Home Owner......NOT!

Well, I thought we were well on our way to being homeowners. In these tough economic times we were going to take full advantage of the situation and get an awesome house that we probably wouldn't be able to touch in most other circumstances. And honestly, going in, I had no intention on really getting in to a house. I figured we wouldn't find anything as nice as base housing in the price range we were looking for. I was going to be totally detached from the whole thing and just look with an open mind. And then we found the house.

It was small at 1265 sqft. And it had 3 bedrooms which meant the girls were going to have to share at some point. It didn't have a formal dining area. And it didn't have a fence yet.

It was on 2.14 acres, it had a finished attached 2 car garage that would have made an awesome master suite one day. It had berber carpet in the bedrooms, it had slate tile in the bathrooms, and wood flooring in the rest of the house. All of the main living areas were in the front half of the house, bathrooms and bedrooms on the back half of the house. The kitchen was beautiful with tiled countertops and all stainless steel appliances, recessed lighting and a ceiling fan. There were ceiling fans in every room. Crown molding throughout the house, granite countertops in the bathrooms. Both the living room and master bedroom exited out onto the patio, which would have been a lovely place for a hot tub. There was plent of lighting on the outsides of the house.

Our counter of their counter offer was accepted our application was accepted at our bank, all of the paperwork was set, our home inspection was to be today. But Friday we backed out of the deal.

All of the hopes and dreams I had started allowing myself to have about the house, gone. I had been a little worried about the size, but was sure we could make it work for us, for such a beautiful house with so much potential at the price and interest rate we were getting. Eventually we were going to do the garage and add a detached garage, do some landscaping, make some memories. And best of all, we'd have had it paid off before we were 50. We would have owned something worth almost twice as much as what we were going to pay for it. And the construction looked solid. You can't say that about many houses these days. We wouldn't have had anyone in our business, very few neighbors.

The housing market and us

I wrote a little bit about this on MySpace the other day, but I wanted to talk some more about this. The housing market is in a really bad place right now. And really, I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the people who didn't read all the fine print and all the people who just assumed they would be making $400, $500, $1000 more a month to be able to cover their mortgage payment when it ballooned out of control. Nobody thought it would be so bad. I did. If you've listened to me talk about houses and Real Estate over the last 5-8 years, you would have heard me say the bubble is going to burst, the bottom is going to fall out as soon as these adjustable mortgages adjust. These houses aren't worth $250,000 or more. It's absolutely ridiculous. Now, as much as I said all of that, I know most people only heard me with half an ear or didn't hear me at all, or just plain didn't want to believe it. I mean, the husband and I did make an awful Real Estate decision ourselves, and we wouldn't be where we are today, more than likely, if my parents hadn't bailed us out. Honestly, I never expected the bailout, I am very grateful and relieved for it, and it answered a lot of our prayers, but I didn't expect it. I sure didn't expect the government to bail us out of our stupid decision. Hopefully, it's all worked out now and eventually the future will show that it was to everyone's benefit. I continually worry about it and hope for that anyway.

We are now in a position that we can put a nice size down payment on a house and we are pre-approved for a decent amount, and we can get a decent rate with a good payment on a 15 year fixed rate home. That's right folks, if we find the right place, we could finally own our own home outright, shortly after the husband retires! He might even stay in just a little bit longer if it helps us pay off the house. And while retiring in Twentynine Palms wasn't the original plan, we are flexible if it's the right house. So, we've gotten our pre-approval, we've been in contact with our bank who has a program where they will set us up with a Real Estate Agent, we've researched what our potential electric (both in summer and winter), gas/propane, water, trash, and insurance bills will be to make sure that we get something where we can not only afford the mortgage payment but also all of those other household expenses on our BAH. Our cable/satellite, phone, we already know that we usually can make those come out of our base pay at some point. We've researched the market trends here in Thentynine Palms enough to know that people are still trying to get an assload out of houses that they just aren't going to get because they paid far more than they were worth, unless they find a buyer who hasn't done any research. We've researched enough to know that about 30% of the houses on the market are actually in foreclosure or are short-sells, and that they are not getting any offers on most of these, so the banks, etc are pretty much at our mercy. So, we are going to go out there and take full advantage of this buyers market and get the most house we can for our money, and actually, we aren't going to try to get a huge ass house that's going to take an assload of money to heat/cool, etc. We just really want a nice newer house that will allow us to have some fun doing a few upgrades but doesn't NEED a lot of work, raise our kids and entertain on occassion and that we will either be able to retire in if we so choose or to actually be able to get some equity in and sell if we decide that we want to retire somewhere else. God knows where the housing market in 29 Palms will be in 15 years or so, but hopefully if we are smart and careful we will have a house that is still worth something. If not, I guess we will be retiring here, lol.

Stay tuned and I'll definitely let you know how everything goes.

Real Estate

For the first time in either of our lives the husband and I are looking at purchasing a home. With the markets in dire straits, housing values are finally coming down to what they are actually worth, not some inflated version of everyone needs to be rich to afford them. I still think $140,000 is quite a lot of money, however, I'm more willing to pay it than $250,000 for a house. So, the fact that the original owner paid $181,000 for the house doesn't really bother me, either. It wasn't worth that. I think there is a lot of stupidity on the side of homebuyers in the last 10-15 years, and the fact that they bought houses at inflated prices on some baloon ass mortgage, well, their loss is our gain. We are finally in a position to put a good chunk of money down on a house and get a mortgage payment well below our BAH and the fact that by the time the husband retires we will almost have it totally paid off, IF NOT paid off, is not lost on us at all. We still have a lot of work to do if we are even going to make an offer, so we will see how things progress.

Don't get me wrong, living on base is great. I like the safety, I like the fact that when shit breaks, someone comes to fix it and it doesn't cost us money out of our pocket, I love the fact that for the most part we have pretty good neighbors, and I like that Meghan has the opportunity to play with some many kids her own age, and that we are close to things like the commissary and the hospital, etc. However, for all of those pluses, the huge downside is that we are paying $1244 basically in rent that in the end, we won't have anything to show for it. Now, the way the housing market was even just a year ago, we were better off. But with the way the market is falling so drastically, the fact that husband is already selected for the next rank, and the fact that we have this chunk of money we can throw at a house, the benefits for buying start to outweigh the benefits of living on base. I know that many houses still have a great deal farther to fall, but if we are smart, I think we can get a good deal and still be able to sell, if we want to, when husband is ready to retire. This does mean we would make Twentynine Palms our home for the forseeable future. While that may have bothered me at one time, it doesn't bug me at much any longer. Living on the coast until retirement isn't an option, we could be there for three years but then they'd move him, but since most people don't want to stay in the desert for any longer than what they have to, it provides us greater options to go from unit to unit if necessary to stay there. And while I sometimes hate the fact that nothing is close, at the same time, it's not undoable. The heat is a factor, but air conditioning makes it bearable. And hot is all relative. I don't like humidity at all, I hate being wet all day long. 95 or 100 degrees plus humidity is just as awful as 116 with no humidity. There's no snow. Well, snow is all fun and games when you are a kid, but when you are an adult, with snow comes ice, and I've been on my ass due to ice enough for one lifetime, thank you very much. And I lucked out, because at least I didn't twist my ankle or anything really serious. Now, yes, you can find ice in the desert, and at that it's usually black ice, but you have to be really lucky to run across something like that, it's very rare. Watch out for sprinklers, those will get you every time. ;0)

Anyway, we have lots of stuff to think about and consider. And we have some time to do it, I think.

Victory in Iraq

All right. I'm a little late with this. As per usual with me, though, lol. One day I might be on time or ahead of schedule. Maybe. Don't bet the farm on it, though. But in this case, better late than never. Success and Victory have been hard fought, against the enemy, against our own people, the biased media, and lots of Senators and a President-Elect who had no faith in what our President and Military were doing. Never ever say there were no WMD's found and that our President lied to us, and that we are in it for the oil, etc. etc. unless you have first hand knowledge, just because it's what the media reports doesn't mean it's fact. Just because you can't touch God, does that mean he's not there????

That's all I'm going to say at this time.

Vacation

Well, it's not really MY vacation. Husband is on his first post deployment leave right now. He won't be taking another one until sometime in the spring/summer. And he's been in Iraq for 7 months, so it's time for him to go out and have some fun. So, his dad and brother have come out to spend some time with him. They've been riding their Harley's all over the west coast. So. Cal, Arizona, and today we arrived in Vegas. Yes, I say we, but only a little bit we. The kids and I tagged along to the Coast on Monday and now today we have tagged along to Vegas. The guys are staying at a hotel while the kids and I are here at my parents. The guys are coming to BBQ here tomorrow night, but other than that, I don't expect to see them again. Hopefully everyone is having a really great time, since they've never gotten to do this before. I think they are thinking they might do it again next year. Not really sure if that will come to pass or not, but I don't think we'll tag along next time. It's really kind of pointless, and not as much fun as you might think it would be. I don't know if we'll actually be able to do anything on this vacation or not, there's not a whole lot of time left after this weekend. Things just are going way too fast. It's already almost Thanksgiving. I've been thinking about doing something on Monday and Tuesday, but at the same time I'm really thinking it's going to suck to try to squash a bunch of stuff in there. In fact, I don't think I can because I agreed to do this girl scout cooking class on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I don't have shit ready for that. It's like everything is sneaking up on me. I don't know where time goes. Other than the fact that I do procrastinate a lot of it away, but I swear the rest isn't on me. It's someone elses fault. But, anyway, I'm going to end things on that note. I will be back. There's some shit that's really bugging me that I need to get out. If I can't wait a week to run it by Dr. Dan I'll be back to put it up here, lol.

Veteran's Day

First, I just want to say a quick thank you to all of you Veteran's out there. Thank you for your service, then, now, always. I am very appreciative for the freedom I have today, thanks to you brave men and women who volunteered to serve this nation, not everyone will do what you do.

Now, I haven't been on for a few days. I was in Vegas and didn't take my laptop this time. I spend quite a bit of time in Las Vegas. My parents live there, I'm a resident, it's close enough to where I'm at right now. But, this weekend we were there for a very different reason.

My husband's douche bag command chose to have their Marine Corps Birthday Ball there. Not such a big deal, and might be fun, IF ONLY:

- It wasn't mandatory (anyone chosing not to buy a ticket would have been provided bus transportation for the 200 mile trip or some type of shit ass duty here on base)

-The command weren't such douche bags.

- The CO didn't keep the room comp'd for having the ball there. (He could have fucking raffled it off and a deserving Marine could have had an awesome night)

- The CO hadn't disrespected the GUEST speaker, who was also the OLDEST Marine attending the ball, who was also a double amputee, who was also the FRO's FATHER!!!

- The food didn't suck ass.

- He didn't treat the Marines who actually DID shit during the deployment, like the shit on the bottom of his shoe. (Go water boy! Go weatherman! Great job! What a hard fucking job you have!) (BTW, I'm not saying those jobs aren't needed, because they are.)

So basically the Ball sucked ass, just like I thought it would, I'm so glad we didn't pay the $55 for me to go. It was bad enough the husband had to be there for any length of time. And as for the hotel being great and being in Vegas being great, the hotel was all the traffic and congestion and stupid shit of the Las Vegas Strip WITHOUT actually being ANYWHERE near the other Strip hotels. You had to DRIVE to actually get to the main part of the strip, great for those who were drinking, right?????

Saturday, thank God, we actually had a really fun day at Aviation Nation, the Nellis AFB air show. It was a really good time, I love planes.

And now, today is Veteran's Day and where is my husband. At work. Yea. Because they got Friday off for the fucking Ball, they had to report to work at noon today. And we thought it was going to be just a check in thing to make sure everyone was still alive and what-not. OH NO. The douche bag CO decides EVERYONE has to do a piss test. What a great fucking way to honor our Veteran's don'cha think. Way to go Semen (name altered on purpose)! I can't wait til this fucker is relieved of this command. I don't care what awards he wears on his shoulders, he hasn't done a fucking thing. At least most definitely not during this command. Anything he's gotten credit for has been on the backs of Marines whom he's treated like shit. The worst thing is, is this guy doesn't even award, congratulate, thank, or give any type of accolades to guys who actually do their jobs and do them well and sacrifice, through blood, sweat, and tears. This guy only rewards those people who have their nose so far up his ass they can't even breathe. I'm suprised he can walk. Oh, and the only other people he loves are those in his original MOS, fucking engineers.

Crabs over castles baby, crabs over castles.

Don't really know what to say...

I've felt physically ill since last night. I wish it was something I ate. I realize that now that the election bullshit is over you are supposed to embrace the new President. All I can do is pray. Pray harder than I ever had in my entire life. Pray that I'm wrong about what this man is going to do to our Country. Pray that I'm wrong about what he is going to do to our military. Pray because, come January the fate of my husband and my family will be in that man's hands and I don't trust him. I don't trust him at all. I don't trust him with my husband's life. Come January, my husband will have to follow whatever orders come from him because he will be the Commander in Chief. I still don't trust him.

I have to wonder if the Generals on the ground will continue to lie to the new President as some of them have been lying to the current one about what has and hasn't been found. I have to wonder if in time the people who are the haters will come around and realize what a good President they had in George Bush. Sure, the man has made some mistakes, but you better pull up those big girl panties and hang on tight because sure as shit what's his face is going to make mistakes as well. They may be the President of the United States and they may be the Commander in Chief, but they are HUMAN also. And no matter what pedestal we try to put on the office, the position is and always has been filled by a human. Human's make mistake. There is no such thing as a perfect human being. It's only the fact that some mistakes are far worse than others. I will always believe that Afghanistan and Iraq BOTH have been just wars. Wars that I knew going in were in no way going to be over quickly. When the announcement was made, I was well prepared for at least 10 years in Iraq. In fact, I don't think we should ever totally leave Iraq. We didn't leave Japan after WWII, we still have operating bases there. There is no reason why we shouldn't do the same in Iraq. It would be the perfect place to have our military presence, if shit is going to go down in the world, it's going to be close to there, so we might as well be there. War is not an easy thing. I don't know what it is like to lose someone to the war. My husband has gone three times, two times as an EOD tech, don't tell me I don't know what it's like to worry. But, no, I don't know what it's like to actually lose someone. I do know that my husband believes in what he is doing, and he does it knowing all the risks, and he still loves his job and he still goes out there and does it every single day. I know that I support him and I pray every day that he stays safe and always comes home.

Well, I still feel sick to my stomach and what not. I don't know that things are going to be okay.

All I can say is, God save us all.

Yikes

Well, it's Monday, the day before election day. I feel nervous. If Obama pulls off a win tomorrow, which is very possible, we are in all sorts of trouble. I don't know if this country will ever be the same again. By the time he introduces all of his Socialist programs, the military won't be the only ones being told where to live, where to go to see the Doctor, or what to do with our money. Wait, what money, since he's going to tax the crap out of anything we have, we won't be able to do anything since he's going to give it to people who sit on their asses and do nothing all day. I can tell you that my husband and I both worked during the years Clinton was President and I worked for three years during the first Bush term. When Clinton was President we made about $45,000 a year together. We usually had to pay in between $200-$1000 PER YEAR in taxes, we NEVER broke even, we NEVER received a refund. During the Bush years that I still worked, after his tax cuts, we made the same $45,000 a year and we FINALLy started breaking even and even getting small refunds. Of course, it was when I stopped working and became a one income family that we started getting bigger refunds because we were making quite a bit less. And now that husband has busted his ass and has made this military career work and has finally gotten promoted to where we are living pretty comfortably and we are going to be making about the same amount as when we were both working, and now we might get this asshole in to reverse all those things and we'll be back to paying what little we were able to get ahead. And any military family knows that's not always easy.

And then the husband comes home and tells me about his day. I swear I hate this command more and more each day, and it didn't think that was possibly yesterday. These guys wouldn't know common sense if it bit 'em on the ass. Half of them have their families in different states, and half of them don't have families. I don't know which is worse. And you can feed me the bullshit about if the Marine Corps wanted him to have a family they would have issued him one, but that shit just doesn't fly anymore. Not today. Not with a career Marine in his flipping 30's. So, he's supposed to be on half days. They did just get back from 7 months in Iraq you know. So, now they wanted to start keeping him for full days. And then send him away for a week. WTF?!? I mean, I know the job is demanding, but I think they deserve a fucking break, at least through Christmas. But no, semen is going to start sending them to the field for one week out of the month. All I can do is pray real hard that the Change of Command we don't get another cum drop that continues these audatious policies. I mean, we do have to be with this unit until April. I can't even go to the Marine Corps Ball this year because I don't think I can act like I'm happy around these people. And I can usually put on a pretty good damn act. I can't act like the shit they do to my husband at work doesn't affect me, because the shit they do to him has a direct effect on me and the kids. That's just like these bastartds sitting in these classes telling my husband and his Marines that the shit they saw and did outside the wire everyday, doesn't amount to jack shit and isn't "combat" because they didn't have some fuckhead shooting at them. No, they were just trying to blow them up, that's not combat, that doesn't take a toll on their psyche at all. Get a fucking clue. Didn't see them out there walking that walk, I think they should. I think they should have to walk that walk. I could go on, but I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to ream this command before it's all over with.

Random

So, just a few random things today. There is really a lot I want to blog about, but I have to get all of my thoughts in order first, they are all just kinda a jumble right now because that's how I think, lol. That and my husband has been talking to me and I can't concentrate on what he wants me to look at and make a lot of sense at the same time. I can talk, walk, and chew gum, etc. all at the same time, but when he is shoving his laptop in my face telling me to look, and the kids are carrying on in the background, it's hard for me to figure out what the hell I'm trying to say.

So, first, does anyone know if there are any cool layouts or where I can get custom layouts for this blog? I have my MySpace pretty customized right now and I like all the cool stuff everyone makes, I'm just not super good at that stuff, I've played around with it before, but not coding, and I just don't want to take the time to learn right now. So, if anyone can recommend a good place to get super cool layouts for blogspot, that would be cool.

Things are pretty good around here right now. The husband got home late in the afternoon yesterday, after the kids and I had already left for my friend Jennifer and Nicole's BBQ. The kids had a good time playing with their friends and I enjoyed catching up with my friends since I haven't really seen them in the almost two weeks since he's been home. It was pretty good to get out. I was still harboring some ill will last night, and Keeley was not sleeping well last night, she's still a little stuffy and not able to breath through her nose real good, so that doesn't help. And of course he is not used to being woken up by a baby after being in Iraq for the last seven months, and he wasn't home long enough when she was an infant for it to bother him much. So, he didn't want to let her crying up since it was affecting his sleep, so therefore, I got to be the one up and down with her all night. Par for the course. But I was still irritated.

We decided to go to WalMart today since I needed laundry detergent and dog food and the Commissary doesn't carry the brands that I buy in either one of those products (highly irritating since the did at one point but they stopped). So, the only place I can get those things is WalMart. So we headed over that way and did a little shopping. We looked again at the Nintendo Wii while we were there. They are actually starting to have some in stock now instead of always being out of them. I think we are going to get the Wii and the Wii Fit with a couple of games. I'm trying to figure out what the basic Wii comes with, if anything. I think we are going to get it sometime this month. I think we might wait until the day after Thanksgiving to see what, if anything they will be offering for Black Friday/ Christmas. After the shopping we had a little lunch at Taco Bell. I really wanted some Applebee's, but the kids weren't into it. After that we came home and the kids watched a movie while we got to head upstairs for a little mommy and daddy time. It's hard to get time like that, let alone getting any in the middle of the day. So, all in all it's been a pretty good day.

Irritated

I'm so irritated I don't even know where to begin. The fact is that I'm really trying hard NOT to be a bitch, but I seem to be failing miserably. My husband has been home from Iraq for less than two weeks and while we aren't fighting, I'm just really really pissed off. I know that he needs some downtime away from us to just do the things he loves to do and to sort through some of the shit he had to deal with while he was in Iraq. And even though Iraq is for the most part under control and many of the guys don't leave the wire, he does. He is EOD. And anyone can say what they'd like, but EOD guys have to do some shit you just don't see. So, whether you think they are cocky or arrogant, or just bullshitting about what they do, until you've walked their walk in their shoes, you oughtta keep your damn mouth shut.

So, while I realize he has all this stuff he needs to process and he can't be with us 24/7 and the kids have basically been up his ass since he walked through the door a week and a half ago, it doesn't hurt any less that he'd rather be out with his motorcycle and a bunch of guys he doesn't even know doing God knows what and riding his motorcycle. I mean, I trust him more than I trust myself and we probably wouldn't have done anything if he was here anyway, it's the fact that we aren't a part of that.

Hell, maybe it's all on me. Maybe it's just all my problem. I don't have anything that doesn't involve him or the kids in my life. Not a damn thing. Maybe I'm just jealous. Maybe I'm jealous that he can just take off whenever he wants and do whatever he wants and leave for overnight or a day or two or a week, and he doesn't have to think twice about the house or the kids or the dogs because, hey, I'm here. I'm always here. And I guess maybe that is his reward for putting his life on the line in other Countries for his family and Country (where only 10% actually give a shit). I mean, look at me, I don't work. I don't get told what I can spend his money on for the most part, I have pretty much free rein to make any stupid decisions and fuck up things as much as I want to. I guess maybe it's a trade off?

Who knows. I'm still irritated.

Welcome

I guess this is one of those things that I always do to myself. I have a perfectly good MySpace blog that I use on a regular basis, but as that one has become more popular with family and friends, I need a spot to write where I'm not as well known. I know that eventually I will probably end up sharing this spot too, as I have everything else, it just happens that way. I don't know why I do it, but it's all mine for a while at least. I think my Who I Am statement pretty much tells you what you need to know about me, the most important parts anyway. The rest is all fluff. I love my family. I don't work outside the home, but I do have my own business, I'm just not doing as well as I would like to be doing right now. I'm hoping it's just a temporary set back. I love to cook and I love all my kitchen utensils, it's just convincing everyone else that ours are the best. Even when I don't like to cook my stoneware makes putting something together quick and easy.

Anyway, I'm hoping that this can be a place for me to put some of my other thoughts. Not necessarily all of the great family stuff, although there will be some of that.

Happy Halloween, got stuff to do, I'll catch up with this later.