned with Italian Basil. We’ve spent lots of time together, just being together.

I am very excited to finally get the chance to have the life I’ve dreamt of; owning a house of our own is the last piece of the puzzle. The pinball table and maybe another kitty would just be gravy.

Thus far we have taken care of a bunch of stuff, and it has been pretty smooth sailing. Certainly this is all happening FAST.

• We have mutual agreement on the property’s sale price from the sellers.
• We had a house inspection that went really well (in that the inspector found a lot of things wrong, all fixable. She was very thorough and detailed, which I really appreciate.)
• We are going to renegotiate prices based on the findings of the inspection. Roof and chimney need immediate repair.
• We have applied for homeowner’s insurance and are waiting for the agent to send the binder to our mortgage lender.
• We are right on track with paperwork required for mortgage eligibility. So far no missing data, and it is going forward as expected.
• Earnest money has been withdrawn and is sitting in Escrow.
• Closing is set for October 23, with possession on October 26 (to give sellers time to move).
• Current apartment managers are allowing us to break our lease mid-month if we need to so we don’t have to do all our moving on weekday nights (Oct 26-31.)

So yes, all of this has happened within the last week. It’s been difficult to keep track of it all but all the professionals involved have been very helpful and organized so it has required very minimal effort on our part, which is nicer than I had expected. Everyone so far has had a very streamlined process, which has kept my stress levels to a minimum. More to come…

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.

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.