I'm waiting for class to start and I've got to take my own advice.

This class is offered in the evening because, after another same old hum drum day, you can walk in, and you can leave your life behind. For the three hours we're here, we can be anyone we want to.

"Who are you?" Is such a fulfilling question. Am I a husband? homosexual? Rocker? Writer? Black? I'm not albino, obviously, but the rest of it, anything I want to add, I can.

Did I get in a fight last week? Was I defending someone's honor? No, but there were dragons I downed, and smiles I shared. I had delicious, exotic dinners and bread and water lunches. I worked my ass off and slacked harder than anyone.

I fell in love with shoes, boobs, booty, cooking, cleaning, eyebrows, wigs, sunsets, panada bears who wouldn't give me the time of day until Monday night, Laceless high tops, high laced boots, a smile, a piercing or three.

I fell off a book, a car, "The Horse", a water slide into a pool, a bathtub, a toilet, a growler's worth of smooth IPA beer, a few websites and a few radars.

I walk into this classroom as I want: happily married, prepared for the writing assignment, looking forward to the in class movie and the broccoli and hamburger helper dinner waiting in the fridge at home.

I'm going to make at least thirty gold pieces tonight, and laugh, and wake up early after this class.

I'm smart and understated and well on top of my work, husbandry, and schooling.

I'm happy to be here, thank-you for asking.

I'm in a graduate track and my beer belly is less than *that guy*. But only if I'm careful.

I am going through a job change. I probably won't be a healer, come the cataclysm, because there are enough. So, I'm promoting synergy.

I'm dreaming about video games, making my wife piss herself with laughter (talking in my sleep) and I'm laughing right along with her because: I am ridiculous.

I am not going to have movie butt during my class.

I am going to graduate in a few semesters. I am going to be a teacher.

Will I always be midddle middle class?

Birthday Parties

March is the Oh Shit Another! Month, for birthday parties. People go broke from months like these, but we haven't. We're managing quite well, despite a job loss. The summer'll be easier, too, and we can start saving for a vacation, next year. Friends going to some deep southern -equatorial even!- island. Gloriously cheap snorkeling.

Day One

three push ups
ten good crunches
ten second leg lift.

Breakfast:
Large cup of tea, honey-wheat(?) bagel

Lunch:
Chicken, snow peas, water chestnut, baby corn, bamboo, all in a sweet sauce

Butterflies (eat their habitat before learning to fly)

Today, I go to a "Fill out actual paperwork," meeting with a mortgage agent.

I have the money for all the closing costs he outlined in his Good Faith Estimate. I have all the items on the list of things I will be judged by, financially speaking. They are paper clipped and itemized. Because of this printing and paperclipping, I noticed that my life insurance has started, so that's exciting. My father died when I was 15 and did not leave the rest of us very much to go on; having decided not to do this to my family, I am pleased to see the life insurance plan I signed up for go through.

I offered our apartment to a friend for subletting for *VERY* cheap. I'm hoping he accepts the offer.

I shaved. I rarely shave.

I am at work but cannot focus.

All this is very exciting to me. And soon, I think, I will be paying a mortgage, and have a 120 pound English Mastiff named Kitty. My wife and I will take him for walks through the fields across the street from our soon-to-be house. For my birthday (in March) I will by myself a few yards of white picket fence, maybe to line my hypothetical vegetable garden.

Got It!

The second bank also approved our offer!(We put in 83,000 and 6% toward closing costs on a house listed at 89,900)

And, we've been pre-approved for this amount before, but that was a few months ago. So now I'm a bit paranoid about the amount of money we've got for closing et cetera.

And Every Bit Helps, so. So? So, I'm offering this: donate money via paypal to our home fund and, if we get the house, I will have a HUGE Thank-you dinner for everyone who donated.

I have no idea how this works. Let's admit it: very few people read this blog. And making strange offers of "You pay it forward" to strangers is, well, strange. But, as a wise internetter once typed, "100% of the shots you don't take miss." So here's this post. Here's me offering a yummy dinner to you and yours for $20.

Donate $20 to making dreams of home ownership come true, and you're invited to our house warming dinner!

(But wait, there's more?!) Donate just $5 more (and an email back and forth or two) and you'll also get: a night in our guest room! Think of it as a very exclusive bed and breakfast! And, if you want, a 30 minute back rub from yours truly, a half practicing Reiki masseuse!

A change of scenery, a delicious, hot meal (your choice, at that) and a relaxing rub, all for $25. Really good, right?

I have this habit of coming off as manic. I'm sure this post is a bit like that, but it's all said with a smile and a wink and a lot of intent.

paypal:
phillcam [at] umich [dot] edu

Housing

Still waiting to hear from the second bank on our first house offer.

Limbo.

Housing

In the united states of America (not including Canada, or Mexico) in 2009, President Obama issued a first time home buyer's tax credit of $8,000. In 2009, $8,000 is a lot of money.

My wife and I, married on February 13, 2009, after seven years of friendship, have decided to buy a house.

Currently we are looking at a house across from a fairground.

The house is large, but the yard is larger: 1/2 an acre of land. It also has a two and a half car garage, a proper up stairs (bathroom, two bedrooms). I like this house, and this land.

We are going to put an offer in on this house on Monday of next week. I want to grow apples and cabbages and corn on the land. I want to adopt a giant, drooling, bull mastiff named Kitty-Kitty (name subject to random, internet inspired spelling changes, ex: Kitteh-Quitti.)

This blog will chronicle my/our life in this house, among other ideas.