Hi there!
I can barely sit still I am so excited. Last year I had plans to go to NY for Christmas but had to cancel last minute due to lots of financial issues and just plain HELL that broke all around us but now, NOW I get to go for Thanksgiving!! And it's not just me that's going! No it's two aunts, 4 cousins, one cute baby, my grandmother, their respective SO's, and dogs! There are going to be 18 people crashing in two different houses. It will be madness but it will be family madness!
I get to see my brother and sister! My father and his girlfriend. My cousin with the cutest 2 yr olf EVEVEVEVEVEVEVEVER! The Lover gets to see where I grew up! I get to see New Moon with the sis (haha shhhhhhh I know, I know). I'm catching up with old friends when I get there too! It is going to be a most excellent time and I won't get a wink of sleep between now and Tuesday since the excitement has really just hit!
I have so much to do before then. Lots of packing, wrapping, preparing, cleaning, etc. etc.
What are your plans for Thanksgiving???
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Made for Victorian
Let me say this; I am so blessed and in turn so grateful! Life has been very kind to me and I make sure to be double thankful for all the good that comes my way. I have been given so many opportunities to experience new things and it makes me hungry for more. I want to explore it all.
On that note, I've found a new obsession. Or maybe a new ideal. The Lover and I currently live in a gorgeous downtown loft. It's not your typical loft, I would call it a luxury loft if I had to describe it. I say this because it contains 2,300 sq. feet of living space and that is enormous for what most people consider a loft. It has two bedrooms with one being a very spacey master suite. It even has a deck! I feel so spoiled to be calling this home but trust me, we are paying for it!!
We have decided to lease because we snagged this when The Lover discovered he was being relocated for work. We barely knew the area and didn't want to lock into a mortgage without knowing if we were going to stay here for a while or what! And while I love the loft and the downtown living I miss a few things about actually having a home but now that we've been spoiled with such a gorgeous place we don't want to settle in just any ol' place.
While living in this town we discovered that property values are significantly lower than say, Charleston. I believe it is due to the average salary of this place though I can't tell you how many beemers, mercedes, porsches, lexus I've seen driving around here! Moving on, knowing that property value are actually affordable here we've wandered around some of the nicer neighborhoods trying to find something comparable to this amazing loft.
The other day we just happened to find it! It is a few blocks away from downtown and even the loft we reside in currently! It's a historic district with amazing old Victorian style homes. These homes are at least 4,000 sq. feet with amazing porches, bay windows, old brick, great backyards, wide streets, old trees, and lots of style. We looked at one that is currently for sale just on a whim. It was beautiful with hardwood floors, nice open rooms, tall ceilings, and roughly thirty different rooms! We called the owner just to see what the asking price was and they wanted 96k for it!! We couldn't believe it! It did look like it needed some tlc but we weren't afraid of a little work if the price was right.
So later in the week we met with our construction friend who could look at the house with a trained eye and tell us what the real figures were to get this house back up to par! It is currently split into four apartment with four kitchens and four bathrooms, because it's been empty for 5 years and in a historic district it had to be changed back into a single family home, ok with us!
After some further review our friend discovered some major issues. Apparently there was a fire that did some considerable damage to the roof and the previous owner just covered it up instead of really fixing it. There was also a lot of wood rotting due to a leaky roof. So our friend called his roof guy to see what the cost would be just to replace the roof. He told us it would be close to $30,000 just to get the roof back in order. Holy smokes!
We walked away from it. After some serious consideration we decided that was too much effort for too little gain. However, in the place of walking away we came to the conclusion that we would like to move into that neighborhood when our lease is up in Feb. of 2011. So now we are making plans to save everything we can while keeping an eye on the homes in that area. How lovely it would be to have an old style Victorian with great big rooms ready to keep several guests, perfect for the holidays! A home with many windows and many more nooks and crannies to huddle up and read a book! A place with great fireplaces and great wrap around porches! We discovered another home with exactly this, already done up and ready to move in! I am crossing my fingers that this home will still be on the market when our time here is up.... though I'm doubtful!
Crossing my fingers now....!
On that note, I've found a new obsession. Or maybe a new ideal. The Lover and I currently live in a gorgeous downtown loft. It's not your typical loft, I would call it a luxury loft if I had to describe it. I say this because it contains 2,300 sq. feet of living space and that is enormous for what most people consider a loft. It has two bedrooms with one being a very spacey master suite. It even has a deck! I feel so spoiled to be calling this home but trust me, we are paying for it!!
We have decided to lease because we snagged this when The Lover discovered he was being relocated for work. We barely knew the area and didn't want to lock into a mortgage without knowing if we were going to stay here for a while or what! And while I love the loft and the downtown living I miss a few things about actually having a home but now that we've been spoiled with such a gorgeous place we don't want to settle in just any ol' place.
While living in this town we discovered that property values are significantly lower than say, Charleston. I believe it is due to the average salary of this place though I can't tell you how many beemers, mercedes, porsches, lexus I've seen driving around here! Moving on, knowing that property value are actually affordable here we've wandered around some of the nicer neighborhoods trying to find something comparable to this amazing loft.
The other day we just happened to find it! It is a few blocks away from downtown and even the loft we reside in currently! It's a historic district with amazing old Victorian style homes. These homes are at least 4,000 sq. feet with amazing porches, bay windows, old brick, great backyards, wide streets, old trees, and lots of style. We looked at one that is currently for sale just on a whim. It was beautiful with hardwood floors, nice open rooms, tall ceilings, and roughly thirty different rooms! We called the owner just to see what the asking price was and they wanted 96k for it!! We couldn't believe it! It did look like it needed some tlc but we weren't afraid of a little work if the price was right.
So later in the week we met with our construction friend who could look at the house with a trained eye and tell us what the real figures were to get this house back up to par! It is currently split into four apartment with four kitchens and four bathrooms, because it's been empty for 5 years and in a historic district it had to be changed back into a single family home, ok with us!
After some further review our friend discovered some major issues. Apparently there was a fire that did some considerable damage to the roof and the previous owner just covered it up instead of really fixing it. There was also a lot of wood rotting due to a leaky roof. So our friend called his roof guy to see what the cost would be just to replace the roof. He told us it would be close to $30,000 just to get the roof back in order. Holy smokes!
We walked away from it. After some serious consideration we decided that was too much effort for too little gain. However, in the place of walking away we came to the conclusion that we would like to move into that neighborhood when our lease is up in Feb. of 2011. So now we are making plans to save everything we can while keeping an eye on the homes in that area. How lovely it would be to have an old style Victorian with great big rooms ready to keep several guests, perfect for the holidays! A home with many windows and many more nooks and crannies to huddle up and read a book! A place with great fireplaces and great wrap around porches! We discovered another home with exactly this, already done up and ready to move in! I am crossing my fingers that this home will still be on the market when our time here is up.... though I'm doubtful!
Crossing my fingers now....!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Day 1
So the past however many days I've been getting up at 8am to hit the gym. On Wednesday I was supposed to go to class but I went to the wrong facility so I just did cardio instead because showing up late to a class is just not my thing! Especially when warming up is so so so important!
That means today was the first day I got to do an actual class. It's called Group Power which is a mixture of cardio and strength training. It totally kicked my ass today. It just showed me how out of shape I really am. I didn't give up, when I didn't feel like fainting I tried to do SOMETHING similar to the fancy moves they were doing. (PS. Eat a freaking banana before you work out, fainting is for wussies!) We went running across the gym, jumping jacks, squats, lunges, BACKWARD lunges, kickboxing, weight lifting, freaking planks, EVERYTHING. And in all actuality I loved it. Call me silly but that out of breath omg please make it stop I'm going to die feeling is AWESOME!
Let me tell you how in shape our instructor is. If you know what a plank is you know how shitty it is to do one. I used to do them a lot with my personal trainer over a year ago and it gets easier but I couldn't imagine doing what she did. So, on the left is a regular side plank, hard enough on its own, on the right is what she did because she is power woman!
It was impressive stuff and where I want to be at ideally 12 months down the road. Can this overweight, out of breath, out of shape girl turn into that by next November? Yes!
That means today was the first day I got to do an actual class. It's called Group Power which is a mixture of cardio and strength training. It totally kicked my ass today. It just showed me how out of shape I really am. I didn't give up, when I didn't feel like fainting I tried to do SOMETHING similar to the fancy moves they were doing. (PS. Eat a freaking banana before you work out, fainting is for wussies!) We went running across the gym, jumping jacks, squats, lunges, BACKWARD lunges, kickboxing, weight lifting, freaking planks, EVERYTHING. And in all actuality I loved it. Call me silly but that out of breath omg please make it stop I'm going to die feeling is AWESOME!
Let me tell you how in shape our instructor is. If you know what a plank is you know how shitty it is to do one. I used to do them a lot with my personal trainer over a year ago and it gets easier but I couldn't imagine doing what she did. So, on the left is a regular side plank, hard enough on its own, on the right is what she did because she is power woman!
It was impressive stuff and where I want to be at ideally 12 months down the road. Can this overweight, out of breath, out of shape girl turn into that by next November? Yes!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Sup Gs?
So I have a confession. I'm fat. haha I probably weigh the most I ever have in my entire life! It's that bad.
So I'm making a change. The past two days I've been waking up at 8am to hit the gym before working at 11am. So far it's been well spent and don't they say the first week is always the hardest? I don't mind the exercise part at all, it's the waking up at the butt crack of dawn that always gets me! The first night I went to bed at 2am so that was rough, then last night I was dead to the world at 10pm. I woke up tired but ready for the day after TEN hours of heavy sleep, it was amazing!
Another confession... my life goes to crap when I don't exercise. I think it's the structure it creates around my day but without the need to get up and get sweaty I become lazy. I sleep horribly, I eat horribly, I lack motivation to do anything because I'm just tired all the time. When I work out regularly, and in the mornings, I get a lot more accomplished. I get chores done BEFORE getting to work so my evenings can be about what they're supposed to be about; relaxing!
I begin to feel better about myself. My energy level sky rockets as does my stamina. I make better eating choices because really who wants to eat bad after they just spent all that time working out? I even sleep better! Life just magically clicks into place.
I think my problem is that sometimes I view it as work and it's so much easier just to not work and it's those times I need a swift reminder that life is BETTER when I hit the gym. I always want to live an active life as there are things I do not want to miss out on because of my weight or inactivity. I want to travel, have adventures, get outside, keep up with The Lover, keep up with pets/children! I want to look as good on the outside as I do on the outside!
My life needs to revolve around the gym, not in an obsessive freak way but in a way that highlights the vitality of my spirit and the yearning to be better, always better.
And the journey for betterment continues.
So I'm making a change. The past two days I've been waking up at 8am to hit the gym before working at 11am. So far it's been well spent and don't they say the first week is always the hardest? I don't mind the exercise part at all, it's the waking up at the butt crack of dawn that always gets me! The first night I went to bed at 2am so that was rough, then last night I was dead to the world at 10pm. I woke up tired but ready for the day after TEN hours of heavy sleep, it was amazing!
Another confession... my life goes to crap when I don't exercise. I think it's the structure it creates around my day but without the need to get up and get sweaty I become lazy. I sleep horribly, I eat horribly, I lack motivation to do anything because I'm just tired all the time. When I work out regularly, and in the mornings, I get a lot more accomplished. I get chores done BEFORE getting to work so my evenings can be about what they're supposed to be about; relaxing!
I begin to feel better about myself. My energy level sky rockets as does my stamina. I make better eating choices because really who wants to eat bad after they just spent all that time working out? I even sleep better! Life just magically clicks into place.
I think my problem is that sometimes I view it as work and it's so much easier just to not work and it's those times I need a swift reminder that life is BETTER when I hit the gym. I always want to live an active life as there are things I do not want to miss out on because of my weight or inactivity. I want to travel, have adventures, get outside, keep up with The Lover, keep up with pets/children! I want to look as good on the outside as I do on the outside!
My life needs to revolve around the gym, not in an obsessive freak way but in a way that highlights the vitality of my spirit and the yearning to be better, always better.
And the journey for betterment continues.
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