An answer to prayers

Not in the way that we would have wanted our prayers answered, but alas, they are answered. I thank you for the prayers, it was a hard time. Prayers do work!

As my mother-in-law finished up our state taxes, she saw that my employer wasn't taking any local taxes out, and so we owe a large sum of money to the state now. This sudden bill drained our savings account down to just about nothing, so a house is out of the question. As much as it's terrible we owe this money, it's an answer to prayers since we didn't know if we wanted to buy a house in Maryland, stay in our apartment, or move back to Pennsylvania. While this doesn't answer all of our prayers, it does knock one out.

We'll still be turning to God for answers regarding when we start our family, and when the timing is right for our move back to Pennsylvania, but right now, I feel at peace. I know that this is an answer from God in regards to our questions. We'll stay in our apartment now. No, we don't love our apartment, but it is a nice place, it has plenty of space for just the two of us. Maybe we'll have time now to go through our stuff and get rid of things we don't need, clean up and organize everything before we move back to Pennsylvania. Everything happens for a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is.

WI Wednesday and Weekly Reflections

Score! The scale is going in the right direction - FINALLY!

I know that it was due to my own fault, no one was forcing me to eat the junk food I was eating, but I got my motivation back. Took a few weeks, but as I was talking about it with a co-worker, I stayed within 3 pounds of my lowest weight, which means I can maintain successfully. Yes, I still have 20ish pounds go loose, but I learned something.

Anyways, I did loose this week, and I'm down 1.2 from last Wednesday. I can get the scale moving in the right direction now. Summer is coming, graduation is coming, and I want to feel good about myself!

My goals for last week went pretty successfully, too!

1. I tracked everything! Even my Burger King, Rita's, Sheetz and I still have a good loss!

2. Work out 3x - WIN! I went to the gym last Wednesday for an awesome run, went to my spinning class on Thursday, and went for a long (mostly) walk, little run on Monday when it was beautiful out.

3. As for my papers, both were a fail. I am going to be interviewing my uncle for my seminar paper, but I haven't had time yet to start my Native American paper, although I did pick a topic.

4. My daily devotions - another win. I look forward to this time every morning, where I can spend time in God's word, read a devotion and pray for God to impact my life that way.

5. I like to think that I've been a good wife this past week, but I've had my moments. Everyone does though. I do think I've done a pretty good job though.

Next week's (4/6 - 4/12) goals:

- Continue tracking everything. I'm going to NYC this weekend, but I plan on tracking whatever I eat.

- Keep emptying our freezer. We're coming up short on money since we owe a HUGE chunk of taxes this year, that came out of nowhere, so we don't have a ton of money to buy new foods each week. I think we're going to have to be pretty creative and start emptying our pantry and freezer.

- Work out 3x again.

- Start on my seminar paper.

- Get a bibliography started for the Native American paper

Happy Hump Day!

When to move?

This is what's been on my mind in the past few days.

We were looking at houses, and we did find one we really liked, but the weekend we put an offer on it, someone else did too, and we didn't get the house. We have a pretty low budget ($100K) and there aren't too many houses that we could get. Okay, scratch that - there are a lot of houses, but a TON of them are short sales. I mean, out of 54 houses, 50 of them are short sales.

Another factor is that the houses in the "city" - and I say it like that because it's not like NYC or another huge city, but it is a city - have really expensive taxes. Like, $3,500+ in taxes each year, and we can't pay that on top of a $700/month mortgage. We're getting frustrated, really frustrated. So this leads us to ponder the idea of moving back to Pennsylvania earlier than anticipated.

I'm not sure if I've explained this at all, so I'll explain it now:

Mr. Skinny's grandparents, at one point, owned about 20 acres of land in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA). They bought it with the purpose of giving to their kids and grandkids to build on. My in-laws and Mr. Skinny's aunt and her family both have their houses on the land, which was given to them. Now Mr. Skinny's cousin has his land, and we're next in line for getting the land. Mr. Skinny has the land all organized, and we actually started clearing the land last spring, as well as getting it "perked" for a septic tank at some point in the next few years. We've always known that we want to move back there, heck, I've known that was a requirement since I started dating Mr. Skinny wayyy back in 2004. Ideally, I wanted to stay in Maryland until we had babies, since NEPA doesn't really have a ton of jobs in the history profession. But with everything that happened with Pop Pop, we feel like God is calling us to move back to NEPA sooner rather than later.

The 3 1/2 hour, 200 mile drive home at least once a month, if not twice a month is really getting to us. We can't stand our apartment, we have to walk up 39 steps before we walk through our back door, which doesn't have a lock, only a dead bolt lock (seriously, who does that?), wasps like to chill on our back porch light every summer, which is where the washer and dryer are (it's a back room more than a back porch), and the porch is slanted, you feel like you're walking down a hill, or like the back of the building is going to fall off. It's not insulated and when it's really windy, the attic door doesn't stay shut and it makes it seem haunted.

I love the area, I truly do, and I wish that we could move our families down to Maryland and we'd stay here forever. Mr. Skinny has a really good job down here, and I'd have a better chance to get a job in my field down here, but then why isn't the house aspect working out for us? Are we really meant to stay in our apartment for another year until we move back?

We're not on a strict timeline - since both of our parents are in NEPA, we can move back in with one of them until we find an apartment or buy a house, or whatever we decide to do. We do need jobs though, preferably for both of us, and not paying rent would help us a lot, even for a few months to just get us back on our feet. We're having a little financial trouble right now because I'm working part time and Mr. Skinny has had a few extra rain days in March, when we never really caught up from taking about a week off when Pop Pop was going downhill, and for his funeral and such.

So we're stuck. We know we're going to move to NEPA eventually, and probably sooner than later, but what do we do about a house? Find a new apartment? Hold out for a house? Move back to NEPA this summer, or as soon as we find jobs? Only God knows the answers, and we really need to turn to him for guidance and direction.

WI wednesday and house update

House update

First things first. We didn't get the house. It was on the marker for 80+ days and the weekend we put an offer in, someone else does, too. Awesome. So we're back to square one. We probably won't be able to look at any houses until I get back from Disney World since that's 2 weekends that are shot.

Most of the houses in our price range are in need of some level of renovation. Honestly, I'd be okay with getting a house that's move in ready, we'll slowly save our money and redo each room at a time, and hopefully we can make a pretty penny on it when we sell it in a few years.

When we talked to my in-laws on Saturday, they seemed all excited for us. Once we told them we put an offer in, my FIL was worried that we wouldn't be able to back out of it if something was majorly wrong. We assured him that we still could, but I think it really hurt Mr. Skinny knowing that we didn't have his dad's blessing to move onto the next step of a house. Neither set of parents, mine or his, ever bought a house, so they don't know the process, and were worried when we put an offer in without the home inspection. They didn't know we had to put an offer in in order to get the utilities turned on for the home inspector. Oh well. The right house is out there somewhere. God has a plan for us.

WI results

I lost again! I'm down 2.2 pounds from last Wednesday! I'm still 0.8 away from my lowest before Pop Pop went downhill and passed away, but I'm getting there. And this weekend I had wine and 1/4 of a box of brownies!

I'm worried about Disney though, I don't want to come home and have gained and I'll have to loose that weight AGAIN. I'm really hoping that I can focus on portion sizes and stopping myself when I'm satisfied and before I'm completely stuffed that I feel disgusting and terrible. I also know what we'll be walking a LOT! I've heard people say they took a pedometer and have walked anywhere from 13 miles to 18 miles in one day, so I'll be getting my exercise, for sure. I'm also going to take some peanut butter, some bread and apples that I can take some snacks with me while I'm walking around the parks, and to save money and hopefully not buy those cute little mickey ice creams!

We have the dining plan, so we'll have one good meal every day, but that meal includes an appetizer for each of us, as well as a dessert. I just need to focus on hunger signals.

What's your strategy when you're on vacation?

weekend update!

1. I tried 2 new foods this weekend: brussel sprouts on Friday, and butternut squash soup yesterday.
-Brussel sprouts were good, I sauteed them in olive oil mixed with onion and garlic. Butternut squash soup was a fail. It took FOREVER to make and we didn't like it. I actually had a breakdown in the middle of cooking it because I filled the food processor too much and it started overflowing and I couldn't figure out how to pour it out. Mr. Skinny came to save the day, thank goodness. After all that work we didn't even like it and threw the whole thing out, not to mention the fact that we weren't eating dinner until close to 7pm and I felt like a terrible wife for feeding my husband so late.

2. We put an offer on that house!
-When we went to see it yesterday it was POURING! And I mean a downpour! The roof wasn't leaking, the water heater was replaced in 2005, the central a/c unit in 2003. Water was running away from the house, and the foundation was not cracked, from what we could see. The house was listed at $76,500 and we offered $75,000, and we're just hoping there aren't any more offers on the house that came in over the weekend. This is the only house in our price range that isn't in need of a complete remodel/renovation.

3. I started getting my summer clothes out!
-I'm leaving for sunny Florida is just 6 short days. I have a lot of stuff to do within those days (homework, cooking for Mr. Skinny, homework, pack, homework, you get the drift), so I pulled my summer clothes out and started packing this past weekend. One good thing is that the clothes I bought in summer 2009 when I lost 20 pounds fit me again! I was so excited, and I'm taking wayyy too many clothes, but that's a girl. I don't exactly know the weather, I want some options while I'm down there, I have to take a lot of clothes! On a side note, I'm glad my Momma doesn't take a lot of clothes, I might have to overflow into her suitcase! :)

4. I'm starting to stress.
-School. Sucks. Correction: Senior Seminar Research sucks. Seriously. I'm doing a paper (15-20 pages) on my paternal grandfather. He was a WWI vet, owned a machine shop, born in 1895 (he was 23 years older than my grandma, creepy, but not my call) and seemed to have an interesting life. I need to have 8 billion sources. Okay, more like 24 or something, and I have to know all the sources by March 24th. Yeah, it sucks. I have an outline, but I can't find the answers to any of my questions. I'm really starting to stress over it. I'm worried I won't find the information I need and I won't be able to write my paper, and I won't be able to graduate! It's on my mind constantly and I don't know what to do about it. I want to work on it, I want to write a paper on it, I'm just nervous it's going to suck. Sigh, I just have to keep working. I'm so nervous I'm not going to enjoy Disney World just because I know I have this to come home to. I don't want to ruin my vacation!

Serious, I rarely, rarely stress. But this is such an important paper and I don't know that I can do it, and it's worrying me so bad.

So yeah, I need to keep myself working on homework this week, and I hope I can enjoy my vacation. Any words of advice or motivation?

How do you deal with stress?

super girly time is ova...

BFFs just left. They both filled me in on their relationships. The one that is in a relationship is nervous about it, she's just not relationship material. The other is moving very slowly in her near-relationship, and it's so adorable to watch her.

There were some brownies cooked, some wine drank, and all that remains are empty wine bottles and glasses and an empty brownie pan. It was delicious.

My last glass of wine. Excuse the no makeup - it is Saturday.

When the BFFs got here, Liar Liar was on. I love that move -- no matter how many times I watch it I still laugh every time. I don't think a movie like that could come out anymore. People only want "adult humor" not just funny humor. Once Liar Liar was over we decided to watch Harry Potter. If you didn't know, I'm a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. Nerd like I've read the whole series at least 10 times, as a whole, since Deathly Hallows came out. I've seen Sorcerer's Stone probably upwards of 50 times and could most likely recite the entire movie.

My friends and I go on tangent's, randomly, during the movies which makes us quite unwanted with any non HP fans because we barely watch the movie, we talk, about HP during most of the movies. Some of our tangent's today included what if the series took place in a Jersey Shore setting; what kind of spells the students ask their sex ed. professor if Hogwarts had such a class, and the therapy sessions of Snape and Malfoy. Yes. We're THAT big of nerds.

House News!

We're going to see the house tomorrow! I really, really hope there's nothing wrong with it -- it's being sold as is, and it's a foreclosed house. My FIL was a house inspector at one point, certified just a few years ago, and he was looking through the pictures on the website and he said it looked really good from what he could see. Hopefully he can come down sometime and seriously inspect it. I just hope that there's not anything majorly wrong with it.

That's really the only house in the running for us, most of the other houses in our very low budget we have are in need of complete renovation, or it's a trailer. I'm sorry, I can't live in a trailer. I need somewhat of a house.

Please pray for us that we find a house, and I'm really praying that this house works out. I'll keep you posted. Have a great weekend!

finally friday

Since this is my first full week back to work and school since everything happened with Pop Pop, I feel like this week has been so long! I'm rather happy that it's finally Friday!

I don't have a lot going on this weekend, but I am planning for some Super Girly Time with two of my besties from college. I don't get to see them much, and we need some catch-up time. Apparently both of them are on the verge of being in a relationship and I didn't know this! They wanted to tell me in person, and I saw a glimpse of one yesterday and she blurted it out--I was in shock! I've known these girls throughout college and we've seen each other through it all. They were the first I told when I got engaged and they were there through all the wedding planning.

Other than Super Girly Time, there will be some packing, some cleaning, a lot of cooking, and a lot of homework and maybe even a house showing?! Yes, you read that right, we might be buying a house!!! Mr. Skinny absolutely hates living in our apartment, and I get rather annoyed with it as well.

Reasons why?
-I have to climb 39 steps to get into the apt. This means any groceries, heavy bags, suitcases need to be drug up 39 steps.
-My kitchen is miniscule. No lie. I have about 10-12 inches of counterspace on either side of my sink and that's it. That's it people! I can't cook in those conditions.
-The dining room table is on the opposite end of the apartment.
-There's a creepy attic door that opens and closes when it's windy
-The whole building shakes when it's really windy
-There's no where near enough outlets. For example, our microwave, toaster over, toaster, coffeepot, lamp, cell phone chargers and television are all plugged into one outlet. Yeah, I know it's not safe, but what are we supposed to do?

We have been dreaming of buying a house for quite a long time, and went our driving around the neighborhood a few months ago, and found a house we really liked. Lo and behold, it's still for sale, and we still like it! It's a half of a duplex, but it has a nice yard. I think the best part is that there are only 3 steps to get in the house! 3 steps! That's so nice!

Mr. Skinny can't stand paying rent when we won't be getting anything out of it. I'm just not looking forward to packing everything up. I'm going to try to not get my hopes up though, if for some reason we can't get it, I don't want to be so upset. We haven't even seen any houses yet, we just got the pre-approval and started looking at houses online. God will lead us to the right decision, whatever it is.

Oh! Last night I went to a spinning class, it was really great. If you remember, I went to one in January and didn't like it. This one was a lot better. The instructor was nice, plus it was great to actually know someone in the class. I think I might actually stick to this class!

Happy Friday!