Two Vrooms: omaha

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Thursday, October 25, 2012

One Month of Less: Day 25: Sell Your House!

Our house sale in Omaha finally closed!! One painful month behind schedule. I don't expect you all to sell your houses, but I am SO thrilled about this that I don't care if this doesn't really count as One Month of Less -- I literally cannot think of anything else!!

After paying to kill termites on our property line, paying for a new ceiling in the office, paying for a new roof after the insurance inspector and the home inspector said there was nothing wrong with our 5-yr-old roof, and giving the buyer more cash because there was a visible TV wire in the unfinished basement, I can say fervently that I do not want to sell another house for a long long time. And our Realtor was a champ! She has jumped several spots up on my list of favorite people ever. I feel like we should send her a Christmas card from here on out.

Here's our house the day we moved in and then the day we listed it for sale:

What a good house :)

The kitchen remodel ...

The impossibly small and never-ending bathroom remodel...

The deck project...

The living room where we spent all our time...

So much work. So many good memories that it seems wrong to say good riddance. We hope the new girl loves it, and I'm sure every time we're in town we'll drive by like major creepers.

For the month of October I'm doing one thing a day that is a step towards a simpler way of living -- less cluttered, less wasteful, less distracted. My goal through this month of less is that by taking a new step every day, I will be able to live in a way that is more organized, more stewardly, more purposeful. Read more about it here, and let me know if you're joining in!

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Taste of Omaha

We were downtown last night for supper, and it happened to be Taste of Omaha going on. They moved it up a few weeks because with the Missouri flooding, Lewis and Clark landing is already going underwater.

Last year we bought tickets and went around to all the booths, but it was just as humid and crowded this year so we ate at Rock Bottom instead. There wasn't even a wait, probably because everyone else was going around to the booths! Suckerrrrrs.

Our waitress was at least part nut-case. At one point she was feeding Jon firecracker shrimp from chopsticks while chanting "vrooooooom vroooooom!!!" and spiraling the shrimp through the air towards his mouth.

We wanted to go check out the flooding, and they had a band playing over there so we ended up walking around Con Agra park. Watching the sun go down and watching some monster carp swim around.

And a baby goose :) I was quick with this picture because I didn't want to get attacked.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Assorted Heebie Jeebies

We are worn out with our current slum neighborhood. While it is close enough to campus that I can walk to school, we've had enough of watching kids smoke pot while we eat sunday dinner, going for a walk together and passing three cars with smashed in passenger windows, hearing gunshots while we relax on our balcony, and listening to everyone's horror stories when they hear where we live: their friend got mugged a block away in broad daylight, a man covered in blood knocked on their apartment door and asked to come in to clean up. Etcetera.

The house on the corner recently created a large stack of glass bottles in their front yard harnessed to a red cloth donkey. It is surrounded by signs that say "real citys recycle glass" and "mo mo-nae fo eduka-shun pleeze." Puzzling. Our beautiful apartment and spacious kitchen are not worth staying inside all summer to avoid the madness. Besides, someone spray painted "I peed here" on the benches by the tennis courts.

We spent hours apartment hunting online and 3 Saturdays of eliminating apartments in person because they were too small, too creepy, too expensive with all the added fees their websites didn't mention, or too smelly (think rotten milk and emphysema).

Two things happened at the same time: we got our tax refund and our landlord said we had 5 days to give them 60 days notice of whether we would be moving out, committing to another year, or paying through the nose for a month-to-month lease. We said "WE'RE OUT!" and found ourselves a Realtor.

Looking for a house was even more complicated than looking for an apartment. We were looking for something that we didn't really like, but liked the IDEA of. We want to be able to put all our restless remodeling energy to good use! The more houses we looked at online and in person, the more we agreed that people in all price ranges have terrible taste. (Alternately, Jon and I are just two opinionated control freaks who shrivel at the thought of a previous homeowner making decisions for us.)

Clearly the people selling the homes we went in have never watched HGTV of any sort, as there was rampant curb dis-peal, dirtiness, kitchens with the refrigerator displaced to the basement, clutter, and Husker decor going on. It's a hard call to make, walking into a house and deciding, oh this is the perfect amount of ugly-and-old-but-could-be-great! We can do this!

We want to be able to afford working on whatever we buy, so we were pretty conservative with our price range. This meant we saw nice houses in bad neighborhoods, bad houses in bad neighborhoods, needs-total-gut-job houses in cute older neighborhoods, builder blah houses in builder blah neighborhoods, and one comparatively beautiful house in a basic neighborhood. The beautiful house also happened to have a serial-killer-esque basement with foundation issues, which gave both jon and I some serious heebie jeebies, so we kept looking. (To clarify, he had the foundation heebie jeebies and I had the Silence of the Lambs heebie jeebies. Bad combo.)

Now, look at this:

This house was the perfect mix of "needs some love" and "we're already in love with it." Cape cods automatically make my heart beat, and we can't wait to do something with the non-color scheme going on. (You can't tell from the picture, but that's not stone, it's plastic sheeting molded into brick shapes.) That's a little stained glass window to the right of the front door! It needs storage, needs a basement-redo, appliances, and a whole lotta exterior and yard work (any suggestions for what to plant in all the shade in our backyard? There are a bunch of planters back there.)

It's 3bed/2bath on a quiet street on the FRINGE of one of those adorable brick older neighborhoods with a walkout basement, new windows, a deck in back, and a huge yard. I can't quit looking at it! And it's going to be ours on April 15! You're all invited -- In may, after I get back from a month-long clinical rotation in rural Nebraska.

Monday, October 05, 2009

I live in Nebraska?

Here I am with my roommates after our professionalism ceremony, where we took oaths about health care and recieved white coats (which we will never wear, except possibly for halloween).

This program is unlike any other part of my educational experience in that it is both very hard and very rewarding. My concept of "getting good grades" has been severely altered to accomodate for my performance on our first round of tests. Percentages and letter grades are just plain depressing -- it is much nicer to think of each class as a simple PASS or FAIL. I am passing.

It's hard to believe that I will be taking midterms next week already, although I'm excited that this semester seems to be going quickly. (Especially since there are 7.5 more of them to come). One of my most interesting classes is Anatomy lab, where we dissect cadavers. Last week involved a bone saw and safety glasses since we were looking at the lungs and heart. Don't smoke; the surgeon general was right.

Omaha doesn't feel like home, but it is beginning to feel less foreign; I've found a carpool, a church, and the fastest way to the mall.

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