That was close

I managed to survive another round of layoffs at work today. Pretty scary though when you're walking into the office only to see someone walking out carrying a box and a plant. Yikes. 7 people today, that I'm aware of. I sure wish this market would turn around so I don't have to worry so much if I'll have my job next week! Everyone go out and buy a Perry Home!!

Home Alone

So I've missed a few days. Sorry. It's been a bit busy around these parts. John is in France so I am here to take care of everything around the house and the dogs all alone. It's really pretty sad though since I feel like I get a lot more accomplished when John isn't around! Is that a terrible thing to say about your husband?? It's true though. I've hardly watched any TV. I've cleaned the kitchen every night before going to bed. I got some laundry folded, sweeped the floor and cleaned the half bath. And it's only Tuesday! So the goal now is to keep it up after he gets home on Saturday. It could prove to be a little tricky.

Let me reiterate...

So, you know how I said it's all downhill from 26? OH yeah. I have decided that I have completely started to fall apart since I turned 26. I'm on about the same amount of different medications as my grandmother!! It's very sad, really. Let's take a look:

1. Antibiotics to clear my skin
2. Steroid cream for my eczema
3. Glucosimine and chondroitin for my shoulder joint pain
4. Mulitvitamins for basic overall health since I don't eat enough fruits and veggies ususally
5. Calcium supplement to keep my bones strong so I don't get osteoporosis
6. New medication for a "female problem"

I feel like I'm running a pharmacy out of my kitchen these days! Ugh. I'm telling you...just sit me in a rocker with some knitting needles...I'm done for!

Picture Survey

The rules are you can only "answer" the question with an image you Googled.
Where do I live?What do I do?

What do I drive?

What do I wear?

What do I believe?

Where is my favorite place to vacation?

What is my favorite hobby?

What do I do in my spare time?

What do I want?

Pictures

Well, I do hope to post some pictures here in the near future. Since we got the new computer, we're in the process of transferring all our files from the laptop over and we're not all caught up yet. But I do hope to be able to post more up to date pictures in the future. Our new computer came with a card reader built in, so it will be TONS easier to get my pictures from the camera to the computer now. Thank goodness! Maybe I'll try this picture survey I've been seeing around.

My house is worth what?

Okay, so you know I love houses. Because of this, I watch a lot of HGTV. One of my new favorite shows to watch is called "My House is Worth What?". They go around to people's houses across the country and tell them what the house would sell for in it's current state. Some people want to know so they can sell. Some people want to know to see if they have equity to do a renovation or something along those lines. It's fun. Unfortunately they do not do the show in the Houston area. :0(

So I found this website, housevalues.com, where you put in general information and they send you a value. Well, I got my value back today. It's from a local realtor who looked at comparables in the area and gave me a range for what the value might be. But he said I could make an appointment with him to come out and take a look at the house to give a more exact estimate and also talk about things we could do to up the value. All for no cost! Which is exactly what I want. I want to know if what we've done to the house so far have been good investments and what we should still do to get the best return. We haven't completed enough projects yet to warrant the guy actually coming to the house, but I think I might email him to ask some questions about it. See what his thoughts are maybe about the market and when he thinks prices will start rising again. Based on his estimate, if we sell at the high end of the range he gave, we'd only make about $4000. If we sell at the low end, we'll lose about $8000. So, how long should we wait until we have better odds?

In my opinion, I think things will start to turn around in the first half of this year. Not that I have a whole lot of evidence to back that up, but I just think it will. At least around here in our area. We were fortunate enough to not get hit as bad with the housing slump, though sales are down and prices have dropped, but not nearly as far as other places. I think our best scenario would be to sell our house after prices start rising again, but buy a new house while they're still low enough to get a good value. When that will be...only the market will tell...

Why it's better to do taxes early.

Right now, I am typing from the brand new computer I was able to buy today because I did my taxes early. We were lucky enough to have all our tax information come in by the start of the last week of January. So I spent an entire weekend with all our tax stuff...including a year's worth of receipts since we were itemizing. And it definitely paid off. We got our refund direct deposited into our checking account on Feb. 6. How awesome is that? So this weekend, we were able to enjoy the spoils of all that early labor. Ahhh....I can relax now. :)

Fun on the new computer

So John and I finally got a new computer today! After we moved into the house, we found that my hard drive had crashed while being stored at my parents. So we were working off John's computer and my old laptop. A few months ago, John goes to work on the computer only to find HIS hard drive has crashed. Losing pretty much anything we had stored over the past 5 years. We were down to only my crappy laptop. We've been working exclusively off that for months now. About 2 months ago, we found that the screen was starting to go out on the laptop. Completely sure it could crash on us at any moment, we took some of our tax refund money and bought a new one. It's awesome!! Until now, I hadn't used Vista. I really like it, so far. In the 3 mintues I've actually gotten to get on the computer since John set it all up! Either way, it's WORLDS better than what we've been using for so long. I'd say it was money well spent.

Total Money Makeover

I heard of this book, Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I asked for it for Christmas. And after I got it, I spent and entire weekend reading the whole book. I was hooked. We HAD to do a total money makeover. We had gotten to the point where every month I was wondering, "Where did all our money go?" We were making way too much to have so little. And some of the stories in that book were so inspiring! So we started off 2009 with a money makeover. And it is so liberating! I finally feel like I am in control of our money...instead of the other way around like it had been. In the first month alone, we were able to spend a good $3000 LESS than in months prior. $3000!!!! And now, looking back, I can only wonder, "How in the world were we spending that much money?!? And on what??" So, with this makeover, we're going to pay off my car an entire year early. We're going to pay off our second mortgage 27 years early. I am so excited about it. It's a new way of thinking about money...a better way. And I hope we can continue with these principles for many many many years to come.

I agree with the babies

Bailey, I completely agree with you about the fact that there are babies EVERYWHERE! Now, me personally, I am not quite as ready for some of my own, but I swear I can't turn around without seeing a new baby. Half my friends on Facebook are old friends from high school...all with babies of their own. I think at least 4 of my co-workers have all had babies in the past 6 months. You watch TV and see all these celebrities pregnant or with new babies. It's an epidemic, I swear. I will admit, the more I see, the more I want them myself. I keep telling John that we should start "trying" later this year. I have it on good authority that it will probably take me a while to become pregnant, so we should probably start trying earlier than the average couple. I don't know. We'll see I guess. Am I selfish for wanting to wait longer just to so that I can do more stuff for me? And spend more time with just my husband?

When you reach 26...

So I am completely convinced that age 26 is the age where it all goes downhill. For NO APPARENT REASON! What happened when I turned 26? I gained 7 pounds...then spent 3 months (so far) trying to get rid of it...to NO avail. :( I mean, it is completely crazy. I eat right, I exercise, I do all I'm supposed to...but nope. I've turned 26. Nothing works anymore. Talk about frustrating. But I am determined to keep it up. Months of dedication has GOT to show results at some point, right? Well, I'll let you know as soon as I do...

Houses

Okay, so I love houses. If I could buy a new house every year, I would. If people would let me walk through their house, I would. I drive down the street looking at houses, and all I can do is imagine what it looks like on the inside. What the floor plan is. I guess that's why I got a degree in construction and went to work for a home builder. I get to go out in the field all the time and just walk houses. And it makes my day. It's so fun to walk through a house and imagine what it would be like to live there. And I get to walk some BIG houses. I walked around in a 6100 square foot house the other day. It was awesome! I've been through a 7700 square foot house. What do you do with all that space?? But it's fun to pretend. :)

Sleepless Nights

Yet again, I have a terrible time trying to fall asleep last night...as I lay awake listening to John snore. I finally drift off, just to be awaken by whining that gets progressively louder. I wake up and look at the clock. 1:15am. What now?? I go into the dogs room...Major is sitting up. He must have to pee. So I go ahead and let them both out and we run downstairs and out the back door. I sware he stood there peeing for like EVER...MINUTES! Cocoa comes back in and goes straight back up to bed. Major FINALLY gets done and we head back upstairs. He goes back in his crate, but won't lay down. So I turn on the lamp to see why. He had an accident earlier and the whole corner of his pillow is wet. Great. So I take him out and spend the next five minutes cleaning that up while he tries to get comfy on another pillow laying in the middle of the room to go back to sleep. Gee, thanks, Major. I finally get that all cleaned up and put Major back in. I get back in bed, what feels like hours later, at 1:30am. And again I lay awake listening to John snore for a while before I actually fall back asleep. Then, go figure, the 6:30am alarm comes much too early...so I turn it off...to finally get out of bed at 7am. Thank goodness I don't have to be to work until 9am. When will I manage to get a decent nights sleep??

Am I too late?

So, am I too far behind the times to just now be starting my own blog? Surprise, surprise, I can actually get to this website at work so I thought I'd give it a try. I just recently starting getting on Facebook more often and updating my status to try to get more involved with people I haven't talked to in ages. Shame on me, I know. Gives me something new to do on my lunch break when I'm usually just sitting at my desk anyway. Now, to figure out how all this works...