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Archive for February, 2012

Got an offer!

March 1st, 2012 at 02:59 am

Help! Our list price is $274,000 with a 4.5% commission fee to the realtor. We bought the house at $285,000 so we are selling at a loss but we knew we would be and we were ok with that since we grabbed a great steal with our short sale house.

The offer is $260,000 with 1.5% (or $3,900) in closing costs. Everyone knows our house is a great steal at $274,000 but buyers want to get the best deal so it's understandable.

We are thinking of countering at $273,000 and $4,000 in closing costs.

What do you guys think?

Offer today?????

February 29th, 2012 at 01:36 pm

Been so busy these past few weeks... biggest news is that we are expecting an offer today on our house that we have been trying to sell for like 3 years! The folks that saw the house on Sunday apparently fell in love with it - they didn't want another showing or anything. As I understand it, they went and got their financing in order and have asked for tons of documentation from our realtor regarding our house. So, we hear that they are prepared to put in an offer sometime today. PLEASE send positive energy our way as we would love to sell our house (finally!).

Weight Loss: Week 2 Goal Report & Week 3 Goal

February 9th, 2012 at 02:55 pm

Well, week 2 ended up to be quite a disappointment. I was sick for most of it and I'm just going to use that as the excuse for not sticking to my plan. The only thing I did do was eat an egg (or 2) each day.

Recap for week 2 goals:
1. Continue with no soda (FAIL - drank 4 cans this week)
2. Up my water intake to 3 bottles of water a day (FAIL - see no. 1 above)
3. Continue with goal of 30 min of activity a day (FAIL - being sick means lots of couch time)
4. Eat the whites of one hard boiled egg for breakfast each morning. (SUCCESS - I actually enjoyed this one)

UGH. Being accountable is not fun. I am not weighing myself today either since I know that the number won't be wiggling around anywhere so why bother depressing myself. Ok -- enough pity party. Onward to week 3. I'm feeling much better today so hopefully, I can suck it up and really do something this next week.

Week 3 goals:
1) No soda
2) Drink 3 bottles of water/day
3) 30 minutes of activity/day
4) No "extra" food this week (I will be at a conference for work all of the next work week and I will be faced with lots of yummy food -- more than I would normally consume at meals since these will be catered, etc. So, my goal is to not cave into the available desserts, snacks, and everything else around me).

Filed our taxes

February 6th, 2012 at 03:16 pm

I think this is the earliest I've ever done our taxes before... I was a bity antsy as to how we would look since we had purchased the short sale house last Sept... I knew we'd get money back (I try to break even each year) so anyway, I did the paperwork and e-filed on Sat morning. Looks like we'll be getting back over $3200 between federal and state refunds this year. All that money will be put back into the short sale house so we definitely will be putting it to good use. On Sunday, we have officially started with the family room now. DH started the nasty job of scraping off the old popcorn ceiling. This is a big room so it will take another few days (a few hours each night after work) before all the scraping is done. I know I still owe you guys after pics of the bathroom but I think I have one more project up my sleeve for that area before the big reveal. Stay tuned. Smile

Have you heard of LexisNexis?

February 2nd, 2012 at 05:18 pm

I just got notice from my bank about LexisNexis... any of you heard of it before? I hadn't. Basically, everyone knows how we can request a free credit report annually, right? Well, apparently, with that same FACT Act legislation, we can also request a free report with regards to insurance claims and employment/resident histories about ourselves once a year as well. Who knew? Anyway, the company to go through is LexisNexis. You have to submit documentation as to your identity and they will send you a report providing a 7-year history of losses associated with personal property, auto losses, inquiry history, etc. that is on file associated with your identity. Apparently, insurance underwriters use this info in determining your risk and premium rates and stuff. Some employers or landlord companies use this info too. Anyway, just thought I would share the info in case anyone was interested in obtaining this free info.

Text is https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/access_your_personal_information.jsp and Link is
https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/access_your_personal_...

Weight Loss: Week 1 Goal Report & Week 2 Goal

February 2nd, 2012 at 02:36 pm

Ok, so it's the end of my first week of my own weight loss challenge to myself. The goal for week 1 was to cut out the soda, to drink at least 2 bottles of water each day, and to be active for about 30 min per day... all in the effort to lose 1-2 lbs. So, how did I do?

I had one can of Mt Dew all week. So, even though I didn't fully meet this goal, I still consider this a success.

I did drink at least 2 bottles of water each day. Success.

I did try to be more active but with me being sick the last 3 days, I wasn't really in the mood to be jumping around. All in all, I'd say I met this goal halfway with much room for improvement.

I weighed myself this morning and was at 119 lbs! (Well, in full disclosure, I was so excited to see that number that I thought I would grab my camera and jump back on the scale again and take a picture this time to show you guys... but when I got back on the scale, it said 120 lbs the second time even though I didn't change anything (wasn't holding the camera) and it was just literally a minute from the first weigh-in. So, just for my morale, I'm going with the first 119 number as the official weigh-in)

In summary, I will give myself 8 points out of 10 for the week. I'm pretty darn proud of myself actually. If I can keep this up, I am bound to see some progress over time.

Ok, so on to Week 2. My goals for Week 2 are as follows:

1. Continue with no soda
2. Up my water intake to 3 bottles of water a day
3. Continue with goal of 30 min of activity a day
4. Eat the whites of one hard boiled egg for breakfast each morning. Egg whites are mostly protein with zero-fat and nothing else (while the yolk isn't all bad since it has vitamins and amino acids, all the fat is in the yolk). Now, the thing to note here is that I usually eat a peanut butter granola bar or a pop tart for breakfast (neither is that great for you) so this will be a change for the better. To go along with my egg white, I'll have a piece of fruit and will drink some hot green or white tea (supposed to be great for you full of antioxidants and stuff) or just water. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Smile



5. Continue aspiring to lose 1-2 lbs per week.

Pictures: Progress of Upstairs Bathroom

February 1st, 2012 at 02:46 pm

Last time, I left you with the before pictures of our army bathroom. Here are some progress pictures to hold you over until I post the final after pictures.









We ripped everything out down to the studs and the subfloor. I hired a plumber to come in and move the toilet "hole" over about 4 inches from the bathtub because I felt that it was just too close for comfort. Other than that, DH and I have done everything ourselves.

As we don't have boys, this bathroom had to go. It was great to demo the entire thing and feel like something CLEAN would take its place.

Final after pictures will be posted sometime next week.