Text Talk: Week 8

Well folks, my personal productivity level has hit an all time low. I'm on day three of coffee withdrawals, and boy oh boy, it's a doozy. I've been noticing lately that I've become a light sleeping rage-aholic and my only explanation is the amount of coffee I've been drinking. I've never believed it before that coffee is a mind and mood altering drug that is highly addictive, but I'm coming to understand that it's true. There have been so many time in these last few days that I've tried tricking myself into thinking it's okay to just have one cup. The justifying is CRAZY!! But even just after three days of no coffee, I'm sleeping better (as in the deep REM sleep) and I'm slower to react to things that would otherwise annoy me. Thank god, we were venturing into very dangerous territory, like when Ryan was taking Chantex to quit smoking.

All of that aside, I have been able to finish a few books in the last couple of weeks- my reading productivity still holds strong. I'm not going to lie, about a week ago, I had images of grandeur when I was going to partake in a 30 day reading challenge. I failed about four days in. The challenge was to read 300 pages a day (ha) which I changed to fit my lifestyle to 150 pages a day (still ha). One of these days I'll get on reading that much, but for now, I'm averaging about a book a week, sometimes less. Here's what I've been enjoying:

Title: Let the Right One In
Author: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Genre: Horror
Pages: 513

Reaction: I am so confused by this book, even still. I heard that people were saying it was one of the scariest books they've ever read... Nope. It is about a vampire, there are some overly graphic scenes (think Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and there are some very tense moments, but I was ready to get the bejesus scared out of me. Oh expectations. This was very Swedish noir feeling, with subject matter that was very strange in nature. I don't know that at the end of the book I felt any resolve or real understanding of what I had just read.

Rating: C+

Title: If I Stay
Author: Gayle Foreman
Genre: Contemporary YA
Pages: 201

Reaction: On average, I don't know what a book is going to be about before I start reading it. I don't like to know, it makes it all the more interesting for me. I had a vague idea this was about a girl who was in an accident, but I didn't expect the sob-fest that ensued.  This was a very touching novel that I liked a lot more than I expected to, it's also ignited a drive in me to read more contemporary YA fiction. There is a second book that I am highly looking forward to reading soon!!

Rating: A-

Title: Ender's Game
Author: Orson Scott Card
Genre: Sci-Fi
Pages: 324

Reaction: I didn't read this book as a child like so many others. At that point, I wasn't into Sci-Fi, it didn't make sense to me. I remember sitting down with The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and being so confused on why so many people loved it. From that point on, I think Sci-Fi was off my list of respected genres, I was a book snob, even back then. But now that I'm a little older and I've seen Tron (and Ender's Game is coming to the big screen this fall), I'm ready to take this book on (Daft Punk plays in my head every time I pick this book up). I'm currently about 40 pages in, so I'll be back with my overall feel of this book later!

Books Added to the Library This Week:

Title: The History of Love
Author: Nicole Krauss
Genre: Contemporary
History Behind My Choice: I'm trying to remember, but I think this was a Goodreads recommendation. I saw it come on Bookmooch one day a few weeks ago and nabbed it without really thinking anything of it. I can't tell you what it's about (see above explanation) but I'm willing to give it a go.

Title: These Hidden Things
Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Genre: Mystery
History Behind My Choice: This was a booktuber recommendation, plus I always love a good mystery. It's not often mysteries center around a young female protagonist, so I had to pick this one up. As I've said before, I grew up on Earl Emerson books, so I'm always looking for something that's going to get my heart racing.

Title: Diamond Ruby
Author: Joseph Wallace
Genre: Historical Fiction
History Behind My Choice: A few months back I watched Field of Dreams again and I fell back in love with the idea of the American Spirit and along with that, the great American Pastime, baseball. I started Google-ing best baseball books, and here we go! This along with The Art of Fielding are what I have added to my collection. I just want to take a minute though to admire the cover of this book. It's a mix of everything Americana + Great Gatsby to some extent. Love.

Title: Alanna
Author: Tamora Pierce
Genre: Fantasy/High Fantasy
History Behind My Choice: I've been meaning to pick up a woman fantasy author for a while now like Ursula K. Le Guin or Tamora Pierce. Sometimes it's hard for me to get beyond the completely ridiculous covers, but this one seemed alright to me. After reading Name of the Wind, I've been wanting to get into another High Fantasy series, so I'm giving this one a try!

Title: The Golden Compass
Author: Phillip Pullman
Genre: Fantasy
History Behind My Choice: Last, but not least, I picked up The Golden Compass. I loved this book growing up, but I gave it away a while back. I have been craving a reread of this book, so when I saw this copy on Bookmooch, I swooped it up!

Week in Photos: Week 24

What a great week Ryan and I have had! Between doing an early birthday celebration with his family in Chelan and Father's Day, I've got some fabulous photos to share!

Saturday, June 8th: I have been waiting to read the book Let the Right One In for a long time now. It's an adult horror/vampire novel written by a Swedish author. I've heard that it was the next best adult vampire book since Dracula. So far so good. The best thing that happened though was Peanut meeting this book. One night as I was doing some casual reading and YouTubing, I look over and Peanut is biting the vampire book. So ironic. I just had to snap a pic.

Tuesday, June 11th: A while back, I discovered a recipe for a pasta dish Ryan fondly refers to as "God Pasta". It doesn't have any meat in it, so I was totally blown away when Ryan absolutely loved it. He's the kind of guy that says if dinner doesn't have some kind of meat product, it's not worth eating. It's been a long time since I've cooked at home- Ryan and I now just eat at the treatment facility for every meal, so this was a special event. With it being a special event, I found occasion for busting out this little kitties when measuring out the olive oil. I got these as a stocking stuffer from Ryan's mom Dian and I think they are so adorable! Makes the whole dinner process so much happier!

Thursday, June 13th: We've been having some really glorious weather in the Long Beach/Astoria area lately. On Thursday, as a parting gift before a three day weekend for myself and Ryan, I took the ladies of KLEAN on a beach walk. I couldn't have asked for a sunnier day! On the way back, I even got to stop and pick some wild beach strawberries, so delicious!

Friday, June 14th: As one of Ryan's birthday week requests, he wanted me to come to Bear Mountain with him while he golfed. This is a fabulous course in Chelan that originally started as a private course (ranging from about $150-250 a round) which since has opened its doors to the public. He's golfed it a few times before and I have been absent on all of those occasions. So he made an 8:30 AM tee time, I got myself some coffee and off we went! It was a breathtaking course with views of the lake and entire city.

Friday, June 14th: I was clearly very engaged with what Ryan was doing on the course. The butterflies totally had my entire attention. There were a few occasions when Ryan hit some really amazing shots that I didn't see at all because I was otherwise engaged. Poor man.

Saturday, June 15th: It had been a number of years since I last ventured up to Blueberry Hills in Mason, WA. Ryan and I were here back in the summer of 2009, right after I graduated college. This time was an entirely different experience, the views and smells were stunning. The whole place is surrounded by lavender which for me is a favorite.

Saturday, June 15th: One of the best things about Blueberry Hills is that they have you-pick berries during the spring and summer months. Typically people only go there for blueberries, thus the name, but they weren't quite ready yet, so therefore, we got strawberries instead! Even though Ryan grew up in Chelan, he had never picked fresh berries before! It was a delightful treat for us to chomp on some fresh strawberries and get a chance to get out in the sunshine!

Saturday, June 15th: Every year, I try to top my birthday presents from the previous year. I love giving gifts. I love giving thoughtful gifts actually. Something I know the person is going to truly love. So for Ryan this year, I had my eye on some concert tickets, City and Colour to be exact. Ryan loves Dallas Green so I knew this would be the perfect gift. Only problem was that Dallas wasn't coming to Seattle or Portland. The closest venues to us were Oakland or Vegas. I threw both ideas around in my head and finally settled on asking Ryan's mom if she would pay for us to fly down to San Francisco and stay there with them on their annual California trip... and she went for it! So in October of this year, we will be having a wonderful time in the Bay Area all thanks to Ryan for having a birthday!

Sunday, June 16th: Not only did I get to see my dad on Father's Day, but my oldest kitty Gina. We've had her for almost as long as I can remember. She's this wonderful little six toed kitty that has somehow managed to defy all odds and become the last standing Briggs kitty. I wanted to take a snapshot of her to have just in case something were to happen to her- she is almost 17 after all! I'm a cat person through and through.

Counter Conclusions

Last I left off with the house situation, Ryan and I were about to do a second walk through of the wonderful 1800's Victorian, and were thinking of putting in an offer. Since, we actually have put in an offer and have verbally accepted a counter with plans to sign the paperwork on Monday! I'll go over what we've been through up to this point:

5/27/2013: Upon meeting our realtor at the house to do a second walk through with Ryan's dad, we found out the house in a short sale. At first, this turned my stomach. I didn't really know what this meant and from anything I had heard previously, it was going to be a bad deal. Thankfully with the help of our realtor (who is experienced in short sales), we were able to come to terms with this and move forward. The definition of a "short sale" is a property whose debts outweigh it's worth. Basically, our seller bought the house in 2006 for $237,000 and it's now worth a lot less and the seller cannot afford to repay the loan he has on the house. The bank has accepted the house back at $135,000 from the seller, and thus, we get the asking price of $139,900.

5/30/2013: After a few days of talking, Ryan and I decided we were ready to put in an offer. To limit the amount of money we would pay out of pocket, we decided to offer full price for the house with the bank paying closing costs (about $6500). Ryan and I both agreed that we didn't want to go into homeownership penny less, so the least we could pay up front, the better. It was a lonnnnnnng few days before we heard anything.

My view from signing day.

6/2/2013: Ryan and I were feeling good about our offer. To be honest, we kind of thought we would at least hear back from the seller by Friday, but there was no word. I'm not sure how most short sales work, but with ours, the seller and the bank had to approve our offer before we could move forward. We went into the weekend anxiously awaiting word, only to hear nothing until Sunday evening. We ran into our realtor at a going away party for a friend and she told us there might be another offer on the house- GASP!!! At this point in my head, I basically said "screw it" because there is no way Ryan and I could get into a bidding war for this house. The panic set in and we were both kind of a mess. We started assessing other options, I was hounding Craigslist for new apartments like it was my job, and we were both pretty unhappy at this point.

6/3/2013: We found out the offer we had been so worried about was a low ball offer, one that was almost laughable and that our offer was being sent to the bank for approval. At this point, the seller still hasn't approved our offer, I'll be interested to hear what his hold up is. We did put a clause in our offer that said he needed to get the HUGE old, rotting hot tube off the deck before we would move in, I'm curious to know if that's deterring him.

6/5/2013: The bank countered our offer, giving us 48 hours to respond. This is where Ryan gets really annoyed and resentful towards the offer/house. What the bank countered with is that they would "pay closing costs" with the sale price of the house being $6500 more than we offered. Now, I get kind of confused, maybe I'll have Ryan come do an update to try to explain what happened. So basically, they raised the price of the asking price so that our closing costs were wrapped up into our loan. So now instead of paying $139,900 and $1,000 out of pocket, we're going to pay $143,000 with $3,000 out of pocket. This set us back a little. We had to really think on this. I'm a penny pincher by nature and being like $2,000 from me+Ryan and the street scares the shit out of me. About $2,000 is what we would be left with in savings after doing this transaction. This is where again I started looking at Craigslist and inquiring about different places. The apartment that we've been wanting for the last couple of years now came back online and we had thrown around the idea of moving in there to save money and lower costs. At one point, both Ryan and I had agreed we weren't going to do the house deal because a) we were scared, b) we were pissed at the bank and c) we couldn't afford it.

But then something happened. We both went to bed Thursday night, 24 hours left to decide to counter, walk away or accept, and our whole outlook changed. When I came out of the shower yesterday morning, I was convinced getting the house was in our best interest, knowing that we could make it work, then I saw this quote:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage" -Anais Nin

That solidified it for me. I told Ryan how I was feeling and he said he felt the same!! So last night, as of 5:00 PM, we have a verbal mutual acceptance of the counter!

What This Means Now:

Come Monday when we actually sign the acceptance papers, we have 10 business days to do an inspection on the house. We have been given a few names in the area and we are going to have a contractor friend come down to do the walk through with us as well. We want to know what we are looking at. After the inspection, we've reached the point of no return I think. Our realtor says we're at least 30-45 days from closing, so we'll be giving notice to our landlord that next month will be our last living in our little bungalow, and then we will be homeowners.... SCARY!!! I often ponder aloud, when the hell did I become an adult?? It's scary shit.

Ryan and I have been cooking up many plans in our heads as far as changes we're going to make, updates to be done and so many other things. In another post I want to break down the financial piece of the house, detailing how we can afford a house this large, what our monthly costs are going to look like and how I'm working to save us so money at the same time. This is an exciting time and I hope to share all of our experiences along the way, so stay tuned!!!

A Week in Photo: Weeks 20-23

It's been a while for some photos. I think being so busy and having my mind be consumed by this whole house buying thing has put me in a strange state. I've been slowly compiling pictures over the past few weeks so here's what we've been up to!!

Saturday, May 18th: There are few books that I would spend my precious sleeping hours on. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is one of those books though. Marley and I stayed up late into the night trying to power through this high adrenaline quest! 

Monday, May 20th: Months and months ago, Ryan's mother gifted us this wonderful espresso maker... And we haven't used it once. It works perfectly and there's even a milk steamer! I finally gave in to using it when I was in a major caffeine withdrawal. Every morning now Ryan and I have been drinking espresso shots and saving money not going to our beloved coffee stand on the way to work. Buying a house changes your life folks.

Wednesday, May 22nd: I have been on a huge oatmeal kick lately. Usually I bring my own from home, but on this day, our head chef Vinessa made oatmeal bar!!! It literally was the best day of my life. Fresh strawberries, cranberries and dried coconut topped this bowl of joy, my mouth was happy for hours!

Saturday, May 25th: The Astoria Alano Club is a special place for me. The best way I can describe it is like going to church. For me is a sacred room where I can go and fully be myself without judgement or fear. With its stained yellow shag carpet and Goodwill couches, I can't help but to keep coming back. After 650 days of sobriety, this place still gets me.

Saturday, May 25th: After Ryan and I got our bank approval, we decided to start looking for houses. We sat down over indian food and talked about what our future home must have in order for us to consider putting an offer in. Typical to my first-born-perfectionist-listmaking-self, I made a check off sheet for every house we visited. This was a tip I picked up from the interwebs, because apparently if you see enough homes, they all start to blend together. I took detailed notes, and started crossing houses off the list as we went.

Sunday, May 26th: As I've said before, Sunday's are my days with Ryan. I think it's important as a hard working couple to take at least one day of the weekend (and a couple during the week) where you devote to your mate. We have busy free time schedules so some days it seems like we don't even see each other even though we work at the same place! Sunday's are also Ryan's day to sleep in, so I was able to snap this picture of him and our boy snuggling up for the perfect lazy Sunday day.

Thursday, May 30th: After we went on our house hunting expedition, we found the perfect house (well, it hit the most of our boxes and it was really inspirational). We hemmed and hawed for a few days until we couldn't stand it anymore, so we put in an offer. Our realtor was really great about explaining the huge packet we had to sign, and we felt good about the offer we were submitting. Only once durning the whole process did I have a moment where the voice in my head said, "oh f*ck, oh f*ck, oh f*ck. ABORT!!!" 

Friday, May 31st: This is a warning to all indoor cat owners who leave their kitties with little to no food over a 10 hour period. You will have a kitty tornado on your hands. We came home to this scene, cat food bags littered about the floor, mail strewn everywhere and mayhem ensuing. 

Tuesday, June 4th: The hipster scene has moved to Astoria. Evidence of this is seen outside of my favorite eatery, the Astoria Coffee House. Tuesday nights after my women's meeting, a big group of ladies go out to dinner and the coffee house is usually the spot. The trees obviously need to be wrapped in sweaters to be able to bare the crappy year round weather we endure, and they look so pretty while doing it!

Thursday, June 6th: Today marks the first day of the Goonies Celebration! This year is the 25th anniversary of this life changing movie, and people will be flooding the town to celebrate!! They are trying to get together enough people tonight to do the worlds largest Truffle Shuffle, there will be tours of the Goonies house on Sunday and an 80's music dance off tomorrow evening. Goonies never say die! I know what I'll be watching this weekend!!!

Text Talk: Week 7

I'll preface this by saying I have been buying much more than I have been reading. It's been easier to go out and buy a book at the current moment than it has been to get into reading one. I've been in what every book lover knows as the dreaded slump. Between working crazy hours and house hunting (as well as a serious Law and Order SVU addiction (I'm well into the 6th season)), reading has been put on hold. I don't know if it was that I loved my last read so much, Ready Player One, that I can't get into another book, but it just hasn't sounded appealing up until today. That's right, a whole week+ without reading a book. I'm falling off my game friends.

How I think I managed to climb out of the rut I found myself in was to go on Goodreads and peruse the books I have marked as "to-read-already-own". I walk by my mound of books on a daily basis, they are stacked in the landing into my bedroom, but I think I've become numb to them. I needed to refresh my mind as to what I have and what worlds I could be immersing myself in. I felt like I needed something light and airy (since it's been gorgeous weather here today) so I settled on this:

Title: Safe Haven

Author: Nicolas Sparks

Genre: Contemporary/ Love Story

Pages: 340

Reaction: I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book before. To be honest, I never wanted to be "that girl" who read the sappy crap and who swooned over everything Mr. Sparks produced. I judged those girls, harshly and critically without question. All books at Goodwill in Eugene a while back were $1.00. That's where I acquired this gem. I didn't think too much of it but I figured I would give it a shot. Since being in recovery I've definitely learned you can't judge a book by it's cover and to be weary of contempt prior to investigation. I'll tell you though, so far this book is exactly what I've been needing. It's hard to put down too! I'm liking everything about it so far!!

Books Added to the Library This Week:

Title: Atlas Shrugged

Author: Ayn Rand

Genre: Classics

History Behind My Choice: First, I will say that I didn't buy this book for myself. My wonderful boss purchased this for me since we've been talking about it for awhile. I heard that Atlas Shrugged has some wonderful female characters as well as a thought provoking tale. This is among one of Ryan's mother's favorite books, so there was no way I couldn't read it since I loved her previous suggestion (The Shoe Maker's Wife) so much. 

Title: If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman

Genre: YA Contemporary

History Behind My Choice: This is another BookTuber rave. I've been trying to mix up some of my YA Paranormal/YA Dystopian choices with some YA Contemporary so that I don't get sick of the genre, and I'm not typically interested in Contemporary novels, but I thought I would give one a try. This one is also set in Oregon, so that's always a plus.

Title: Beautiful Ruins

Author: Jess Walter

Genre: Historical Fiction

History Behind My Choice: This was a Goodreads find. Every year they do a "Reader's Choice" best books of the year contest, and this was a nominee that had caught my eye under the "Fiction" category. I saw it at Goodwill today for $2.99 and I couldn't pass it up. Also I've been fiending for an Italy fix- I picked up and put down "Under the Tuscan Sun" in one day, like I literally shipped it out the same day I picked it up to start reading it, that's how bad it was. This book has scenes that take place in Italy so hopefully that will satisfy me!

Title: Hacking Harvard

Author: Robin Wasserman

Genre: YA Fiction

History Behind My Choice: This was kind of a Goodwill impulse buy, I really have no explanation for it other than I thought it sounded interesting and light. We shall see. I think what happened to me in Goodwill was the equivalent to what happens to me in Barnes and Nobel: I go crazy with all the possibilities! Thankfully though, the book prices in Goodwill are a lot more bank account friendly.

Title: Let the Great World Spin

Author: Colum McCann

Genre: Historical Fiction

History Behind My Choice: This was another Goodreads Reader's Choice nominees that caught my eye. From what I gather, it has interweaving stories that center around 1974 NYC when the tightrope walker walked between the twin towers. I've been seeing that the documentary "Man on Wire" was really amazing so I thought this might equally be as good (this is how my mind works...)

Title: The Time Traveler's Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Genre: Romance

History Behind My Choice: I don't think I really need to explain this choice. When I say (to my bookish friends) "Oh, yeah I haven't read that, but I've seen the movie", there are screams that go out. I'm finally on the bandwagon.

Title: Peace Like A River

Author: Leif Enger

Genre: Fiction

History Behind My Choice: Another random Goodwill grab/ Goodreads find. I've been being recommended this book for a long while now, I finally saw it in public and picked it up. I think it was the write-ups on the back that finally persuaded me. Yes, I'm a sucker, the publisher got me, hook-line-and-sinker. They only got me for $2.99 though! Mark that in the win column!!