cindy's world

(GREAT movie, by the way. LOVE that movie.)

If Mr. W gets his way, this will soon be our backyard:

We drove around and looked at houses in the above-pictured area on Sunday. Many properties are within our price range, the area is extremely nice and upscale, and the people there are freakishly nice. I watched a teenage boy with his girlfriend thank a driver as he crossed the street in a parking area and the driver stopped to let the boy and his girlfriend cross in front of him. Whoa. Where am I, in Hawaii? Where are people this laid back in Southern California? Incidentally, this area is ranked as the #1 safest city in the US by the FBI, to give curious people a tiny little clue. I don’t want to say where or make any announcements in case I jinx anything.

But hey, great area, affordable for us, it’s like being at the ocean without the nasty beachside cities or freezing temperatures, and okay, it’s far from work, but if we figure out a way to carpool it’ll be quality bonding time on the road!

Hee hee! Guess what I signed up for today! Bartending classes! I’ve always loved playing with liquids and enjoyed mixology, plus I’m often the one playing with and inventing drinks at friends’ parties, anyway. When I see a full bar all colorful on display, I actually feel a twinge of excitement. I used to get that sensation when I stepped into the library as a child. How things have changed.

I’d been throwing around the idea for awhile, but last week when I was talking to Gym Trainee about it, she said she’d always loved playing with cocktail concoctions, too, and offered to take the class with me. By the next day she told me that her sister had offered to care for her son on the nights we have class, and that she’s definitely in. That was all the encouragement I needed! I am so excited.

At the conclusion of the course, we get a certificate, which I believe permits me to be legally hired as a bartender. Not only is it good side money (and pretty brainless, I imagine), I can offer to bartend for all the house parties that my friends/coworkers have. How cool to have a legal bartender among our midst! I hope that bartending gigs have REALLY flexible hours, cuz I don’t want to work every nite. Everyone I’ve talked to who used to bartend or who has kids who bartend have nothing but good things to say about the experience.

Mr. W is going to kick my ass.

You know what sucks ass? My judge is on jury duty, IN THE BUILDING upstairs, so he’s around still doing some work in chambers which I’ll probably have to process. But because we’re technically “dark” (meaning the judge is unavailable and the courtroom is not open to receive cases today), administration wants to send me to Compton in the afternoon to sit in on a criminal jury trial. You’re telling me that in the entire West district where Compton courthouse is, there is not anyone who is available to babysit a trial for one afternoon, that they have to send someone from NORWALK? ARGH.

Now that that’s out of the way, Mr. W and I had a productive enough weekend. Saturday, at our wedding food tasting (all the food you can eat and champagne/sake cocktails you can drink!) we pretty much decided our wedding menu. We’re considering ordering a hosted sake bar for the reception, and coming up with a signature east-meets-west cocktail drink. I’d never had sake cocktails before now and they’re DELISH! After the food tasting we went to our wedding cake bakery and ordered our cake. It fits perfectly with our theme, and will be 3 round tiers of chocolate cake layer+amaretto bavarian creme+light streak of raspberry jam+white cake layer. I know it sounds funny, but it tasted good and was a good compromise for us. If our guests don’t like it, whatever. Fill up on the food and alcohol.

Sunday, we had dim sum brunch with our realtor and his wife (who are close and old family friends of mine) and then the wife went home while the three of us did concentrated house-hunting. The houses are increasing in quality, but my favorite were two Chino Hills homes with beautiful entertainment backyards. One has a view of rolling green hills right beyond the yard that you wouldn’t believe is in overpopulated Southern California. I love the flowy layout of that house, too. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for that one, but won’t let my hopes soar too high since recently, everything we really liked was GONE the day after we saw it.

And then we went to my parents’ and had dinner there, telling my parents about our househunting adventures, showing them online photos of a few of the ones we saw. My mom is blown away by the high price of housing these days, but such is life. And the decline of the almighty American dollar.

* House-hunting is getting old and making us feel poor.
* I booked our venue wedding coordinator consultation and our venue rehearsal, and tomorrow we’re attending the food-tasting to pick our meals.
* Today I received my order of more face powder and 3 eyeshadows from Sephora; starting tomorrow everything on my face will be Bare Escentuals and the switchover will be complete.
* We’re on Week 1 of Phase 2 in the psycho workout routine, both I and my gym trainee are looking the best we’ve looked since we can remember, and I was very proud of her when she told me she’s decided to wear a racer-back tanktop dress this weekend to visit her cousins in San Diego to “show off” her toned arms (since we did upper body today).
* I finally got to select vacation days for this year, and I got the week after my friend Jimmy’s upcoming Sunday wedding off so we can take our time coming back from Northern California after his wedding, BUT I didn’t have enough seniority to even make the WAIT LIST for the week of my own wedding. >:-(
* Dodo’s being a good sport in letting me brush some clumps out of his fur this week, altho it seemed somewhat painful, and he’s stopped jumping into the shower to lap up leftover bathwater in the mornings.
* The Association finally signed and mailed back the roofer’s contract this week, and I received an email from the roofer saying he hopes to start work around March 10; I was afraid to tell him my Association neighbors are asses and all still refuse to pay their contribution toward the repairwork.
* At Mr. W’s house without a TV in his bedroom and being unable to watch TV in the living room w/o disturbing his son who’s sleeping in the upstairs loft overlooking the living room, I am unable to fall asleep (obviously).

Over the weekend Mr. W and I attended my boss’s 51st birthday shindig at his house in Claremont. My thoughts driving out there were, “I can’t believe he makes this commute both ways on a daily basis. This drive sucks.” One morning when it was pouring rain, he got to work 2.5 hours late. As soon as we got there, however, I was bowled over. His house is big, beautiful, and very designer-looking. The backyard has a giant custom rock-lined pool, lots of patio seating areas all surrounding it, and surrounding the waterfalls and rocky pool environment were trees and lawn like an oasis. And that’s just 1/3 of the backyard. He also had wooden patio deck, an outdoor fire, and a bouncy perky dog that kept bringing his little blue ball back to me to throw for him. I threw as hard as I could into the lawn section from the middle of the backyard and lemme tell you, I could not hit any walls.

So after that, we’re like, “Hmm. San Bernardino County, eh?”

The next day (Sunday), we drove around the beach areas and checked out housing by Huntington Beach. I refused to live in most of those neighborhoods, which aside from the prestige of saying “I live at the beach” had nothing more to offer, probably not even safe passage from the garage to the mailbox. We did like one property A LOT, but couldn’t afford the $1.6 million it’d take to get it.

So the hunt’s still on-going. Currently we’re considering these favorites:
Country Living – a beautiful large 2-story home in horse ranch territory, above some winding mountain roads, in Chino Hills
Suburbia – a new and chic medium-sized home with virtually no yard in Brea, almost walking-distance from night life and restaurants
Beach – an even smaller, slightly old but extremely upgraded single-story home a mile from the sand in Huntington Beach. There’s another one there in an upscale gated community that we have yet to check out.

So we’re not doing the city life, it looks like. I wonder where people would visit me at.

I wasn’t going to do a weekend update post, but seeing as how I’ve been in the habit of using my blog as a reference when I see strange charges come up on my credit card statements, it doesn’t hurt. I’ve also used my online record of my life to settle some disputes. Dork, huh?

Saturday: Mr. W and I visited some houses he’d found online thru his MLS search. We always check out the neighborhood and houses first before involving any realtor now, cuz that first house we saw online and got all excited about turned out to be a total dud. We’d met my realtor there and realized as we drove to the area that we’d never live there. The area of the city was dirty, run-down, old, and there were a bunch of illegals milling about on the sidewalks trying to discreetly get hired for exploitatious work. I was so embarrassed to have wasted my realtor’s time. Photos are so deceiving! On this trip, we found some neighborhoods we loved and houses that we were impressed by, so much so that I called Grace’s dad and told him to cancel paperwork for the 2nd shortsale house (the ex-“the one“).

Sunday: Mr. W and I got up bright and early, hit the gym, then met up with Vicky and her boyfriend Glenn for Korean BBQ. Vicky had recommended the place, and it was delicious AND generous in its food portions. Apparently all the small dishes AND all meats were all-you-can-eat. The waitress also kept coming by to cook and turn the meats for us. We had thin beef slices, cubed steak, marinated chicken, bulgogi pork. The included salads staved off the meat sweats. I was also not feeling too guilty cuz I KILLED myself on the weights at the gym earlier, so I figured I earned the right to chow down on so many animals. Lunch was fun and a lot of laughs. We stood outside in the parking lot after we were done and made tentative plans to do outdoorsy stuff in the future. Vicky has, through her interactions with Glenn, become quite the hiking fan. Mr. W was already a hiking freak, so by default, I am going to be doing more hiking. I also promoted a wine country bike ride/wine tasting, which I’d done a couple years ago with the NorCal friends, and it will always be remembered as one of the happiest, most carefree times of my life, a desperately-needed reprieve from my life at home at the time. Vicky and Glenn were in for that, and also were in for my last pitch which I REALLY want to do: rafting down the American River. Vicky had swimming-related concerns, but I convinced her she’ll be fine on the guided raft tours wearing a lifevest. (Or I’d feel severely guilty if she weren’t.)
After lunch, Mr. W and I met up with Grace’s dad at my parents’ house (5 houses away from Graces’ parents’ house), and the three of us went to look at 3 houses. I liked one in particular, Mr. W liked another one, but in the next couple of days following, Mr. W fell in LOVE with the one I’d liked. Today he downloaded photos of this house and they are now revolving background wallpaper on his laptop. We’re waiting for my realtor to come back from vacation (next Sunday) to put an offer down on the house. I figure this gives fate a chance to intervene — if it’s gone in a week, it was never meant to be ours; if it’s there AND the price was lowered due to lack of interest in the current price, so much the better for us.
After seeing the houses, Mr. W and I returned to my parents’ house, where my parents promptly put Mr. W to work figuring out what’s wrong with their surround sound stereo, and installing rear speakers for their sound system. It was so cool to see my fiance stripping the plastic off wires with his teeth, twisting wires together, painstakingly hiding wires around walls and fireplace to hang the rear speakers. *swoon* I told my mom that even if I left him now, she and my dad would’ve gotten their money’s worth from him. She wasn’t pleased with that comment.

Monday: Another low-key day, starting with another drive to the house that Mr. W fell for, an on-foot jaunt around that neighborhood listening to birds sing their welcome to spring. Mr. W and I then washed our cars, knowing that it’s going to rain again this week but not wanting the dirt to pack into cake on our respective paint jobs. Then we had dinner as we watched “Buffy” and “Angel” on DVD (still in succession so the cross-over events would be in line), and ended the evening by hitting the gym again.

Good thing we did the gym 2x, cuz I worked thru lunch today.

After another long Saturday of running around checking out open houses and taking external peeks at houses found online, we decided to not even put an offer on the 2nd short sale house, i.e. the ex “one”. One reason is that with all the offers already being considered by the bank on that one, putting another offer in for the asking price would likely be an exercise in futility. The other reason is that we discovered many other properties that are NOT on short sale that have fallen into our price range. The non-short-sale houses, because people are not upside-down on their mortgages, are in better condition and more move-in ready. And, they’re newer. Another thing we learned is that old houses are just not our thing. We thought we could do the 30- or 40-year-old homes if they’ve been fully upgraded, but truth is, the architecture then was just different and no matter how upgraded a bathroom, it’s just not gonna be the open double-vanity, separate tubbed bathrooms of this century. Of course, with newer houses are new cons, i.e. association fees, Mello-Roos taxes, and generally smaller square footage. You’re also in disturbingly close proximity to your neighbors.

So on Sunday, we’re meeting up with Grace’s dad again, to look at 2 newer homes and one older one which, at least according to photos, is promising.

As much as it is sage advice to not fall in love with a house at this stage, I really would like to fall in love again. I want to love the place we’re about to buy, whichever it is. I want to love all my major life decisions — from small things like my car to larger things like my homes to permanent things like my husband.

I’m over it.

While waiting to meet Grace’s dad at the property, I got there first and parked. A few minutes later, a pick-up truck pulled up behind me and a man and his very annoying needs-Ritalin-pronto son got out. I didn’t get out and talk to them, but they walked onto the property but couldn’t get in because they need an agent who can open the lockbox for the key. Mr. W arrived next, and said hello to the man, asking if he’s here to see the property, too. They chatted for a long time before Mr. W came back to me to report. According to the guy, who’s meeting his agent there, too, he has put an offer on the house already. And he’s only 1 of 14 offers. Assuming he’s telling the truth, then the bank probably low-balled the offer price deliberately to generate the highest level of response it can for a sale. Maybe it’s hoping for a bidding war. This was distressing and discouraging.

A good thing happened, though. After Grace’s dad arrived and we got a good look inside the house, my interest waned considerably. It is the best house we’ve seen so far anywhere near that price range, and altho it is fixed up and pretty nice, it is nowhere as great as I’d thought it was last night. It’s definitely still more move-in ready than the other short sale house, but on closer inspection there were little details wrong with it. A crack in the foyer tile. Stinky old carpet. The carpet was stained upstairs. The bathrooms, altho upgraded, aren’t THAT nice. The downstairs powder room needed its countertops updated. The inside of the kitchen cabinets are lined with half-removed old adhesive shelfing paper. Some of the cabinet doors were sitting crooked. The insides of the drawers were gross. I don’t think they changed the cabinetry so much as simply gave it a new maple resurface. The pool was dirty (altho yes, that’s just superficial). These are all small, inexpensive things, but it just kinda burst my bubble, is all. Strangely, Mr. W’s interest was piqued. In the exact opposite way that I was disappointed, Mr. W was impressed. It was worse than I’d imagined, it was better than Mr. W had imagined. So now HE wants the house and I’m kinda “eh” about it. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

I asked Grace’s dad what he thought. He said the asking price was very good, but the house itself needed some TLC. Yeah, exactly. To me, the inside of the house also appeared to be bigger from the outside looking in, than it actually was once you’re in. Altho the four bedrooms upstairs are pretty spacious, more so than the other house, too. We decided that we’d put in a bid for the house at the asking price, and let our credit speak for itself. If one of the other bidders wants it more badly than us and is putting a ton of money down on it, then fine, they can have it. If someone else is bidding over the asking price and their credit can survive that, then fine. We’re leaving it to the hands of fate, but we’re really okay either way. So by this time Sunday, we’ll have two active offers out on two short sales. And we’re still not quitting our house hunt. “The one” may still be out there.

Since we had a realtor on hand, the three of us went to see the two other properties that we’d seen immediately before we saw this property yesterday. Even with more daylight, the back yard that scared me yesterday still scared me. But that was nothing compared to the inside of that house. It smelled of paint or varnish, it was old, all the closets were the old hinged door style and small, one bedroom had a deep brownish stain in the center that looked like some poor dog or child had been hung and killed suspended from the ceiling fan in the center of the ceiling (this is the house with the weird fenced kennels in the yard), one bathroom was painted black with almost Satanic-like frescoes painted into the shower. Mr. W warned me not to look in that bathroom but I did anyway. I’ve learned to trust him on stuff like that next time. As for the other house, we didn’t even bother going inside, just looked around the outside and that was more than enough. I now think that the reason “the one” glowed so brightly to me yesterday was cuz we saw that after the first two. How perspectives can be altered due only to context.

Yesterday evening, on Valentine’s Day, I fell in love. I didn’t really expect to, I figured I’ll settle and be just fine. Happy sometimes, even. Besides, I’ve already got one foot halfway into another, altho the contract hasn’t been written yet and it’s not binding technically. Yet.

I don’t think there’s just one “the one” in our lives. Sometimes there are two or three “the one”s, cuz that one is the best one for our lives right now. I just know that when I recognize one of these “the one”s, I can instantly see the future flash before me, I can picture myself there, and I’m so happy. I can think about nothing else and all the molecules around me spark with energy and I get beyond restless. It’s happened to me before when I’ve found other “the one”s.

So it was last nite that I ran around in circles, exclaiming over and over, “Oh my God. I love it. I love it. It’s perfect. Oh my God.” That house that Vicky found online and told me about? Mr. W and I went to take a look at it last night on our way to dinner. Sure our offer for our short sale house JUST went in that day, but it doesn’t hurt to keep our options open for something more ideal. We first hit up 2 or 3 other houses on the way, and even tho some were pretty cool or had interesting floor plans and I could live with it, none of them spoke to me or excited me. One had a backyard that scared me. I swear, I think they abused dogs or children and there are body parts still buried back there among the overgrown shrubs and weird sectioned-off kennels and cages. *shudder*

And then last on our list was THE house. It has a huge 3-car driveway, so wide that “I can Zaino my car sideways on it!” I said, so wide that “You can do donuts in your car on it,” Mr. W said. The neighborhood is older but well-manicured and totally upgraded. The 2500 square foot house looks like it had a recent face lift with beautiful new double-front-doors and a generously-sized raised platform wooden porch. The lights are on inside the house although it’s already vacant, and I gasped at the custom paint, the crown moldings, the carpet, the upgraded designer interior. The back yard gate was unlocked so in a delirium I ran to the back and nearly fell into the GIANT new pool, surrounded by a nice deck and fruit trees. (It was dark.) The clean white backyard patio rafters, Mr. W observed, is not wood, but fiberglass. No termite issues! Looking in from the back, I saw new granite countertops in the kitchen, recessed lighting, a nice center kitchen island, new stainless steel appliances. All totally new and upgraded. I even loved the bend in the staircase. In my mind, I SAW my life inside that house. I felt my happiness. I could feel Dodo’s happiness wandering around in there. It was totally move-in ready and costs THE SAME as the other house! (With the other house, we’d have to sink money into changing the carpet, small repairs on the floors and upgrading the bathrooms/bedrooms first.)

My realtor left for a week-long family trip yesterday, but had left me in the hands of Grace’s dad. I called him this morning to say hello and to tell him about the house, and he called me back with details. It is a short sale again (I’m fine with that, because the amount of time a short sale situation adds to the process will be beneficial to us; we can’t move in right away, anyway), it’s assessed at $200K more than it’s being offered for, and he’s free to let us in to look at it TONIGHT! I was SO excited when I hung up I couldn’t stop smiling as I called Mr. W to tell him the good news.

Due to the psychotically early meet-up time I made with Grace’s dad at the new property in my eagerness, I’d have no time to run home tonite to grab clothes and take care of Dodo’s food and whatnot for the weekend, so I was going to do it at lunchtime and skip the gym. In calling my gym trainee to tell her I wasn’t going to hit the gym with her today, I got a call in on my cell phone. It was my bank, congratulating me that I’ve been approved for my great HELOC (home equity line of credit), which I’d applied for at a crazy-low interest rate to use as down payment for the new house. I’ll be mailed closing documents on Wednesday and then I can throw my car loan into the HELOC, make it tax deductible, AND fund my path into my (uh, I mean “our”) new home!

Here’s the fated sequence of events…
1. We find the 1st short sale house.
2. We put an offer on that short sale house. (I run into Grace’s dad.)
3. I call and tell Vicky about it.
4. Vicky looks up that house online and says, “Hey, what about THIS house? It’s the same price.” She reads the description to me and I’m instantly intrigued.
5. Our realtor leaves the country. Mr. W and I visit that house. I fall in love, utterly, completely.
6. Grace’s dad is handling our stuff in our realtor’s absence.

It’s perfect! It’s GOT to be meant to be, right? EEEEEEEEEE!!!

Before I write what I came here to write, I feel compelled to report that this morning, someone came upon my site by doing a search for “jordan boobies” on Google. Jordan, your boobies should feel honored. Especially since on your blog, you promote feeling them on the regular.

I had a great day at the spa yesterday. I hit the whirlpool, hit the steam room, and then got a relaxing 80-minute full-body massage that put me in a sort of trance-like state. After finishing, I let the massage oils absorb into my skin with another 10 minutes in the steam room, then hit the great rainfall showers. At one point I had water spraying on me from 3 different directions. By the end of my time there I didn’t even care that despite my recent weight loss, my stomach fat still jiggles as I walk, which I observed with dismay in the mirror as I went into the whirlpool in my bikini. (How low does my body fat percentage need to be to stop jiggling?)

After I went thru a few loads of laundry, I headed off to Mr. W’s house. He and I looked at a few more houses online that had dropped into our price range. Our realtor agent told us that we’re not locked into the short sale house, so if in the meantime we see something we like better, to feel free and explore other options. I personally have a problem with the short sale house’s bedrooms and bathrooms (BIG problems with their bathrooms), but the rest of the house is fine. But if houses formerly out of our price range lower their asking prices due to the spiraling market and fall into our price range and we don’t have to do any fixing-up to move in, so much the better. Vicky seems to have found such a house for us online and we looked at it online last nite. We were very interested and will probably drive by to look at it soon. It seems more move-in ready than the short sale house, is newer, is valued higher, has a prettier pool (Again with the pool. Why do people build so many pools?), is larger, and it’s the SAME PRICE!

I have faith that whatever happens will happen because it’s meant to and if I lose something I think I want, it’s because something bigger and better is around the corner that I’m meant for, and I trust the universe completely. Oh, and I had another perfectly reconciled credit card statement that accounted for every receipt I have, “coincidentally”.