we got keyz!

New Place 11/11/07 3:38 PM

We've got keys now, including a garage door opener, for the new place! I've uploaded a few photos if anyone is terribly interested in seeing the new apt. This is probably as clean as it will ever be. The last tenant was there til 1am last night cleaning, but I think she did a great job. There is lots of storage that I didn't show, so our hope is that our place will feel less cluttered with more closet space. We even have slats in our garage so we could store a few things in there with the car.

We're planning to move in waves, the first one being our old mattress and overnight bags so we can start sleeping there this week. That's the hope anyway. The new mattress arrives Sat. and the frame will be hear hopefully before Thanksgiving. Second wave will involve all the furniture (and heavy lifting I'm not allowed to do). Third wave will be a clean sweep through KVA to tie up the loose ends.

I've not packed a lot but I've made lists. :) We're slowly beginning to put it all in a box. I hope this will get easier once we are not trying to live in the middle of packing. Too easy to get distracted at the moment.Thus, why I'm posting instead of packing.

No news really from the prenatal apt last week. Everything is going as planned. Baby's heart beat was 150 bpm this time. 17 days left before we find out the gender.

Well, I should get back to packing, just thought I'd pass this on.

Answer: Butterball

Question: What is cat's bump?

I just realized that Thanksgiving is near. I ran into all the saline-injected birds at the grocery store this evening and the other shoe dropped. That is what I've been forgetting! I'm not so sure we will get a bird cooked this year. We actually hope to be packing and moving over the next few weekends, so posts may be few and far between. Can't wait to get the keys to the new apartment sat. so we can do laundry without coinage. Paul was seriously considering manhandling our old mattress into the new place sunday and make the move sans boxes to the new place so we can plan (and stop living here) We'll see if that comes about. There are still a lot to do around here and I'm not really doing much that I consider useful.

I've got my next prenatal tomorrow, though I don't expect it to be any thing shocking. (same old routine) Paul has voted that I no longer have a bump, but have a curve now, and I'm beginning to really look pregnant, not just wearing baggy clothing.

Work has hired 2 new designers, both of which are nice and competent. We've been doing a lot of training this week. By the look of things I might be able to be part time in the new year. :)

A few notable mentions:

1. Paul is at WOW in Indiana for the rest of the week. He will be manning the table there and actively recruiting candidates for information technology ministry. Please keep him in mind, not just for safe travel, but that it is a positive visit, with many new faces becoming interested in Asia.
2. I've started a new email group called pray-it which will eventually become urgent prayer requests and testimonies, both for us personally and for the fellowship at large. If you'd be interested in being kept in the loop, please visit the link above and I'd be happy to send you an invite to the group.
3. We are looking for new partners to join us in our new roles. If you are interested or would like to know more just contact us.
4. I have been *struggling* with hoemke.com, trying to get it cleaned up and ready for posts on the blog, but I've hit some technical difficulties. Soon and very soon, this sucker will be up and all this type of update will move over there.

new snail mail

Most of you just got my email with the new snail mail address, but if you missed it here it is again:

Catherine & Paul Hoemke
600 W County Line Rd, #9-001
Highlands Ranch, CO 80129

home: 303 806-5201

paul's cell: 303 746-2323
cat's cell: 303 746-2324

We signed the lease yesterday, though we may have to go back in and 're-sign' it Monday. The admin person was switching from the old lease form to the new lease form, and it was a might bit confusing. But, beyond that, we are happy to be getting out of our current place and as they say moving on up to hody-tody Highlands Ranch. :) Actually, we are in the rind of Highlands Ranch that is cut off from the rest by I-470, no complaints though. Who cares, were out of current place!

We also went and test drove mattresses yesterday afternoon and found one we liked. (we did go with the king sized) So, last night I order the frame we liked from pottery barn. Insanely early I know, but it turned out that it is back-ordered. We should have our bedroom together by Dec 1. And then I will sleep. :)

Still to buy are pots and pans and rice cooker. (all of which were destroyed by the crappy electric/ appliances in our current place) And we will be registered for baby things once we are settled in more, so probably December. Anyway, back to enjoying the extra hour of daylight this morning.

testi-home-y

This whole week at candidate course has really reminded me how much we depend on God's grace for things to happen in our lives. Seriously. We've had to give our testimony in a couple of different ways, both written and verbally, so it's really helped me to remember what is important in life. God being the main thing. I was just going back over our last move, which also included our decision to join ACME Intl, and move across the country. It's interesting to go back over my comments from 3 years ago and think about how much of that promise has become reality.

And it's happened again.

Now, nothing is signed or settled yet, but we have voiced interest in a sublet situation at The Bluffs (some of you remember it) which will take us Nov 10 through March, with the option to a new lease in 2008. It is pretty much what we need. (2bed, 2bath, a smidge larger than our current place, fireplace, laundry in the unit, 3 minutes drive from ACME's US office, available in Nov, in our price range, quiet, nice and safe) pretty much were we need it. We will no longer be able to put up visiting guests, but we will be able to start working on putting a nursery together and section off the bookcases from where the baby can get at them. So this is really good news. We'll send round more info once we are sure we have it, but we are cautiously optimistic.

The kicker is it hasn't been rented yet. I can't tell you the number of times I've have houses and apartments sold or rented out of our hands this year. At first, I thought I was moving too slow, so last night I only called on listings that were posted yesterday. Even those were rented before we could look at them this afternoon. (even the one we had a scheduled apt for) It's been one shut door after another. This place was out there for over two weeks, and even waited until we were back from Florida to get a showing. I've felt a lot of the time like we were waiting over the last month, like we could not move forward with this stuff yet, but must learn to be patient. I think the waiting is over, at least in the housing area. Now all we have to do is pack. :/

I think I mentioned that part of candidate course involves lots of personality inventories. Not surprising the Myers-Briggs was in there again, only a longer version. This time I came out an INTJ. I've officially ruled that this pregnancy is screwing with my inventories. Guru and my current theory is that I'm clamping down on my emotions because currently a cucumber can make me cry, so I'm "stress-functioning" in my opposite (and less skilled) function. Oh yeah, and over-analyzing.

Speaking of over-analysing emotions, I do have to say that as soon as we decided to make a bid for the place, I did feel a bit of a let-down, because we won't be moving right into the perfect house, with a perfect yard, in the perfect town, with a perfect dog for the baby. I had a feeling I would have this personal hurdle to go over, so I'm not surprised it popped up now. I know logically that getting a house right now is imprudent. And I keep telling myself that babies grow up in apts all the time. It won't stunt their growth. They are very versatile. But I'm still struggling with it.

well, my hubby just came home with crab wontons, so I must see if I like them or if they taste like soap.

two burning bushes and a mircophone

I woke up this morning to the sound of canadian geese, which is the official harbinger of fall/winter here. It's probably going to be nice for another month and then get cold and possibly snowy from there on out.

Time is running away from us.

We are in our current place through December. After that we go month to month (with additional fees) until we move. I guess we could always re-sign a lease, but obviously we'd rather not do that. Our moving window pre-baby is closing quickly (probably mid November is the last "not too snowy days"), but we are still in the decision process with ACME, so we'd prefer not to rush into buying a house until we've made that decision.

The other option is to rent a new place for a year (or 6 months, or 9 months) which we really could do before the november cut off date, but that means we are moving now, and probably again next summer/fall when we actually do get a house. Why move twice when you can just move once?

The problem is space. If we stay here to have the baby, then we will need to rent a storage locker for the winter/spring so we have enough space to set up a crib, changing table, additional clothing, etc. basically turn the back bedrooms into bedrooms instead of a bedroom and a large, shared office. The other down side of this place is that we have a shared laundry room in the club house, but for a month or two with the baby, I think we could get by. I'd prefer not to 'get by' for another year though. The laundry is the only reason a new place looks so desirable to me right now instead of just staying put. :) It goes without saying that renting will be more expensive for the space we need than buying.

A lot of this hangs on our decision about ACME. They have come back with a great offer, but it would be long term (10 years probably) and would likely make one or both of us full members. We'd be supported folks, so we would be expected to raise our own funds to stay members over time.

I adore make life changing decisions in the midst of another life change. :)

So, I guess that is our prayer request for the next few weeks. We now have two burning bushes, we just need to discern what they mean.

project muddle

So, you all have been really kind not to beat me to death after the last non-update post. We really appreciate any prayers and
thoughts you have sent our way. We can really use them. Here is why: we probably can not continue to live in Den and work for ACME Intl at guru's current salary rate. Now, we are having some conversations with ACME to try and fix this, (read:wacky skeme A) so maybe this is all panicing for nothing. We won't know for a month or so how this will resolve itself. We asked you to pray blindly about this mainly because we honestly have no idea if this is God's way of politely asking us to move on or if it's some kind of test. Biblical scholars, place your bets! [FYI- if you've seen our burning bush, please email] Obviously we've shelved the house hunt for now, at least until we hear back from ACME. To be clear, ACME itself is doing well, we've just been living lean for the last few years and it's starting to show.

Please keep this to yourselves (this blog is on friends lock) until we have something more definite than "oh noz!"

In better news - the management finally fixed our leaks and are now replacing our ceiling. They put up the dry wall today and will be spraying the popcorn tomorrow. With any luck (and aim) the contractors will not spackle our books. We are also out of our rent concession cluster, ah mess up, so we are free to move with 30 days notice. The down side of this is our rent goes up to what it should have been, but that was bound to happen anyway if we signed a new lease with these folks. I am leery of signing a lease with these folks. It's good to actually have a ceiling over our head. I might even vacuum again.

I finished JS&MN and also Harry Potter finally. Teared up I think 3 times. That was an excellent wrap up book for that series. Not high literature but a good read. Now I am out of books. I demand suggestions!

i laughed. i cried. it was better than cats.

My phone rang at 7am. From a 5 hour sleep stupor, I turned off the alarm I had set and started getting vertical. This began my day.

Welcome to mr. toad's wild ride which we like to call "house hunting."

Twenty minutes later we were on the road to ken caryl, a *nice* neighborhood, to view a house at 8am. My cell is ringing again. It's our realtor. Apparently that call at a 7 was not my alarm but K, who I hung up on. Oops. I appologize and say we will be there soon. I give my folks a call about the last bit of financing to come in, but which i don't know the amount. I talk briefly with my mom ("you're up early!") and find out the amount. Mention we are off to look at a good deal. Will call back later.

We eventually meet at the house and start poking around and find out it is large, well maintained if a bit used, well landscaped, and at the top of our price range. We decide to put in an offer, since the price just dropped. If you remember the condo incident, you know why. We leave the house and drive to Paul's work to determine how long his commute is. It is about 8:45. I get a call from our lender, crossing our t's and dotting our i's with a good faith estimate. I say we will be home soon and will look at the estimates then. We decide to pick up groceries.

I get back to the car with the food and find paul on the phone with his dad, talking about this house we found. We get home. We put the groceries away. I get a call from paul's mom to get the actual description of the house. We get a call from P saying they are awake and we should pick up the bookcase any time. We put on shoes and start to head back out the door, and find this:

Leaks 7/28/07 12:50 PM

We call our friends to say we have a problem. We call the emergency maintiance guy .("bring a tarp") We start hauling out furniature from the front room. Said guy comes over and starts poking at our ceiling. it is mushie.

Meanwhile - my phone rings. It's the realtor. The offer fell through. Although the selling realtor assured our realtor that the price was correct last night, this morning when she brought our offer, he says it is actually $100k more. They had filled out the MLS wrong. There is much teeth gnashing.Ok, I say. Not your fault. The guy's a jerk. [can't talk now, our ceiling is falling in] , etc. Maintance guy finishes pulling down our ceiling and leaves. I break the news to Paul. Various family members are called ("false alarm. The island is not sinking.") and we generally get back to what ever the heck we were doing before hand. Oh yeah, bookcases. It's now about 11:30.

It has gone on from there, but hopefully that is the end of the unscheduled exictment for the day. The short story is we will be looking at some more houses this weekend. We rescheduled a gathering we were going to have tonight to someone else's house and after lunch we hope to get the bookcases. I can only hope the rest of the day is dull.

alas, condominium

I didn't want your stupid condo anyway.

So the good news is we don't have to make our mind up about the condo. The bad news is that there were nine (9) offers on the place when we looked at it, confirming it probably was a steal. We had our first buy thief (similar to kill thief) on this real estate journey. I now am bitter about the whole thing and try not to talk to others about it because I'm likely to disolve into a rambling rant about the condominium housing association.

*sigh*

It was honestly probably for the best that we were not forced to make a rushed descision on it. We went and looked a the last of the condos yesterday and had a soul searching conversation with our realtor (who has been a saint) about what we really want in the next 7 to 10 years. (Though she though no one really lives in the same place for more than 3 years, meaning that you should get the best appreciation (house) you can in the time you are in a place. So maybe 3 years then?) It also sounds like it is expensive to sell (more costs than buying) Some where around $10k to cover selling costs. So the final out come is that our realtor wants us to consider raising our budget. I went over the numbers last night, and we could do this, but then the month to month mortgage cost would be about $150 higher than what we pay now for rent. I'm concerned that we wouldn't be able to make the payment, unless something changed on either of our job fronts.

At this point I think I decided I hate money and we should just haggle for trade. Unfortinately I didn't realize I was in one of my combative states, and kind of got into a mild up roar in the car. (guru reported to me later) Oops.

So anyway, not much more to report with that now, other than I think I'm going to step back and enjoy my in-laws visit and worry about the stupid future in the stupid future.

glee is a playbill

oh, if only I could tell you how happy I've been. I smiled to myself in the dark, dispite the fact that it was 2am and the alarm would be going off at 7. I was so pleased with an evening out at the theatre. I was pleased to introduce chesh to humorous musicals, by dragging her down town by lightrail to see a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. We caught some grub afterwards and wandered home about 11. It was so great to have a friend to hang out with in town. Chesh went on to many other adventures, but we had a really good visit. I've also learned how to make a snakebite (similar to a black and tan, only with cider.) The visit and the drink are only loosely related.

At the same time its been insanely busy. I've actually taking to scheduling things like 'do laundry', 'go to library' on my google calendar. I'm not sure why it got so bad, but we are regularly juggling house hunting, work, social events (I am terribly bummed that I missed seeing Harry Potter when it opened with other people), agro finances (building up a down payment), and your usual chores like shopping and laundry. The down payment is kind of silly. We have excellent credit. We pay our bills and pay down our debt. Which means that we are cash poor most of the time. But we need a down payment soon. So now we are not spending any cash, but buying only what we need on our credit card (for a month or so only) to make the payment with our own money. Apparently american consumerism dicatates that we should be more fiscally irresponsible.

Beyond this our weekends have filled up startlingly fast. Many house guests as well as travel on our part, I think things will slow down in Feb 2008. Speaking of travel, say a quick pray for the wetzel's as they begin the travel portion of their adoption adventure. By this time next week, we will have a new wetzel in custody. :)

On the housing market we went yesterday on our second house-showing. (I keep wanting to call it a 'viewing.' Silly freudian sense of humor!) This round was all about condos and townhomes. I was joking with the realtor that the only way I would even *consider* a condo is if it was the Taj Mahal of condos (ie, close to work, in our price range, beautiful, with all appliances. Guess what we found? A lovely condo (structurally) which has had an unfortunate incident with some mustard paint. (it's the only thing we can fine wrong with it.) It backs to an open space (read:park); 10 minutes from work for Paul, 15-20 minutes from work for me; all appliances new (including central air); larger than the place we have now. Oh, and for the first time ever we would have a mountian view.

Hands down, it is a great short term solution. It solves all of our problems from now into the next 3 years. I can't see if it is a long term solution (5-10 years) because I am blinded by how fabulously it fits us here and now. There are other houses further away, more costly, and needing more work, but this one is so obvious a winner. Probably good resale too based on its location and neighborhood, at least for a condo. The biggest problem is that is, well, a condo.

So here is the second quiz for those of you playing along at home:

1. To condo or not to condo?
2. Why?
3. Should we take short term solutions over long term goals? Keep in mind anywhere we move will be cheaper than here. (ahem, pgh, ahem)

can't sleep, crawl space will eat me

So we did our first batch of house hunting today and have come with 3 possible candidates. All of which are at least 35 minutes from work for both of us, 2 of which are at the very top of our price range. None have HOA fees to contend with. So, real estate wizards, which house would you choose?

A. Ye'old Standard House
Plus: It's in our price range, comes with all appliances, will need no cosmetic work before we move in.
Minus: Back yard is small! No AC (with that being said we were out here today when it was 90 something and it was pretty cool in there. )

B. The Big Lot
Plus: It is on 0.32 of an acre yet still residential, backs to something like an open space, has lots of shade and patio.
Minus: House is a bit beat up and will need some cosmetic paint and carpet fixing. It is above our price range some, it has no appliances. No AC but an attic fan, which sucks all the heat out the top of the house. These work ok, but you never get cold in these houses, you just stop melting.

C. The Big House
Plus: It is huge for the price: 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, plus a study, front room. It just keeps going. Cul-de-sac that is right next to an open space. Good neighborhood, which could make it a money-maker if we resell.
Minus: People got about half way through redecorating and quit, so every room has something cosmetic to fix, only major issues fixes would be back stairs off porch and carpet in lower level before we could move in. Also, this is over our budget and again, no appliances. No AC, but has a swamp cooler, which works based on evaporation.

We saw a lot of other properties today, but none have captured our imaginations like these three. Guru is drooling over B and I'm placing furniture in my head in C. We are going to look at townhouses next, which will definitely be in our budget, and closer to work. (read reality check) But the whole idea of owning more space than we can fill is really tempting, either inside or outside.

Nothing says loving like begging your family for money. I just finished a minor essay to my folks about how we deserve help with a down payment. ~wiggle~ [i h8 asking for $] The best news I've heard so far about this house-buying thing is: we don't have to make a mortgage payment for the first 2 months of the purchase. This means that we can buy in *August* and move during September! Woohoo! no double payments of rent and mortgage! We've schedule a meeting with our realtor in early July, so hopefully we will be in our new place before the fall. (here's hoping)

On a better note, we are so thankful that Aaron did well during surgery and is now in recovery. I'm also thankful that Wendy had some time to update over here so we didn't have to pester her with phone calls. If you pray, please do so for them for a quick recovery so they can go get their daughter!

Beyond that we are just taking today off. Spent the morning/afternoon doing nothing in our large clean apartment. The nice thing about house guests is my place actually is now clean and cleared of random piles of stuff. We take turns wandering around the apt not walking into things. We had a good visit with pbyaga and decalcomania, but it was too short. Yaga at least got to meet our other friends who will be moving out to seattle in the near future and I think they all mostly got along. I got a house full of catan players for most of wednesday. I only won once. :)

I'm happy the weather has been so wonderful the last few days. These are the days that are too few in other states, but plentiful in Colorado. I say that and since I've been writing this entry the skies have opened up, but hey, moisture is moisture.

Lots of news this week, most of it other people's. More information is over at their individual websites: (Kess,BaTRT;aDIR;WscW) so I'll just say I'm excited (and nervous) for the whole crew. Lots of courageous folks making a place in there homes and hearts for the world's children. My biggest beef is that I can't take off from work for a 6 month tour to see everyone.

We've been busy plotting our take over of the suburbs (house-buying) and excavating the strata of memory (digging out the back room). The house-hunting has become a bit depressing. Apparently we are not millionaires. (I know that surprises you) Nor are we upper middle class bourgeoisie. We are kind of like a walmart knock version of bourgeoisie. I realized this when most of the houses in our budget come with warnings like sold as is, 4th foundation wall schedule to be poured, or owner deems property livable. Yikes. We'll keep looking, but I'm now trying to move my mind set from Plan A - fine some place and make it a restful retreat; to Plan B - upgrade our current apt to something more cost effective and less crappy. I guess I always suspected this, but now that we've got more concrete numbers, this is looking more and more likely.

Things I've enjoyed finding today while cleaning:

• sticky note with guru smilie face on it
  
• notes from old room mates and friends
  
• love letters from our godson before he could spell his name
  
• a b/w yahoo maps printed out of pgh from an ink jet, circa 1997
  
• layout of our old apt on graph paper
  
• my acceptance letter to college
  
• a note labeled '6:30am' from my mom-in-law. No idea when it was written. Content is no use. Starts out:"well, time to go to school..."
  

At the end of the week we hope to see DasBirch's. At the beginning of the week I get to see this guy, apparently because I designed something for applebee's. Who knew graphic design could be so perilous. I hope I at least get lunch out of it.

We lost a fish. Yesterday, Bedlam gave up after a few days gasping for breath. He was one of my better fishes. That sounds weird but I was rather fond of him. I now firmly believe that fish do not last long up here, either because of the hard water or the altitude. So I try not to get too attached. I did get a new fish today (lilium) but no pictures until I get him into the tank. Which happens after we finish the back room.

I've also been thinking a bit about church. I was driving to work as I do and passed the little lutheran church. I notice them because they have been changing the color of their cross decor with the appropriate season. For instance, it was red this week because it was Pentecost. It made me ask myself why is it important to me that the colors change. Now I'm a fan of CS Lewis, who allows for creative imagination to walk hand in hand with the message of the gospel. I'm sure he has a very good argument for why changing the color of the seasons are important. But I don't. It's just what I know. It is Proper. I think I better think it out again. /oliver My best guess is that the wrong reasons for going to church have taken dominance since we came out here. This time away has given me an opportunity to observe and clarify. So I think it's back to the basics.

On a last note: I got my phone working.

From Memorial Day ...

been flying silent again for the last few days. Just wanted to post that our apt management people are some of the strangely 'time-challenged' people I have ever seen. Wednedsay morning we had scheduled them to clean our carpets after the big leak. So when I got off work early this afternoon (tuesday) i came home to move furniture....to find they cleaners had already been through...wet-vaccuming around our card table, catan game, laundry, etc; probably swearing under their breath about these crazy tennants who did *nothing* to clear the apt for cleaning. They even picked up a stray goldfish cracker from under the table and set it on top, you know, in case we were saving it.

The management wanted to know if we wanted them back on wed morning, even though they had *always* been scheduled for tuesday and never been scheduled for wednesday. never. They would be doing me a *favor* you see. My first reaction was, I really don't want any of you back in my apartment in case you forget some crutial fact like, "fire is bad", or "electricty is not to be triffled with". As guru pointed out, his mom is required to teach all the kids in her class the days of the week...in first grade!

In fairness (what little I can continued to maintain) they did clean the part of the house most damaged by the leak, so I called it good and said, "no, we'll just let it go this time."

I now wait with baited breath to see if they show up again wednesday morning, as scheduled.

Tomorrow we will get a chance to finally review our money situation with a finanical friend to find out if and what we can afford to buy and if that is a wise decision. Keep us in your thoughts.

EDIT:
I just realized this post sounds a bit anal, but this was actually just icing on the cake. I called them after 24 hour drying out period to schedule someone to come fix the leaks. I was told they will be there Friday,er no, Monday. They still come by on Friday, in theory to bring in a pin for my storage area door, only to leave me a sticky note saying, we're sorry we brought the wrong size door. Door? I just need a hinge pin? I'm not sure what they did, but this was the day I found my fish catatonic (I thought he was dead) from the amount of noise they were making trying to get the large door in the small doorway.

Monday cames around and no work is done, on the leaks or the door. I march back over there and ask what happened? I was met with surprise. [Wha??? How can this be that we didn't show up when we said we would???] Apparently the all imporant Bill was not in on Monday which means nothing got done. We try again for Tuesday and succeed. Apparently you must bother people at least 3 times to get anything done with the new management. Awsome. So it's not the first time, and I dread what's going to happen when we try to get our deposit back.

Excuses.

So first of - I appologize for disappearing into the black hole of no communication for the last month. I've not written or talked on the phone other than brief calls to the folks for about a month now. That includes reading any journals. Hell, I've just started catching up on comics this week. I never feel bad about it until after it happens. When I look around and realize I've probably been offensive to folks who I care about. So again, Sorry. I feel much better now.

This bought of quiet was generated by a)travel followed very quickly with b)sickness. It was a very quiet Easter that went something like this:
1. sit on couch
2. get up and make ham
3. collapse on couch

We did get out to the rockin' Lutherans [insert guitar riff] though honestly I was kind of out of it when we were there. Most of Good Friday I spent huddled on the couch watching movies. I watched Life of Brian at some point. I did not make any rabbit of Inley cookies. I did get our taxes sent in. Two weeks later, I'm finally not so sick that I can't do anything. Of course, guru is now looking flu-y. :/

I read a few books since my birthday - the Hallow Hunt by Bujold and Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Ving. I've also discovered a library branch on my way home from work, so I now have a whole new fiction section to go through. For my birthday, Guru fixed and upgraded our G4 so we now have a good computer to play Civ IV on. He's started to play more, which makes me feel like less of a game hog. Beyond that we've just been trying to stay above water.

Tax wise we came out even, which is just the way I like it. I've got to do some banking soon, but at least I know there's no hugh payment waiting out in the dark for me. We've been chatting more with our lender and now have some numbers based on our inflow/outflow. She's saying we can afford what I've termed as a "standard house" instead of of a condo or a townhouse. Guru is *highly* sceptical. We go for a second opinion sometime in may. Not just another lender but a friend in missions work who has lived abroad and state side. If anyone has a decent perpective, it will be him. Basically I'm looking to answer two questions about buying a house:
1. Are we selling out to the american dream of keeping up with the jones? Families live in apts all the time.
2. Conversely, are we squandering the bounty God has given us by not investing it wisely? Could we help more people if we weren't renting.

*scrub scrub* said cat's little rag. dust bunnies flee in terror

There are sometimes when I get it in my head/gut to really scrub down the kitchen. This time was sparked off by seeing a little silverfish dart for cover while I was thinking about getting lunch. Well, no longer. Two hours later the kitchen if not sparkling it is at least close to being in the state I found it in when we moved in here. That was the last time professional cleaners were brought in. This is a really stupid thing, but as I scrub my burner dishes(?) from the stove, I think that at least in this way I've done my dutch hertiage proud. I have no reason to believe dutch folk are more a)clensely (read:anal) or b)thrifty (read:cheap) than anyone else. I believe it has to do with this advertisment.

The good news is that silverfish and ants are about the worse pests I've seen in the 3 years we have been here. High altitude means there are no roaches (and oddly no fireflies) which are the worse apt critter. We also don't have those awful (and stupid) many legged creepy-crawlies you get in pgh. Over all we are very lucky. I still find my self taking precautions (stuffing things into the fridge instead of leaving them out. Sealing up my flour and bake supplies up in air-sealed ziplock or tupperware) just in case we discover some "friends". Old habits die hard.

I also spent most of the morning going over the housing thing and came to the conclusion that, though we can only afford a small piece, it is better for us to own it than to never have owned anything at all. Housing in Denver really begins around $170,000 and then just goes up. Houses here are outrageously priced for what you get. We also have I think one of the highest rates of foreclosure, mainly because there wasn't any oversight of lenders until just this year (or something like that) so *anyone* could get a bad loan, buy a house and then file for bankrupcy.

Our target range is significantly lower than $170,000. But we can afford a townhouse/condo AND that still would be more economic for us in 5 years than paying rent. Rent, btw, starts at around $800 for the space we are looking for (2 bedroom). Guru, the farmboy, is a bit depressed about condos, but I don't actually mind them, especially since colorado built most of them recently with a tendency to put cathedral ceilings in them. Thye like their views here. So we contacted the realtor who was highly recommended and started talking about options, or the lack there of. We expect more of them to come on the market this spring as people realize they can't keep prices high since its now flipped over to being a buyers market.

The downside on all this is I don't think I'm going to make the one big purchase I was hoping for this year: a new bed. I was crunching some numbers and I think I could replace our current bed with a queen-size memory foam mattress on either this or this frame. It would take some time, but I could in theory save for it, which would be an amazing act of restraint on my part. Our bed then would turn into a guest bed and we could actually put people up if we have enough room or, it would go to someone who could use it from acme intl. But, if we are going to need every dime to swing a down payment this year, I think I might just have to stick with our current setup.

Well off to make a sandwich in my fresh-smelling kitchen.