Our preapproval application was done today and the letter will be emailed to the builder tomorrow.  The lottery for the houses is on Saturday, July 23rd  (our 1st anniversary)  Patrick “may” have to fly up to Oregon but we are most likely going to get a “Power of Attorney” done for Patrick’s parents to sign the initial paperwork for the house in our name with us being out of state.   Looks like things are rolling so far pretty smooth and we are crossing our fingers we get this house.  There are only 2 lots building this floorplan, one of which is the corner lot, which is the one we want badly.  We are hoping that our names are early on the list to get it.  Ironically, we’ll also know then if i’m pregnant or if it’s onto another cycle of fun.  Could it be good things happen in pairs? Things happen for reasons so hopefully we at least get good news on the house front!

I had to stay home from work today from the worst migraine ever that had continued from yesterday so it’s been a lazy, sleep and watch tv day.  
So on that note, i’m back to bed!

~heather

I talked to the realtor on Wednesday and they may be opening up the phase 2 list sooner then 2-3 weeks but she will keep on top of them and get us on asap.  She told them we wanted the corner lot after he started mentioning which lots he would have open and he made the comment about how we knew we wanted then hehe.  She is also going to get me information for a real estate agent here in Nevada to help us with our current house sale when things do go in motion.  I got the names & numbers of lenders up there to use for when we need to get our preapproval going.  It’s probably going to be an approval contingent on the sale of our current house but I did tell her how well our house market is and I imagine it won’t be more then a month on the market if maybe only a few weeks.   

Patrick applied for 3 Software Engineering jobs up in the Hillsboro working for a different division of GE.  They all looked VERY good and fitting for him to say the least.  So, we are hoping for good news in the upcoming weeks and crossing our fingers he gets called for interviews.  The cool thing about applying within GE is that his current EMS, which includes evaluations listing his achievements, awards, patents, job title / skill summary, work experience and supervisor summaries of his skills are all forwarded off to the new company.  This is almost better then a resume in a sense.  I was really impressed reading what his boss’s had to say about him and the things he’s accomplished.  I have a lot of faith that we’ll be hearing back from them on him.  Plus, I think it looks good that he actually graduated from Hillsboro High School and went to college in Oregon so even though we are in Nevada now, he was a local Oregon guy. 

We weren’t really thinking he’d start applying for jobs this soon but it’d be a LOT better getting a job up there now and renting or just him living up there a little while during the selling of our current house then to not have jobs lined up until the last minute.   We’ve talked about, if we have to, that he could live up there and i’d stay behind while our house sold.  I could deal with that for a little while if we “had” to. 

I took a gander at jobs for the State of Oregon and think I could get in with the same Division there as I work for currently.  I would have to get some reference letters from here before I left but i’m not too worried about that.  I am going to be near tears when I do leave this place because I love it here and I LOVE LOVE my coworkers.  The few people i’ve hinted to about leaving have told me I can’t. That makes me feel good at least.  

We have even started hinting to and talking bout how to organize our furniture.  Even Patrick has been getting all excited about the prospect of having this house.  I cannot believe we found something SOOO perfect for us to start our new live up there and new family eventually.  Things like this always seem to happen to us.  Our last house, we weren’t really planning on building that soon as we were supposed to be 2nd phase, not 1st then it hit us and took us by storm.  It always seems to work out perfect though, like him getting patent bonus’s right around the time we had to make our deposits last time etc.  

We recently just finished up our home equity loan for a smidgen of $$ to get our yard/flower beds landscaped with rocks instead of mulch, pay off some of the credit card and put some towards my new car.  We’ve decided to leave the rest of the $ from the loan to put towards the deposit for the new house.  Soo, that timing worked out great and we won’t worry about scrounging up $ for our deposits.   

On a more serious note:
Now, this brings me to some of the comments lately from friends and even family etc. about the $$ and the new house.  Patrick worked hard in college to get his Software Engineering Degree and i’ve been in and out of college finishing up my degree. I’ve worked since I was 16 full time hours – through high school and I have PAID FOR MY OWN college / rents / living expenses / car payments / insurance.  I have very little $ in school loans from paying for my own tuition semester to semester aka only around $2500 in loans.  I have taken full college courseload 15+ credits and worked 40+ hours since i’ve pretty much started.  My mom, I admit helped me in a few times of needs to help catch me up on rent but not that much ..I was pretty much on my own this whole time.   I’ve been told “i’m bragging” or “how nice it must be to have married rich” or “be rich” etc etc. 

This hurts honestly…I feel like we’ve worked really hard to get where we are.  Hell i’ve had more credit problems then most have and largely due to being put out on my own with very little money / budgeting education and getting in trouble when I finally had control over my own money.  I’ve had to work and continue to work on getting that cleaned up.  It’s not something i’m proud of and quite frankly it’s embarassing to me. 

The whole miscarriage thing wasn’t easy either in the past few months and yes, we may have a nice house to move into to start that family but it’s a pretty empty life at times when I see friends with kids.    I’m not saying my life has been hell or that others aren’t having it bad but what i’m saying is that things aren’t perfect in my little world like some have tried to make it sound to be.    Things growing up wasn’t peachy keen either but you know, i’ve never sat here and tried to do the poor pitiful me act like some friends. 

I decided early on when things were shitty that “good things always come out of the bad” thanks to my step-mom.  I have lived by that through my life and even when shit hits the fan, I tell myself something good has to come at the end of all this.  It’s not that easy at times to tell myself that but I have.  I had my 5th grade teacher, who i’ve stayed in touch with to this day tell me she can’t believe how strong I am and how together I am knowing what I went through like she does. 

I know in many ways i’m lucky and I am thankful for what I have more then anyone could ever realize.  But, I am not trying to gloat, brag or etc.  I say things cause i’m excited about new opportunities and just feel like sharing.   Needless to say, my excitement of this house and moving thing has been up and down thanks to feeling like I shouldn’t have even opened up my mouth or even had the right to be excited. 

On one last note~ I came back from July 4th weekend to having some serious cramps, which usually this far ahead of my period = Ovulation BUT this is almost a week early for me ..Odd I was thinking.  Well, I went home to pick up my bike because I had to get into the shop that day and thought well i’ll just take an ovulation test to see whether i’m right.  Sure as all hell, I was.  So there goes my body being on a regular cycle BUT oh well, we still had fun. hehe  This month, I started to temp but quit early on, I haven’t charted and more or less haven’t given a shit about the whole tracking myself.  Figured with the vacation to Oregon it would be a pain in the arse.  Just let things happen I say at this point. 

well – that’s my ranting and rambling

have a good weekend all!

Quite a dilemma we are in but in a very good way we both think.  Over the course of the weekend we found a house.  This was mixed in with a visit to the coast, a outlet store shopping trip, a visit to the Portland Zoo and some really good food and great family to spend it with. 

 < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

To save people’s journals, I’ll cut this all out since it’s bound to be long and maybe boring to some!

We have been thinking of moving to Portland in the next year or 2 so for fun we sometimes look at house plans online and I’ve been trying to get ideas of neighborhoods / areas I’d like to see more of.  I’ve sent Patrick some of the links to look at and pick floor plans he likes for fun etc.  Well, over the course of the weekend we made a very good effort at checking out areas I thought were possibilities for the future.  Newberg, Oregon being the one I was most interested in, but we did get a brief overview of Hillsboro and weren’t ruling out Beaverton and other Portland suburbs. 

Here’s a brief thing on Newberg from the builders website describing the community:

“Newberg is the second largest city in Yamhill County, with a population of over 18,000 residents. The area is famous for its wineries, and is frequently referred to as the “Napa Valley of Oregon” with 25 wineries in Yamhill County alone. The surrounding community features quaint marketplaces and small boutique retail centers for everything from groceries to fitness centers, fine dining to personal services. Here, you’ll find the beauty of living in a friendly, small town community setting while benefiting from the wealth of cultural and business opportunities nearby.”

 Patrick’s parents kindly drove us around to look at Newberg on Monday where we got a feel for the city and found our way to the newer developments and a builder I had looked at online.   The neighborhood is PERFECT!!!  It’s all new family homes, with a new elementary and middle school only a few walking blocks away!!! There are little parks with playgrounds amidst the developments.   The views are amazing of the green hills and vineyards off in the distance.  We went in to look at the model they had on site and really liked the builder’s style and little touches he adds so we decided to head out The Greens (golf course location he was building on) but found out the models out there were closed for the 4^th.

The kicker is ~ they had the model “Santa Monica” that Patrick had once emailed me he liked!!! We decided we had to go back to this house the next day when it was open to get a look at it.   They were building this house also at Kemper Crest, the area we liked.  Yesterday, we made our way first thing to the model and WOW WOW WOW!!!! 

So let’s see ~ 2400+sf house and we’d have a corner lot 7000+ sf. ($10k premium *sighs) but VERY worth it!  The 2^nd phase starts in 2-3 weeks so we’ll be hearing then and have to make a QUICK decision of whether we want this.  The house would take 6 months to build and be done in 2006.  This puts into place a LOT of thinking and well Patrick needs to find a job in Oregon needless to say. 

Now let me have the pictures do the talking~ (as always I went overboard)  ..i’m slowly adding titles / descriptions for them

PICS HERE!!!