Mega-Post!

Well, there's been a lot going on recently, and it's high time we filled everyone in with the details. This is my take on the past month and a half, see below for Wendy's take. And be warned that this is a very lengthy post, with many tangents and side trips.

We started looking for a house in earnest around mid to late February. We're not always the quickest decision makers, especially when it comes to major decisions like buying a house, but thankfully the deadline for notifying our landlords that we were moving out loomed large enough on the horizon that we finally scrambled into gear. So, we got in touch with a realtor that we met during our move here from Colorado and began scouring the internet mercilessly, looking for house listings and getting an idea of what was available and what the price ranges were. It didn't take long for illinoisproperty.com, zillow.com, and maps.google.com to become our most frequently visited sites.

Then we began driving all around the neighboring towns (McHenry, Wonder Lake, Woodstock, Crystal Lake, and Island Lake) to get a feel for what they were like. We put a lot of miles on the car during this time, and at one point we got to watch the odometer roll over the 100,000 mile mark (but don't worry, we still kept an eye on the road).

One day during this "exploring the area" phase, we decided to meet for lunch and drive around a neighborhood in Island Lake. It turned out to be a nice neighborhood, and we decided we were interested in one of the houses for sale in it. On the way back we stopped at a gas station to buy some drinks, and as I got back in the car, I heard the unmistakable sound of a camera taking a picture. It took me a minute to realize it was the camera phone in my pocket. "Oh," I said to Wendy, "I think I just took a picture of my pants." So I opened up the cell phone and discovered, that, in fact, I had taken 26 pictures of my pants! The camera's entire memory was full of dark blurry pictures of my pocket, which amused us both. Apparently, I just like pants.

And while we're talking about pictures of pants, it seems only reasonable to segue into pictures of dogs. Coton de Tulears, to be exact. Unfortunately, though, this is a somewhat sad story. As Wendy and I were heading out one Sunday afternoon to drive around neighborhoods in nearby Woodstock, we saw a small white dog running around the middle of the road, holding up traffic in front of us. After a moment the dog got safely to the side of the road, and we all went on our way. A couple of days later, though, lost dog signs were up in the vicinity and an article appeared in the local paper. Apparently someone pulled over, put the dog in their car, and drove away. As the days passed, we kept exploring more neighborhoods, and we started noticing signs everywhere with a picture of the missing dog. People were even handing out fliers at the nearest major intersection. There's still no news yet, but there is a reward being offered, and there are now large signs that I see everyday saying "We can't hurt anymore. Please let Star come home, no questions asked". Hopefully Star will be safely returned. We'll keep you updated.

Getting back to houses, we then started looking at the insides of them with our realtor. After three rounds (the interested ones, the maybes, and the it'll-take-some-fixing-up options) we hadn't found any that seemed right. Actually, what we did find is that none of them felt right at the time, but as we thought about some of them more, they became more appealing. Every single time, though, right when we decided to take another look, the house would go under contract. Frustrated and stressed, we knew we had exhausted all the options on the market at the time, and now we had to sit and wait for something new to come up.

Happily, it didn't take long. A listing appeared one Monday morning that looked promising, so we met during lunch and drove by it (no pants-pictures this time). We liked the neighborhood (it's not that far from where we are now), so we set up an appointment to view it that evening. The inside of the house turned out to be nice, and we both knew it was at the very top of our list. So, after sleeping on it, and taking another look at it the next day, we made an offer! They accepted, and we have since been subject to a whirlwind of inspectors, mortgage brokers, and attorneys.

And speaking of inspectors, it's time to talk about ladders. Specifically, the Little Giant. If you haven't seen the infomercial, the Little Giant is 24 ladders in one compact, easy-to-use design! It actually looks like it could be really useful, and I mention it here because our inspector had one. Being first-time home buyers, there are a lot of things we don't have that we'll need to buy, with one of them being a ladder. And seeing that a professional home inspector uses the Little Giant may have convinced me to get one. Incidentally, Wendy and I smiled when we saw the inspector using a Little Giant. Sometime last year, after seeing the infomercial, Wendy was telling me about it and referred to it as "The Mighty Dwarf" when she couldn't remember the real name. The Mighty Dwarf is such an absurd name for a ladder that it stuck.

There are several other things that have been going on recently not related to houses. One of them is the beginning of spring! Yep, we have officially made it through our first Chicago winter, and the general consensus among the natives is that it was a very mild one. I can say, though, that it got much colder here than it did in Colorado. The snowfall seemed to be about the same, but it wasn't nearly as windy here as I thought it would be.

And not only is it the spring season, but it's also the tax season as well. For the first time, we took our taxes to a tax preparer, and wow, it was incredibly easy! The entire process took about an hour, the people were nice (it was interesting to see that most of the preparers were older women), and they even offered us homemade cookies while we waited! It was a bit expensive, since we had income from two states, but it was totally worth it, and I have a feeling we'll be doing it again next year.

As Wendy mentioned below, we became trained weather spotters! We went to a 2 hour presentation on weather spotting and learned all about things like shelf clouds, scuds, and gustnados. It also covered the formation of severe storms, what to look for, the best position to be in when watching a storm, and what type of information to provide when reporting severe weather. It was cool! Oh, and also they had a picture of one of the two known photographs of a tornado in McHenry county. So they're definitely not as common here as they are in Oklahoma and Kansas, but Illinois has definitely had severe tornados in the past.

And finally, a couple of Friday evenings ago Wendy and I met our good friend Sir Austin of Tahlequah in downtown Chicago. He was attending a law conference and had some free time, so we took a train down and met him. It was a milestone for Wendy and I in that we took our first cab ride together. We had planned to eat at Pizzeria Uno's, but 7 o'clock on a Friday night does not make for short lines at classic Chicago restaurants. So we went to California Pizza Kitchen instead (no waiting!), and then spent the rest of the evening chatting at a nearby Borders. By the time we got back on a train to head home, we'd taken a total of four taxis, so we feel fairly confident that we can handle it now. It was cool to see Austin again and we both enjoyed hanging out and catching up with him.

The Details, Part 1

So, if you are young, and looking for a house, there is one question you should be prepared to answer repeatedly. Your real estate agent will ask you. ("Are you thinking of starting a family?") Your inspector will ask you. ("Going to start a family next?") Your mortgage broker will, too. ("And are there children in your future?") Coworkers. Friends. The woman who cuts your hair. There is no one who won't ask you this. "Well, we'll see!" has been our standard response - consider this a public service announcement so that you can all be prepared with a politely vague answer of your own. (Unless, of course, you have a politely specific answer you would prefer to use.)

Now that we've found a house, though, everything has been happening so quickly that there's really not much time for idle questions anymore. I don't think I realized quite how speedily everything was going to happen - we got the listing for the house on Monday morning, drove by and liked it during lunch, and saw it after work Monday evening. Tuesday, we went back for a second look during lunch and made an offer, and we had a verbal agreement before we went to bed that night. By dinnertime Wednesday, we had a signed contract. Since then, we've also applied (and been approved) for a mortgage, had a home inspection ("solid as a rock," according to our inspector), a radon test (well within normal levels), and requested that the sellers fix a few things from the inspection report. It's felt like more, honestly. From now until closing (four weeks from today), though, apparently we pretty much just wait. And presumably pack.

But wait! There's more! Since we last managed to update:

- We've ridden the train down to Chicago to see Austin, who was in town for a law journal conference. We had a really nice time eating dinner and hanging out, and it was great to get to visit with him.

- I've managed to read most of The Count of Monte Cristo - I'm somewhere around the 950-page mark (which leaves a mere 300 or so to go), and the Count really is remarkably Batman-esque. I'm enjoying it.

- I am now a trained weather spotter! The National Weather Service held training at my college last night, and since I was working anyway, I sat in. Randy came, too - they will be mailing us official weather spotter certificates.

- We have been witnesses to a dognapping! I think Randy is writing about this in greater detail, but let me just mention that the missing dog is a small, white fluffy dog. The people whose house we are buying have a small, white fluffy dog. Can this be coincidence, or are they moving because they need to get out of town, quick? (Actually, I'm pretty sure that it can be a coincidence, and I'm very sorry for the people whose dog is missing.)

- Spring has, so to speak, sprung. Or it has at least begun to - this is a later spring than I'm used to, but the days are finally beginning to noticeably lengthen and it was warm enough yesterday to open the windows for a while.

I can hear Randy writing the rough equivalent of a novel for his post, so maybe I'll just stop here. I expect that between the two of us, you will be more than sufficiently filled in on everything!

A Very, Very, Very Fine House

We have a house! Or at least we have a contract, a mortgage approval, a homeowner's insurance quote, and an inspection report. We also have a fair amount of abject terror, but apparently that is all very normal and only to be expected. We'll each write our own post about everything in the next few days, so you can get all the details. Our closing is set for April 28; we'll keep you updated until then! (We do have pictures but are not planning on posting any just yet - if you'd like to see them, please feel free to e-mail us and we'll be happy to share them that way.)

Also, this is the one year anniversary of our blog. Happy Birthday to us, and thanks for sticking around!