Oh Yeah, I Live Here Now.

My husband and I only have one vehicle, which is my car I bought before we got married after I totaled my other car. Anyway, it doesn't really bother me that we only have one vehicle, as my husband HATES driving! You may find it odd - I did for a long time, but the fact of the matter is he's never really drove (with the exception of military vehicles) since he grew up in NYC where people prefer the subway to cars. He actually didn't even get his license until he was 21! He did have his own car, but we ended up selling it because it had so many problems. So anyway, I take my husband to work every morning & pick him up in the afternoon. The other day I was pulled out of my driveway to pick him up from work and started heading down to the stop sign on the corner of our street. A woman in a mini-van across the street & a few houses down [i.e. kiddy-corner] decides to start pulling out of her driveway and into the street as I'm driving past her house. I literally had to drive on the other side of the street because I thought she was going to hit me - she didn't even stop at all. So me being me, I flash her a dirty smirk and carried on my way.

As I thought about this later in the day it crossed my mind that I live here now, as in for an extended period of time. As in I may see this woman many times over the next few years and perhaps I shouldn't be giving her dirty looks, no matter how right I think I am and how wrong I think she is. So I am going to attempt to not be such a snot to people who don't know me, I don't want to be known in the neighborhood as that bitchy lady :]

Update on Life

It has been so long since I blogged, but I have been so incredibly busy! The biggest piece of news is that my husband and are officially homeowners! We closed on the scheduled date of Wednesday October 14. I had actually called our realtor earlier in the day to see if he had heard anything about us closing, and he hadn't, so I thought it would happen on the following day, but he called me a few hours later and told us to come get our keys because we had the house! I hadn't posted the pictures of the house because I didn't want to jinx it in some way, but for those who are interested, you can view the pictures here. So after we got the keys, we started transferring our stuff from our roommates aparment into the house. And then I had to drive a little over an hour to the airport in Tucson to pick up my friend Kelsey - so needless to say, I was very busy that day!

So the next day, Kelsey and I drove up to Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, the go to a hockey game. Granted it wasn't my Predators playing, but I didn't care because I just wanted to see hockey, any hockey would do! So we watch the Phoenix Coyotes take on the St. Louis Blues (Kelsey's 2nd fave team). The Coyotes won in overtime, but it was still a good game, and great to see our former goalie Mason again - I heart him! It was also weird to see our former player Fiddler do well, haha. We drove back to Sierra Vista that night and were so tired we just went straight to bed. The rest of her time here, we hung out, ran errands, and finally felt connected to the world again when I got my internet hooked up, haha. Kelsey left on Monday and I was sad to see her go - it was nice to have one of my best friends out here, even if all we did was hang out not doing a whole lot.

So we thought the Army was going to ship our stuff out here free of charge, well we were wrong. They wanted to charge nearly $3000 to do it, and I really didn't want to drain my savings to do so. So the hubby and I are flying out to TN on November 11, loading our stuff into a truck on the 12th, and driving right back out here. Yeah it's going to be a lot of work, but the Army will pay us $7500 to do it, and I think we'll only be spending about $2000 to do it ourselves. As of right now, we have two new couches we bought and a new bedroom set, but other than that's it's pretty empty. Oh well, soon enough we'll have our stuff, not looking forward to driving that truck though, haha.

So that's my update. I feel like I wrote a lot, so I try to update more often so I don't have to write as much, haha.

Annoyed.

When I woke up this morning, I looked at my phone and realized I had a missed call from my realtor and our mortgage broker. I immediately took this as a good sign, but I was wrong. I called our realtor first and he told me he had good news and bad news - which to me is always just bad news. He said that he wasn't sure if we'd be able to close by Wednesday because the mortgage underwriter was taking a long time. Something that should've only taken a week has taken two. So that was the bad news, the good news was that if they don't make the deadline, then they pay us $1300. Believe me, $1300 would be nice, that's essentially the rest of our closing costs, but I could care less because I just want to be in my home! Plus, my friend Kelsey is flying into town on Wednesday and I don't want her to have to stay in a hotel. So after I talked to the realtor, I call the mortgage broker back. He told me to go ahead and set up our homeowners insurance. I guess to make it go faster in case the loan does indeed come through this week. I was really hoping to close by the end of this week so we could go furniture shopping this weekend up in Tucson, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Aside from that, my husband called the movers yesterday and they referred us to the Fort Campbell Transportation office. Who told us it would probably be 3-4 weeks until we got our stuff. Mostly because it takes 10 days to process the paperwork. Annoying to say the least.

So that's all that's new with me. Hope to have a better update next week!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Cancer in general is a very important cause I support since so many people in my life have suffered or died from it. My Uncle Mark died when I was 8 from lung cancer, my Grandma in 2007 from cervical cancer, and my friend Sarah had lymphoma. But I hold the breast cancer cause especially close to my heart. My Aunt MaryAnn beat the disease about 10 years ago, while my mother died from it in 1993 when I was nine.

I encourage every woman to do a self breast exam every month and when the time is right, get yearly mammograms. And if your doctor tries to talk you out of it, find a doctor who will do it! My mom requested a mammogram when she was 26, only to be told she was 'too young' to get cancer. 13 years later she found the lump and had cancer. Granted that doctor got sued for malpractice - it didn't make up for the cancer that had already come. I will be getting my first mammogram when I am 29 - 10 years before my mother was diagnosed.

I know everyone reading this has been affected by breast cancer or just cancer in general. Don't let it be YOU.

Almost There.

When the husband and I first talk to our mortgage broker, he told us that we would need pay stubs from one months worth of pay, and we were told that my husband started during the beginning of a new pay period. Well, he got paid two weeks later, but it was only for one weeks worth of work, basically meaning that they're one week ahead with pay (if that makes sense). So we initially thought he'd have one months pay on Sept 18, but in fact he only had three weeks of pay. Our mortgage broker decided to try to submit the loan paperwork anyway and see if the lender would notice. That was last Wednesday. I called up there today to see if he had heard anything and he said he was just waiting on one last piece of paperwork - the approval of the mortgage underwriter - aka the last step in the loan process. I talked to our realtor too, and he think we should be in the home by next week! We scheduled our final walkthrough for Monday, to make sure everything we requested to be fixed was done accordingly.

I am really excited! I think I am going to call the movers from the Army tomorrow to schedule our stuff to be delivered next Friday (can always be changed if need be). The only other thing in our way is the cost this may entail. When one gets out of the Army, they will only move your belongings as far as your 'home of record' or where you entered in the service at. NYC was 900 miles from where we lived in TN, however AZ is 1500 miles, so we may have to pay whatever their price is for 600 miles. We do know one girl who said she never had to pay for her extra mileage, but we're not sure if we'll be as lucky.

Anyway, that's the latest news. I can't wait to get into the house & decorate and just make it my own. I will post pictures soon!

My Secret Identity as a Video Game Nerd

When I met my husband in Iraq 6&1/2 years ago, I was not someone who played video games at all. Growing up, my sister and I had a Nintendo and years later a PlayStation. I also had a GameBoy when they first came out - yes, the big brick one! Most of these systems I hardly played myself, usually my dad or my sister played on them while I would prefer to read a book or watch TV. My husband on the other hand, grew up playing video games. He had more systems than I care to name. He and his siblings and friends would spend hours playing video games, and the amount of time played didn't change as he grew older. After we met, he tried to get me to play games with him, and sometimes I would, but I would never call myself a gamer.

After we got married in 2004 and we moved from North Carolina to Arizona, I was feeling very lonely since I was so far away from my family and had no friends. One of the hubby's friends kept talking about how Halo 2 was coming out. I had played the first Halo once at a friends house and actually liked it a lot. My husband asked me if I was going to get Halo 2, but I of course said no, I didn't play video games afterall. The day the game was released, I had this sudden urge to go buy it - and I did. I became so hooked on this game, it's not even funny. I would play it for hours when my husband was at work. This was around the time when XBox Live first came out, and I found myself making friends with these people on a game. They gave me companionship when I felt so alone and without friends.

A few months later, my husbands coworker introduced him to a new game - only this one wasn't a console game, it was a MMO (mass multiplayer online) game for the PC called World of Warcraft, or WoW for short. My husband was often play this game while I would play Halo 2 -talk about a couple of nerds! He tried relentlessly to get me to play this game too, but I had no desire. I thought it looked confusing with a million buttons. But one day he convinced me to sit down and watch him play. That lead to me making my own character and learning how to play. Again, I was hooked. When my husband deployed a few months later, WoW, school, and XBox Live kept me occupied, since we had again moved and I had no friends.

It's so funny to me that I play video games, especially since I used to hate them. In fact, it's killing me that we don't have our XBox right now and Halo 3: ODST comes out soon. I hate that I don't have my desktop and I have to play WoW on this not-made-for-games laptop. So yes, it's true. I am a girl gamer - and I never thought I would be.

Where Have I Been?

Well, nowhere really, but I did take a slight blogging hiatus. Things have calmed down since my last post, thank God. And we did end up finding a house we both really like! It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2.5 car garage, carpet & tile, and a huge backyard. I think my favorite features are the granite counter tops in the kitchen and that the master bath has a jetted tub and a separate standing shower. Anyways, on day two of our home search, we put in an offer on this home, which of course was counter offered, to which we accepted. We did a 60 day contract which puts us in the house by Oct 14th. We've done pretty much everything required - inspection (which the owners agreed to fix everything), termite inspection (came back good), and appraisal (still waiting for the report from the appraiser). We got pre-approved for our loan with an awesome interest rate (5.375%) and now we're just waiting for my husband to get a months worth of pay to finish the loan process, and then we'll be in the home! We thought we might be able to be in there by the end of the month, but when my husband started his job, it was in the middle of a pay period, not the beginning of one like we thought. So he'll get paid on the 18th and again on October 2nd, and then it's just a week or so after that (I hope).

It's really exciting and even though time is going faster since my husband started his job, it still feels like forever until we'll be in there. I never in a million years thought I'd be getting a home like this for my first one, but here we are. I think I am really excited that it's also move-in ready. I might paint one room, but other than that, nothing needs to be done. It's going to be weird being a homeowner, but also really amazing, I think.

Only sucky part - my bff Kelsey is coming out on the 14th and we might not have our personal belongings from the Army yet. So if it's really boring, I apologize in advance. Bring your new MacBook since we'll at least have internet, haha.

Anyway, sorry for not blogging for so long. I will try to be better. I'm actually going to head to bed here now, so I will catch up on everyones blogs in the morning.