Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
Happy Anniversary to my BFF
Today is Steve & my 2nd wedding anniversary. Although we’ve been together now for almost 8 years, and it’s been a roller-coaster at times, our second year of marriage has been absolutely spectacular – the best so far, to be sure!
In the past year we’ve managed to take a trip to the pacific northwest to see family and camp in the rainforest, go on a road trip to the desert to camp under the stars, and go on the honeymoon we always wanted in the Bahamas and relax on a tropical beach. Not only that, we were able to begin our goal of building our dream home sooner than we ever thought possible. We sold our condo, paid off loads of debt (no payments anymore! Wooo!) and are only months away from moving into the home we dream about, and plan to raise our family in.
Furthermore, we are now both pursuing dreams we’ve had for ages, with each others support. Me, a career in photography. Him, a successful career in music through both teaching and gigging (check!), as well as plans to go back to school for a business degree. It’s been a year to remember, and I feel so completely blessed. I have never felt luckier to be married to my best friend. His passion, empathy, drive, loyalty and sense of humor keep me going.
I know this post is total mush… but what else do you expect on my anniversary? This post is a tribute to him. Love you babe…
Weddings and Funerals and Home-Swapping, Oh My!
March was surely a month to remember. The word ‘eventful’ really doesn’t even give it enough weight. It was certainly a month of transition and movement for everyone in the Bauman family.
Of course, it started sadly, with the passing of Bill, and the funeral and everything following that. Obviously that was a huge emotional upheaval, and really hard to get through.
But as soon as the dust settled from that, other things suddenly began happening.
First of all, Steve’s sister Lisa got engaged to Pepe, and they’re planning a wedding in August. Yay!
Then almost immediatly after, Steve’s brother Jake got engaged to Carly, and they’re planning a wedding in June. Yay!
Then, the Utah government put out a $6000 grant program for people buying newly constructed homes, to use for down payment. They only released 1600 grants, and they are first-come, first served. Steve & I have been teetering on the edge of wanting to move for a while, and saving up for a down payment was the one thing we’ve been waiting for. So this grant really piqued the interest of Steve & I, and we took a drive down to the one community of new homes that we could see ourselves living… Daybreak in South Jordan.
Well, that was all it took. We fell in love with the neighborhood, and decided that we’d put our condo up for sale immediately so we could hopefully take advantage of the $6000 grant before it ran out.
Well, before we could even list our home for sale, Jake & Carly decided that our condo would be the perfect place for them to start their new lives together. They didn’t want to waste money on rent, and wanted something just like we had in our Condo.
Perfect!
Without using a real estate agent, we are going to be able to sell them our condo for less than it’s worth, (which makes it a great deal for them) and still walk away with the equity we need for a down payment on our new Daybreak home (which is a great deal for us.) All these pieces just suddenly began falling into place, and the whole month of March felt like fate had just taken over and began steering the wheel. On top of that, Jake will be moving out of a mother-in-law basement apartment in their Mothers house that Steve & I can move into while we wait for our house to be built… RENT & MORTGAGE FREE. We’ll save oodles of money.
We’ve picked out a house to build. We’ve put down earnest money and reserved a lot. Jake & Carly and Steve & I already have financing in place for our home purchases, and we’re all easily approved and good to go.
It has all seemed to good to be true! It can’t be this easy, right? I mean, something has got to happen to throw a wrench in… I’m just not that lucky.
Well, I’ve found the possible wrench. Maybe.
See, the market sucks right now. Which means other condos in our complex have been short-selling (selling below market value, basically an alternative to foreclosing). That ends up hurting the value of our condo. The pain is only temporary, since the market is sure to turn around this summer and the values will go back up, but it’s still a fact of life for the market right now.
The lot we reserved in Daybreak, it can only be ours if we give them our down payment before May. That will be our construction deposit to get everything going. And that will be no problem, since Jake & Carly will close on the condo before then, and we’ll have our equity money in pocket.
But, it’s going to be tight. An appraisal on the Condo still must be done. And if it comes in less than what we’ve all agreed to pay/sell it for, then we’re going to be in trouble. We have a bit of wiggle room, but not much. See, appraisers have to use comparable homes sold within the last 3 months, and there has only been two sold… both for much less than the normal market value of our condos, clearly bail-out short sales. So there’s a chance Carly & Jake will buy the house at a bit less than we originally planned, and Steve & I will be left with not quite enough for a down payment right away.
And if that happens, we might lose our lot.
It wouldn’t be an outright catastrophe, however, since our earnest money would just transfer to another lot… one that isn’t scheduled to be open for building for several months. We’d just live in that basement apartment for a few months longer. That, of course, will give us time to save up the remainder of the down payment we need, but still. The interest rates & home prices could rise a bit by then, and we might not be getting the ideal deal that we’d get immediately. Not to mention, the $6000 grant would surely be gone by then. And I don’t like the other lots quite as much. *sigh*
So, I’m stressing. It’s my least favorite position to be in: not knowing what’s going to happen, and completely unable to do anything to effect the outcome. Helpless, and forced to be patient.
What do I do in these situations? I sit and come up with dozens of different “what if” issues and scenarios, and drive myself compltely mad.
So thats where I am right now. Ugh! We should know within a week or two what’s going to happen. I think I may just need to take another cruise until then so I can get my mind off of house stuff!!
My Mom…
…she’s the coolest person you’ve ever met. And if you’ve met her, you already know that. If I’m lucky, I’ll preserve one ounce of the cool she genetically gave me. Here’s an example:
