The Good Stuff

Mike and I are so excited about owning our first home, we still have approximately 4 months until the houses are complete.  Unless they get them done early?!  Which would be awesome for personal reasons but not to awesome for saving reasons...

This first picture was taken on March 17th and the second picture was taken yesterday, March 26th.  A huge difference in 9 days!

We went on Friday to the design center to pick out all of our interior stuff.  It was a lot of fun but now I just can't wait to see it all in the house!   I'm so excited about our kitchen!  We picked out some granite countertops and a pretty awesome back splash.  I'm really excited to also to see the floor color and cabinet color!  

Here is a little overview of what we picked...hard to tell exactly with the lighting

        

 This is our floor color and the light wood is the cabinet design, the swatch is our cabinet color.

Our granite countertops!  Showing the cabinet color and granite together.

This is our back splash...we are doing a travertine subway tile.  You can't really tell in the picture but the light color of this tile really made the light colors in the granite stand out.  Off to the right is our paint color, it's called Macadamia with Antique white trim.  

Our house thus far..now if only the months would go by a tad bit faster.  I don't know about you but March has seemed to take forever!

Interview...

I have never been to Providence Portland, I have only ever seen it from the freeway.  I didn't realize how HUGE the place was.  Of course, I park in the parking garage NOT connected to the plaza.  Good thing I knew myself well enough to leave with plenty of time. :)  I had 30 min from the time I parked to find where I needed to go.  I got there with plenty of time to spare!

My initial reaction was that the interview went pretty well.  It was long and it was all situational questions which I do not like.  It was hard for me to come up with exact instances...I ended up probably answering more behavioral than situational.  Hopefully that didn't deter them too much.  That part took about an hour - I was expecting about 30 min.  At the end I asked what the next step in the process was and was told that you would meet with the "preceptors" and then the office manager would make her decision.  She ended up having me interview with the 3 preceptors immediately after instead of having me come back another time.  I took that as a good sign that I "passed" the first face to face and got to meet with the others...hopefully, I'm not looking too much into it and it means absolutely nothing. :)

Of couse the more I sit and think about the process I'm feeling worse about it.  Thinking, "I should have said this or I should have said that, dangit!"  The office manager wants to have a decision by the end of the week...as much as I feel like I want this, if I don't get it, I need to remember that everything happens for a reason and something better is going to come my way!

YAY!!

I've spent a good portion of my time over the past week applying for jobs.  As of last Friday I had about 9 applications out that were still active applications.  This morning I was sitting at my desk and my phone rings, it's a number I didn't know, which meant that it was probably somebody calling about a job!  And it was.  It was Providence hospital calling about a job I applied for a week ago!  We had a phone interview and at the end I asked if there would be a face to face interview after she got through her list and she said actually I'd be willing to set one up with you right now if you want.  So of course I said yes.  I have an interview tomorrow morning at 10a with one of the doctors offices at Providence Portland.  It's on OB clinic which I'm super excited about!  I'm just really excited about the whole thing!  I feel like this really could be meant for me...  It's funny how everything really does seem to work itself out and happen when it's supposed too.  Mike is really excited about the interview too...this is what he told me "get your nice clothes together, put on your game face, and get that job at Providence." lol  He cracks me up.  It's possible I may have to take a small pay cut for the position and when I told Mike he said "so what, it's Providence."  The benefits of working there probably outweight the small paycut I would maybe have to take. 

We went to visit my parents this weekend and it was fun as always.  I definitely wish I lived closer to them but I'm very grateful for a normal schedule now that allows me to see them more than twice a year.  Though we don't get much sleep when we visit, it's still a relaxing time and I usually gain a couple pounds to top off the great weekend! :) 

Only 4 days and it's time to hit the design center for your house...and officially start my name change process!  This is turning out to be a pretty eventful week and it's only Monday!  Woohoo!

Bad Blogger

Wow, I didn't realize it's been about a week and a half since I wrote...

This past week has been a little stressful for me in regards to my job.  We are still under the whole bankruptcy thing and although things should be figured out by March 30th, nobody here in the PNW knows anything that's going on...and we haven't known much of anything for the past couple months.  The not knowing really gives me an uneasy feeling.  I've been applying for other positions like crazy, just in case, but the hospitals around here take so long to even get a hold of you if they want to interview you.  I'm talking a month + to even get a call.  Honestly, I just want our house stuff to go through.  I want this house so bad and it is time for us to take this step, I just don't want it to get messed up.  It's not about actually losing my job because I'm confident even once we had the house we would figure that out until I could find something else.  I'm willing to eat pasta roni and mac and cheese every night if I have to...I just want this house.  Deep down I really feel like everything will be fine, especially for me, I'm more of a little person on the totem pole.  I guess my concern is stemming from the possibility of these buyers (who are in Arizona and didn't want us in the first place) shutting us down and that's how I lose my job.  I'm hoping with everything I have that the buyers in Arizona have people who want to purchase us once the original buy goes through.  Why would they want to just purchase us and shut us down instead of getting more money by selling us??  I'm hoping I make a valid point there...i

On a happy note, I saw my little niece this weekend and I just LOVE her to pieces.  She is the cutest thing ever.  She is 7 1/2 months old now and she gave me kisses!  She opens her little mouth and leans forward it's so stinkin' cute!  She starts to cry if people she doesn't know hold her so I'm glad that she knows who her Aunt Sam is because she truly is the best.  I can't wait until she gets a bit older and starts talking, we're going to have so much fun, me and baby rae!

We also had Allie this weekend and her little attitude is getting so much better!  I've also felt/seen huge improvements with how she acts with me.  It's starting to finally feel like I have somewhat of a relationship with her which make me really happy.  I don't have the expectation to be her "step mom" but I want her to feel comfortable coming to me with anything and I want to be able to be a good influence and role model for her...Speaking of which, I have to go now because Mike and Allie are coming to get me to go to a friends house.  So caio for now!

I'm sooo excited...and I just can't hide it!

We put our official offer in yesterday on the house and put down our earnest money!  I can absolutely not wait to have a house.  We are so ready for this.  We are doubling our space inside and also will have a little backyard space as well as a garage.  I feel like we might not have enough stuff to fill the house but I'm sure we'll figure it out.  Just means more shopping, right? ;)  I'm excited that we are having it built and we will be able to watch the process but at the same time I wish it was already completed just because I'm so impatient.  But it makes this whole process so much more worth it for me to be able to watch it being built and to be able to pick out colors and everything on the inside.  I feel like this is really OUR house.  We will have basically designed the inside..what a fun way to buy our first house together!  We have our appointment at the design center on March 25th, 3 weeks from today!  It feels so far away...I'm hoping it goes fast.  The tentative date for completion is July 22nd, what a perfect birthday present for me!  I sure hope the next 4 months go by fast.  This house is pretty much all I've been thinking about for the past 2 weeks and I'm sure will be the only thing I'm thinking about for the next 4 months...

Mini Photo Shoot

Mike and I had Allie this past Saturday and we had a fun arts and crafts day with my mother-in-law.  I was asked if I could take some pictures of Allie with her cute new haircut.  Although, I was very surprised to be asked to take pictures I can't pass up the opportunity to take some photos!  We went outside and got some pictures first but it was so cold outside we couldn't stay out long.  So we had to take some pictures inside.  The backdrops are little less than desirable but there were still a couple cute pictures of Allie.  We had fun running around the house to find new spots and Allie had fun posing for me. :)

It's been really awesome to get to have Allie more and we've made such huge strides in her comfort level with me.  Almost every time we get her I feel like that little wall she has comes down a little more.   

Next on the agenda: Convince the hubs that we need a little father/daughter photo shoot :)

Housing Update

This past week has been pretty much all about the house.  We officially decided to go for it last Thursday.  We got our prequalification last Wednesday, met with the sales rep for that location on Thursday to go over the standard base package for the house at the price of 159,900 and on Thursday we put in a non-binding offer, which we changed on Friday before we heard back.  Our offer was really aggressive.  The house right now is listed for 163,900 ($4000 for landscaping in the back) so we offered $170,000 and they pay 3% closing costs, we want a stainless steel fridge, air conditioner, and $6100 credit to the design center.  They came back with all of that for $171,000!  We were so surpised!  The counter offer was WAY better than we expected.  After some more talk last night we decided to up our price and ask them to cover all of closing costs because that would be an extra $4000 we would need to come up with.  We have a meeting Thursday to put in an official offer and put down our earnest money...then we can finally make an appointment to go to the design center and pick out all of our stuff for the inside!  We've submitted everything to process our loan application, which we've hit a little snag on which way we are going to go, but other than that we are on our way to being homeowners this summer!

Mike and I are both so excited!  We keep saying how we don't know how we are going to last 5 months while we wait for it to be built!  It will be so awesome to live so close to our friends and I'm so freakin' excited to be able to pick out all the inside stuff!  I'm so glad we decided to go this route.  It's definitely the "safe" route and I am OK with that!  Now if only we could talk the sister-in-law's family to move next door...:)