That Hobbit Lady

I was so taken with the house we saw yesterday, that today I went on line to find other houses in that same neighborhood. And guess what? There are three others, at least, on the same street (we saw them as we were driving through) and two of those are significantly cheaper than the one we saw yesterday!

This one is not only priced a full $10,000 less (at $149,900) but it appears to be the exact same model, only with HARDWOOD FLOORS!!! rather than carpeting. Cool! Russ and I are both totally on board with hardwood floors.

So, you see…it pays to do your homework. Who knows what else we might find out there!

Well, it’s Sunday, so Russ and I went out to Open Houses again. We saw a number of things we didn’t care for much, and a second visit to Hidden Meadows put it further down on the list than before, but we did see one house that was quite exceptional. Well, I fell in love with it; Russ says he “liked it, with some reservations.” I admit it wasn’t *perfect* but I liked it well enough to consider it.

In the minus column: the price was 159,900, a bit above what we’re looking to pay. Also, the house was built in 1999, which makes it a bit older than we want.

But…in the plus column…you walk into the “great room” and this is what you see:

Notice the skylights! Notice the fireplace! Notice the deer head! Well, granted, the deer head won’t stay with the house (I asked) but all in all when you came into this room, there was a real “Wow!” factor. Here’s the room from the other direction:

This is the ultimate open floor plan, and the tall ceilings made it feel that much larger. By the way, that’s Russ talking to the realtor, who happened to be someone he knew years ago from church. Small world, huh?

Here’s the master bedroom:

I love the little “nook” under the window, great for a cushioned bench, don’t you think? I also loved the fact that the other two bedrooms were quite “split” from the master. One of those rooms was already set up like an office, so it was easy to visualize…

Of course, I would never put a couch that big in such a small room. (I would, however, put this red couch in the great room I showed you first.) What I also loved about the two bedrooms being in the back of the house was this wide hallway, that connects them to the great room:

There was such a feeling of separation between the master bedroom and these two back bedrooms. Our guests could feel completely comfortable here! I’m sure they (and we) would also feel comfortable relaxing on the covered patio:

Well, sigh…

This house might just be dreaming for us, for now. But it was such a pleasure to visit a house that was spacious, attractive and well-planned, rather than a small silly house like this one in Hidden Meadows, where the very large front window is looking out from…a walk-in closet!

Honest to goodness! Small window in the bedroom, HUGE window in the closet. Who built this house? Dr. Seuss?

Well, that was our adventure today. Next weekend, I’m sure we’ll see something else.

Recently, Russ and I have been spending a lot of our free time looking at houses. We are going to Open Houses, and checking out some of the newer developments, all in an effort to clarify exactly what it is we will be looking for in a house when the time comes to buy—the plan is get serious this coming February. So right now we’re doing our homework, becoming educated consumers. Here’s a little bit of what we’ve discovered so far.

First of all, you know how they always say don’t fall in love with the first house you see? Well, we didn’t. But we fell in love with the second house we saw. That was at least six months ago, and despite all the other houses we have seen since then, this particular model continues to be our favorite. Yesterday we went to an Open House in one of our favorite developments that features this model. I didn’t take my camera, but here are some pics off the internet that accurately represents what we saw.

First, here’s the living room, or “den,” as Southerners like to call it:

This house also has a formal dining area. Note the arched doorways and beautiful hardwood floors.

And here would be the guest room:

The arch motif is repeated. Don’t you love that window???

Of course, there was one thing we saw at this house that we gladly like to keep out of the buying price:

Don’t worry, it’s not poisonous. Apparently it’s a black and yellow argiope, and we googled this pic as an example of what we saw hanging outside the dining area window. Yes, we are still in the south here. Bugs are everywhere. Usually when we go to see new houses, where there’s yet a lot of construction going on, we’ll see a few crickets, sometimes some *normal* spiders. This spider was impressive. You might not be able to tell it from the photo, but it was a good 2-3 inches long.

But enough about the spider! Back to the house hunting! If we don’t get this model, here’s another from the same development that, tho not our favorite, was also nice:

It’s almost impossible to find a newer home that does not feature a fireplace with a nook for a TV above it. Russ and I agree that we would not put a TV in that nook, but would probably fill it in with bookshelves.

Also from this “second choice” house:

The pictures above are from the established development Harper Creek, which is on the North end of town. Russ and I both tend to prefer staying in the north end. Some of our other choices in the North end of town are in Clear Creek (the development right across the street from his brother):

(BTW, this tub with the window over it is also a feature in our favorite model. The bathroom also contains a shower stall.)

We also like the very new area of Hidden Meadows. Here are some pictures off the internet:

And here are a few possibilities on the South end of town. These pictures I took myself when we went out for a Sunday driving, exploring the neighborhoods:

We like Willow Ridge:

Diamond Ridge (note all the huge trees in the distance!):

or Windsong South:

I think what you’ll discover from these photos is that we are looking for a NEWER home, in a newer neighborhood. Personally, we are trying to avoid buying someone else’s bucket of troubles. So, while a house like this 1930 bungalow might be full of charm and character…

…it might also be full of mold and mildew, and badly in need of a new roof or air conditioner (if it even HAS an air conditioner!) So, all in all, we are being very realistic about our house hunting.

Well, this has just been a quick glance at the kinds of houses Russ and I are looking at. I also ought to mention that the houses I’ve pictured here range in price from $139,900 (Hidden Meadows) to $164,900 (the first Harper Creek house, but the seller is dreaming, she’s only had it on the market for one month and we expect to see the price drop perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 before she’ll actually sell it, based on what others in the neighborhood have gone for.)

Oh yeah, the 1930’s house I showed you was $249,000, but mostly because it’ss in the very heart of town, in the “historic district.” The places we’re looking at are anywhere from five to ten miles away from our jobs. That’s a comfortable distance, I think. And in the case of Hidden Meadows, the drive is extremely scenic and relaxing.

Well, I’ll keep you all posted on how the house-hunting is coming along. I have to say, at this point, it’s extremely fun! I hope the whole house buying experience will continue to be so.

One of the responsibilities of my new job is to take the “Deposit” to the financial office across campus about once a week. To do this, I have to take the campus bus. I actually like taking the bus. I also like being able to add an extra half hour on to my lunch , and going to “The Ferg,” a kind of “student union” where you can get an iced tea, and even a Whopper Jr. from Burger King—tho lately, with our house-hunting and serious attempts to pay off our credit cards, we’ve been carpooling and brown-bagging, so Burger King is not usually on the menu these days.

Today I took my Deposit envelope and my salad and boiled egg and went out to wait for the bus. I had been very busy all morning, so I hadn’t had a chance to eat anything but a couple of little muffins, and by this time I was HUNGRY!!! So I decided to take out my boiled egg and eat it while I waited for the bus. I took out the egg and began to peel it.

It immediately occurred to me that the way the universe so often works, once I began to peel the egg, the bus would probably show up before I had a chance to eat it. But then I thought…hey! Either I will have the chance to peel and eat the egg before the bus comes, thus relieving my hunger, or the bus will come, I’ll have to get on, and won’t be able to eat my egg right away, but then I’ll get to “The Ferg” that much faster and be able to sit down and eat my salad. Thus relieving my hunger. No matter how I looked at it, I was close to relieving my hunger. It was a win-win situation.

With these thoughts, it also occurred to me that in life there are probably plenty of times when it would be a wise strategy to concoct a “win-win” situation, whenever possible. Some people might call this looking for the cloud’s silver lining. It’s kind of like that, I suppose. My point is that whenever something seems, at first, to be a negative, if you try, you can put on a positive spin by connecting it to another situation, which also appears to be negative. If only one of those negative things CAN happen, then the fact that the other negative thing DOESN’T happen is automatically transformed into a positive.

See? It’s all about attitude.

I bought this bowl at the Thrift Store for about $1.50.

I bought it because it brought forth some nostalgic feelings. I have a feeling that in my past, in my childhood, there must have been a bowl like this. In fact, I think my mom has this bowl, only in clear glass, not green.

I kind of like the green. I’ve used this bowl a couple of times now for salad. It’s just the right size, and salad looks good against the green of the bowl.

I *always* drive with the windows down, so I am extremely aware of other drivers’ windows, whether they are up or down. For instance, in the Spring or Fall, when the weather is gorgeous, I look around and see 95-99% of people driving with their windows up, using their air conditioning, and I think “What is WRONG with you people???!!!”

So, when, over the last couple of days, I am suddenly noticing maybe 15-20% of people driving with their windows DOWN, I know that something must be going on. Somebody somewhere said something that has caused at least a small portion of the population to make this change. But I’m asking around, and I’m looking on the internet, and I can’t seem to find anything about it.

Did somebody on Good Morning America suddenly announce that it’s incredibly more fuel-efficent NOT to use your car air conditioner, and for some reason, everybody now believes them and gives a darn? (I personally feel that not using the car air conditioner is better for your gas mileage in most cases, but apparently there is some controversy about this.) Has Katie Couric reported that fumes from car air conditioning has been proven to cause cancer? Did Michael Phelps request everyone in America to turn off their car air conditioners in support of the US Olympic athletes?

Now, here I’m assuming this is a nationwide phenomenon, and perhaps it is not. Maybe it’s just happening in Alabama, maybe just in Tuscaloosa. But I’ve looked everywhere on the internet and can’t find a single damn thing about it! The next time I go out in the car and pull up next to someone with their windows down, I swear I’m going to ask.

In the meantime, I’m asking here. If anybody reading this knows what the heck is going on with the windows being rolled down, please, please tell me!! I feel like a kid in school and there’s this big secret, and everyone knows about it but me and is laughing behind my back.

Well, Russ and I have been talking about this for some time, and we’ve finally got it going. We’ve created a user profile for half.com and we’ve got some books and music for sale there. John told me Amazon would be a better way to go, and I’ve considered that, but for the time being, we’re just sticking with half.com.

The amazing thing is that I’ve already made one sale! Even tho my name is at the bottom of the list (because I have no experience and no reviews) still somehow I got a sale! I shipped the book off on Friday, and I’m hoping this person will leave me a glowing review. My first review!

In the meantime, just wanted to let anyone who may be reading this LJ know that if you have any need for used books or music, please visit me on half.com. I have discovered that you can actually find my seller profile by simply googling the user name:

goodstuffaloosa

Google that, and see what happens! I would greatly appreciate it if anyone would be so kind as to order a book from me, and then leave me a good reveiw when you get it. A few good reviews will really start to get this whole business up and running. Even if you don’t need anything right this moment, please keep that name in mind: goodstuffaloosa

I don’t really anticipate this to be a huge money maker, just a little extra spending cash. And of course, the great fun for me is perusing the book stores and yard sales, looking for items to sell. Generally I’m a gatherer, but in this way, I’m a hunter. I love to hunt for and find a good bargain! And I hope you will too!

Last week I started moving into my new office at work. Moving into a new office is *almost* as much fun as moving into a new house. Well, not really, not quite. But it is fun.

This weekend I went shopping at the big thrift store, looking for lamps for my office. I found one good lamp that takes a three-way bulb up to 150 watts, and a small desk lamp. I also found some “seasonal” decorations.

Yeah, yeah, I know I don’t really *need* a musical snowman (you lift open his belly and there is a little ice pond there with three skaters going around and around to the tune of Joy to the World), but I could not resist this guy. I think I like him so much because he reminds me of this Christmas wall decoration that has been in my family FOREVER. If it weren’t so freaking HOT outside, I would go into the garage and dig into the bin of Christmas decorations to find it. If I could post a picture of the snowman wall decoration I’m talking about right next to this picture of my new musical snowman, I think the comparison would probably be pretty amazing.

So it’s Christmas in July. Oops! It’s August. Okay. Christmas in August. Maybe in November I’ll do the side by side comparison. But it seems like quite a while til we get there. I say it seems that way, but in fact, it will probably be here before we know it.