[JessFinds] Buy My House

 THE BIG DEAL  - PART II

We are in situation that many American's are finding right now, needing to sell their home within a certain time frame and dreading it. I watched enough HGTV to know that I need to purge and clean and stage. I have never sold a home before! I have no idea what I am doing. I can fake my way through a lot of things, but this is one where I just feel paralyzed.

Picture w lush trees and fresh landscaping in the front.

We have the added bonus of being located in one of the worst states for the housing crisis - our home in particular has taken a 30,000 - 40,000 dip since May of this year. Ouch.

We live in a beach town. It has an interesting mix of haves, semi-haves and retirees.  Rural suburbia and coastal farmland. So you will frequently see a $800k+ home near a $200k+ home. It just is the layout of the land here. Our little town is sandwiched between an economically depressed city and a very desireable zip code.

Our home is a 1950's box that was turned in to a Colonial style home by additions in the 1980's and 1990's. It is just over 2,300 sq feet of hard-to-heat-in-the-winter home. It is a 3 bedroom / 2.5 bath with bonus family room. The master suite is sickeningly huge. The other bedrooms are 1950's small. An appraiser told us that our walk-in-closet can be listed as a den because it has a window and lighting/heating. Bulkhead basement that was encased for indoor access before we purchased. Sunroom. We have upgraded the kitchen and the master bath.

Bonus - Great lot. Lots of space for the $$. Flanked by incredibly well tended homes on both sides.
Bad - Needs new roof (no leaks but definitely at the age of normal replacement) and is on a busy street.

Ok. Purge. Clean. Have a realtor or two do a walk through. Choose a realtor. Stage. Right?

[JessFinds] Me? Homeschool? NEVER.

The summer hiatus is over and I am back!

My contract was not renewed for fall, so I am (once again) unemployed. Sigh. This means that Miss Gonzo will not be attending a "real" preschool because, well, we can't afford it. This also means that she will be attending the School of Mom.

First day of preschool: September 13th, 2010. 

We started off with the theme of cows. We checked out 5 books about cows from the local library. Today we began with this one:

We watched an old episode of Sesame Street on YouTube that showed where milk comes from. We also looked up information about cows who sleep on waterbeds. I will let you Google that one.

Today we achieved the following:
1. Baked biscuits
2. Cleaned the living room
3. Read "When the Cows Come Home"
4. Did two safety scissor projects, practiced cutting straight lines
5. Talked about Red (worksheet)
6. Worked on writing readiness (4 worksheets)

And now, we are relaxing with a snack and watching Ponyo on a rainy day. :-)

(MarieFinds) Ham

This post is partly inspired by Jess' menu planning saga.

I meal plan best when we're broke, and boy, have we been broke. We've all been there. Weeks where due to whatever factors, you start the week with less than a $100 in the bank, and you know it will be that way until payday. And you haven't bought groceries yet. Hopefully, payday is soon. This time payday was 10+ days away.

Solution? A big-ass ham. I cooked an 11 pound ham on Sunday. For the four of us. A good ham, though no Smithfield Country ham. We eat city ham. One of these days I'll mail order a good country ham. (Cook's brand ham's are the best city hams, as decreed by the Cook's Illustrated people. And they can be bought cheaply at WinCo. My 11 pound ham was $18. bought a couple of weeks ago before Easter. Ham is super cheap then. And it keeps in the fridge forever.)

Back to my point. On Sunday, I made a crazy big ham for 2 adults and 2 young kids. Made a half-sized order of scalloped potatoes and green beans. Ham was glazed with a maple syrup / orange marmalade glaze.

Monday was leftovers of above.

Tuesday was a ham and cheddar cheese quiche, with some broccoli and mushrooms thrown in. broccoli served on the side as well. (Squirrel proceeded to eat the ham out of the quiche, some of the "egg" and the broccoli on the side. No egg covered broccoli for her. She only likes it straight. with salt and maybe lemon.)

Wednesday was ham and cheese sandwiches.

Thursday was pizza slices. Yay, payday!

Friday was a ham pot pie. which was surprisingly good. really good, actually. I just added a handful of cheese to the recipe at the link. other than that, followed it exactly.

Saturday breakfast was home made biscuits, with fried ham, sausage and eggs.

Saturday lunch was grilled cheese. And mine had ham in it.

Saturday dinner will be ham and split pea soup. and maybe I'll make more biscuits. I have the world's easiest biscuit recipe.

And then, I think we are done with the ham. For a while. We'll make enough split pea to freeze, because frozen soup is the answer to many nights when we get home at 7pm and still need to feed the kids.

(MarieFinds) Christmas Lights

We are very proud of ourselves this year... we have actually managed to get the outdoor lights up, and the indoor decorations are done. We will get our tree and put it up next weekend I think. I still do a real tree, and so I like to wait a bit so it doesn't get too dry.



The Squirrel is SOOO excited for Christmas this year. She is way into it. I bought a nativity set last year after Christmas and all she wants to do is kiss the Baby Jesus. It is just about the cutest thing ever. The Lawyer put the outdoor lights up, and seeing her Daddy on the roof absolutely delighted her. She still totally cracks up when she talks about it.



We started what I really hope is a new holiday tradition for us on Tuesday night. We went to the Zoo Lights Festival, which was just a blast. It is so fun having the kids around this year. Baby Boy slept through that for the most part, but Squirrel was over the moon about all the lights and the elephants.

[JessFinds] I heart the economy

Just got the town tax assessment. My home value has plummeted almost $24k below what I paid 2 years ago! I currently have NO equity. Wait - negative equity! At least my property tax will be lower, lemonade out of lemons, right?

Trying to breathe. It was valued at $22k more than what we purchased it for back in 2007. So technically, that is a $46k drop.

And this, people, is why we are on a 5 year plan. Wasn't going to sell the place anytime soon.