We have a house

We have been new homeowners for nearly seven and a half hours now. Our closing was delayed slightly because the seller's agent was late -- he was waiting for Lance Armstrong and Robin Williams to show up at his house. They're staying with him this weekend, presumably for the race.

After the closing, we went to Lowe's for a toilet, a kitchen faucet, and paint. 23 gallons of paint. We'll be painting all weekend. Stop by and we'll let you try out our new paint brush.

I can't believe we have a house!

In other news, I have no Internet at home. My borrowed router isn't working, and I'm not going to go buy one when I'm moving in a week and a half. I miss the Internet, but I'm getting a lot more packing done than I was.

First-half-of-weekend update

Steph and I went to game night on Friday and shopped at Out Word Bound. I bought three used books -- one on once-a-month cooking, one about people who live in Florida, and one about a couple fixing up an old house in 1946 -- and one new book of rather academic essays about the L-Word. One of the contributors spoke at a conference I attended at IU in 1995.

My dad visited yesterday to take the snow tires off my Honda and put the regular ones back on. (I don't currently have enough garage space to store the snow tires, but I think we will in the new house.) Some other things we accomplished:

* Washed Phoebe
* Charged Phoebe's battery -- she was completely dead again
* Cut up and bundled a huge pile of tree limbs
* Cleaned out the gutters on the front of the house
* Mowed most of the front lawn
* Trimmed some of the bushes away from the house
* Trimmed some tree limbs that were touching the house
* Cut down a couple of trees that weren't supposed to be growing
* Drove by the new house

Then Steph and I saw the DaVinci Code. It was late, and I fell asleep.

Today we're showing Steph's house twice and I'm going to do some work I brought home.

My bank is annoying me.

Today I called to check my checking account balance, as I do several times per week. (We're not supposed to get online much at work.) There was a $9.95 fee that I didn't recognize. I talked to someone in customer service, who said that it was a fee for using Quicken and I shouldn't have been charged because my account came over from Bank One. She reversed the fee.

I've also been having trouble accessing online banking -- I haven't been able to log on at all since my bank changed. The customer service person said that my login and password should be the same, and when I got home tonight, I was finally able to get to my account online. My online payees even made the switch. It was nice to not have to type them all in again.

Blog of free iTunes downloads

This is interesting -- a blog of free iTunes downloads so you don't have to find 'em yourself.

I landed my loop in competition!

I got back from South Dayton Silver Skate late last night, and I'm really tired today. I had a lot of fun, and it was nice to see old friends and meet new ones.

My showcase program on Friday night went pretty well, and I nearly landed my loop then -- I had it for a second and then I put my free foot down. I placed fifth out of six in showcase, and the marks were all over the place -- showcase is so hard to judge. I even got one second-place ordinal. I landed my loop for real in my jumps program yesterday -- it felt great. I was so happy about it that I messed up the footwork sequence afterwards, but I got back on track before the next jump. I placed third out of three, and everyone watching said that all of us were really close. My freestyle program went pretty well, although I didn't land the loop in it, and I placed third out of five (with one first-place ordinal).

I'm happy with how I skated this weekend, but I wish I had a couple more days to recover.

Off to Ohio again

I'm off to Dayton to compete in South Dayton Silver Skate. My showcase event is at 4:50 this afternoon, my jumps event is at 1:15ish tomorrow afternoon, and my freestyle is around 7:00 tomorrow night. I haven't practiced enough lately because of the house stuff and general tiredness, but my loop showed up in my jumps program on Wednesday, so I'm still holding out hope that it'll be there tomorrow. I don't have specific goals for this weekend except for skating well overall and giving my loop three more chances to shine. (Well, maybe "shine" isn't the right word, exactly--I'd be happy with "on one foot and mostly recognizable.")

Dream

I had a strange dream last night. I've been having bad dreams almost every night since mid-March, and this was only the second one that wasn't bad (the first one was last Friday night and involved going to an out-of-town lecture with a co-worker). In my dream last night, I was at a UU young adult conference and people were deciding which room to sleep in. My cell phone rang, and it was my coach. I told her where I was, and she arrived shortly. She and I went over to a counter where a guy was selling BPAL, and he had a big bottle of Flower Moon (clear glass and significantly larger than 5 ml) that was marked as being old and having changed scent. I asked him how much it was, and he said it was the same price as a 5 ml had originally sold for, so I bought it.

The best-laid plans

I brought my lunch to work today with the best of intentions: to eat what's in my cupboards so I don't have to move it. By doing so, I won't have to spend any additional money to go out to eat. (I go out for lunch only once per week.) I decided to start out with something that wasn't my favorite and reward myself later by bringing the things I like the most, so I chose a package of ramen noodles.

Well, I'm not going to move these ramen noodles, but I didn't eat them, either. I had one bite and they were so awful that I threw them away and went to Taco Bell. My usual plan would have been to eat the can of ravioli I keep in my office for such emergencies, but alas, I ate it last week and forgot to bring something to replace it, so I had to procure food from elsewhere. I meant to go to Arby's and get a salad, but the line for the drive-thru was really long and I didn't want to sit and wait in it -- I wanted to drive. (I know, I should've parked and gone in.)

So I spent $3.22 at Taco Bell that I had wanted to spend on the house instead. They didn't even get my order right.

We bought a house after having a bunch of people inspect it.

Today we had a plumber come to inspect the plumbing at our potential new house. He found that the sewer pipe is indeed leaking, as the general inspector had indicated, but that is because it has a plug missing; a brick is where the plug should be. (What kind of person plugs a pipe with a brick?!) Also, the kitchen faucet doesn't work. We knew this, but it was nice to hear that it's just the faucet and valves and it isn't a symptom of a larger problem. I was very happy with the results of the plumbing inspection -- there were a few other minor things, but nothing on the order of the plumbing nightmare I faced when I moved into my house almost seven years ago.

Next was a roofer. He gave us a high estimate that didn't include the gutters or balcony work. One more roofer will be providing an estimate before the end of the week.

After the roofer left, we discussed the offer the sellers had made for roof repairs with our agent and decided on a counteroffer. As we were leaving, the seller's agent showed up and we talked with him. Our agent told him the number we'd decided upon and he called the seller, who wasn't answering his phone. We left to go to lunch with our agent, and by the time we all got to the restaurant, the seller had called his agent, his agent had called our agent, and our agent had news -- we have a deal! We close at the end of May sometime.

Next order of business: selling Steph's house.