free at last

It feels so good to be Friday. Even though this week was kind of a joke (no work at all Monday, only 2 hours and no kids Tuesday) due to the snow, it was still too long. And the weather is just too weird, even by my standards. A blizzard on Sunday, freezing temperatures nearly all day Monday and Tuesday...and by Thursday it's 65 and today it's in the 70s?? We're playing outside on the playground in t-shirts while there are still piles of snow melting in the shadows. Strange. But whatever. It's officially spring break now, and unlike MOST school-system workers, I do not get a break. As a 248-day employee, I am lucky enough to get to work when no one else does. What do I do? A whole lot of nothing. Especially next week, since they've chosen to do a bunch of "network maintenance" which means we will have no internet, no email, no phones, no access to our data...nothin'. There will be much twiddling of thumbs and rearranging my filing system. I do get Thursday and Friday off, so that will be a nice break. And the rest of the week won't be bad, just boring. But I'll have a few co-workers around to commiserate with, so we shall survive.

In more exciting news-- Matt and I were pre-approved by TWO banks for a mortgage!!! Yippee!! It's been a wild ride the last few months (and year) as we've dreamed of buying a house this summer...tried to get our ducks in a row...prayed for guidance and peace...saved, saved, saved...watched the economy crumble...decide we shouldn't buy and would wait another year...debated whether to move to another rental house or stay put...wow. But in the last two weeks, honestly, it has become quite clear that we should be buying! One factor in our deciding to not buy was that we really couldn't find any/many houses in Athens/Oconee that were affordable and not ugly and in a safe neighborhood. I mean, I really wasn't trying to be a brat-- but most of the houses we could find that were in our "price range" were 1950s ranches, which is not my favorite but I could live with, that were in neighborhoods that felt realllly sketchy, which I can't live with. With really small yards. It just wasn't gonna work. But we're not willing to spend more than we can afford, so we decided to just spend another year saving. And we were okay with it. Then one day, sort of out of the blue, Matt started finding all these houses that were CUTE (not just do-able) and REALLY cheap!!! What? I mean, we're talking $40-60 thousand cheaper than our old "price range." As it turns out, what had been our price range was still right in the range of people who are trying to sell their homes and not lose money. You drop down to the sub-$100k range and you have a bunch of nice houses that are past that point...they've been foreclosed on and are bank-owned. And they're NICE! So we did some quick number crunching and found that (big surprise) we could definitely afford one of these super-cheap houses!! So...long story kinda-short (nothing's ever really short with me, is it)...we spoke with two banks this week and find out that we have really good credit scores, which neither of us had any idea about, and both banks were more than willing to finance us (for way more than we're willing to spend. Thanks but no thanks, we're still going cheap!). Last night we looked at 5 houses, all of which I am in love with. They're all in Statham, which is a small town right outside of Athens (15 minutes away) and I really really really hope we can get one of them!!! We will be meeting with a realtor soon to get the ball rolling...however, our lease for the place we're currently in goes through July, so we can't really do much until summer, most likely. But I am SO EXCITED!!!!!

We don't really have any plans for the weekend. Matt has to work tomorrow morning, but hopefully we will get a chance to drive out to Statham sometime and look at houses and walk around. I mean...it's this tiny little town with an elementary school (with a great reputation) right in the middle of 'downtown'...and 3 of the houses we looked at are easy walking distance from the school. How fun would it be to walk my kids to school?!! Statham does have one little problem though. It's zip code. 30666. I mean, seriously?? Did they run out of numbers?? What a downer. :) Maybe if we move there we will just have to use a PO Box in the next town, Bogart, which has a much more respectable zip code of 30622. I mean...good grief.