theprotagonist5

Snowflakes, a photo by ChicagoPhotoShop on Flickr.

We woke up to snow this morning. Pretty when it isn't enough snow to stop traffic.

Untitled, a photo by celialee on Flickr.

Time to enjoy the sights via Flickr. I didn't spend much time outdoors this year.

Manahattan, a photo by ecstaticist on Flickr.

Sometimes I miss the city and all the hectic business that happens there.

But I never miss the 2 hour train ride.

How Will We Sustain a More Populated Planet?, a photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr.

That is a very good question. Some ideas:

Smaller homes, use less energy, work remotely, commute less, exercise more, improve local agriculture, community relationships/organizations/sharing, educate everyone & never stop learning.

Beautiful day to be sitting on top of the world, unless you're outside in the cold!, a photo by Yano on Flickr.

A lot of people have moved on from Flickr to Twitter and Instigram and Facebook.

I always liked how discovering photos from around the world made me want to go out and do/see new things.

Now my blog is mostly about health trials and tribulations, maybe because health is the focus of my work...Maybe because I'm married and that means little time for travel and recreation with a husband an home that needs work.

Maybe it is time to look for some new inspration.

This is a great time lapse photography project animated in quicktime to look like a video. The fog rolling in across San Francisco bay with the lights underneath is really beautiful. What a surprise to find this in my Flickr feed today.

Marilyn Monroe Sculpture, a photo by chollsjr on Flickr.

This has quickly become the most photographed tourist landmark in Chicago. Passing the Sears (Willis) Tower, John Hancock Tower and the Lakefront views of the skyline. I don't know if it is innapropriate or just odd and playful. People really have been flocking to see it on Michigan Avenue at the River.

My feet, a photo by Yateski on Flickr.

From July 4th on the beach.

Dawn - Redux, a photo by DeeMac on Flickr.

An amazing picture of how beautiful Spring can be. I don't have bluebells or a forest, but I'm a lot happier with spring now than I was a few weeks ago.

This is my cat Zeus eating lettuce. He loves to much on it as a snack, although today he seems concerned that someone may see him eating it.

Crocuses, a photo by Yateski on Flickr.

The first thing to bloom in the garden, although some heleobores are blooming now too. I may have mis-judged the amount of work needed for the garden when we bought the house. It is a lot of space.

The next morning we had to run to my grandfather's Berwyn because my Uncle said we had to be there to get anything we wanted from the estate before they had the estate sale, and this day and time was our only option. So, we went and ended up spending 4 hours there of course. The house is immense and filled to the gills with stuff. I also wanted to take pictures so that took a long time too. While we appreciate being able to keep a few family heirlooms it was not great timing, Janice and her kids were supposed to arrive at 4pm and we got back at 3:50. Steve's parents had dropped off a large bag of toys they had in their attic for Janice's kids to play with and left them in the garage while we were out.  Steve had visited with the cats in the morning, my dad did while he was visiting in the evening and I spent time with them late before going to bed. They seemed less scared, but the noise of the visitors was unsettling for them.

We had none of the food prepped when we got home and I knew we would not get much done with the kids running around. So luckilly Janice was running late and we made the fastest pasta salad ever and made the salad and veg that are pretty quick anyway. Steve handled the burgers after doing some speed vacuuming. Janice got there about 5 and luckilly the kids liked the gifts and the borrowed toys so we were able to talk with Janice for a bit and she could actually see the house. (having an 18 month old and a 6 year old is a challenge when visiting). She told us that she would never take a connecting flight with 2 kids and 2 large suitcases again without her husband to help. I don't blame her.

My parents also came by to see the kids since Janice and I have been friends forever and they know her kids pretty well too. I ended up helping Janice chase the kids most of the evening and Steve stepped up and did a lot of the stuff in the kitchen, getting things served and put away which was pretty amazing. We did have a great time and enjoyed seeing everyone but we are not used to this much happening all the time and the cooking stuff complicates it a bit more than just running from event to event, because we're not that good at the cooking yet.

I'd like to get better at this entertaining thing because I do like seeing people and I feel like its what you do when you have a house. You have people over rather than go out all the time. Its gratifying yet at the same time exhausting. Maybe next weekend we will catch up on our sleep after we are done cat-sitting Simon and Sebastian. Sigh.  

Steve and I took more time off from work and drove out to Buffalo Grove on Tuesday to pick him up and he looked much more alert and happy when they brought him back to us and handed him to me. We were overjoyed to see him happy but we knew his time was limited.  We got the directions to feed him 10-20 ccs of liquid or food every 6 hours and we drove him home. I held up the carrier so it wouldn't feel the bumps on 294 while Steve drove. It was still somewhat bumpy but it was a lot less than on the way there.

We brought him home thinking we had a day or two with him left so we took the rest of the week off work. I also had painters scheduled to repair and paint the family room but luckily Steve's mom handled the Painters and I took care pf Pogo and some work from home. He was initially better for the first few days, eating the food the vets gave us and loving the opportunity to have Tuna water with each meal (tuna water is the water in a can of tuna drained off for the cat to drink, they love that and its a way to get cats to drink when they don't feel well). He would not drink any regular water but he did eat fancy feast food with water, kitten dry food moistened with water, tuna fish in water and the smelly chicken from the vet. They said the smellier the better when cats are sick and don't want to eat.

We thought we may only have a few more nights together so I slept on the floor in our bedroom so Pogo could have his cat bed in the bed with Steve as he always slept with him. Pogo even felt better enough to walk on Steve in the morning a few times and sit on him briefly like old times. Pogo also got a few more naps in the Sunbeams that came in the windows at about 7 am. He genuinely enjoyed all the extra time with us and would purr a lot when we would pet him and tell him what a good cat he was and how much we loved him. He had not purred much in the last few years. He even made a point to struggle to get up from his cat bed and jump down via the steps we made at the end of the bed with an ottoman and a box to get to his litterbox. After all this he still wanted to be good and go in the box. Unfortunately he didn't poop at all in the week and a half we had him back home, he was backed up again and the cancer somehow was causing that too. He eventually wouldn't be able to eat more if he was backed up (constipated) because cat systems are very short and can't make more room to eat with if things don't move. The cycle from eat to poop is about 24-48 hours in a cat normally.

After a few days of us tip-toeing around him Pogo decided he felt good enough to leave the bedroom and he wanted to explore. First the upstairs and later he made the difficult flight of stairs down to the first floor. You could see that it was difficult for him but he was happier to make the rounds of the house as he once did, making sure everything was where he wanted it and he could see everything. Pogo was enjoying sniffing the outdoor air this morning where I had the patio door open and he took a few naps on the desk in the office where he has been sleeping since we moved here. Pogo was even there to greet me when I got out of the shower this morning like he always did although he could not jump up on he vanity like he used to as I would be brushing my teeth. It is these little moments you cherish with them that are unique to each cat you have and your relationship with them.

Zeus was good, he respected Pogo as the top cat till the end. Jumping off the bed if Pogo was on it and jumping out of the way when Pogo was walking through a narrow space between the wall and Zeus. I'm proud that my cat knew Pogo, it calmed Zeus down a lot because Pogo was never aggressive toward Zeus even though Zeus was jumpy and reacted deffensively quickly. It made Zeus a better man and taught him a lot of patience. Cinnamon has been pretty oblivious through all this. She is deaf so she didn't  have much of relationship with Pogo in the last few years and she seemed not to notice much that he was ailing. She was even in the room later when he was put down, which was very odd.

The biopsy test results came back on Friday July 23rd and all I heard on the message was that yes it was cancer, it was a carcinoma, call if we had questions. I thought that was a confirmation of the diagnosis we already got and didn't question it until I went in to work on Monday the 26th for one day to finish some things. I couldn't find anything on carcinomas in cats on the internet so I called the Vet Cardiologist and she said that the biopsy showed lung cancer not any other kind. This is where it gets confusing for us. She said that lung cancer can be removed much easier than this lymphoma kind they originally though he had. She said that if he had been eating more he may be able to survive a surgery. We would need to take him to have a CT scan at Aurora VCA to find out. I called Steve and told him the news but he wasn't really buying it and called his mom who said that a CT scan is $3,500 and not worth the trouble or cost in this case when you can't save the cat.

It was very hard for Steve to change direction on this and in the end when we found out that the cost was $1,000 for the scan and he would need to be put under anesthesia to do the scan we opted not to go further because we didn't know whether he could survive the anesthesia or the car trips back and forth. Steve basically made the decisison after we debated for about 3 days that Pogo wouldn't survive the surgery and even if he did Steve thought it was too much pain to put him through and the recovery would be too rough on him from a very painful invasive chest surgery. So, I feel horrible that at this point we had to give up the fight. It was Steve's cat and his decision and even though I disagreed I had to respect the decision.  

In the end we knew our 2 weeks of vacation was ending and Pogo was not eating much anymore or drinking either. All the tricks to get him to eat/drink were not quite working anymore. We scheduled the time for the Warrenville vet to come to the house Friday afternoon, 11 days after this all began. We were very sad all morning and we watched in amazement as Pogo came down the stairs twice this morning to see the house and be with us downstairs even though it was difficult for him. He looked nauseous when he sniffed food though so he had not eaten much of anything in the last day and if we let this go on he would starve and dehydrate to death with us gone at work next week. We knew we didn't have a choice.

The vet came to the house and tried very hard to be sensitive to the situation and do this in the least painful way possible. Pogo was upstairs, I brought him down and paused at the bottom of the steps and told him how sorry I was that we were doing this to him after all he has done for us, and how much I loved him. The Vet first gave him a shot of a relaxing drug in his leg to put him to sleep but then for some reason he tried to grab the scruff of Pogo's neck and Pogo screeched and tried to run away. I had to try and hang on to him and carry him to the couch where I wasn't holding him in a way he wasn't un-comfortable. And the vet had to give him the rest of the shot in his leg rather than the back of his neck. Then we waited a while for Pogo to fall asleep and he really didn't go to sleep quickly as we were petting him. Then the vet gave him the second shot in his chest to avoid the vein in the leg and the turniqit needed to do that because it was uncomfortable. Pogo then slowed down further and his heart stopped. He gasped for breath a few times because he was a fighter and then he was gone. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen. And nothing we wanted him to go through. And not exactly painless. Afterward the vet let us have a few moments with him before he took the body and I said an our father and a hail mary prayers for him, told him we loved him and would never forget him and we left the room so the vet could take the body. 

I can't tell you how sad and upset I am at how this all turned out. I feel like we failed Pogo as owners because we didn't demand better care and follow up on why he was losing so much weight and I feel like the vets failed him also. I am also dissapointed that Steve decided not to fight harder for investigating what we could do both earlier when Pogo was losing weight and when we found out he might have a chance on Monday. But I can't do much of anything about this except tell people to get their cats/dogs x-rayed if they lose weight after being somewhat healty for a long time. Look for chest tumors, lung tumors, brain tumors and be vigilant with questioning your vet. Go to a second opinion and get the direct answers you need to make the educated decisions the best that you can, just as you would with your own health. If you get wishy washy answers or vauge we can't save them answers without biopsies and test results, look into it elsewhere with another vet. It's true that surgery may have cost us $4-$5000. But at this point, feeling as horrible as I do having lost the best cat ever and putting him through a painful euthinasia process I would have easily investigated and possibly paid for the surgery if we could have gotten a straight answer about his prognosis and the success rates of the surgeries in the stage of cancer he had. Sure we may have gotten answers that confirmed what we were told already but then I wouldn't have to live with the doubt and pain now not knowing if we could have saved him.

I would do anything to have Pogo back in our lives but I know he is gone and we have to take better care of his sister Cinnamon and my cat Zeus with what we have learned from the most loyal, elegant and smart cat we have ever known. Sir Pogo Yates.

We will miss you always Pogo, and we will always love you and remember how special you were.

So things just keep getting added to the todo list. More cleaning and unpacking to come after the generosity of Simon Scott and both sets of parents on moving us in.

The house is nice but already there are plusses and minuses.

Plusses:
The fireplace, the mantle matches a large wood frame mirror I have perfectly.

The fact that the basement is finished already although it needs some paint.

The size of the bedrooms. Not huge, but nice. Comfortable but not insane to pay for heating with.

The yard, I think it is a good size although it will take some work to maintain.

The 3rd car garage. Doesn't fit a full size car but good for storage.

The overall look of the houses exterior is nice. The windows are recent and really nice.

Negatives;

The age and quality of the kitchen cabinets is bad, I'm not sure we can reface these they're really worn.

The fact that every room is painted such a dark mocha and the wood is dark too. So much to paint.

The bathrooms are ditto like the kitchen. Cabinets and sinks suck. What's with all the mirrors everywhere?

The laundry room is small and the cabrio washer dryer we bought doesn't fit. I'm not sure if we can return it? Or maybe just put it in the garage?

The work we will have to do in order to get the buffet in the kitchen instread of the desk. We have a huge office, not likley we need a desk in the kitchen too. The buffet may cost $1000 to refinish plus the cost of finding some shaker cabs to mount above and add lighting.

It's just hard to keep up with all that needs to be done. It seems endless. Everything electrical seems to blow a fuse or be wired wrong and need to be redone. The telephone line doesn't run anywhere in the house but the cable, which we did not order. Does. So much for dsl.

Anyone who wants a house that they can move into, I suggest getting one recently redone like our townhome. Otherwise it's like 6-9 months before your settled. At least that is what Amy tells me.

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I tried to post from my phone the other day and when I got a call on the phone it lost everything. I'm going to try again.

It was a hectic weekend moving in and looking back we probably tried to tackle too much at once. It's just frustrating that we only get 2 days a week to work on this and the rest of the week we get home at 9 pm.

We tried to move things with a uhaul truck (that I rented but did not drive) and ended filling it 3 times with stuff. Part of the reason we had to do that was that too many people had ideas about how/when/where to do things and the debate had to stop. We were never going to get anything done if we debate forever. I wanted stuff in the house to end the debate and get it done. It was required by Steves mom that we shampoo all the carpeting and do a second rinse with vinegar. Although the carpets were very clean we did it anyway. She did most of it although my dad helped and I did too when we could.

I understand Steves moms pursuit of perfection but I can't keep up with it. She also keeps saying we have to keep the cats upstairs until we wash and sanitize the floors. The previous owners had a purebred cat that was indoors only and I doubt there would be any parasites to pick up.

We can't do that until I get through the boxes in the living room, of which I thought we had a few weeks to go through. I guess not. I was up till 1am emptying them last night and assembling furniture in the office. To be fair though she has cleaned the carpets in the townhouse for us and saved our arses when the water heater sprung a leak on Wednesday.

I'm just not sure I can ever live up to her expectations when I'm not nearly the perfectionist.

Anyway the cats have not taken to the house that well and I think it's because they think it's a vacation and that they don't have to live there. Zeus has been fine despite wailing like a baby the whole ride there. Pogo was quiet the whole way there and then peed on a plastic bag the next day in the room we have them in. Cinnamon has managed to wail all the way there and pee in a catbed this morning. I'm sick of cat pee.

I think I should finish in a new post so that I don't loose this one the second time around.

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Posted via LiveJournal.app.

We close on the house tomorrow at noon. We have the walk through at 11. We have to pay a huge sales tax to Naperville at 10. We get to start shampooing carpets at 2. It's going to be a long day.

In contrast to most people being giddy about buying a house I am still a bit nervous. I think the financing will be ok and closing should not be an issue since it looks like the sellers took off a while ago and won't be present at closing.

I guess the recession has changed the way I view things. I'm worried about things down the line with our jobs and this ginormous mortgage. It is actually far below what we could have financed a few years ago but still about 10% more than we wanted to pay.

I'm also worried about my ability to cook and clean and decorate this place to live up to home standards when I work a lot and get home at 9 pm. Decorating on a budget is always tricky but when you owe so much over the next 30 years it's scary to eat up reserve funds on furniture not knowing what will happen with jobs and such.

My company is having a rough month after having a good december/January so of course were thinking layoffs can't be far behind. My husband has to decide on some big things with his company this spring too like whether or not to get a smaller space to lease and whether or not he sees things going up or down in the next year and if he can still afford things there.

I guess I'm very jaded about certain things and since I can't get a promotion to save my life I'm not sure about the future finances and that spills over to the house.

It's also weird to try and make decisions about decorating with 2 people involved plus our moms. It's a lot of discussing and emailing. Somehow this was much less complicated when I had almost nothing and bought a condo.

Although I am looking forward to one thing. Not sharing walls with anyone elses home. This is the first time I've ever been able to afford a free standig house without the noise of music/tv/neighbors. And we get our very own yard ( which will be a lot of work and doesn't get enough sun to garden much)

I hope the new neighbors are nice. I bet they hope the same of us. We're quiet, they probably won't notice we're there.

And moving the cats will be a challenge. Zeus has moved a lot but pogo and Cindy never have in 13 years. This is going to be a shock to them to get carted off and never go back home again. We plan on building some new cat trees for them, maybe they will adjust to the new home in a few weeks? Or a few months?

And all my stuff is still in my inlaws basement. I have the hope that I will be reunited with my furniture soon and that the buffet can be built into the kitchen/ family room like the vintage ones used to.

We also have to reface cabinets in many places and figure out how to mount a runner on the wood stairs.

I can't believe I am buying a 2 story cape cod house. I have lived in a ranch all my life and then a single floor condo for 7 years. This is going to be difficult on the old knees but it wasn't really an option to get a ranch either. Few are available and those needed even more work than this one.

So we will start our lives as over property taxed napervillians tomorrow and hopefully things will work out as well for us there as they do for most people who move there for good schools and a comfortable community. We will soon find out.

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We close on the house tomorrow at noon. We have the walk through at 11. We have to pay a huge sales tax to Naperville at 10. We get to start shampooing carpets at 2. It's going to be a long day.

In contrast to most people being giddy about buying a house I am still a bit nervous. I think the financing will be ok and closing should not be an issue since it looks like the sellers took off a while ago and won't be present at closing.

I guess the recession has changed the way I view things. I'm worried about things down the line with our jobs and this ginormous mortgage. It is actually far below what we could have financed a few years ago but still about 10% more than we wanted to pay.

I'm also worried about my ability to cook and clean and decorate this place to live up to home standards when I work a lot and get home at 9 pm. Decorating on a budget is always tricky but when you owe so much over the next 30 years it's scary to eat up reserve funds on furniture not knowing what will happen with jobs and such.

My company is having a rough month after having a good december/January so of course were thinking layoffs can't be far behind. My husband has to decide on some big things with his company this spring too like whether or not to get a smaller space to lease and whether or not he sees things going up or down in the next year and if he can still afford things there.

I guess I'm very jaded about certain things and since I can't get a promotion to save my life I'm not sure about the future finances and that spills over to the house.

It's also weird to try and make decisions about decorating with 2 people involved plus our moms. It's a lot of discussing and emailing. Somehow this was much less complicated when I had almost nothing and bought a condo.

Although I am looking forward to one thing. Not sharing walls with anyone elses home. This is the first time I've ever been able to afford a free standig house without the noise of music/tv/neighbors. And we get our very own yard ( which will be a lot of work and doesn't get enough sun to garden much)

I hope the new neighbors are nice. I bet they hope the same of us. We're quiet, they probably won't notice we're there.

And moving the cats will be a challenge. Zeus has moved a lot but pogo and Cindy never have in 13 years. This is going to be a shock to them to get carted off and never go back home again. We plan on building some new cat trees for them, maybe they will adjust to the new home in a few weeks? Or a few months?

And all my stuff is still in my inlaws basement. I have the hope that I will be reunited with my furniture soon and that the buffet can be built into the kitchen/ family room like the vintage ones used to.

We also have to reface cabinets in many places and figure out how to mount a runner on the wood stairs.

I can't believe I am buying a 2 story cape cod house. I have lived in a ranch all my life and then a single floor condo for 7 years. This is going to be difficult on the old knees but it wasn't really an option to get a ranch either. Few are available and those needed even more work than this one.

So we will start our lives as over property taxed napervillians tomorrow and hopefully things will work out as well for us there as they do for most people who move there for good schools and a comfortable community. We will soon find out.

( Read more...Collapse )

We were suprised to find out that our loan was approved on Friday and we also got a $500 credit from the sellers of the house, because they didn't want to fix anything. The appraisal also came back exactly on the amount we got as the highly argued over selling price. How is that for amazing? I can't believe they thought they would get 60k more than the market price. I sold under what I wanted to with the condo and I'm sure steve will also with the townhouse. Thanks to M and E for the notes and advice. Things are looking up a bit now.

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So, this house thing isn't going so well. I'm not sure we will end up at the finish line on this deal.

The owners accepted the offer begrudgingly but aparently have been snippy with our realtor and lawyer ever since.

We got through the inspection without many issues being found, considering that they crawled all over the house for 3 hours.

Steve went OCD over the report which had mostly minor things that are really more maintenance than things broken and took 3 days to give them the list of things we needed fixed.

The owner is being a jerk and said no to all of them. One being a sumpump backup that does not work, one was rotting wood in a door frame, one was a toilet and faucet leaking in a bathroom and another being carbon monoxide detectors not near bedrooms.

So after being severely offended we have countered with please reconsider fixing the items or give us $500 to fix things.

I am pretty sure they will decline both offers and we will eat it.

All the while our financing was declined by one broker and will be declined by another soon because of Steves business. He claims profit and loss on his taxes and in 2008 there was a loss, in 2009 the loss was bigger yet. They think he is a risk and I agree. I wouldn't approve us either.

This boils down to me being the only person on the loan. Which is bizzarely approvable yet still a bummer since steve isists on seeing the second broker decline things before doing it that way. We can both be on the house title but I'm not sure I want that risk of the business being linked to it financially by his taxes and loans. It may have to be in my name.

This isn't great for a lot of reasons but we've just about finished the townhouse and planned on selling it soon, so all this weird work around stuff may just be how it happens.

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I haven't had any time to update but because we may go under contract on a house today I figured now would be a good time to put off work for a few minutes and post.

We have had the most frustrating 6 months looking for houses in Naperville Wheaton and Lisle. We started in August and found that even with the price drops we could not afford what we would really like to buy. So we stopped looking.

Then we thought my company might lay off more people so we didn't start looking again until November when it became aparent that I would have clients to work with for 2010.

Then we found we could still not find a house in decent shape in our price range. We did want a 4 br house with a yard and we didn't want to have to remodel it from top to bottom or have it be almost as small as a 2br townhome. (you would be suprised what they call 4 br if its an older home).

So we waited again and watched the listings. We would go see a few houses every few weeks and not like what we saw. We saw a lot of old wood paneling glued to walls, a lot of really ugly colors of brick fireplaces and a lot of really old kitchens.

Then we found out that Steve's business is qualified as self employment even though he employs 2 other people because the profits and losses are on his taxes. And the last 2 years have been big loss years. (that is a story for another time) So, almost all the loan qualifying would be on me. How F-d up is that?

So we couldn't even qualify for much even with the down payment of $ from the sale of my condo and some of Steve's investments. (also we had the existing mortgage payments working against us since we knew we could not sell it while living in it and they only approve a 45% debt to income ratio total using your pretax income) 

Then Steve's parents realized that the business would make this impossible so they gave us a huge gift of inheritance at the end of 09 and beginning of 2010 (max gifts per year without tax penalty made it impossible to do this in 1 yr and I think they still paid some penalty).

So with our new bigger down payment we did get requalified for a larger loan and figure a smaller monthly payment at the same time and might be closer to affording a pretty average Naperville 4 br house. Then the challenge was to find one that had a decent layout. With the recession nobody was selling that did not have to so most of the good houses were not for sale.

The housing surplus inventory had been cherry picked this past summer and only the really weird ones and ones that needed significant work were left. We were annoyed.

So 2009 was a whirlwind of changes and activity for me and Steve. getting married is fun but somehow a lot less fun than you think when you're a kid. The amount of detail and the stress to make the "right" decision about things to please everyone (and filll every need/social rule even the ones you have never heard of so people don't think you're rude or clueless) was more stressful than I would have liked and in the end we were just relieved to have it all over. We did get the photos and things we wanted so it looks all perfect but it wasn't that way behind the scenes!

Other highlights of the year included sleuthing out a thyroid "nodule" that ended up dissapearing (after being biopsied 3 times) and moving in together and selling my little 800 sq foot condo in Oak Park of which in the beginning I hated and by the end I really loved.

On to 2010.

Some thing that would be nice to accomplish this year: 

1. Find a friggin house! Every house we decide we want (admittedly we wait too long because we're busy and then don't move that quickly) goes off market or is sold. It's been about 6 months now and we look on and off depending on what is happening with my job or Steve's but it's very frustrating that all the great houses available in the beginning of the downturn are gone now and the only ones left are the ones that require serious work. And nobody is listing their house now because they don't want to loose money on it. So its slim pickins. We saw one this weekend with a full wood sauna in the basement (who wants to remove that?), one with a water tower in its backyard, a bunch of corner houses with no yard privacy, backed up against a noisy street, and one with a shower built into the sunroom right next to the hot tub. (who puts that in a sunroom??) 

2.  I'd like to find a way to sell Steve's place in the process of moving to a new home. We're not sure how easy this will be since the remodeling but my hope is it won't take too long.

3. I'd like to loose the weight I gained right back after the wedding. I never got past the 12 lbs or so I lost initially when we got engaged because I lost momentum over the holidays last year and then closer to the wedding stress eating played my coping strategy. Then the wedding was complete and I went into work stress mode, and then 2 analysts quit and the other 4 of us had to absorb all their work for 3 months and even more stress eating ensued. So basically I'm the same weight I was when we started like I never lost anything at all. Finding out I have high cholesterol has led to meat avoidance and the purchase of a lot of oatmeal but not any weight loss yet. I really need to avoid carbs/sweets those are my downfall, I couldn't care less about meat and know its not the source of my cholesterol problem.

4. There are more things I'd like to write but I will have to finish later as I am due to a meeting soon.