Hello, gorgeous.

If you'll forgive me, I'm about to overload today with posts. There are several reasons for this:

1. I have a lot to say.
2. I only have a computer, two week's worth of clothing, a Chiweenie, and a deck of Uno cards to keep me entertained until Monday.
3. I like purple.

Not sure where that last one came from. It just felt right.

Anyway, us Bulls have been tinkering a bit with the house since we got to actually sleep in it. We're on an air mattress, we have no window coverings, and the house is completely covered in dust, but we are HERE. Because it's kind of a hurry-up-and-wait situation, we've been figuring out ways to entertain ourselves while waiting on contractors. While the painting was being done (because we hate painting AND had the budget for it, score), we had to vacate the house for a few hours. Art was at work and I had Peanut, which limited my entertainment possibilities.

So what did the pooch and I do? Drove to Tahoe. Natch!

Please. I live two hours away from this?? I wish the photos did it justice.

 You see there... Beach. Dock. Snow. Mountains. All of my favorite things in one location! I can't believe I live here. I mean, I don't live here... you know what I mean.

Peanut thoroughly enjoyed his FIRST walk on a beach. He also assured me that those big honking tracks on the beach were just a really big dog and not a really big bear.

It was still pretty chilly when we went, but I hear amazing things about the lake in the summer.

Hello, gorgeous.

No matter where you go along the water, you can see mountains. Amazing.

On our way back, we passed the most adorable little sign that said, "Dog Bakery." Pardon? I have a dog. So of course we stopped and little Peanuts trotted himself right on in to see this beauty.

Yes, those are all for dogs.

P-Brittle got a cheese straw...

... which he didn't really like.

He also got a chocolate covered squirrel (dog-friendly), which he ate so fast I didn't get to take another photo of it.

See ya around Tahoe, we will be back!

Maybe just for the dog treats. Maybe not.

Things we've done..

We closed on Rawlings! Yippee!! After a brief moment of buyer's remorse (What have we done?? I barely know how to hang drywall, how am I supposed to renovate a whole house??), we are back to being really excited. It's strange, we've only been in the house for four days, and we're sleeping on an air mattress and living out of suitcases, but it already feels like home. Floors are our their way, and painting commences tomorrow! Here's a little rundown on how we've spent our time:

We took lots of walks from the hotel to the house, wondering who that was parked in our driveway:

We "broke" into the backyard, Peanut chased a tennis ball, and I wondered what kind of landscaping would make the house look less like a prison:

We learned that rattlesnakes are in our neighborhood. I unexpectedly learned that I'd rather have rattlesnakes near a pond than scorpions in my curtains.

We ate sushi. A lot of sushi. Cuz we can.

We saw sheep.

We found a Mexican restaurant made totally of sunflowers!

We sampled some local beer (and wine!):

We saw more sheep.

Peanut decided he liked sheep.

Art got punched in the head at a thai restaurant.

Twice.

I tried to learn about "undertones."

I live in wine country, and still prefer $3 wine.

I made a quilt top!

We went to beautiful, breathtaking Napa.

Once we finally got into the house, I quickly realized that it looks eerily like my parents house in Ohio.

On day 2, we begun demo! Goodbye weird mantel/desk/particle-board-nailed-to-the-baseboards

Art got his aggression out by kicking down said mantel.

See? Nailed into the baseboards.

Boom. See ya.

Peanut asked to go home.

And hid.

Our painters arrived, commenting on how weird the previous homeowner was, and also how crappy of a job Fannie Mae did hiding the crazy. They started fixing all the ate up walls!

And the house just kept getting weirder. We found this...

And this...

And... this...

Before the painters came, we had the superfun project of taking everything off the walls... outlet covers, light fixtures, blinds, and all. Art wasn't home, so I took the power drill and went to down. I noticed one of the outlets was upside down, with the ground on the top, and that bugged me. I grabbed it, tried to turn it, and ZAP. Apparently those things have an electrical charge. I quit, and Art thankfully finished the job when he got home.

So, among the many things we've done since moving in, we also learned not to stick your fingers in a light socket. I wish someone would have told me that.

Still loving California... but stil homeless.

When we bought this foreclosure, we knew it would be a long while before we actually got to move in. We could have bought a brand new, hot-off-the-presses house and have our stuff already settled and organized. Instead, we chose a little money pit of a house and it's taking forever. We have a projected closing date of Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, before we can move in. Then, we have to have the house patched and painted, rip out carpet, wreck tile, and have new floors installed in the whole house before we can even think about moving anything in. Phew.

The military only pays for 10 days of hotels once you PCS, and our 10 days were up yesterday. In an amazing stroke of luck/fate/divine intervention, we met a fellow pilot out at Beale who just moved into a house half a mile away from Rawlings and who happened to leave for a week's vacation this morning. He offered to let us stay in his house for the week while we wait to close! Amazing. Beyond feeling extremely grateful for his generosity, I can't tell you how GOOD it feels to be in a house and not a hotel room. I love my husband, I love spending time with him, but I find myself getting antsy and frustrated when I'm 2 feet away from any person 24/7. Plus, it's the end of our restaurant fest that we've had going on since we got here. I also love eating out, but man I was getting sick of it. I just got back from the grocery store and I can't wait for a home cooked meal this evening!

While I don't mean to make this a blog post about finances, I will say this: California is expensive. California is even more expensive on one income. California on one income is even more expensive when you are trying to gut a house. Gutting a house in California on one income is very expensive when you expect to eat three meals a day.

My newest project, while waiting to destroy all the floors in my house (yippee, DIY!), is to figure out how to make a reasonable budget for grocery shopping and stick to it. In Del Rio, I tried to stay under $400/month, which I was usually able to do no problem, because we had lots of leftovers and I made a lot of my own stuff (chicken stock, bread, etc.). Everything in California is more expensive, but we're on a single income, so I can't raise that number. Because I am trying as hard as humanly possible to never set food inside a Walmart again, I'm also going to need to get into couponing and Costco-ing.

Oh, and I also need to get a job.

Does anyone have any tips for me on how to get started? With the budgeting thing, not the job thing. :)

A California Tease

(Things Part II Forthcoming... I officially cannot blog and have a job at the same time. )

I love California. Love love love. Love more than I thought I would. Love more than I remember from my childhood back and forth in the Bay Area. Knowing that I'll be sharing this wonderful life in this wonderful place with my favorite person in the world is the best feeling.

I spent a lot of my weekend feeling extremely blessed and grateful, almost to the point of guilt. I'm pretty sure it's my multiple personality as a Jewish grandmother (see this post), but guilt controls a lot of my life. In all seriousness, I'm overwhelmed with the idea that I am still young and I have most of the things I ever dreamed of having. I'm talking about more than contentedness... really, I'm having a hard time figuring out what else I could want out of life. IF I get the job that I have been drooling over for a while, I can't imagine anything more perfect. I am very grateful and very lucky.

This weekend we went house hunting. I was so excited to go, because this really was the first house hunting I'd ever done for a house I was actually going to buy. For the house we live in now, I pretty much saw pictures on the Internet, emailed them to Art, and said, "Just in case you ever get around to marrying me--this is THE house." It worked, because I love my house, but I was excited to actually LOOK this time. We were supposed to get to California on Thursday, so I took a half a day off of work so that we could drive out to San Antonio. Unfortunately, we connected through Phoenix and our flight was delayed, so we missed our connection to Sacramento and had to say the night in Phoenix. FORTUNATELY, our friends Stewie and Jess just PCS'd there, so we were able to hang out with them for the night.

That is the most amazing thing about the Air Force--it is remarkably small, so you have friends all over the place! We are so glad we got to see them and look forward to April when we see Lacey and Clay driving through Tuscon! And maybe I can convince Art to schedule an overseas vacay so we can see all of our friends over there. I'm sad that I don't get to see my friends as often, but I just love these serendipitous visits!

We finally arrived to Sacramento at about 9 a.m. on Friday, three hours before we were to meet with our realtor. We had found a house online that we really loved, Waverton, so that was our first stop. I was less than impressed with the neighborhood when we first got there. Lincoln is a really nice place and there are some beautiful homes and great scenery, but the lot sizes are so small it felt like the houses were leaning toward us and the street got smaller. The house itself was beautiful, but the "backyard" was laughable. I mean, I know we only have Peanut, but I spend a lot of time outside reading and just decompressing. I was so bummed out. I needed to see some more houses.

And more houses we saw. A lot more houses. All on narrow streets, all with tiny yards, all about two feet from the neighbors. In the middle of the afternoon, we came upon a house on a curve, Rawlings. The outside was dilapidated, and the first thing I noticed was the poor condition of the driveway and front courtyard. But man, the price was so right, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I always had a desire to buy a house and fix it up, so maybe this was the house I could do that in. (By the way, I say I... but I mostly mean Art. I will write checks to the contractor. I'm super good at that!) We got inside, and it was very evident that this house needed some serious fixing up. The floors were already ruined, there were holes in weird places, the face places of all the outlets had been ripped off, and each room with cabinets was missing about two or three drawers. However... the potential of this place was amazing. The living room had two stories of huge windows, a fireplace that could be gorgeous (once we put it back together), a brand new kitchen with granite counter tops, and a really cozy layout upstairs. Then... we went outside. The backyard was about twice the size of our current backyard. After seeing tiny postage stamp yards all day, I was sold. I loved this place. It needed love and some curtains, and it could be the dreamy, lodge-y, cozy place Art and I had talked about having in retirement. Did I mention the price was right?!

At the end of the day, we went back to Waverton. After a full day of tiny lots, the Waverton property was looking mighty fine. Plus those hardwood floors... I was in like. In California, you are not bound by contract when you put offers on houses, so you are allowed to write offers on multiple properties. It doesn't work that way in Texas, so we were a little leery, but trusted our realtor, Judy, and ended up writing offers on both. It was Friday, so we knew we probably wouldn't hear back from either that weekend, but at least we got the ball rolling. We finished Friday with dinner at one of the Thai restaurants in Lincoln. Art ordered a seafood dish that was not great, but my pad thai was amazing. Several times throughout the night, I just sat in our booth with my martini and admired the many races and ethnicities I could see. I really took this for granted living in Dayton (which is hardly known for its diversity)... but I really enjoy looking at lots of different colors of people, enjoying lots of different cultures, and having the opportunity to converse and share meals with people of all sorts of walks of life. It is one of the things I am most looking forward to when we move to California.

On Saturday morning, Judy wanted us to see two other properties in the area. One, Groveland, was across the street from a park, so it really felt much more open than the other houses we had seen. The backyard was unimpressive, boasting about two square feet of grass. Sorry, Peanut. The inside was amazing. This house is perfect. I had not expected to find a kitchen that rivals the one in Del Rio, but the Groveland kitchen is amazing. The upstairs had hardwood, it had adorable built ins, and lots of space. But the price... yikes. The price was at the very top of our budget, and even further than we were really comfortable spending.

The other house, Towle, was in the world's perfect neighborhood. I hadn't realized it, but moving to California, I was looking for my dad's old neighborhood in Saratoga. I wanted the wide streets, the wooded lots, the secluded houses. I mean... this is the view from the street of my dad's old house... can you even see the house? No. I loved that neighborhood. Maybe, someday. But this Towle neighborhood was damn close. Unfortunately, the house was a big letdown. It was small and tiled, and felt very Southwestern, a feel we are not into and didn't want. But you can bet I will be keeping my eye on that neighborhood, and taking walks there often! However, we left that day wanting to put an offer on the Groveland house as well.

Yes. Three offers. On three houses. In Texas, that would have meant that we could have bought ourselves three houses. In California, whatever. So three houses it was!

Saturday night we grilled out with a few people in Art's new squadron, and I was so excited by how nice everyone was. Now, let me tell you something. Military people are nice. You know why? They can't afford to be mean, because friends cycle in and out so frequently. Friends need to be made fast and often, so you will generally find yourself around very warm, confident, kind people. I love that about the military, and I loved meeting all the Beale pilots and their wives. I think we are going to fit right in this community. (Grateful, again.)

Sunday morning we went to 10 a.m. Mass at what will be our new Church! The Church is new and modern, but really beautiful and I really enjoyed Mass... especially when the priest derobed to reveal his 49ers jersey! I didn't even get a chance to pray for the usual stuff... health, family members, etc., because I was so busy being thankful. What a position to be in!

We spent the rest of the day exploring the area and meeting more Beale folks. Our friend Trigger, who used to live two doors down from us in Del Rio, just bought a house in Roseville, so we went to see that (it's gorgeous!) and watch some football where he is staying while his house is being built. We made it an early dinner at a downtown Italian restaurant, and I discovered something else I'm going to love about California: Wine. Surprised? Ha. The local Lincoln winery produced a red blend that I loved... here's to you, Cali Cali.

I will continue our episode of House Hunters when we know! :)