Evagation

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Is this how it feels to be an adult?

Devin and I are in the middle of applying for a mortgage loan. Which means we're going to buy a house. And it's really going to happen. I hadn't wanted to say anything until we met a few times with our mortgage specialist but the loan is in the final stages right now. We've cleaned up our credit scores as best we can, so now our Mortgage Lady is working on getting us the largest loan (that we can afford, mind you) at the best interest rate. We're told that it shouldn't take much longer and are being encouraged to start making appointments with realtors. So, that's (for the most part) where I've been lately. Pulling together all of the information that the Mortgage Lady needed took me well over a week. Mainly because I've been lazy with our home filing system and needed to sift through over a year's worth of accumulated records. But at least now we have a completely clean, fuctioning home office. Our imminent home purchase is also why I've been cleaning the apartment for the last month. I didn't want to say much about the house, in case it didn't work out for whatever reason, but it's apparently working out very well. Although it may be months before we're actually in a new home. Because we're applying for a loan that we can actually afford and, while our finances are actually quite healthy, we can't really afford much more than $1,500 monthly towards housing (that includes mortgage payments, property taxes, and insurance). Which leaves us with a loan of about $200,000. And, sadly, the small farm town that we live in is not so small anymore, and $200,000 will get you one of the following: a home in the scary part of town (no way); a small, very quaint but old 1930-1960 home (which Devin doesn't want but I'm open to the idea); or a nice house, but one the size of a shoebox (we are adamant that we want something at least as large as our current apartment). Which is why we're starting our house search in the (super tiny) neighboring towns. Where 200 grand will actually get you a decent-sized home with a large lot. But it still doesn't feel real. We're going to have a mortgage. We're going to have a house. A place that's ours. Where I can paint all of the rooms a different color if a I want to, and not have to worry about some landlord complaining about them. A place to throw parties in and have all of our friends over as often as we want. A home for the dogs that Devin wants so, so badly (but we could never have because we have enough trouble sharing our upstairs apartment with our cat). And I'm trying to not be overly worried. I'm reading all of the finance books about buying your first home (of course I am, because I'm Katie and I tackle major life changes by reading about them in books and planning a smart course of action) and I know that we're in good shape. It's a good time to get a mortgage loan and to buy a house (the interest rates haven't really started to rise but, thankfully, the price of homes are finally starting to fall). We make a decent income and have almost no debt to speak of (I have a little over two-thousand in credit card debt and that's the extent of our family debt). My car might be a hunk of a junk but it's a running hunk of junk that I own outright, so we don't even have a car payment. The only downside, the only minor problem with buying a home is that both sets of parents see it as our way of declaring that we are ready for kids. Which we are not. We want to travel. We want to enjoy being married before we sully it with younglings. We simply... don't want kids anytime soon. While there's no question that we definely want them someday, it's not going to happen this year or the next. But I've already told my parents that, so Devin's in charge of letting his parents know our intentions. Because my Mother-in-law cannot stop talking about how much she wants grandkids (which, if you ask me, is crazy since the woman is still in her forties and I certainly don't want to be a 47 year-old grandmother someday) and how she's got a room in the house ready to be set up as a nursery. Funny aside: Our parents share the same cleaning lady and, last week, I got a call from my Mom who was freaking out. "Are you pregnant?" she screeched at me. "You're pregnant, aren't you? Skeeter (the cleaning lady, and that is her real name) was telling me about how Cindy (my Mom-in-law) was talking about the nursery she's set up, and how she's ready to help take care of the baby and can't wait for it. She even said that you can bring the baby to work and just stick it in the nursery!" By this point, my Mom was hysterical. "What's going on?!" She screamed at me more than once. "Mom. I'm not pregnant. And even if I were pregnant, I can promise you that the cleaning lady would not know about it before you." I thought that was a good point but it didn't do much to calm Mom down. She later informed me that I'm on bump-watch, like some celebrity in a tabloid because she doesn't trust me to tell her the truth. Crazy woman. End aside. So, just in case there is still confusion--buying a house does not equal babies. And after four-and-a-half years on birth control (during which I've had very regular sex), I doubt that we'll be saddled with any "surprises." In other news. Da patch is off! You may commence dancing in the streets. I've got new contacts and I'm picking up my frames today. In case you were wondering, it's very strange to see the world in three-D again. For three months I've had only the one eye, so everyting was relegated to two-D but now there is depth in the world, once again! Losing da patch also meant that I finally got my hair cut. It was down to damn near my ass and I cut off a foot of it for the bald alopecia/cancer kids. Which means that my hair is now above my shoulders (it hasn't been this short in two years) and shorter than Devin's (whose baby-fine, curly blond hair is prettier than mine). I got a shaggy, "rock star" cut (my stylist's term, not mine) which is taking me very, very far out of my comfort zone. Anyone who has known me for the past ten years knows that I'm a devotee of the straight-edged, chin-length bob. Styling the bob meant curling the ends towards my face and that was it. Which I realized, during the past two years of long hair, made my face look unbelievably wide. Plus it was just time for a change. Ten years of the same cut, when you're only 25, is just sad. So, now I have the weird, shaggy haircut with blond highlights (yup, blond highlights, my stylist, who is a grade-school friend of mine, put them in for free, which is why I agreed to them) and it doesn't look too bad. It's certainly funky. Although it almost made Devin cry because a) he loved my long hair and b) even though the highlights are minimal, and subtle, he apparently hates anything that takes any red out of my hair. Honestly, the cut (and color) freaked me out at first. Especially when I was holding eleven inches of my pony-tailed hair in my hand. That was a little rough. But it's just hair. And I'm told it grows back. And I'm hoping that the people who've known me for a while are just a little pleased that I'm finally trying something other than the dreaded bob. It was about damn time.

Posted by Katie. at 8:18 AM | Permalink | 1 comments | links to this post   

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