A House!

This last week or two has been crazy! Tuesday the 31st we decided to meet a Realtor and look at houses. Literally the first house we saw was THE one. We're in the house looking around and an AZ monsoon hits!  So we got trapped in the house for an extra 30 mins or so, then the roads were so flooded we couldn't leave Anthem or go look at any other houses. We decided to have some dinner and see if it let up, it finally did and we were able to see 2 more homes but they just didn't even compare. 

So we slept on it and discussed the options and finally decided to put in an offer. At first the sellers said flat out no. We were asking for nearly 10k under the asking price and the current price had already been marked down about 30k. Its a great home. We have a great lender/Realtor team and together they worked out a deal for us. 

At this point, we've had our home inspection and the inspector said "this is the nicest home I've done in three weeks". He said it was a great first home and we will have very little to fix before we move in. There's 4 tiles loose on the roof and the outlets in the kitchen are GFS protected in places they shouldn't be. Everything else is cosmetic like chips on the patio and scratches in the tile. 

We are very excited. The only things we absolutely have to purchase are a washer/dryer and a fridge. There's a fridge in the garage but its small and doesn't match the kitchen. We got a great deal from a local appliance store since we'll be buying everything from there. 

The last hurdle is the appraisal. What we need is an appraisal to come back saying the house is worth what we're paying for it and we're done. The house is ours. FINGERS CROSSED. If that goes through we could move in as early as the 20th. In literally 20 days we decided to buy a house, found one and bought it. Like I said, its been a crazy couple of weeks. 

If this house doesn't work out, its not a big deal. There's a lot of homes out there and since we're already through the loan underwriting and stuff, if we have to put in another offer it'll go even faster. Truth be told, I secretly hope this is the one. I can see us living there. 

One step closer to the amazing future of Nick and Stephanie. 

Christmas/Birthday time of year

If you know me you know I love unwrapping gifts almost more than actually getting a gift! I knew Nick would use that for my Christmas gift, but I had no idea just how far he'd take it. I thought I'd get something that needed batteries and get individually wrapped batteries or something like that. I never expected to wake up and get to unwrap my apartment!!



Aside from that I got an upgrade to my graphics card, some Aperture Science glasses, caffeinated root beer and the best possible thing to drink said root beer from...A replica of the Top Gun Stein from Battlestar Galactica!!! OH and I think he got sick of me taking all his dollars to try and win a DOMO from the crane game at the grocery store, because he got me a lil Domo too :)

I got him the outfit Dexter wears to kill people (he looks incredibly hot in it), a book of photos of us from 2011, a gift card to buy some climbing gear at REI and some tools for his cool new toolbox so he can be manly and fix things.

My birthday is Sunday and in the spirit of never being a real grown up this year my birthday party is going to be at a place called Xtreme Air jump park! My family went in together and bought me a Kindle for my birthday. I opened it by accident the other day thinking it was the Furminator I bought for Ginger and Enzo. Needless to say I was STOKED to find it.

Going to bed has become an adventure.

Nick and I moved in together October 1. So far so good except one thing. One of us has to be an adult when it comes to going to bed and neither of us are willing to do it. Here's a typical night:
-We spend about 15-30 minutes talking ourselves out of whatever we're currently doing (playing a game, watching a show, browsing the internet)
-play with the puppies and put them to bed
-get in bed
-talk about what we're going to do when we wake up again
-talk about whatever stems from that
-talk some more
-feet fight, covers war or some other form of silliness
-add 10 more minutes to this if someone farts so we can endlessly giggle about it

seriously. the. worst. :P

Actually things have been going great. We are working hard at making our lil place a home, especially for the holidays. My sister Cyndi came over from Cali to do Thanksgiving with us. Cyndi and I did the sides and Nick cooked his first turkey. It turned out really well. We spent the rest of the weekend shopping, drinking and playing Rock Band.
The Christmas tree is up and we're working on setting up some traditions we can do every year. Its really nice to be able to not only enjoy our current time together but set ourselves up for a great future too.

We went to Illinois for a baby shower in September, that was a lot of fun. My sister Lindsy is having a baby in a couple more months and my other sister Michelle is expecting twins shortly after. I'm going to have 2 nephews and a niece soon!



Aside from visiting family I would say the highlight of the trip was going to Chicago. We spent the entire day exploring the Museum of Science and Industry, walking through Navy Pier and riding the Gondola and getting some delicious food. I miss the food back home.

The mini choppers

I can't seem to hold onto a mini chopper to save my life. Its a small kitchen gadget that chops up nuts, veggies or whatever. So when I first moved into my own house my mom got me one as a housewarming gift. For one reason or another at the following Christmas she bought me another one. I laughed and told this story for years because I thought it was silly.

I moved out of that house when I moved to South Carolina and I didn't take much with me, including my two mini choppers. So when my mom came to visit for Thanksgiving she had to buy me another one. Mom mini chopper tally is now 3.

So I moved out of that house and again didn't take everything, including my poor mini chopper. So Mom came back down to SC to help me get situated and was astounded to find that I again lacked a mini chopper. She bought me my 4th mini chopper.

Mom, ended up staying with me for several months before moving back to Illinois and when she left she TOOK my mini chopper :(

So 4 mini choppers later, I still don't own one and I decided to give up on the idea that I could have one of my own.

Today I'm moving out of my apartment and into another one and I just emptied a cabinet and lo and behold THERE IS A MINI CHOPPER IN THERE. I swear to all things I have never seen this thing in my life. After what I've been through with the other mini choppers, I would know if I actually had one. A mini chopper materialized out of nowhere or someone is playing a joke on me!

Fathers Day

I was lucky enough to get a Dad who loves metal. Needless to say, I was super excited when I found this shirt at ThinkGeek!

Its a few days early but screw it.....Happy Fathers Day Daddy!

A couple of years ago I was exploring my ability to communicate with others. I was so tired of being the wallflower, boring, quiet girl. I even blogged about it. Today I realize something else about myself that I get really annoyed with. When someone challenges my ideas, I almost always back down. I worked so hard at learning new things and being able to discuss subjects but somehow I missed the part where I needed to back up my mouth. This is the most recent example, it just reminded me of the fact that I do this all the time:

Cyndi: we're going to stop in Santa Fe to party. I guess its a big fun city and its the half way mark between here and Fort Morgan (where she's moving)
Me: I didn't realize New Mexico had any cool cities like that, all I know is Albuquerque the rest of it was boring when we went through.
Cyndi: What? I'm not going through New Mexico at all
Me: .....Santa Fe is in New Mexico
Cyndi: Lots of states have cities with the same names, this isn't new mexico
Me: ok

Later on I look at a map
/facepalm
Santa Fe is in New Mexico and it is the halfway mark

I'm never positive enough about my own knowledge or decisions so stick by it. Why do I do that? This has actually gotten me in trouble before because as soon as I back away from the conversation it sounds like I didn't know what I was talking about. I did, but I wasn't willing to challenge what the other person was saying to contradict me.
I need some debate skills.

Its April Fools

I am positive that my dad will try and prank me this year, he always does. The sad part is that I always see it coming but believe it anyway because I believe everything he tells me.

To this day I still call those 4 holed swings at the park "doggie swings". Thanks Dad ♥

Your house smells like someone died!

I was going through my old photos today and I ran across one that made my day. In May 2009 I went to Hawaii and my sister and mom watched my apartment for me. They kept calling me and saying that my place smelled so bad that they couldn't even stay there. Like something died. I was a little freaked out, I try to keep my place clean and I was going to be gone for a week so whatever it was would just smell worse by the time I got there if they didn't find it.

Finally, I got home after a long flight and a great vacation to find this and a note that said "WHO DONE IT?!":

Thanks, mom

My mom sent me a get well card and I guess she couldn't find the perfect card, so she improvised. haha.

Had lunch at Chino Bandido today with Crystal, a mexican-chinese place. They have the most unique menu, its one of my favorite places to eat in Phoenix. Emerald Chicken on a quesadilla with jerk chicken rice, omnomnom!

Getting my staples out today from my surgery. Finally, man these things are really getting on my nerves. Its going to feel so good to finally sleep on my stomach again!

Appendix-less

Last Thursday I went out for some day drinking and afterwards hit up Santisi for darts and more drinking. Needless to say Friday when I woke up I wasn't feeling top notch. My tummy was killing me! I went to work but ended up leaving early and going home to rest. Around 9pm I decided that hangovers just don't last this long, I did some drinking but not THAT much. So I headed over to urgent care and they looked at me like a crazy person, TO THE ER! Several hours later I was getting my appendix out.

What a strange experience. I was in a daze for days between blinding pain and drugs. As with any crisis, when I came to I realized once again that I have an amazing support system. My friends and family all came in to help me take care of myself, take care of my dog and provide much needed moral support to get through this. Thanks guys :)

Who said turning 30 meant growing up?!

I had a fantastic 30th birthday. My mom showed up (it was her birthday too) in Arizona and surprised me. Shannon picked me up and we went to dinner with Cyndi and Danielle and afterwards we went to Dave and Busters. We're walking in and I catch a glimpse of our friend Dave and think, whats he doing here? Then I notice Dave has a girl with him but I can't tell who she is. Upon closer inspection it was my mom!! I screamed so loud the people around us all jumped HA!
We had a great time, I played tons of games and got lots of tickets. Grand prize was 2600 tickets and a new cozy hoodie.

The whole week after my birthday my mom was here and we did all kinds of fun stuff. Probably the most fun was the trip to Jerome, AZ where Maynard from Tool has a winery called Caduceus.

Yum!
There were actually several winerys in Jerome that we stopped at. I can't wait for a trip back, if not for the scenery alone! Here's a photo of Jerome as we approached it, the whole town is on the side of a mountain!

28.6

Final stretch in the run your ass off competition and I have gone 28.6 miles total. Friday is the last day and I have to say 30 days of routine and I'm really enjoying myself, I almost feel bad if I don't go at this point because I enjoy it so much. Spending time with my dog, I love how it makes my body feel and I love being outside. I've found some pretty places to run, too.

Last week I got back from my 2 weeks in Alabama. I had a fun trip, the people at the bank I worked with were super nice and I did lots of fun things while I was out there. I attended Bamajam, a country music festival. I didn't know much of the music but I did walk around drunk and barefoot so I fit right in! I drove down to Panama City Florida for a day and oh my oh my was it pretty!! I would love to go back there someday. I heard just after I left the oil was nearing the beaches there, its a shame :(
I took a Zumba class while I was there too, that was fun. I have zero rhythm but just trying to keep up I worked really hard!

July 1st I am driving up to Illinois to visit my family. I didn't go back last year so I'm pretty excited to see everyone. My dad is going to be out of town but he's going to have the house all ready for me to stay in, that was sweet.

Anyway, another wonderful summer. Exciting things to come in the next couple months, big changes!!!

Never Try and Yankitize Me

Me: Don't call me sugar

Friend: darlin?

Friend: honey?

Friend: sporty?

Me: Steph

Friend: lmao

Me: Honey, darlin ect sounds condescending

Friend: ok didnt mean to offend, i am what we call southern, so i do use sugar and darlin a lot and they arent meant to come off as sexist or whatever..............they are kinda like saying ma'am when i use them

Me: I know

Me: I'm yankee-inizing you

Friend: meanass

Me: Or teaching you how to speak to one

Friend: never try and yankitize me

Me: Haha

Friend: it aint happenin

Friend: although i can pull of a pretty good chicago accent

Me: I gotta hear that

Friend: oh i know how to speak to "yall", just cuss a lot and never actually show any respect. its simple

Friend: and speak loudly also

Friend: show zero manners

Friend: and just be an all around ass........which shockingly enough, i can pull off ;)

Why does speaking loudly with no manners sound so appealing to me? ...I need to take a trip back home soon.

I mean, seriously, NOWHERE? For starters there are like a thousand species of dinosaurs

HAHA, this IS totally me.

This weekend will be a good time. Tomorrow morning I am headed out to Nicole's house to set up for her mom's surprise 50th bday party, then going over to Newberry for Kristina and Bennies wedding (yay guys!). Then back out to Nicoles for the party, I LOVE her mom. This lady took me in as her own kid almost immediately, inviting me to family stuff like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years when my family wasn't here. Totally being there for me when I was having issues with Tim. I'm stoked to celebrate her birthday!

I don't think my mom realizes that Lindsy and I keep NO secrets. Literally, I don't think I can even speak to my sister without telling her every little detail about everything in my life. We just don't do secrets. So mom tells Lindsy that she's been watching LOST on her laptop without Cody and I and not to tell me. WTF!? She's ruining family night! She went so far as to buy her own Netflix subscription so that we wouldn't see that she shows had been watched (on xbox when you watch a show it marks it as watched even if you delete it from the queue and re-add it). So of course Lindsy calls me right away with this news. jerk.

Next week starts my eat right and stop being a fat girl routine. I'm going to blog about it so I have some accountability. You can find the blog here okfinefinefine.blogspot.com don't look today, its not started yet. I have a little motivation to do what I'm doing so hopefully I can stick to it.

Wild Sweet Orange

Have you heard Wild Sweet Orange? This is why I love using Pandora, I run across so many artists I would have never listened to otherwise! I got some really good stuff today but this is one of the only bands I heard that I've liked almost every song I played. Here's a link to their Myspace Profile, there's a lot of songs on there. They have video embedding disabled on YouTube but search it, love it and uh..buy the album :)

In other news, I finally rented Little Big Planet and MAN is it great. Sackboy is the cutest video game character I have ever seen! The levels are fun, you basically have to figure out how to move from beginning to end by moving things around, swinging from stuff and things like while collecting items throughout. There are challenges to do between levels. The graphics are cool, its almost like claymation but they are so spot on things move when you nudge it. My Sackboy is actually an orange Sackgirl with purple pigtails and bunny ears, hehe. I also picked up Assassins Creed because I hadn't played it and I saw a commercial for Assassins Creed 2 and it looks badass, so I want to play through the first one before November when 2 comes out. Its got everything I love in an RPG game plus beautiful graphics! Its gonna be fun, there are a TON of movement that'll take some getting used to though.

October is almost here and its going to be an exciting month! Charleston in 2 weeks, Kristina and Bennies wedding and Nicole's moms 50th the weekend after that and Myrtle Beach the weekend after that! Shannon is trying to talk me into going to AZ for Halloween and I might do it, I miss her like mad and we'd have a blast. Shes moving into her new house so it would be cool if I could get out there to check it out, after all, it might be my future home soon!

All in all this was a great weekend, I decided to get into Lost and I can stream all the seasons to my Xbox so Cody and I watched a ton of them Saturday. Heard some new music and picked up a couple games, couldn't ask for a more relaxing weekend!

You get to karate kick a helicopter!

Hell Yes.

Just got back from VA Beach with the fam. Had a nice time. Got to eat at my favorite Puerto Rican place, Mojito. Played in the ocean, got a tattoo and shopped for puppies with Lindsy and Jake. All in all, it was a nice mini break away from home, I haven't left town in awhile.

Today was 9-9-09 and it was Brandon and Jake's birthdays. I find it kind of funny that those 2 have the same birthday, they are SO much alike too. I looked up their sign just to see if it was right and it really is true: modest, shy, intelligent, analytical, live in their minds, calm and collected...yea that's definitely those two! I hope they both had a great birthday, I'm pretty sure Jakes girlfriend did something silly like draw LOL Cats on his car or try to Rickroll him and last time I heard from Brandon he was hyped about getting a Choco Taco, haha.

I saw District 9 tonight. It was pretty cool. I'm not a blood and guts girl but the way they blew the bodies up in that movie with the alien guns was pretty spectacular! It was nice to get out of the house, get my mind off things for a little while.

I wrote my cousin Mike a letter yesterday. I've decided to only write Mike when I am in a positive frame of mind because I realized I wrote him 5 pages about being a good person. He's in jail and its probably not my place to lecture him, I'm sure he gets that enough and he's been in there long enough to know what constitutes good and bad. I am debating whether or not to send the letter.

I managed to have a very busy week this week! So much for being "alone".
Tuesday I went bowling with Ty and some of his friends. Last night was my Christmas party with my old branch and tonight I'm going to one with my new branch! I think I won't go anywhere tomorrow because Saturday I'm hanging out with myspace and Sunday I am going to lunch with Robin.

I haven't been playing much WoW since I moved. I know I really want to because at work this morning I used my WoW login ID instead of my work one lololol! Since Wrath came out I haven't got a really good handle on gear, I don't know whats out there I dont' know anything about set pieces and where to get them. I need to study up because Perla is sick of being Enhancement, I wanna heal! Cersi is being the epitome of a glass cannon, she's only 73 at the moment but still wearing t6 which is giving me awesome dps but no HP compared to these mobs. Thank god I specced frost!

Hoping for Christmas my family decides to send me money instead of presents because I would like to finish decorating my apartment and still be able to pay off the furniture and other things that I bought on credit.

Big News, Big News!!
I hate when I have HUGE big larger than life news, that I can't share!!!! All I can say is that something very big is about to happen to me and its a very good thing but since its unofficial, I can't tell anyone yet! The second I know, I'll post. Promise.

Besides that, my sister left for VA this morning. Its bittersweet. I'm happy to restore order to my home and I am sad because I won't have my little sissy-poo to hang out with!!

You know I just now, like 3 seconds ago noticed that I can tag my entries? I'm doing that now.

This weekend was much fun! I went to the Riverbanks Zoo with my sister. We parked on the botanical garden side and rode the tram into the zoo. Spent the entire afternoon looking at animals and spending time together. It was nice. After the zoo we went to Fuddruckers and then went shoe shopping. All in all, a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Today and for the rest of this week I have a trainee with me, Maggie. Shes sweet as ever and I can't wait for her to get going in this job because I think she will do really well with it. She's currently in the other room taking some online tests, which gives me a minute to update!

Tonight theres a dinner at the local High School that I'm going to attend. I wore my suit again and thus feel very important today!

Its a gloomy Friday. At least its cool outside though. I wore my suit today. Mostly just to prove to myself I could pull it off. I got a lot of compliments so it made me feel better. Usually I put it on and wear it around the house a bit and then take it off. I don't know why it makes me feel fat. I needed to prove to myself i'm not fat after Wednesday being told that after all my hard work at the gym I gained 7 pounds and 3% body fat. Which is totally not true, how am I fitting into the suit that didn't fit before?! She measured wrong. Maybe next time she will measure right and i'll have lost twice the fat!

This weekend is serious house cleaning time. My sister is moving out in 10 days and I will have a little order back, now I will only have Timothy to clean up after and he's a whole house mess of his own. I also want to work on my quilt, I need to make the settings on my sewing machine right again tho because my stitches are too loose and you can see them when you pull on the fabric. Its really looking pretty however, I like the colors and pattern that we picked out. Mom will love it.