I went to pick up Trevor from Boy Scouts last Thursday and they were playing chess. I told him now that he knew how to play, that we could play. He informed me that he learned how to play last summer. Well, thanks for telling me. So I finally went and picked up a chess set yesterday and last night we played. Samantha was out with a friend so it was good evening to play. I won all 4 times but that isn’t saying much. Trevor is a beginner, and I’m not that good either. I won the first 2 pretty quickly, and I gave him tips and told him when he made a good move and explained why it was a good move. The last 2 games lasted a lot longer and he actually made me have to think out my moves. I think the main thing that’s holding him back right now is he never really went on the offensive, he did what he could to protect his king, but never really went after mine. But lucky for him, I’m not that good at it either and if we continue to play, he will be beating me soon. I enjoy playing and used to play online, but to be honest, it isn’t any fun when you keep losing.
Skyler’s biggest complaint lately has been that her room is so cold. Typically in this house, when someone is cold, it’s because Cheri had the AC on (yes, even in the winter) because she was doing something that heated her up. Cheri keeps a little space heater by her chair because her feet get cold and Skyler tends to take it to her room, usually while complaining how cold it is. Cheri went into her room yesterday to get her heater back and noticed that her vent was closed. Well, duh, it’s going to get cold in your room when you’ve blocked the heat.
Yesterday, we met with our realtor and went through some houses. We went to the one that was the top of our list first and it continued to stay at the top. We both really like it, it has everything that we want. 3 bedrooms and a basement that can be converted into a place for Skyler, a good sized kitchen with counter space, and a main level laundry room. Those are our main requirements. This particular house has all 3 bedrooms in different corners of the house, which will be good as my kids get older and want to listen to music or have friends over, they won’t disturb anyone else. I really like the house because it’s in a neighborhood with little traffic and a decent sized back yard, also for the kids. I grew up playing in the street and around my house and I would like the kids to have that without some idiot flying down the street. Even the house I grew up on, the street is a lot busier now with the addition of another neighborhood so I get the feeling, streets with little traffic are getting harder to find. It also has a garage which isn’t a priority but it’ll certainly be a nice addition. And the main thing, it’s in the school district that we want.
The next 2 houses were too small, 1 was listed as a 3 bedroom but was only 2 and the 2nd one, the bedrooms were really small but it had a nice, finished basement. The next house we looked at was a little awkward. It ended up being the exact floor plan as the previous one, the only difference was, there were people home. Just as our realtor was unlocking the door, it opened. There was a Hispanic lady and a little boy. I don’t think she spoke much English because every question our realtor asked her, was answered with ok and yes. The house itself was packed with furniture, you could hardly move through the living room. Needless to say, we looked for a few minutes and then got out. It felt awkward enough going through houses that people still lived in, it was really awkward to go through their house with them sitting there.
The last house, we are guessing belonged to a single guy. While it had 3 bedrooms, only 2 were done as a bedroom, and 1 seemed more like a spare room. The other room was more a storage room than anything. The basement was finished with a huge projection TV, a wetbar with a pool table that also doubled as a poker table. The negatives were the laundry room was in the basement and the storage room was pretty small. We could move the laundry upstairs but the storage room was pretty small so it would make a really small bedroom for one of the kids.
So basically, we found a house we love, one that would be adequate, and 3 absolutely not’s. But at this point, we really want the house that we love so I called our loan officer and made an appointment for next week to run our credit again. We last met with him about 6 months ago and he told us what we needed to do to clean up our credit and we paid off the last item a few weeks ago. 2 of the 4 items I had to pay off were actually crap that theEx stuck me with including a freaking minivan but that’s another post. Hopefully by next week, everything will have been cleared and we can get pre-approved.
