We saw a house we really like and we put a bid on it today. It's a bit smaller than what we thought we'd be OK with, but not too much so, and it's really pretty. From the outside, it looks kind of ho-hum, but the inside is really pretty with lots of natural wood accents. We're really close to federally managed land, so I can do some hiking and stuff. We also have a pretty xeriscape kind of thing going on in the back acre. There's a fenced in back yard with lawn for the kids to play on with a patio and a lot of adjoining corraled type areas with electric fencing. I'll pull down the fencing and stuff and Mike and talked about spending the $250 to get a small pool and just locking the access fences to it to protect the kids.

It's something we can afford, so there's a lot of minor repair stuff that needs to be done and fixture replacements. There are some serious fixture issues in the bathrooms...nothing matches anything. The masterbath has this dark brown marbled sink top, brown and gold swirly tile in the shower, a yellow and green toilet, and linoleum that is yet again different shades of yellow and brown. As the realtor and I discussed, it was obviously done by a man. The kitchen sink is seriously chipped and nasty, so it would have to be replaced. The front bathroom also has nothing that matches, so things would have to be changed out in there, too. The place has been a rental and needs painting, carpet cleaning, minor repairs, and the most expensive thing will be all the windows need to be replaced with more energy efficient ones because they have an oil furnace, too, and the original 30 year old windows. If I have to pay through the butt for energy in the winter, I'm sunk, so it will be really important to do weatherproofing stuff.

The other thing is that the laundry room is in the garage and the garage is not insulated at all, so we'd have to insulate it and put up plasterboard and tape it. Mike was trying to give me crap about how "we" could just suck it up and deal with the cold, however, "we" don't do the laundry. "I" do and I don't like to handle cold wet laundry in a room that is colder than ass 9 months out of the year.

I am having gardening fantasies -- more like gardening orgasms. I weeded the flower beds here today and I realized I have a lot of good stuff to dig up and take me to my future house. *Oh* gulp *God*...YESYESYES!

I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's so fucking hard NOT to get my hopes up. I just keep telling myself....God's will, not mine. God's will, not mine. I hope God likes flowers.