desserts and stress(ed)

sometimes when i'm stressed i crave sweets. other times i crave salty snacks. and still other times i have no appetite and have to force myself to eat. the form of stress i'm feeling now seems to come with a mixture of all of the above.

all the stresses of buying a house are starting to really wear on me. i don't normally sleep all that well, but now i know that i'm not even resting. my mind does not shut off at night, which tends to make for some interesting dreams and thoughts in my head at 2 or 3 am. my level of exercise seems to ebb and flow with my mood and appetite. some days pbs and i get out for a short walk. some days the walks are all day affairs. other days we don't get out at all. i guess that kind of goes with being a sahm.

yesterday pbs and i took the metro downtown and walked the tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms. with the warmer weather that we've had so far this spring, the blossoms had already peaked and were really greening out. they were still beautiful. but it was a little disappointing to not see them in full bloom.

(we also went to the natural history museum to see the dinosaurs because pbs loves the kids program on pbs called "dinosaur train". he was very excited to see the "t-rex" and "tops". "tops" is what he calls a triceratops. we ate some lunch in the cafe and then went for a walk on the mall. i decided i wanted to see an exhibit or two at the hirschorn museum. that is definitely one of my favorite art museums.)

i kind of felt like my stress, the blossoms and the weather have all been on a similar pattern lately. so many ups and downs. so many new adventures to conquer and explore.

although we still feel like we should be going to open houses and looking at houses on the weekends, we're figuring out what we need to do. so with all of the many stresses, comes many learning experiences. we will get to enjoy the desserts of our labor(s) in a few weeks.

now the fun starts

i guess it's really starting to sink in that we got the house and will be moving into our house very soon. over the weekend we went to a couple of hardware stores to see what all we might need for the house. what an overwhelming experience!

i picked up a bunch of paint chips to figure out what colors we should put on our walls. that's an overwhelming experience in itself. we've lived in apartments for so long that we almost forgot that there are colors that can go on the walls. i'm thinking a light blueish gray color for pbs' room with a section of a wall in wallpaper that he can color and a section in chalkboard paint for him to write and draw on. i know that i might rethink those ideas but they seem pretty cool in my head. i would also like to use the chalkboard paint in the kitchen to make grocery lists on the pantry doors.

we looked at lawnmowers, other tools, washers, dryers, kitchens, bathrooms, etc. we were definitely getting ahead of ourselves and in over our heads. too many ideas and no money to act on those ideas is a defeating feeling.

but we're moving into our own house! we will be in this place for several years and will eventually be able to do all of the things that we want to do now. for now we'll stick to paint colors, lawnmowers, patio furniture...the smaller things.

now the fun starts...packing, painting, moving, unpacking, figuring out the nuances and quirks of our new home. the inspection is friday morning. hopefully all will go smoothly so that we can start the fun.

we got the house! now what?

we got the house! now what? we've been so busy and focused on finding a house that we didn't consider the next step. packing and moving. maybe there's just so much to do that we don't know what to do first or where to start and that's why we have this feeling of "now what?".

we know we have to pack, get the inspections and appraisals done, transfer services, etc. our weekends have been consumed with house hunting, open houses and more house hunting for the last three months. i guess we almost thought that it would never really happen. that we would never really find everything that we wanted in a house. well, look at this...it happened! we got the house! now what?

we have about eight or nine weeks until our lease is up at our apartment. we'll close on the house in the middle of that time. we'll have to pack and get things in order eventually but maybe we just need a week or so to let this all sink in. we're home owners! what does that mean? now what?

i think that's what we need. a week off to let it all sink in and let the reality hit us in the face. then we'll need a swift kick in the butt to get us packing and purging as we normally do in a move.

this one will be very different since it's a local move. we're much more used to big, cross country moves. i guess you do most of the same stuff for both types of moves. the dreaded packing, deep cleaning of the current home and next home, transferring services or setting up utilities, etc.

i think we know what comes next for the most part. this is a different journey, a different chapter for us but it will be an adventure and an awful lot of fun and excitement for us too. so now what? we'll figure that out along the way.

"the one"

when you're dating, you look for "the one" that you want to spend the rest of your life with. on your wedding day, you know you're marrying "the one" who is meant for you. i guess house hunting could be considered a type of dating or courtship because you're still looking for "the one".

we've put in another offer and are hoping that this is "the one". it has some negatives, but those can be improved upon and made better over time. i think the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. things that cannot be changed that are positives are location, size of the yard, neighborhood, etc. it does need some updating but otherwise, everything is in working condition and we could live with it for a while.

so we're hoping this is "the one" for us. we walked in and thought it was but now we have to wait and see if the seller thinks our offer is "the one" for him. we're praying, hoping and dreaming that it is!

in the middle of a storm

in the middle of a storm i am normally hiding in a closet. i do not like storms. right now, life feels like a huge storm has stopped and i have nowhere to hide. so today i decided to make marshmallows!

marshmallows??? you might say, but seriously i made marshmallows. it was like the storm started to lift a little with with the white, fluffiness of the sticky, gooey mixture. i had my own fluffy, white clouds! the storm started to turn into a partly cloudy, mostly sunny kind of day that i can deal with.

js and i are still house hunting and enduring all the stresses that that entails. on his way home from work the other day, js was in an accident. he was stopped behind another car at a stop light. for some reason, the driver of the other vehicle decided to put her car into reverse. she backed into js. the front end of the car looks like an accordion. nobody was hurt, except the car but it can hopefully be fixed.

we only have the one car, so it's been challenging. js did get a rental car, that helped. he's been dealing with the insurance companies and those headaches. i won't get into all of the other details but i needed some fluffy, white clouds in the middle of this storm.

here's the recipe for the vanilla marshmallows that i used. it is a martha stewart recipe so i was worried that it would be kind of difficult. it was really easy! (i was able to do it while pbs was napping. that's making the marshmallows and cleaning up and having time to write this post.) hope you have fun!

ingredients:
nonstick cooking spray
3 (1/4-ounce) packages unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, plus 1 vanilla bean, scraped (i didn't use the vanilla bean because i couldn't find one at any of the grocery stores!)
confectioners' sugar, sifted, for coating

directions:

1. lightly spray a 9-by-9-inch baking pan with cooking spray. line pan with plastic wrap, leaving a 2-inch overhang on all sides; set aside.
2. in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water; let stand for 10 minutes. in a medium saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water. place saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; boil rapidly for 1 minute. remove from heat, and, with the mixer on high, slowly pour the boiling syrup down the side of the mixer bowl into gelatin mixture. add salt and continue mixing for 12 minutes.
3. add vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds; mix until well combined. spray a rubber spatula or your hands with cooking spray. spread gelatin mixture evenly into pan using prepared spatula or your hands. spray a sheet of plastic wrap with cooking spray and place, spray side down, on top of marshmallows. let stand for 2 hours.
4. carefully remove marshmallows from pan. remove all plastic wrap and discard. cut marshmallows into 2-inch squares using a sprayed sharp knife. place confectioners' sugar in a large bowl. working in batches, add marshmallows to bowl and toss to coat.

on with the search

in my last post, i wrote of js and my worries and concerns about having done the right thing by putting an offer on a house. i think we got our answer. the sellers decided to go with the other offer. so this was not the house after all.

it's disappointing but we learned from it and realize that we need to go in with strong offers on any other properties we may fall in love with. we thought we had gone in with a strong offer but the other offer must have been stronger.

now we just have to pick ourselves up, find what's right for us and move on with the search.

what have we done?

what have we done? did we do the right thing for us? are we really sure about this? is this what we really want? these are questions that js and i have been asking ourselves over the last several hours after having put an offer on a house.

we weren't the only offer, but that actually made us feel better about making the offer. maybe we'll have our offer accepted maybe we won't. that will decide whether we've done the right thing for us. we'll hopefully find out today or early tomorrow whether or not our offer has been accepted.

neither of us slept very well last night after making our first offer on a house, knowing that there is another offer but hoping and praying that this was the right decision for us. as of right now, we think it is the right decision.

the house in question is four bedroom, two bathroom, single level house with an amazing backyard. the backyard was a huge selling point for us. we want a place where pbs can play and we don't have to worry about traffic or being in the stroller all the time. the house is not within walking distance to the metro but it is within walking distance to a few buses. we will have to compromise on that but i think for our happiness and safety it's worth it. we would pretty much have to compromise on not being within walking distance to the metro with most houses in our price range.

we will eventually be home owners even if it's not this house. it's all a learning experience. so i guess that's what we have done.