matt

Yesterday I was doing my usual post-work activity of sitting in front of the computer and playing games when Marissa came to me with a question. Evidently we received a check from our mortgage company for an "escrow overage" and it was for a substantial amount of money. I called this morning to see what it was and turns out each year the mortgage company looks at how much we've paid into escrow (from our monthly mortgage payment) and looks at what our taxes and such are and sees if there is too much or too little. Turns out, there was too much and we get the money!

I was rather surprised and called them to verify this wasn't money we'd need for something later and did some research online and it looks all legit. I don't know how common this is, but this is like the third or fourth refund check we've gotten related to the house. Needless to say, I'm quite pleased!

So I've cut the lawn twice now at our new house and I've killed two snakes thus far. The first time, was a complete surprise while Marissa was trimming the sides of the lawn and hit the snake with the weed wacker. She then gave up lawn work and I was called in to "finish the job". We went to Home Depot, found a shovel that looked like it was good at killing snakes and executed the sucker. Tonight I cut the lawn once more and was prepared for the possibility and sure enough, I spotted another one out of the corner of my eye, grabbed my killing shovel and offed him too. If I see another one, I'm going to have to call some dude to come professional kill them (I'm still a mere amateur).

When I'm not decreasing the local reptile population, we've been busy buying things for the house but I'm looking forward to this weekend when I can enjoy some quality time at home and really getting a feel for things. The kids across the street came over to talk with me and they're very nice but I wonder how much I could pay them to kill my snakes for me....

After a long and numbing experience, we moved into our first home on Friday. We got the call Thursday morning to set up a closing and we had the closing that afternoon. It felt so good to have that monkey off our back and I took the day off Friday to move in. We hired a moving company and that was the best money I ever spent considering how quickly they did everything, how hot it was and what a good job they did.

We spent the remainder of the weekend unpacking and organizing and buying some things for the house. Marissa's parents drove in to help us and it was great having them there to lend a hand. I know Marissa and I are so happy to be living in the house now and finally enjoying it. Funny thing is there are some kids across the street that are like 7 and 3 years old and the 7 year old likes me I guess, because whenever we are outside, he comes and says hello. I kind of feel like Mr. Wilson from "Dennis the Menace".

Speaking of the kids, yesterday I was unpacking and found an unopened Star Wars figure and was going to throw it out but decided to give it to the kids across the street. Well, I walked over there and the younger kid was there and after getting it said, "I hate Star Wars!". LOL

After work yesterday I walked with our foreman around the house. It was the first time I was actually inside the house (aside from the one or two times Marissa and stepped one or two feet into the garage before running away from fear of something falling on us). It's really cool and really scary seeing the house coming together. All the windows and doors are in and I was in pretty much every room. It's cool because it's our house but it's scary because....it's our house. The floor plans have been ingrained in my head for months now but it's exciting to see things progress the way they are. I can't wait to move in.

Last night as I was getting into bed, I turned the TV on and flipped through the channels before stopping on....Lifetime. I had to because my all-time favorite chick flick was on....You've got mail. For some reason, I've always found it entertaining, probably because I could relate to the fact the characters fall in love online. It's sappy and by today's standards terribly outdated (no one dials in to get internet anymore, no one uses AOL anymore and no one uses that version of AOL anymore). For whatever reason, this movie is a guilty pleasure of mine and I couldn't help but watch it.

It's been raining a lot lately here and it's bothering me more so than usual. I think the issue was before last weekend, we had like a month of no rain at all so it made planning days very easy; put on shorts and short sleeves and don't even worry about anything else. Now I have to like check half a dozen weather sites to see what the consensus is about the possibility of rain. Of course, all this rain has stopped the local news media dead in their tracks with trying to scare us with wild fire stories. Speaking of which, the news media has totally dropped the swine flu thing, probably because nothing happened.

After work today I'm going to go for a walk through the house with our foreman (or is it, forelady?). I have no idea what I'm supposed to look for other than something painfully obviously wrong like a space ship that crashed through the ceiling (at least I think that would be a problem). I guess I'm just there to nod my head, look around and surmise that everything looks good. It's kind of like inviting someone who works at a gas station to go inspect the space shuttle prior to launch. I should show up with an exaggerated large magnifying glass, a note pad and every so often exclaim "ah-HA!".