if I ever write a book...

I think I will title it something like "Teaching is Passion; Marriage is Work; House Hunting is an Art."  I have come to the conclusion that is you are willing to spend a million dollars on a house you will probably purchase a beautiful home, with a nice yard, new kitchen appliances, straight corners, and a full garage and attic.  At that purchase price, you may be paying it off until the day you die and then some.  Husband man and I handle finances (well, mainly husband man because he's much better at it than I!) much differently than most of the US population does.  Needless to say, we're not purchasing a million dollar house.  Besides the fact that the area we are moving to is small town country land and not many houses sell for that much, we also want to own the home before we both die.

We have toured our share of "fun houses". No, not fun as in the "Wahoo I want to do this again" kind of fun. Fun as in those distorted mirrors at carnivals that make you sick and you feel like you're wobbling, even though you're standing still....that kind of fun.  Those are also not the home we want to purchase.

So, is there something between "uneven fun house" and "million dollar mansion" that we can call our new nut hut?

Maybe. Just maybe.  And we may have found it last night.  It a new small town we found about thirty minutes from husband mans work we found ourselves a 3 bedroom, 1 and 3/4 (fyi...that means the second bath doesn't have a tub, just a shower!) bath home.  It's got a kitchen, dining room (with bookshelves!), and living room.  It also has a nice mud room/entry/laundry room which has a door to close it off from the rest of the house.  The main living rooms are ready to go.  Colors I like, good amount of space, decent carpet.  The upstairs bedrooms need some new paint...mainly because two of the three rooms belonged to wonderful children who chose colors such as bright purple, blue, and green.  I'm thinking one earth tone room and one gray/white room :)  There are two large closet/storage spaces and an attic that could be used for storage.

It's not huge.  There isn't anything extra special or "character" about it.  It's a normal home in a small town.  It's got just the right amount of yard to put a fence for our pup (who I think is getting about as stir crazy as I am sitting in this "temporary housing") to run around in.  There is a garage, but it's the first thing to come down as the roof appears to be mainly a large tarp :-D  But if that's our biggest problem, we'll count it a blessing and carry forward.

We'll be reading over the seller's disclosure and taking a second walk through.  Hopefully those go well and we'll start the offering process.  The kitchen and dining room will probably be my favorite rooms for a while. What to see a sneak peak of our possible new nut hut?

Half of the kitchen.  I like the cozy feeling these raw wood walls
create.  There's just enough cabinet space to fill, but not
too many!  It's just right.  We probably wouldn't keep a table in here
as I am enjoying the idea of a dining room.  The possibility of an island (YAY!)
is stirring in our heads!

Most of the dining room.  Rumor has it, the seller is selling this table
and if husband man is okay with the price, I'm hoping it can stay! It
has a beautiful granite top which is hidden under the tablecloth.  Don't
you love the shelves built onto the wall??  I can't wait to change some colors
and make them stand out more!

There you go....maybe, just maybe, by this time next week I'll be writing good news about a new nut hut!  And then heading home so I can pack the one we're leaving!!
Happy Thursday!
-M

um....not the one...

Yeah, we're not buying that one :(  It wasn't that the home inspection was horrible or even awful.  We did find out that the electrical was still fuses (I guess that's an old system?!) and we would need to rewire the entire two story home....but husband man said that is something we could consider writing into the final contract.

I backed out.  I backed out of buying a house whose kitchen I could build from scratch.  I spent three hours walking through it.  Living room, dining room, kitchen, all the bedrooms.  Up and down; back and forth. I didn't love it like I thought I would I guess.  When I started to picture furniture in the living room and the bookshelves I wanted to build in the dining room....they all seemed small.  We would have to give up our cloud chair for this living room.

You may not know how dear my cloud chair is to me.  It's mine.  I love it.  I sleep in it.  I play on my iPad in it.  It's the only piece of furniture I'm currently missing while living in our temporary motel home.

Back to square one....a large list of new homes sent to our Realtor.  Maybe next week will be the lucky week.  There are some pretty homes on this new list.

I don't even know what I really want.  I think I'm just going to have to pick one.... 

the one?

Well....after 40+ houses and three weeks of hunting....we may have found the new nut hut :-D
Here's the front....

I like it :-D  It has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, kitchen, dining room, living room, lots of closets, a mud room (which may end up as a laundry room?!) and a big back/side yard for the puppy!!!

The home inspector is going to go through it with me tomorrow.....my husband has continued to say "As long as everything goes well with him....." and I've pretty much planned my brand new kitchen.

Oh, I didn't tell you.  It's a bit out dated, so we're planning to completely remodel the kitchen! WAHOOO  When husband man said "You could make your own kitchen..." I was pretty much sold on the house.  It was the best thing I've heard for five weeks.

I'm sure once we get started on it and I'm living in a partially completed and torn apart kitchen....I may feel otherwise.  But the thought of walking into my home and seeing a beautiful kitchen that I got to design sounds wonderful to me.

Happy Monday!

don't do it number 1...

So, last night we had chicken patties and macaroni and cheese.  We do not have a kitchen or any way to boil water.  Husband man served in the army and he said they used to put water through the coffeepot and use that hot water for ramen noodles.  I figured it would work the same for the boxed macaroni.  Well, not quite....here are some photos for your enjoyment :)

Stirring....

pretty set up right?!

All done :)

What we discovered was that this indeed is not the best idea.  They were a bit gummy? powdery?  not good?  I would recommend buying a hot plate....which I'm going to go do right now :) 

Happy Thursday!

"it's only temporary..."

So, we had a house in the smaller town we were living in.  Three weeks is obviously not enough time to find a new home 2 hours away and be able to move in.  So we found a month-to-month rental.  It's cheap and the landlord allowed us to keep our baby pup with us :)  Want to see some pictures?

Our front door.  It's one unit in an old motel complex.

Welcome to our living room, bedroom, part A of kitchen space.....
it's cozy :)

This is our closet and part B kitchen area....

The great task ahead is figuring out how to make food with only
a microwave and a coffeepot.  We're considering getting a hot plate...

My baby pup sleeping on our bed....she is a tad spoiled.

So that's where we are at right now.  It does have cable but not internet.  So I walk about 20 minutes through a beautiful little town to sit at the library :)

the necessary background...

Sometime a few months back my younger brother made a comment about our small two bedroom home.  It was a simple comment.  "How are things in your little hut?"  Little Hut?  I hadn't ever thought of our little home as a hut, but I liked it.  It's a charming thing to call a home a hut.

I added the "nut" part later during some conversation with my husband man because sometimes our life is a bit...well...nutty? crazy?...

I enjoyed our little nut hut.  It became my home eighteen months ago and I wouldn't have wanted to live anywhere else.  This past January we introduced an addition to our little nut hut and grew from being 2 to being 3....Her name Mia....She's a St Bernard, Heeler, Spaniel mix who we adopted from a local humane society.  I quickly became quite attached.  Who wouldn't?

                                             

Yeah, that's me and my baby pup!  She has leveled off at 40 lbs and is a pure joy to live with!

Anyways, I am a teacher and for five months (January - June) I was blessed with a 5th grade classroom :)  It was fantastic.  I found my passion and reason for living in those kiddos.  Eighteen kids and many ups and downs later I am heartbroken to be leaving them.  There will never be a group like them....I may love other groups as much, but this group was special.  They were my first class.  I finished teaching on June 8th.  On June 11th I started working at a summer day camp.  Upon returning home from day 1 of summer camp, husband man walked in from work also and said "Do you want to move?  I was offered the job in XXXXXXXX."  NO WAY!

The next three weeks were a pure blur.  I remember moments.  I remember emotions I felt.  I remember the ups and downs, but they went by quickly.  I quit my summer job.  I saw my kiddos one more time (though they don't know I'm gone...) and began to slowly pack the small nut hut.