Shhhh!

Be vwewy, vwewy qwiet, we're househunting.

We found a house. Now, we just have to find a mortgage. The broker we are using thinks we can do this place we're looking at, but she's going to have to fiddle. It would be tight for us and we already told Russell that Christmas and birthdays would be slim pickin's....not like last year where we spoiled them rotten. We told him he'd probably get one big toy and a few books and that would be it.

Mike and I are both worrying about the money, but I think without childcare this summer and without the huge expense of the utilities we're paying out now, that we'd be in good enough shape through the summer until his raise in the fall. His raise would probably be in the $200/month comfort pad we'd need to get through. Also, for heating in the winter, they're using natural gas and the house isn't as drafty, and it's a lot better insulated, so ultimately, I think we'd be paying less in the long run. In the summer, there are ceiling fans in every room, so it'll be plenty cool, I'm sure. The only thing I am woried about it is the roof on this place. They made repairs and then only on the house part, not the attached garage, they tried to hide the repairs. If they had been uniform in hiding it, I'd think, "Oh, they were just trying to make it look nice." But they did it only on the house, and there are some signs of leaking on the ceiling -- very mild signs, but signs...so we need a good inspector to rip through the place and give us the brass tax on it. The other thing is that a friend said that that house changed hands rather recently(in the past couple years) she thought, so I am going to do a title search to find out what I can. Also, the garage appears to have some repair issues, but we could not get into the garage to see it, so we need to go back and look at it.

We both like this house a lot, though and it would be a really easy move -- just shy of a mile down the road from us. There's corral fencing for horses, but I am not getting into the moneysucking pit of horses, so I think we'll sell that off and I'll plant fruit trees. There's already a cherry tree in the back. There are some raggedy sad bushes in the back, which I would probably dig up, but we'll see. The other thing I like about the house is that the exterior is deceiving because it looks like a nothing house, but there is some beautiful stuff inside and I really think it's an elegant house in a lot of ways. And the kitchen with its dishwasher, convection oven, and slanted shelves for cans, made me spooge. I'm sure the realtor was a bit put off by my writhing about when I saw the kitchen, but SPOOGERIFIC was my one word reaction to the kitchen.

They appear to have done annoying icky landscape things like a fountain. All I could think was,"A fountain? In the desert? With that view? Rip it out!" However, I'm thinking if the water is already there, then I'm all over a hot tub facing the mountains. Hot bubbles in the wintah...hot bubbles in the wintah...

I'm of the mind that if we're supposed to have this house, then the money will work itself out vis a vis the mortgage broker. Pray, pray, pray.