Life is full of new adventures!

We've seen a good deal of houses. Most of them just didn't hit the spot for some reason or another. We saw big homes in far-out places, funny-smelling homes, homes with too many floors, homes with no floors, homes that fit the bill but had zero backyard, "freeway close" homes... all that fun stuff. Erik and I went into it wanting the following: single-family home, three bedrooms, a bath or two, a two-car garage, not an insane commute to work, hardwood floors, gas range, fireplace, respectable backyard, etc. We also did not want a fixer-upper. We wanted something move-in ready, ideally fitting our more contemporary aesthetic.

A home popped up one day and nothing about it seemed too radical, but our realtor had previewed it earlier and thought it was "fabulous", so we ducked out of work a little early to see it. I clearly remember quietly mouthing "I really LIKE this!" to Erik as we were touring it. Newly-remodeled kitchen, hardwoods in half the place, and a nice big garage and backyard. The next day, we put in an offer.

Unfortunately, that house didn't pan out. It was at the top of our price range, and we basically had to offer that to compete with another offer already on the table. The seller's agent asked ours what might help us out if they were to counter to us, and basically she told them we wouldn't budge, because we really wouldn't. So the other offer won out. It was a little bit of a bummer, but not completely unexpected.

Cut to a week or two later, and I find this listing on Redfin where the interior looks kinda funky. Architecture unlike any of the other regional architecture we'd seen. Both Erik and I decided we wanted to see it, more out of curiosity than anything else, and put it on the short list to view that weekend. And we liked what we saw! Even though it's clearly not a match, aesthetically, the place is huge (1600 sq. ft.), it has a workable layout, a nice-sized backyard, a ginormous master bedroom, and is in a good-looking neighborhood only 4 miles from where we live now. We would need to put in hardwoods, and change out some old doors and such, but it met all of our move-in ready requirements. So we put in an offer. And they countered. And we accepted their counter.

This past weekend we had the inspection, and now we're in the middle of negotiating repairs. Nothing too major, but it'd be nice to have some of the issues that came up addressed before we move in. There is an issue with some ceramic tile that was improperly installed, which is a bit of a bummer because it's currently in more than half the house. A knock-down of the purchase price would have been awesome, but I don't think that's going to happen. It will just motivate us a bit more to get those hardwoods installed sooner, right?

So hopefully this inspection mess will wrangle itself within the next few days, then we can have our lender order up the appraisal. And then, hopefully, what we've elected to purchase the home for won't be way more than the bank thinks it's worth, and that will be settled as well. Then we will just have to lock in our interest rate and let the escrow company and our lender do their job until closing - which hopefully will be at the end of June. And then we'll be homeowners. O.M.G.

That's all for "the facts", now down to "the feelings". MAN, this home buying thing is really taking a toll on me! I'm a bit of a control freak (if Erik reads this he will undoubtedly burst out laughing or crying at that statement), and relegating tasks and entrusting people like a realtor and a mortgage broker are pretty tough things for me. I think I've studied up pretty well - just enough to be dangerous, anyways. And when I see my realtor or mortgage broker do things that I've read are, well, not what you want them to do, I get ancy. And when I see typos in applications or bad grammar in contracts I get pretty miffed. I lose confidence pretty easily in these people, and I don't know if that's really a reflection on them, or that I'm just too demanding a client.

Poor Erik, though. I mean, buying a house is a rough and confusing time for anyone, but Erik has ME in the equation, which certainly escalates matters. And it feels like we've inadvertently picked the worst possible time to purchase - not from a market standpoint, but because Erik was in the middle of a big development push at work, we started our dog at daily training camp last week, etc. It's just one thing after another. The stress level is certainly very very high.

But, hopefully it will be over soon. At least the buying part. I've been warned that the first six months of homeownership can be some of the scariest times, financially. And I think my previous post (a credit scoring rant) clearly illustrates how maniacal I am about money. *Exhale* It'll all work out in the end.

It took me a loooooong time to get my credit score to the sparkly, glistening number it is today. It took a lot of self-education, and a lot of self-discipline. The downside is now I'm a little obsessive about my credit scores, specifically maintaining the shiny, happy FICO score I have. I don't think that's necessarily a BAD thing, others think I place too much importance on it. They can eat it! :P

Anyhow, Erik and I are starting to officially consider home-ownership. "Starting", in this regard, equals many years on my part watching the housing markets, and trying to get myself as prepared as possible, and now the market seems to be turning for the better, so we're making contacts. The few people I know who have purchased homes recently (in the last 5-10 years) have remarked as it being the most confusing and stressful purchases they've made. I don't like making confusing purchases. I like to feel empowered.

So anyways, we're starting to interview real estate agents and lenders/mortgage brokers. Here's my issue, and maybe it's a non-issue, but it refers back to my sparkly credit rating. Some of you may know this already, but there's all sorts of things that can affect your credit score negatively. Sure, missing payments is one thing that will mess you up. Having maxed-out credit cards is another. Taking out a new loan will also ding you. And guess what? Paying OFF a loan (like a car loan) will decrease your score as well. Weird, ain't it?

The one thing that negatively affects your credit that I currently have the biggest problem with, in principle, is INQUIRIES. An inquiry is when a lender or service-provider checks your credit report to determine if you're worthy of their services. All those credit card pre-approvals you get in the mail? They don't count. Checking your own credit report? Not a problem for you, thankfully.

But guess what? When you put in an application to rent an apartment, THAT'S a ding (thanks, Montebello apartments!). And say you plug in your social online at one of those "Have Lenders Give You Competitive Auto Loan Quotes!". That could mean MULTIPLE dings. Sure, I don't suffer gladly those fools who apply for every department store credit card offered them, but on large purchases, like a car, or a house, the credit reporting agencies (or the Fair Isaacs Corporation's score algorithm) actually make it so a responsible person looking to find the best rate available to them will have their score REDUCED by anywhere from 5 to 50 points, in some situations.

So here's the rub. To start looking at homes, every real estate agent will recommend you get pre-approved for a loan. It helps you understand your buying power better and gives you an additional leg to stand on in a multiple-offer situation. Sure, that's reasonable. But you don't want to take the first loan you're offered. So you shop around, right? The credit reporting agencies actually allow for this (or so they SAY). They say that multiple inquiries within a 14 day period of time will only count as one. Okay, fine.

So say we shop around for two weeks and decide that a certain lender has the best rate, and we get a pre-approval letter, and start looking. Only we don't find anything for a few months. This is totally possible. But the pre-approval letter doesn't mean you're locked into a rate, or even really guaranteed a loan. These are weird times right now, and mortgage rules are really wonky. What it comes down to is that the lender MAY in-fact need to run your credit again. And then there's another ding. And say the rate is crazy, and you decide you need to shop around again.

You see where I'm going with this, right? Say my score is all shiny right now, but after a first round of shopping it drops 5-10 points. Then the next time it's checked, the score is lower because of those inquiries from before, so there might be a chance I have to take a higher rate for my lower credit score... See, my score is sufficiently high that I don't THINK this will REALLY be a problem, but what if I was on the cusp? What if I was at 722 (720 being the typical cutoff for A-grade loan offers) and the first inquiries reduced my score to 717? That could increase a loan APR by some percentage (even .25%), but that could mean THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of additional monies paid in interest over the life of the loan.

It just bothers me. The more I learned about credit scores, and how they come up with them, and how your TransUnion score might be different from your Experian score, and that your Equifax might be different from both of those, and how paying off the rest of my auto loan, even though it will decrease my debt-to-income ratio, would make my credit score go DOWN... the more I despised the system. And now, in dealing with trying to a) determine our buying power while b) keeping our scores in tip-top shape, it's causing me a bit of trepidation.

Am I over-thinking this? *Sigh* Probably.

Are there any costumes better than Dolly's costumes?? Sequined riding suit with top hat and a whip? OMG. Anyways, I've wasted too much time blogging this, I'd better get to livin'.

Other than that, not much has changed!

About 100 yards further, both sides of the road were covered in that white stuff. And for several blocks driving next to Bridle Trails State Park, there was... snow? frost? along the edges and very center of the road. I looked at the temperature gauge in my MINI, and it showed that it was 39 degrees out. Weird - it's been a lot cooler than that in the morning without any of this white business. I guess I'd better get used to this.

Meanwhile, last night, in the extreme coziness of the living room, I was treated to not one, but two new (to me) sitcoms on CBS that I *gasp* actually enjoyed! The first was "How I Met Your Mother": a bit like "Friends", in that it was a current-day group of 20-something or 30-something, you know, friends (I need to get over it, they're probably 20-something... I just need to face the fact that I'm OLD), but the twist is that it's narrated by Bob Saget... FROM THE FUTURE. Eh, that's not really a good description - here's a better one, from Wikipedia:

Dubbed "A love story in reverse," the show is structured as the main character, Ted, in the year 2030 telling his son and daughter about the events that led to his meeting their mother, which begin in 2005.

Among the cast are Doogie Howser, Alyson Hannigan, and that guy from "Freaks and Geeks". I thought the show was pretty funny, this one highlighting the season with a reworking of Thanksgiving into Slapsgiving - where the Freaks & Geeks dude tortured poor Doogie with threats of slaps. It sounds terrifically unfunny, but believe me, it was a laugh. Or don't believe me. Whatevs.

Immediately afterwards came a show that I was just about to flip from when I saw the two main characters come out dressed as, you know, nerds. "Nerds?" I thought to myself... "I like nerds!" And so I kept it on the station. It was a new show this tv season called "The Big Bang Theory", and I can't speak for Erik, but we were both laughing maniacally at several instances during the show. Sure, the jokes are pretty hollow, but gosh, how I cackled! Luckily enough, it was a re-air of the pilot, so we had a chance to see it from the beginning. This morning I went and saw that 8 episodes had aired so far, and they're all on the CBS website available to watch, so I'll have something to do over the long holiday weekend.

Another thing over the weekend I mustn't forget --the Battlestar Galactica movie "Razor" will be airing on SciFi this Saturday. Thanks to a generous co-worker, I'm all caught up on Season 3 (I didn't catch any of it when it aired, unfortunately), and ready for another small dose.

Right about when my interest towards a new computer was piquing, so were the rumors about Apple making a new iMac. Wonderful! At the very beginning, I had thought I'd upgrade to a Mac Pro system - but that was when I was down in L.A., working at Universal, taking a career-interest in the art of digital encoding. But up here, an iMac would probably suit my needs just fine.

But when the new "Aluminum iMacs" were announced/released a few months ago, I was a bit let down. The thing I didn't like about the newest iMac's predecessor was the large "chin" at the bottom of the screen. I much preferred the look of the Apple Cinema Display - sleek, hardly any bezel. And the new iMacs went and retained that chin. And look! A glossy screen! Yuck! I never got into the idea of a glossy display on the MacBooks. I thought they made the unit look cheap. The glass look of the iMac looks sleeker, sure - but what of the reflections?

So I've gone back and forth and back and forth again about a hundred times about buying myself one of these new iMacs. The power bump I'd get is insane. But with all the extra hard-drive space, I'd also need to invest in a larger backup drive. And while I can get a copy of Microsoft Office on the cheap, purchasing a program like Adobe Photoshop, which I use for my web stuff and the occasional LOLcats joke, would be quite an expense. I'm running a friend's copy right now on my current machine, but I don't know if it would work on a new one. I'd kinda like to start fresh with all perfectly-legal copies, ya know?

So, argh. Do I need a new computer right now? ... no? Maybe? I don't know. My computers are functioning, but not much above that. They're not really that fun to use anymore, but do I really use a computer for fun anymore? I spend more of my time watching tv, or watching Erik play "Half-Life 2". Is a $2500+ computer purchase right now what I need?

This is not an easy decision.

- I want to watch the third season of SciFi’s Battlestar Galactica before the 2-hour special, Razor, airs in November. The likelihood of this is far from good, as the Season 3 DVD set will probably not show up until spring of next year, there are no planned re-airings of the episodes, according to SciFi’s website, and I have no friends who have the episodes recorded (that I know of). But I’m still excited about getting into the show again.

- We’re having Halloween festivities here at work today starting at 2:30pm which will feature a screening of Shaun of the Dead. Also, tonight offers the first possibility of doling out Halloween candy to minors in costume at my own place of residence (rather, the place I share with Erik). All the time I lived in Glendale I never got trick-or-treaters, as I lived in the back garage of a small apartment complex. I hope we bought enough candy!

- Vancouver is only a 2-hour drive away. Can we go, can we go, can we go?!? Then again, what do people do when they visit Vancouver? Other than the city’s reputation for gorgeousness, I have no idea what travelers do there.

- Large set of textile art pieces ordered for the bedroom should be arriving today.

Yeah, that's right, I baked a pumpkin pie. No frozen pie re-heated up. I mixed together pumpkin with sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, eggs and evaporated milk to create the filling - and I didn't buy one of those pre-made pie crusts, either. Though, I did use a box of Betty Crocker Pie Crust Mix, it wasn't from scratch. Anyways, the pumpkin pie was a huge success. It tasted wonderful. And if you don't believe me there's half of it left in the fridge just waiting to be taste-tested, if you're in the area. Not that you are. But c'mon, good pie's a reason to come up and visit me, right?

On Sunday I did what I originally hoped to do on Saturday instead of oversleeping. I had a variety of errands I wanted to get done - I needed to go to IKEA to get some picture frames and a shoe rack, and then I needed to go look for a jacket or two, as it's getting c-c-c-cold up here. I also needed to drop by work to pickup a poster I left there in my mad rush to get out on Friday, and take some prints to Aaron Brothers to get custom mats cut, and maybe pickup some other miscellaneous things for the apartment. It was a massive day spent traveling all around the Seattle area.

But what I'd like to talk about is apartment-decorating. Specifically, artwork. Erik and I had virtually no eye-candy for our many walls, so acquiring some new stuff was necessary to make our place not seem so empty. We started by getting a couple of prints from Flatstock at Bumbershoot back in September. Then we (erm, I) got in a bit of a kick and started ordering prints galore. I got this really cool Camilla Engman set of four prints, and a few prints from the peeps at Noferin. And I found a poster print of the Death Cab show Erik and I saw down in L.A. awhile back.

The first two prints from Flatstock were a breeze to frame - they're 18"x24", which is a standard size for frames. The other prints, so far, have been a little less-easy to come up with framing solutions for. I contacted Ms. Engman for advice on framing her prints, and IKEA's RIBBA frame was the fortunate answer to that. But the Noferin prints and the Death Cab poster print are all non-standard sizes. Which means I need to either a) have custom frames made, or b) buy larger frames and have custom mats cut to order.

Fun, fun, fun! As if framing isn't costly-enough! But I guess it's something that just needs to be factored in when purchasing something you want to display in a non-ghetto fashion. I went to Aaron Brothers to see if one of their framing professionals could offer me up some helpful advise/guidance. What I got was a girl who a) could hardly be bothered, and b) wanted to push her own expensive aesthetic onto me without regard for my stated low-budget requirements.

I walked out of there ordering three custom mats cut for my three Noferin prints ( at a cost which neared $100 *gasp*), and a decision to just cut-down my Death Cab print from 19x25 to 18x24 to fit into a standard poster frame. It has just under a half-inch border on each side, so I don't feel too bad about that. But I have to cut it myself, as Aaron Brothers won't touch that. Again, VERY. HELPFUL! Especially since I don't have an artist's hand, and me taking scissors or an exacto knife to something where a straight edge is required will likely end in disaster.

I'm running into the same problems with my personal photos. They're shot in the Canon DSLR's aspect ratio, but then for printing they need to be cropped to be 4x6 or 5x7. But then when I purchase a 5x7 frame for it, it only actually displays 4.6" x 6.5" of the print, further diminishing the image area. Why does this have to be so difficult?!?

Erik and I have been maxing out our Netflix viewings. I have a whole list of reviews I'd like to give, but, you know, that's time away from the insanely-awesome new lcd hdtv! It feels like we're being economically-sound by watching all these Netflix rentals instead of going to the movies and having dinner out, but the unfortunate side-effect of that is that we never leave the apartment.

Also, we booked our flight to L.A. for a brief Christmas visit. Plane tickets are expensive! While seeing family is fun and all, I am most eager to visit Kitty and go eat some Freebirds. Does that make me lame? If so, I don't care!

Work is going... alright. The honeymoon definitely feels like it's over, and I'm troubled by how early that's happened. I'm trudging through, though. Don't know if the job's just a wrong fit for me, or if it's just me and ANY job right now is a wrong fit.

Honestly, I've been in the doldrums a bit, lately. Sure, the dark weather might be an influence, or maybe the whole new job, new living arrangement, new state, new LIFE thing is just catching up to me and pounding my spirit into submission. These sorts of things are supposed to be stressful. I find myself really lethargic, prone to headaches and overeating and mild stomach-distress from the overeating and just an overall malaise. I went and had a physical a few weeks ago, and while a white blood cell count registered a tad high on the initial test (leading me to presume, you know, the worst: acute leukemia or something (I blame my nurse-mother)), a follow-up two weeks later proved everything alright. Supposedly I'm healthy. But I don't feel it much. And it's not just me - Erik is feeling a bit down as well, and that makes for a swell pairing; the two of us, confessing our depression to one another. A fun night at the Peterson/Garren house!

Last night my spirit was lifted greatly when Erik surprised me with a dozen gorgeous orange tulips after work. I had been whining about how pretty I thought orange tulips were awhile back, and lo and behold, he goes and makes special arrangements to surprise me with them (I guess they're special order only up here). I think that's pretty awesome. I took a bunch of photos and hopefully I'll post them at some point. They're really very pretty.

And now, around ten years on, Erik and I just moved up to Seattle and I'm WAY too embarrassed to relate how much money we've put into it. Sure, the Microsoft move-up package was pretty sweet, but it doesn't account for all the stuff you're gonna need (or want, let's be honest here) when you're doing your first real bit of nesting. Oh, the furniture! Oh, the appliances! Oh, the large huge "replacement" HDTV for the HDTV you just got a few months ago that's now a bit too small for the living room (but would work quite nicely in the bedroom, thankyouverymuch)!

It's fine, though. We have both been really good about spending previous to this, and building up our savings to a very healthy level (and goodness, Erik did this while paying for grad school!). I, myself, have been so tenacious with my savings that spending it now in large clumps feels painful.

But I think we're getting really close to being done with transferring money from our savings to checking accounts and ALMOST back in the black, as the finance-oriented people like to say. It's not going to happen this month, but maybe next. Overall it's worth it, I think. We just bought some frames for the cool posters we picked up at Flatstock over at Bumbershoot this year, and they're going to make the living room look like an actual living room as opposed to a corporate apartment. I'm getting excited at the prospect of having people over. So please, all my friends, feel free to make a journey up here to visit us! We need friends!

The opening band (we didn't know there would be one) was Harvey Danger. You've heard that band name before, right? Anyone who listened to KROQ heard that band's one-hit wonder a whole lot in the late 90's. The problem was the band didn't PLAY that hit last night, so I was left wondering what song I knew them from. It's kinda sad for them, in a way, but the singer's voice was really strong and he was charismatic and I will probably listen to and might even purchase some of their music because they played.

So anyways. Tonight I set myself to the task of finding that Harvey Danger hit song ("Flagpole Sitta" is what it's called). Bizarrely, it's not available on the iTunes music store. There are covers available, but the original is absent. After the "a ha!" moment of realizing what song I knew the band from, I did a quick search for the actual song. And the first result was better than I could have hoped for.

I didn't think it was going to be that great at first, but keep watching. It lit up my life. It gave me hope. To carry on.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

1) The spiders. Erik mentioned some problems he had with a spider or two on his blog a little while back. While I haven't bourne witness to the mutant spiders he suggests, I can state with all truth that there are ENTIRELY too many spiders hanging around our front door. And when I say "hanging around" I mean it! This morning I opened up the door and a large-ish spider was just above my head-level, and then decided to drop down to eye-level before slowly climbing back up its web. And then all I could see around me were ghastly spiders in their webs everywhere waiting to jump out at me as I exited. It makes me wanna go out there with the vacuum attachment tonight and just murder the entire lot of them.

2) The stench of smoke. I couldn't really tell from the start, but our apartment reeks of smoke. It was originally sort of masked by the new-carpet smell, but there was something else... and it turns out it's dirty, filthy, yucky smoke. We've done all the carpet deodorizing and have been running a Febreeze air filter around the rooms for the last two weeks, and while most of the place is starting to smell not-bad, there are a few areas where the smell seems to return en force (the bathrooms, the closet). Our clothes and bags now reek of smoke when we go to work. I'm thinking the old tenant smoked like a fucking chimney and that the tar residue is IN the walls and duct work. I can't even think of what it might smell like once we have to start using the heater. I mentioned this to the office staff this morning, and they're going to try to come up with some solutions - but from my own research,, I think we're stuck.

3) The break-in. This morning I noticed something hanging off of our single-car garage. When I pulled my car out and closed the garage behind me, I was able to tell that there was a lock on the garage that had been tampered with/drilled-out, etc. I called Erik from my cell as I was running late and told him to investigate. Yeah, someone went and vandalized the lock. We think it happened overnight, as I don't remember seeing it that way when I pulled in yesterday afternoon. I haven't gone and checked my car yet for any vandalism, but Erik said he doesn't think anything was taken from the garage (I'll have to check when I get home). We had a few boxes out there but nothing supremely precious (I hope). Turns out the neighbor's garage was vandalized as well, their keypad was torn off, meaning there was no way in for them. Sucks.

I think that's it for now. Everything else seems to be nice. I posted some new photos of the interior of our place to Flickr.

Update: Checked the garage - a box filled with my CDs has been nabbed, but they left the box of Christmas stuff, fortunately. It could've been worse, though. Our neighbor got his motorcycle stolen. Thieves are a-holes.

Also, it's SO nice having a kitchen to ourselves. I've actually been *gulp* preparing dinner!!! It used to be take-out almost all the time for us on weekends, or eating my dad's dinners during the week, but now I can come home and make pasta, goulash (well, attempt to make it), or, what's becoming the common theme around here, a Mexican dinner of some sort (enchiladas, tacos, refried beans, white trash tostadas).

Let me be completely honest - cooking still intimidates the hell out of me! I bought and browned some ground beef the other day for the very first time and it was a frightening experience. But it's so nice not having to shell out money for lunch everyday, as I can make a sandwich before work, and the formerly-frequent trips to fast-food or sit-down eateries have nearly stopped altogether. Hurray for kitchens! And here's to learning to cook.

Well, I wanted to say more, but Erik's on his way home and I'm gonna start making some tacos for dinner and change the laundry. Ahhh, domestic bliss!

The relative tidiness of the dining room and kitchen area betrays the absolute MESS we are living in right now. There are boxes in every possible variation of fullness and intactness strewn all over the living room and office areas. We have our excellent tv stand/entertainment "center" and coffee table(s) put together and functioning, but we haven't yet received our über-comfy La-Z-Boy Kiefer sofa and chair set yet. We're left sitting on a pair of kinda-sorta-comfortable-but-not-really-and-certainly-not-for-any-long-length-of-time IKEA chairs I brought up, which is something, I guess. I really, really, really can't wait to have our real seating arrive, though!

So yeah, the boxes. Most of them are filled with books or DVDs. We have way too many books and DVDs. So much so that I'm embarrassed about how much money we're about to spend getting shelving units for most of them. Oh, the money! It's going fast. At a breakneck (or break-the-bank) pace. I'm normally really frugal and that's all gone to hell in an effort to pull this whole apartment together. It's not all happening as quickly as I'd like it to be, I really want to have the place setup and clean and tidy, but I think we're still a few weeks away from that.

In the meantime, I've started my job. It's here where a couple of the things I'm really loving about Seattle come into play. See, I only live about seven miles from work - down in L.A. my commute was FIVE TIMES that length. I can leave a half-hour before work and get there with plenty of time to spare. And the drive itself is, gosh, wonderful. I'm taking surface streets, and a long stretch of it is through the Bridle Trails neighborhood, which borders on Bridle Trails State Park, a lowland forest filled with "Douglas-fir and western hemlock, with some western red cedar, big-leaf maple, and alder mixed in". So on one side of me there's a bunch of forest, and on the other side are huge equestrian estates that also have the big trees out front... along with horsies running around in their front yards (yes, I used the word "horsies" because I'm THAT excited about it!).

And then there's the radio up here. When we first got up here I did a quick scan of the stations and really only found one alternative rock station (107.7 The End). And, of course, the local NPR affiliate. Then Erik and I went over to Bainbridge Island to visit with his very-cool cousins and they hooked us up with a list of some stations to check out. We left their house that night and tried them out, and we spent the ferry-ride back listening to blocks of punk rock music on 2 of the 3 stations. My favorite so far has been KEXP, which I guess is very popular online as well. A really good mix of stuff and it's exposed me to a lot more of what I like. Hurrah.

So there's an update for you. As I mentioned, I have the weekend to myself, and I'm going to try my hardest to actually get some stuff accomplished. We have a list of "things" we still need to purchase (a dresser, nightstands, some speakers, another television(!!!), some lamps and lighting, etc.), and there's a lot of bulk trash in here that I can try to remove. But part of me just wants to sit on one of those not really at ALL comfortable red IKEA chairs, relax, and watch some bad tv all day while snacking on ice cream, all bundled up under Erik's shocking Spongebob Squarepants fleece blanket. Decisions, decisions.

There are so many acronyms and verbiage that I'm completely in-the-dark about. As this is a new position for this already-in-reorg company, there are a lot of processes that haven't been completely planned out. Sure, that gives me a lot of opportunity to bring something extra to the proverbial table, but it's also really intimidating, not being able to fall back on established protocols.

So yeah, I'm really tired! I wore some fancy-schmancy shoes, so my feet were hurting when I got home (thank you Erik for the afterwork footrub!), I was hungry, and my head was kinda hurting from all the over-stimulation. It was SO NICE plopping down on the couch and having Erik wait on me this evening! I know that won't be a regular luxury, but I'll take it while I can get it!

In the meantime, we've been driving around, desperately, trying to find furnishings for our new place. We've purchased a really neat couch and overstuffed chair from La-Z-Boy, but we have no idea when it's due to arrive - could be three weeks, could be six. Ah, the wonders of 21st century order tracking! For the last few days we've been trying to find chairs that wouldn't clash too much with the dining table we liked. This evening we finally tracked down some good ones at Target, and that was a huge relief. The only others we found that I actually liked cost over $350 per chair! Furniture is expensive! Who knew?!?

Today we also found a coffee table with some smaller nesting tables (from Cost Plus World Market) that we both really like, and I think we've nailed down a tv stand (from Dania) and some desks/bookshelves (from Ikea) as well. So things in the home furnishings department are pretty good.

I start work next Monday, which doesn't give us a whole lot of time to get other things squared away. And on top of that, I have an introduction meeting with someone at a post facility tomorrow that was set up months ago that I completely forgot about. I wanted to cancel it, since I've already secured a job, but it's too late now, so it might be a tad awkward. And then this weekend we have a day squared away to head over to Bainbridge Island. We're going to visit with some of Erik's relatives up here and have dinner with them. It'll be nice to dine with some other people!

A few quick notes, just to keep everyone in the loop:

I got a job!
I've been interviewing at a game company for a project coordinator position since before I left Universal Studios. They brought me in on Tuesday for a final, in-person interview; and on Wednesday morning they called to offer me the position. I'm really ecstatic that I was able to find something that pays reasonably well (heck, if you use online cost-of-living calculators, I'm actually making a little more up here!), that is still in a creative environment, and is only two blocks away from where Erik will be working. Downside? Not a lot. They want me to start on August 13th, and that's coming up real soon. I hope that Erik and I can find a place by then... which leads me to...

We're officially apartment-hunting.
Sure, I've been looking at places to live up in Seattle since before Erik even took the Microsoft offer, but only yesterday did we actually start going out and seeing prospective places in person. It's exhausting. We waited until our 2nd week in so that we could see what the relocation company would come up with. We were given a sheet with 8 choices when the rental advisor picked us up yesterday morning, we toured through 5 of them, and found only one that really interested us. Then, after running some errands and doing some more of our own research, we went out to see another place, which we liked.

So, all-in-all, we saw two places that tugged at us, in some way. Place #1 was a tri-level townhouse in Bellevue with a huge 2-car (tandem) garage on the ground level. The 2nd level has a half bath, a boring (but roomy) kitchen, a roomy, tiled dining room area (open floor plan), and a step-down living room with fireplace. The living room is tiled, and has sort of a funky layout. Upstairs (Level 3) are two bedrooms with two bathrooms. The back one would be perfect as an office, and the front, which we would use as our master bedroom, has a weird ceiling and is painted a horrible periwinkle (they have no plans to repaint before we arrive). Oh, and off of the 2nd Level, off the kitchen in the back there is a small semi-private patio area with leads to a communal yard. We love, love, loved the tandem garage and the size of this place. Turn-offs were the tiled living room area, and the funky floorplan.

The 2nd place we saw yesterday evening. It's a brand-new, never-been-lived-in 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse right in the heart of Downtown Redmond (you could, technically, walk to the nice Town Center area) being rented out by a couple instead of a management company. This place is really cute, but a little cozy. The living room area is long, but a bit narrow, and length-wise, it opens up to a small 8' x 8.5" dining area which we're not sure would accommodate the sort of table we were looking to get. Actually, it probably could, but we're most concerned about the narrow width of the living room. Also on the ground floor there is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful kitchen. Not large (it's a galley-style), but it has granite countertops, really nice cabinets, and sparkly stainless steel appliances, Off the kitchen is a woefully small half-bath (it's basically a small closet with a toilet and sink, but it works!). On the 2nd floor are two bedrooms. They're not huge, but we think they'd fit our bedroom/office needs. There's also a full bathroom up there and a full size washer/dryer in its own closet (there's a w/d in the 1st place, too). We really thought this place was slick but we have two main concerns: 1) The place might just be a little too small with how we imagine our furniture layout might turn out. We stayed up until 1am trying to crunch the dimensions, and I'm still not sure we really came up with any good solutions. (Maybe we're over-thinking it?) And 2) They're only 1 reserved parking space. There are going to be open visitor spaces (they say something like 40), but there would be no guarantee that we would get them. It wouldn't be a problem now, as the place isn't fully sold yet, but it could get harder over the year as more people move in. It's rough, 'cuz I think we really liked this place.

But, we have more places lined up to see today. We have three so far, and I hope we can swing by a few other options as well. And then, oh yeah, we have to shop for furniture. We have a bed, so we're covered there, but we need to get, you know, a couch (and maybe a comfy chair), a place to set our tv and peripherals up, a dining room table and four to six chairs, a coffee table, maybe a dresser, and some bedside tables. And, you know, some lamps, some side tables for the living room, and all that stuff needed for the kitchen: pots, pans, plates, cutlery, glasses. See how this is overwhelming? We we out a few days ago to start our hunt, and the only thing we really found was a really comfy, nice-looking sofa/chair set at La-Z-Boy (but it's unfortunately on order and may not get here until 6-8 weeks), and that good, sturdy furniture is either a) really ugly or b) really expensive.

So much for that whole "quick notes" thing. Enough with the typing. I need to go wake up Erik and get us going. Wish us luck on our hunt - we need it!