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.

Sink

She's putting on her make up, adjusting her halter top, she turns to me, plants her lips on my forehead and it's autonomic: I smile.

"Us." she takes my jaw in both her hands, brushing our lips together as she breathes the word.

A Holiday Interlude

Her red lips, her bright hair. We're laying in bed, in a motel somewhere. We're naked and there's a show about a doctor on the television. We out lasted whoever we share a wall with. We sat and smoked a slow joint. Well, she curled around me, fingers teasing the welted out scratches she carved. Fingers playing, the quiet snap of electricity passing between us too.

"How warm is it supposed to be tomorrow?"

"Don't know."

"Warm?"

"Probably."

"S'good."