Reality: (Potentially) Buying a House is Scary....

I'm a very tired Monkeypants today. That's what I get for staying up too late. Truth be told, I don't think I could have gone to bed any earlier. I had a very busy evening and I was a little bit wired. Besides I had decided to bake bread in my bread machine at about 11:15 p.m. and I wanted to ensure that it rose so I couldn't go to bed any earlier until the bread was actually baking.

I went house hunting last night, as I mentioned yesterday. I put an offer down on a place. It's a terrifying, overwhelming thought. It's also an exhausting process. I looked at six places last night. Of the six, three were very great houses. The first one I looked at was cute, had an awesome little yard and was on a nice street. It also had a converted garage that I loved for the fact that it was a room that could be anything I wanted it to be. The kitchen was small though and the laundry room was the kitchen. I have a feeling, in summer, that kitchen must get awfully warm when the dryer is on. I put that on hold in my mind. There were things I loved about that house. It also helped that the current owner is clearly a younger man into graphic novels and comic book type stuff, rather like me. My realtor is quite nosy which is fun. Plus he'd left some of his art on the kitchen table; he had some tattoo sketches and some panels from graphic novels. He was really good. I actually wanted to meet him because just looking around his place, he seemed very interesting. And clean. The house was...very clean.

We looked at a couple of other places that were ok but nothing spectacular. Then we got to see a house I'd wanted to see the last time I was out. Since it's still occupied, it makes it harder to get in for a look. On the porch, last night, sat this little old lady, waiting for us. The front yard was immaculate, the house clearly well-taken care of. We talked to her for a while and then we went in.

This house felt like home immediately. It was clear from the pictures on the walls that this house belonged to people who had loved it. There were photos of the lady with her husband. He wasn't there which led both my realtor and I to think she'd been recently widowed. The house itself was lovely. It just needs a little updating. Without trying to sound like an age-ist, it was pretty obvious that the house belonged to old people. Just a replacing of the curtains would make the house seem a lot more modern. But, overall, it felt like a home to me. It had the big kitchen I wanted, a laundry area, a garage. It has a big yard, nice sized bedrooms. All the appliances come with the house. The price was low. The taxes are low. Long story short...I felt like this was my house.

My realtor agreed that it seemed like a great buy. Afterwards, we talked to the lady for a while. Sure enough, she was widowed three years ago. I was relieved to find out she'd only been living in the place for twelve years. I would have felt horribly guilty wanting her house if she'd been there, say, thirty years or something. Twelve years is long enough to feel like a place is home and I felt for her because she was clearly sad. Yet because the driveway had a little slant, she said she had trouble with it and her son wanted her to move to Alabama to live with him.

By the time I was done talking to her, I knew that the neighbourhood was great, the location was great and I'd be getting more than a good buy: I'd be getting a place that was well loved, treasured, even. Also, you'll be happy to know she's not the "Derron Lady" although I will confess for a few seconds when she first spoke, she sounded a little like that lady. On a side note, she's still calling. I've discovered that Derron is her grandson. She always calls when I'm not home now and leaves Derron messages on my machine. I almost feel like I should offer to help locate Derron next time she calls. She just sounds so irritated that my answering machine is answering the phone and I still have not yet transformed into Derron.

I digress, as usual. Anyway, so, after looking at a few other places that didn't compare, I knew I had to move forward. My realtor took me to dinner and talked me through the process. I will tell you that just making an offer on a house is exhausting. There are hours worth of paperwork to be completed. I can't even imagine the amount of paperwork if I actually get to buy the house.

So, it's been just over a month since I decided I wanted to look into buying. Now I might have a place. I'm trying not to hope too much because if my offer isn't accepted, I'll be disappointed. However, like everything else in life, if it doesn't work out, I'll adjust. However, if it does work out, I will cross their scary bridge of thinking about being a homeowner and becoming one.

So, you see, last night was an adventure. I got in late. I knew I couldn't sleep. So I decided to try again with the bread, attributing the previous night's failure to bad yeast. This time, I knew I couldn't fail: I found Mario Batali's recipe for basic bread. With Mario behind me, what can go wrong? However, I did read the comments below and discovered the recipe has a typo: use 1 and a half cups of water rather than just the half-cup that is printed.

By the time I'd made the bread, I still wasn't tired and so I'd chatted on the phone to my friend in California. By the time I was done, the bread was rising and almost ready to start baking. This time, it looked like bread, at least.

I woke up this morning to a loaf of lovely crusty bread. I just had some for breakfast and have to say, once again, Mario Batali is my hero. It is delicious. I have my ham sandwich for lunch. I will find out this afternoon if my offer is accepted. I'm terrified. But I'm also excited. I'll keep you posted. Thanks, as always for reading...

Happy Wednesday!

Captain Monkeypants and the Art of the Calamity

I'm very sleepy this morning. It was one of those mornings where I debated staying in bed for another half-hour and going in late, making up the time this evening. Yet I got up anyway. I never get much benefit out of lying in bed for another half-hour unless I'm actually sleeping. Mostly, it's spent hiding my head under the covers and thinking about how much I don't want to get up which leads me to constantly check the clock to see how much time I have left rather than actually sleeping. If I actually do get up, it's just easier.

It's freezing out this morning. The snow patches are still clustered in the shadows and my car was iced-over. I'm too lazy to scrape: I've taken to starting my car ten minutes before I want to leave. It's SO much easier and, I find, actually safer because even when you scrape, you never clear your windows completely. I saw a girl driving an identical car to mine this morning but she'd only managed to scrape a little hole on her windshield. She practically had her nose against the glass, trying to see out. The rest of her car was so frozen that there was no way she could see out of her windows. This is why I start my car early. Also, having just got my car fixed from my last accident, I do not want another one, thank you very much.

So, now I'm at work. It's quiet in the office. I'm sipping vile coffee again because I cannot get my act together enough to make a pot at home. I'm really only capable in the mornings of getting ready for work, starting my car early and then a maximum of one non-routine task. Often, it involves putting things in my crockpot to cook for dinner. I do the preparation for this the night before. Other times, if I'm REALLY ambitious, it involves making toast. I adore toast. It's a joy in my life. I do not, however, really enjoy my toaster. It was one of those $7 deals from Walmart. It's a two-slot toaster but it's not deep enough to toast the very top of the bread so by the time it pops up, the top of the bread is still soft and untoasted while the rest is fine. Also, it does not have one of those nifty buttons to hit to make the toast pop up on your command. You have to turn the dial to the lowest setting and then it pops up. This is great except I like my toast dark and I inevitably forget I turned the dial to low until my toast pops up and it's still white. I need a new toaster.

This morning, I decided to try my new bread maker. It was actually my parent's but it's new to me. There was no instruction book. My mother provided instructions on how to put the ingredients in which was very helpful. There's a lot of buttons though. I like hitting buttons. I think I might have set the timer right on it since it was counting down as I left the apartment. If all goes well, I should be greeted with the scent of fresh baked, yeasty bread when I get home from work. Either that or it's The Breadmaker of Doom and is counting down for more ominous reasons. I prefer to think positively, however.

Aside from adoring fresh bread, I decided it might be a good idea to introduce a new smell to my apartment other than rather-cheap-wine-covered-up-by-Christmas-candle. You see, last night, I had a rather large accident. I have this wine rack that is very pretty but the bottles aren't terribly secure. They sit on a rather thin ledge and are easily dislodged. I bumped the rack last night causing the top layer of bottles to fall onto the ones below. You wouldn't think this had much effect but I am Captain Monkeypants, Mistress of the Calamity. No, this top level bottle shattered the bottle beneath which lead to a nasty mess. I try to keep my good wine on the top rack, the Two Buck Chuck on the bottom. I should probably explain that the difference between the Two Buck Chuck and the Top Level wine is about $3. I like good wine. If I had a nice fat income, I'd probably splurge. However, for now, Sutter Home is my friend. Not that it isn't good wine. It's just not good wine, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so, I stood there, taking in the sudden and unexpected calamity, I realized I had to Act Now or Forever Lose The Newness of my Carpet. So I flew into action, sopping up the worst of the spill and reading on the internet the best way to remove wine stains. Did you know everyone says white wine works as a stain lifter? I did not. I also prefer red wine and so I lacked white wine. Also, I would have felt rather cross if I'd hate to waste more wine like that. So I ran to the store, purchased some Oxy Deep Cleaner and went back to work on the carpet. Fortunately, I managed to remove the stain, I think. The carpet looked ok in the pretty lights of my Christmas tree and my not-so-bright lamp. I'm hoping that in the light of day, it'll look fine too.

So, by the time my scrubbing was done, my apartment smelled a bit more like Oxy Clean and a little less like Two Buck Chuck. I lit my Glade Gingerbread candle. It seemed to help except somehow the smells seemed to combine and now my flat smells like a Christmas pudding. For all you non-Brits, a Christmas pudding is a very dark, raisin-y, rum-my, fruity concoction that is steamed and served with brandy butter. I just like the brandy butter, truth be told. Though when I was little, the tradition was to hide money in the Christmas pudding for the children so that when you'd get your piece, you'd find a nice 5 pence piece, usually when you'd bite into the pudding. Yes, that was back before people were quite so germaphobic. Which was probably not a good thing, now that I think about it. I didn't realize that my parents were the one putting the money into the pudding until I was quite old. Yes, I really thought it came that way, ok?

Anyway, once more, I digress. Back to my point: Fresh Bread. I'm hoping that the bread maker works and that I have nice crusty bread waiting for me and that my apartment smells just like fresh bread rather than Christmas pudding flavoured bread because that would be a bit vile. I'll keep you posted on that.

So, the moral of this story is really Don't Spill Wine on the Carpet. It is a bad thing. However, if you do, may I recommend Oxy Clean and Glade Candles to alleviate the disaster a little. As long as you don't mind the smell of Christmas pudding. Also, as an added side bonus, Sutter Home crushes Two Buck Chuck. Literally.

Happy Wednesday