a moment to breathe...

The last 4 days have been so busy and tonight I am finally able to stop and breathe for a minute.

Friday night my sister and I met up at the condo and painted until midnight. The place looks great. I painted one wall in my room a really deep plum color and one wall in the living room a terra cotta color. My sister repainted her whole room and we painted various other walls in the living room a mocha color. I promise I will post pics once we get all of the boxes unpacked.

Saturday afternoon my little brother had his championship football game. And they won...by one point!!! Once the game was over I headed up to Seattle to meet a friend for her holiday party (a month early). It was being held at the EMP (Experience Music Project) in downtown Seattle. We rented a hotel room for the night so we didn't have to worry about driving.

It was a blast! I wore this really great green, black & brown dress that I got at TJ Maxx for $20 and really cute black peep toe pumps! I will also post those pics as soon as I get a chance!

Sunday my mom and I came back over the condo and shampooed all of the carpets...yuck! And did some touch up painting.

Finally Monday came around and the actual move in began. I gotta say...I ABSOLUTELY HATE moving!!! Our couch didn't fit dow the hallway to the living room so we had to HOIST it up over the balcony railing! Last night was our first night staying in the new place...it was kinda weird, but still exciting.

Today I moved the rest of my stuff over from my mom's house. But, I still have my WHOLE storage unit packed full! I have NO IDEA where I'm going to put everything! I think I'm going to have to purge a ton of stuff...maybe have a garage sale!

So there's the update...I'm moved in, but not completely. And I . am . tired!

Bedtime!

new homeowners!!!

it's official!!!

I am officially a homeowner!

We closed on the condo yesterday afternoon! Woo hoo!

Tonight we're going to go inspect everything and just remind ourselves how AMAZING it is! Not that I need much reminding...I've only looked the pictures twelve thousand times!

I'll post some more pics as soon as we get in!

the condo...

As promised, here are the pictures from the listing. Keep in mind that these pictures have someone elses furnishings. I will take more pictures once we get in and have it set up with our stuff.

Oh...and just imagine my new 42" LCD TV on top of that fireplace...

good news...

Well, as of last night, it looks like our offer on the condo is being accepted by the bank and everything is a go!

I am SO excited and relieved! I can't wait to get keys & move in!!!

I'll try to post some pictures from the listing tomorrow to give you just a taste of how cute it is. Then of course, once we move in I'll post more!

Well, I'm off to get a mani & pedi in celebration!

some explaining...

I realized that, with everything else going on lately, I haven't updated much about the condo situation. I also realized that my post yesterday probably didn't make much sense.

So...

When we originally made an offer on this condo the seller wasn't willing to negotiate. So, we walked away from it.

A week later, the price was lowered $15k! Which is actually less than we were offering the week before. We immediately made another offer. This was the second week in August.

The reason the price was lowered so drastically is because the condo was going to be going into foreclosure on September 21. So they were trying to sell it before that happened. Well, somewhere along the line, the owner's bank took control and now they are the ones making the final decision.

In the past 2 months we've signed 2 extensions and the condo has had 2 appraisals. Our appraisal came back at our offering price, but the owner's bank thought it was worth more so we had to wait for them to do another appraisal. Now that's done, but we're still waiting for them to make their final decision.

Oh, and as of 9:30am this morning, the 48 hours of waiting are over and we STILL haven't heard anything!

I'm ready to pull my hair out...but I had my second personal training session last night and my arms are too sore to reach my head!

48 hours of waiting...

I got an email yesterday from the listing agent for the condo we're trying to buy. She said that all looks good and we should hear something in the next 48 hours.

So...by this time tomorrow we could be in the process of closing on our new place!!!

I'm SO excited! I have been imagining living in this place for 2 months now...I seriously CAN NOT wait!

Keep your fingers crossed!

2 weeks with Jason, a 1st birthday, a new crush and a new TV!

I have been completely swamped at work and haven't had any time to blog lately. So I thought I'd give you a quick run down of what's been going on lately.

1. The biggest and most inconvenient freeway construction in the history of the greater Seattle area started a little over 2 weeks ago. I-5 which runs north/south through Seattle was shut down except for 2 lanes at the most for 19 day sraight, 24 hours a day. They were predicting that traffic would be backed up 40 miles or more and that people who normally drive this route should find an alternate route or take vacation! Nice!

Lucky for me, Jason offered to let me stay with him (north of the constrution zone) during this time. It was such a relief to not have to deal with the traffic. So that's where I've been the past few weeks. It was nice to spend so much time with him, but sad to come home today. And I miss the cats already...Wilbur has become really cuddly.

2. Our good friends who had a baby LAST SUMMER just threw a 1st birthday party for their son! It was crazy to think that he is ONE already! It seriously feels like he was just born yesterday.

Oh, and to prove just how "UN"ready I am to start having babies, we bought him a 3T outfit! I do not know WHY we thought that it would fit him! We held it up and thought it looked ok! So he won't be able to wear it until maybe next fall! But it was so cute...a Kenneth Cole outfit with jeans, a button up striped shirt and courduroy blazer! SO CUTE!

3. Last night 2 friends and I went to see Michael Buble in concert. I . Love . Him! I knew he was cute and all, and I love his music, but after seeing him in concert, I am smitten! He puts on a great show and the $70 we paid for each ticket was totally worth it! If he's coming to a town near you, I highly recommend going.

4. Tonight I totally splurged and bought a 42" LCD flat screen TV! Even though we're still waiting to hear about the condo, I wanted to take advantage of special pricing & financing that expires this Friday. I can't wait to use it...we have a perfect spot above the fireplace in the condo to install it!

So there's a brief synopsis of what's going on. I will try very hard to update more often...especially on the condo situation. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

everything happens for a reason...

On Thursday afternoon I check Redfin to see the status of the condo that my sister and I had made an offer on last week.

They dropped the price $15,000!!!

I was really bummed...until I got home and talked to my mom about it and she said that she thought it was meant to be and that it was a second chance for us to get into this place that we love so much.

So I immediately called our agent and told her we were interested again and that we wanted to make another offer.

To make a long story short, we made an offer on Friday afternoon and as of Friday evening it looked like they were accepting our offer and all that needs to be figured out now is financing. Which is no problem, as we've already been preapproved and the loan is being processed now.

AAAAHHHH!!!

I can't believe that I'm ALMOST a homeowner. It's crazy. I feel so grown up!

Anyway, I'll update more as I find out. I'm seriously ecstatic!

ok...can I poke my eyes out now?

The past 2 days have undoubtedly been the MOST stressful days of my life.

As I previously mentioned, my sister and I are considering buying a house/condo together sometime in the next few months. Well, on Wednesday night we went to look at some condos and we found one that is perfect (well almost...it does only have 1 bathroom...but nothing's really perfect right?)!

Well, the seller needs to get out of it by the end of the month, which means that we needed to make an offer ASAP.

So yesterday we made an offer...

...and I have never felt SO overwhelmed in my entire life.

I feel like we are making the right decision, we love this place, it's super cute and we can afford it! But, here's the thing, my sister is currently in a lease that doesn't expire until January...she is supposed to call today to find out what kind of fees there are for her to break it or if she can find someone to take it over.

Also, the original plan was to wait until January to buy something, not only because of her lease, but also so that I could continue living with my parents and save more money. I've only had 1 month that I haven't had to pay rent...so needless to say I have not reached my saving goal.

In order to make this work, I am going to have to cash out some stocks that I've had since I was a kid to make the down payment...and I am SCARED TO DEATH to have nothing to fall back on. If I use all my money to make the down payment, and then am having to fork out $300 more per month that I was paying for rent, I'm not going to be able to save much every month.

And, to make my stress level EVEN higher...since I'm the older sister, I'm the one putting money down, and because I work in real estate, my sister is pretty much looking to me to make most of the decisions. Ugh!!! I know I'm almost 30, but this is a BIG decision and I am just completely on edge here!

Our offer expires at 5pm tonight, so we should be hearing back anytime now on whether they accept the offer or are going to counter-offer. Luckily I have a fun weekend planned (best friend in town & wedding to go to ), but now this is ALL I'm going to be able to think about!

I need a drink!

**Updated 4:47pm**

Exhale...

The deal is off. They did not accept our offer...well they actually counter-offered with their original asking price. AND my sister CAN NOT get out of her lease.

I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Now I'll be able to save more money! Woo hoo! Oh, but that means I'm still living in my mom's basement for another 6 months...

Oh well...at least I'll be able to enjoy my weekend. Now will someone please pass me a cosmo?