joys of being a homeowner

stairs

when i was younger i always thought it would be so cool to live in a house with a second, even third floor. but now, geez, i hate the stairs. not only did i fall down them on move in day (lesson learned: do not try to carry an unwilling, 20 pound furball, dang rufus, down newly carpeted stairs) and twisted my ankle (you should see the bruise and at least the swelling has gone down), but i have found that i will stay downstairs as long as possible and only go up the stairs when absolutely necessary. we have seriously considered getting a duplicate set of everything so we won't have to go up and down...

pest control

back at the apartment our pest control consisted of rufus and token perching up high and crying incessantly whenever they spotted a scorpion. in the 2+ years we resided in #2024, we never had any problems with bugs except for the occasional scorpion necking lincoln in the middle of the night or slowly cooking in our kitchen light. we did have 1, yes just 1, cockroach right before we moved out (its because we got lazy on the cleaning since we were moving out shortly) which tokey promptly snatched up and chomped on.

but here at the house, we have an abundance of black widows. i hate most bugs but i absolutely loathe and fear black widows. whenever we mentioned these creatures to fellow queen creekers, they are like, oh yeah, we get them all the time. not once was that mentioned prior to purchasing the house. now we have a pest control company. one that will kill the critters and leave them dead all over the yard instead of eating them like good ol' tokey.

start up fees

talk about nickle and dime-ing us. every company wants some kind of "start up" fee. $20 here $30 there. it is driving me nuts.

hoa's

when i first thought about the hoa, i was all for it. what a good idea. having the hoa will keep people from being that house. you know the one, with the trash all over it, the dead grass and trees, the nasty tick infested dog caged up, weeds almost as tall as the house...

we have been in the house for, what, 10 days? and we have already received our first (of many, i'm sure) notice saying that we have weeds in the "tree-lined area" that we need to have pulled withing 14 days of the notice or we will be fined pursuant to the hoa's rules and regulations. actually the notice started with a "welcome to the community" followed by a finger pointing saying you have WEEDS in your un-landscaped yard that you are not even sure if it is your responsibility or not and what the heck is the tree lined area? i don't see any trees out front...

immediately after receiving this wonderful notice, i searched frantically in our study for the hoa rules (which by the way is 50 pages long and written in gibberish) to get an explanation. but then i remembered. linc and i made a deal. i would keep the inside clean while he dealt with the outside.

window coverings

i have always been a fan of open windows. beautiful natural light streaming in... i was so excited that this house had so many windows. until i realized how many window coverings that meant i needed. most of the windows have been covered, the ones i thought were crucial anyway. but lincoln and i had different opinions on what to do with the last 6. we finally came to an agreement on what to get and an order has been placed. but i wish they were here already. it is really hard to pretend you are not home when anyone that comes to the front door can see straight into the family room, living room, and straight up our stairs to the master. just a few more days...

and on a similar topic... our door didn't come with a peephole??? will have to add that to the list of things to investigate.

commute

my commute to work officially bites. i drive 60 miles roundtrip. it takes about 1.75-2 hours to get to and from work. good thing i enjoy morning radio (98kupd is hilarious) otherwise it would really be miserable.

to do list/to buy list

i never felt that i had so little until we moved into this ginormous house. we have a lot of empty space and it is driving me crazy. i want a new sofa set for the front and a new dining table. maybe a sectional for the family room and a new kitchen table. and a desk and bookshelves and a recliner for the study, plus a filing cabinet. a new bedroom set. new comforter and sheets. a futon or comfy chairs for the loft. a work table for my "hobby" room. plus i want to paint the walls and hang my pictures. i love a house full of family photos. makes it a home :) plus the cats need some kind of bed or "cat condo" since pico has a bed. lincoln wants new tv's to go with his wiring. if we got a new tv we would need a stand or entertainment center. we could really use a new computer. and i even want new dishes. my target plates look quite bland in my beautiful maple cabinets. and we need to get our front yard landscaped and eventually the back yard done too. *sigh*

2 car garage

the garage had taken a bit of time to get used to. i always worry that i am too far over, linc won't fit, or that i will hit the water heater or my mirror on the wall. and i have a fear of suffocating myself so i never start the car until the door is at least halfway up. and just last night, lincoln forgot to close the door and left our house completely vulnerable. not entirely his fault, he was preoccupied with the weeds in the tree lined area.


this blog could be endless. so many new things to face.

some good things so far:

the carpet is the most comfiest carpet every. linc and i find ourselves just lounging about on the floor. we have even taken a nap in the front room just laying on the floor in the middle of the room.

the appliances are major! (quoting posh spice). laundry day is cut in half and they are energy efficient.

the cats will lose weight. i might even too. and pico gets tons of exercise trotting around the house or chasing tokey.

owning a home feels pretty darn good.

love.