Here we go again!

A fresh coat of paint really spruces a place up! We just finished painting the office (LATE) last night and moved all of the furniture back in today. We love the color, but wish we would have picked a shade darker. You just never can tell with just a swatch of color. It looks great though and we are really happy with how around $250 we made this room functional, welcoming, and modern looking.

Maybe the plant is a bit too much, but I will keep tweaking things until I like it more :)

The house saga continues...we called our Realtor from before to get a market analysis of our house and also called a second one. This new Realtor seems more aggressive than the last one and I think we already click with her better. She seems to understand that we are looking more for guidance and advice, and don't just want to do this ourselves. We did a walk through of our house with her and she pointed out that it would be great for someone who might not be able to handle stairs anymore (it is wheelchair accessible) and for a live-in person who might be helping. Or young childless people such as ourselves who aren't in a hurry to start a family. She thinks we can make a decent amount on the house to get all of our must-haves in a new house. I am still skeptical, but am starting to get excited none-the-less. Looking at houses again online I am reminded of why we liked this one so much (and still do if it weren't for the size), and why I didn't like looking at houses! It is so overwhelming and you just know that what you see online is NOT what you get in a house. That being said, she explained to us that land and a house might be an option in our new price range if we are willing to look at foreclosed homes. I instantly said no, but she asked me to hear her out. She explained that many banks are now completely redoing these foreclosed homes because they really want to get rid of them and - surprise! - people won't buy a trashed house. So I suppose that if she finds our dream house, with land, in our desired location, that is completely fixed up and fault free, and is semi-new construction, we will be considering a foreclosed home, but I am DEFINITELY not holding my breath on THAT one! All in all, we are saying "here we go again" and holding our breath to take the plunge once more into the sea of real estate  Eeeek!

Anyhow, things are moving forward with that, Sam and I joined an additional church choir (just for this month) that will perform at the Food Bank Benefit Concert that our church holds every year. It was a little bit more of a time commitment than we bargained for, but it is just for a few more weeks. Sam has jazz band tonight and I will indulge in watching the Bachelor. Silly me!

Hope everyone is doing well and keeping warm!

Cheers!

~Heather

Home Sweet Home!

This is the front of our house last January when we moved in. It actually looks about the same now. Buying this house was such a roller coaster experience and looking back, I don't really know if I am ready to do that again anytime soon. I mean, we love our house, but we know it is not our forever home. We could probably have one child here no problem, but the more I think about wanting to start a family, the more I think - we don't have enough space!

Awhile back we spoke with our mortgage broker about refinancing the house since the interest rates are even lower and because we did a short sale...the property value is obviously more than what we paid for it. We could get rid of the mortgage insurance and have a cheaper monthly payment. BUT, since it hadn't been a year since our last appraisal, we had to wait until this month to look into things further. I called Mark today. My initial reaction? Let the roller coaster begin!

Mark explains things very well. It is part of what we like about he and his wife and their awesome business. Here is what he said: in order to refi, our house needs to be valued at at least $191,000. We did NOT pay that for this house, but upon looking at the county assessors page, our house appraised at $189,900 LAST year, AFTER we paid significantly less for it. We are in the pocket of the market where home prices are back on the rise. This is great news. Then he explained that if our house is worth that much, it probably would be in our better interest to SELL, and use the extra funds as a down payment on a more long-term investment, rather than refi. Let's break down the numbers.

Let's say we can sell our house for $200,000 (as a nice round number), we would be able to take the money we earn from the sale, put down 25% on a new construction home in a little bit more rural area (which we eventually want anyhow), and our payment would be LESS than what it is now...for a bigger more permanent investment. So as Mark said, why wouldn't we do that?

Well, let the list begin! We are just now able to start putting our own touches on this house. In front of me on the wall in the office...paint swatches.

 In the living room... new shelves and picture frames to finally hang after a year of living here. We LIKE our house. We are tired of moving. SO many reasons. The list could go on.

BUT, then comes our budget conscious selves...pay less...more house...house we like more...house we can GROW in...

Hmph. So, tomorrow we find our if the roller coaster begins again...and of course, this thought could all be completely unfounded. Tomorrow we could find out it isn't worth what it needs to be. And then we may find out that the buyer market may not support the price. That would certainly make life EASIER.

In the meantime, Sam and I will be working on putting more personal touches on the house! :) After all, it is our HOME! <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">

Climb every mountain!

This was our view this weekend on our way through Steven's Pass! I must have taken at least 20 pictures just of this group of peaks while Sam was driving. So beautiful, and I wish I could stand on the very top. Climbing of course would be the hard part.

And that is exactly what we feel like we are doing having to go back to school after such an awesome break for the holidays. Climbing that mountain! The reward will be great - student successes, concerts, programs, and of course summer - but man - climbing is such a challenge!

My break was actually over on Wednesday, and Sam had two more days. I remembered that I have Thursdays off, so we decided I should take a vacation day on Friday and we head out of town for a couple days (and for the last time for fun for awhile). We had a gorgeous drive to Seattle on Thursday (4 degrees when we left, 45 when we got there!) and were able to stop and catch up with some friends before continuing on to Riss and Danny's for a couple nights (thanks guys!). One of our friends is a band director and his wife told us about his very rough fall while he went to pick up their daughter. He had some stupid issues as well as a crazy schedule and ended up have a complete mental break down and had to spend some time in the hospital, as well as two weeks out of work. This made me think a bit since I wanted to be a high school director originally and Sam still does. Crazy what stress does to people. Since our first year of teaching we have made a very deliberate effort to not stress out as much about work at home and it has worked wonders. Let's just hope this trend can continue and that once Sam does get to teach high school we can keep things under control!

While in Seattle we made the obligatory trip to Ikea, mostly with Mom in mind as she had wanted a few things she picked out in the catelogue. But, alas, they didn't have those things and we bought more than our share instead! I am really excited, though, because while most things we bought were "little," I think they will make a big difference in our home. For example, we eliminated the giant trash can and got two small ones for under the kitchen sink. Looks cleaner, and Dawg can't demolish them! We also got some decorating shelves for the bedroom. All of this home decor stuff prompted us to buy paint for the office this weekend. Yay! Now we just have about 15 different projects going all at once - and we are headed back to school! We'll see what actually gets done before summer, but for now, I think it is safe to say that I am motivated!

Wish us luck tomorrow as we journey back to school. The mountain awaits!

~Heather

New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year! Wow! 2013 is already here and soon we will be leaving 2012 in the dust!

As is tradition, Heather and I have made our resolutions for the new year. I will post my resolution on here in hopes that people will hold me to it and maybe even help me out. I will let Heather post her own if she wishes (yes, I dare you!).

In the past I have been actually pretty good about keeping my resolutions. I typically will only resolve to keep them for a few months. This serves a few purposes. One, I don't overwhelm myself with an unrealistic expectation,; two, if I can keep it up for a few months, it will become habit...right?; three, I allow myself somewhat of a light at the end of the tunnel, a reward if you will, for maintaining my practice. Of course, what my goal is depends on my resolution. For example, a few years ago I made a resolution to stop drinking my beloved adult beverages until after Easter. After Easter, I rewarded myself. Easy, peasy. (Ha! I'm a teacher. There's no way that was going to go on for a year!) I view a resoltion as a sort of challenge to myself.

This year my wife and I talked about doing something a little deeper, more meaningful. I interpret this as something that will help my life become less self-centered, something that will expand my life and make it better for the long run. I thought about many things that I suck at, but had a hard time pinpointing something that doesn't just affect me, but also has an impact on other people. So....

I tend to close myself off to other people over time and let relationships fall out of...practice. Friendships need to be kept up, and I am horrible about being the person who helps keep it up. I tend to feel that other people don't do a very good job at this either, but I am resolving to do my best to keep up my end.

So there you have it. My resolution is to keep up contact with friends.

So, here is to old friends, new friends, and friends I have yet to meet.

Heather and I also have a joint resolution (we sound like the UN!). We both despise house work and are bad about keeping up being so busy. Our resolution is spend 10 minutes each cleaning the house every day. That isn't a lot, but again, start small so that you can accomplish your goals. We will probably spend a little more time during the weekend to tidy up a bit too.

So there you have it! Welcome to Earth, 2013. I hope we learn to like eachother!

Sam

New year, new goals, new post!

Once again it has been awhile...I feel like we always start our posts this way. More on that later...

Quick update - As Sam said we are trying hard to get loans, etc., paid off so that we can live the debt free life. We still have a long way to go, but we're making progress. To help with that, I got an extra part-time job at Sears for the holidays. I learned a ton - like...I am grateful for my day job, professionalism, and a supportive family. I quit after a month and a half. Working a second full time job was not in my plan, and management seemed inflexible, so it seemed like it just wasn't worth the strife. SO, I had Christmas break off in its entirety, which was such a relief, though over much too fast.

We had a wonderful Christmas with both of our families. Sam's entire family was here this year, all siblings, spouses, and nephews. It was a blast getting to hang out with everyone! The second half of Christmas day was spent with my family. We had a quiet afternoon in the winter wonderland we call Pandora (Cheney) and also spent last night with them ringing in the New Year. As always, we feel totally spoiled!

Like I said - quick update! Now on to the new year. We have lots of things already planned out for the year, but I think we are most excited about getting to do more camping this summer once school is out. We leave just two days after my last day of school for Eagle Lake, CA for Grandma and Grandpa's (on the Wisswell side) 60th anniversary. Amazing. Of course we also have the third annual Schlaich family camping the weekend before Labor Day weekend, this year at lake Chelan. By then we will also have a new nephew (my vote!) or niece!

I don't usually come up with New Year's Resolutions because history says I wont keep them, but Sam is insisting. While getting healthy, losing weight, eating better, etc. are always on the list, we talked about how that is just setting ourselves up for failure. So this year we are setting different kinds of goals for ourselves. That's where I get back to the immense amount of time between posts on this blog. My resolution is going to be to try and write a post each week. Now, sometimes exciting things don't happen for us to write about, but that means that we need to create more exciting, or meaningful, experiences. Sam and I have gotten into this habitual routine...get up, go to work, come home, VEG. And we can come up with the best excuses, but usually it has to do with being tired. So, in order to create more meaningful experiences each week, whether it be hanging out with a friend, going for a hike, working out, etc., we will cut the crap and get past that excuse. And then my goal will be achievable :-).

Tomorrow I go back to school, and then Sam goes back on Monday. Go figure, the last day of break I have come down with a bug, but hopefully I feel better tomorrow and can get the ball rollin' in the classroom.

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and has a blessed New Year. Cheers to new goals!

~Heather