We've Moved!

This post is rather late because I've been crazy busy with the move, work, and school. Our escrow closed on March 19th and we have moved into our new house! We LOVE it. Right now it only feels like our home at night when we go to bed, the rest of the time it feels like we are staying at a resort.

I don't think I will be posting much, if at all, between now and the end of the school year. I've really got to focus on finishing my master's classes and doing research for my paper. Also, on June 16th I'm scheduled to have jaw surgery (yikes!), so I think that I will get back to posting while I am in recovery and can't talk!

This week is State Testing (STAR and CAT6) at our school. Many people think kids don't care about these tests and/or they don't understand the implications of such "high stakes" standardized tests. Below is a note that my Assistant Principal found on the ground during lunch yesterday. It turns out that Amanda is one of my students... we have our 2nd period classes for 5 hours on each day of testing so they get a little sick of the same teacher... She has no idea I've seen her note... but this is a perfect example of how we often underestimate our students!

I will be back in June!

House Hunting: Step Two

We started house hunting almost three weeks ago, even though we really don't need to buy until the summer. We figured that we'd get a head start to see what is out there, check out the market, and get a feel for what kind of house we wanted to buy. Well, all of our questions were answered quickly, and we fell in love with a house last week (see earlier post).

So, Tuesday night at 8:30pm we ended up making an offer. We waited all day Wednesday and Thursday and heard nothing. I was a stress case. Our offer expired at 8:30pm on Friday. So, Friday at work, just after lunch I checked my email, and there it was -- the counter offer!

We were expecting a counter offer, in fact we had previously decided that we would be willing to pay up to $10k over their asking price if it got into a counter offer situation. So we were *pleasantly* shocked when this happened:

• Asking price was $399,000
• We offered $389,000
• They countered with -- accepting our offer with them taking the fountain on the front porch with them when they move.

Sure, take the fountain; you can have it! So, we accepted their offer on Friday night, and now we have the long weekend to soak it all in. Tuesday we should get the phone call to sign the papers to get escrow started.

Crazy! It has all happened so fast. We are still keeping our fingers crossed - who knows what can happen between now and Tuesday. I'll post more pics once everything is solid.

~Calioc

We Made an Offer!

So, we spent some time looking at more houses this weekend, and once again we faced great disappointment. Finding a house we both love, an area we both love, with a price we both love is going to be a challenge!

We thought we found it today... and maybe we have, but there is a big questionmark hanging over it. First, let me introduce you to Earl...

Earl is a lovely 2,800 sq ft home that has an amazing kitchen, a full bedroom and bathroom downstairs, 3 bedrooms upstairs, and a bonus room. She has a beautifully landscaped backyard with a spa and palm trees. She is priced reasonably and is ready for us to make an offer; but...

We think she is a smoker! Yes, when we walked into the garage (attached to the house through a laundry room) we smelled smoke. We didn't smell it upstairs or in the kitchen, but the house has been recently painted... so we need to do more research. We need to see it again and put our noses to the floor and sniff. We will bring our parents to see her next time, we will fully inspect her, and then we will either make an offer or say good-bye and move on to the next one.

UPDATE 2/11 -- We visited her again on Monday, but this time my mom & dad, and my husbands mom & grandpa came with us. We didn't tell them about the smoke, and they didn't notice! After we told them and we talked to the owner about it we learned that the owner does smoke on the back patio and in the garage. She showed us her ashtrays. Then we went out to dinner with our parents to discuss everything.

We came to the conclusion that the smoking isn't as big of a deal as we thought it was since it was all done outside of the house. So...

We made an offer! That was at 8:30 pm last night (Tuesday), and we have not heard anything yet. Ugh. Very stressfull; I've had a migraine all day! Updates will follow...

~ Calioc

The Home Shopping Experience

So, today was our first time out looking at houses. I have learned that house shopping is a very emotional thing. I have also learned that I am very picky and a bit of a snob.

What we learned from our experience today:

• We don't like the houses we can afford in Orange County
• We really like one specific area of Corona called "Sierra del Oro"
• Bank owned homes are in major need of being fixed-up; when people lose their homes they become wild animals and do horrible things to the property. Smashed windows, torn up carpet, holes in walls, etc...
• If you love the house, the backyard is too small, or it is in a bad area
• If you love the location and the yard, the house looks like it came straight out of 1983
• It looks like we may have to buy a "fixer-upper"; we just need to decide how much fixing up we are willing to do.

We found one home we loved, but the entire backyard was taken up by a pool -- a long narrow pool that if you weren't careful you would walk right into. Not a good place for a family.

We found another one we loved (actually it is just about my perfect house), but it is in a community where the houses are almost touching, there is no parking on the street, and trying to get out of the gated community in the morning would be a nightmare (we might go look at it again).

So... now our agent knows what we like and we will spend every moment we get looking for the perfect house. We are not in a hurry, the market is on our side, and we are pre-approved so we will be patient until we find "the one".

~Calioc

The Knot, The Nest, The Egg...

I'm sure there are many couples out there that get married and don't have to listen to their families bug them about kids constantly. We are NOT one of those couples. I'm 35 and Mr. Calioc is 33, so according to our families we need to start now. I want to enjoy at least one year of marriage without pregnancy; seriously, we were only together for 2 1/2 years before getting married. At first it was a fairly constant struggle trying to explain my pov; my husband didn't care either way -- we could start now or wait a year. But, both of our families kept bugging us to start now, until...

We live in a nice, but very small, condo in Irvine with a downstairs neighbor that smokes. Every time I walk up the steps I smell his smoke, every time he does laundry I smell his smoke, and whenever we run the AC I smell his smoke. Mr. Calioc smells it too, and so does our cat.

So, Mr. Calioc did some research on pregnancy and 2nd hand smoke; he also did research on ways to prevent the smoke from getting into our condo. Here is what he learned:

• Legally, there is nothing we can do because we live in condos and not apartments.
• We can replace our filter, but that will only make it smell better, it doesn't actually remove any of the harmful smoke.
• We can buy an "air purification" system, but it is generally believed by "experts" that these purifications systems only make the air smell better and only get rid of larger particles that cause allergies, but not small smoke particles.


• I am technically a "high risk" pregnancy because of my age, and therefore I need to be more careful (though I am very healthy, so age is not so much an issue).


• Second hand smoke can directly effect the fetus and has been linked to birth defects and low birth weight.

So, what do we do? We move! Yes, we have pushed up our timeline to buy a house. The plan is to start looking this May so we can buy before the end of summer. I can go off the pill as soon as we go into escrow, or maybe even sooner. I (knock on wood) don't expect to get prego right away (I was a runner for many years with lots of low weight related female issues), so we need some time to try. Our "ideal" time to get prego is August because I am a teacher and it would be great to take my leave during the end of the school year and have all summer to get used to being a mommy.

Okay, sorry so long. This is a topic that will come up again!

~ Calioc