April | 2011 | The Beginning of Always

Not everything can be exciting, I suppose, and I do have sad news as well.

Last Wednesday, Carl Winslow, our pet Betta fish…died.

Yes, it’s true.

Carl Winslow stopped eating for a few days about 3 weeks ago. A friend told us that he would probably die soon. But, he started eating again we thought he was a fighter for sure.

We were still a little concerned, and before we left for Lynchburg last weekend, we had a friend come get our key so she could feed Carl while we were gone.

I said, “I will clean Carl’s bowl tonight so his water is clean. Also, if he happens to die, you shouldn’t feel bad…we are expecting it sort of.”

Literally 10 minutes later, I went to clean his bowl and when I put the net in to scoop him out, he didn’t try to swim away like usual.

I picked him up to confirm.

He was gone.

I stared at him. “Aaron!”

Aaron confirmed it as well. Carl was no longer with us. He now swam with the fishes.

We had a short funeral over the toilet.

Carl was our very first pet. He was our faithful companion for nine months. We are still talking to him because we forget he is gone.

RIP Carl.

At least it will be fun to pick out a new fish.

While I can’t speak for Aaron’s lack of posting, mine has been mainly due to writer’s block. Yes. I have been reading so many great blog posts lately, but I could not for the life of me come up with any inspiration.

But, due to some recent, surprising events, I do have something to share…

I work in Wake Forest, and every, single day I pass a neighborhood that has giant signs and banners that say “Townhouses from the $120s!” Aaron and I have long decided that a townhouse would be a perfect fit for us because we both dislike yard work and the sort. We are city folk indeed. After months of passing these particular houses without much regard, I finally thought to myself that it would be fun to look at them.

You see, our apartment lease is up in July, and we had decided that we would begin to look at houses, but neither felt a dire need to move this summer. We said, “If we find something that we love and can afford, we’ll move; if not, we’ll stay.”

So, Aaron agreed to meet me two Fridays ago after work. Neither of us were expecting to like these houses because we hadn’t had much luck in our house-searching so far.

But….

WE LOVED IT!

The next day (Saturday), we dragged our parents up from South Raleigh to take a look. They all loved it as well and encouraged us to pray and think about it before we made a decision. We agreed.

Sunday, we got a call…the house had sold. Sad. Day. We were bummed, but we knew that it must not be the house for us.

The lady that worked for the builder told us there was one other townhouse that was the same floor plan as the one we originally liked. I convinced Aaron to go even though he was sure we wouldn’t like it as much. I wasn’t so sure either.

We went on Monday after I got off from work. The inside of the house was almost exactly the same, but the outside and location were not quite as appealing. Now we didn’t know what to do. This was the. last. one. available.

We still didn’t feel quite right, and we told her we would think about it overnight.

In the meantime, Aaron had been researching loans, mortgages, and all of that crazy stuff. I am at a loss for anything financial, sadly, so I left him in charge. He complained about his brain hurting a lot, but he did a great job. Things were moving on our loan approval, and he felt certain we could definitely afford this house…it was just a matter of if we really wanted it.

The next day, Tuesday, we were still contemplating if we wanted this second-best house when I got a call from Aaron saying he had news about the townhouse.

I immediately got a sinking feeling that now the other one had sold. I was wrong. Instead, he told me the first one had actually become available again! The people that “bought” it didn’t get approval for a loan (sucks for them), so it was back on the market!

The lady told us she would not show it again until Thursday so we had time to get everything in order. She was so nice to “hold” it for us!

Last Wednesday, Aaron finished up his research and felt very confident that we were getting the best deal and loan from our credit union. He scheduled a meeting with the lady at the townhouse office and the realtor from our credit union for Thursday afternoon.

By the time I arrived to the house on Thursday, they had reached the final stage of their negotiations. My wonderful, smart husband and gotten the builder down to the lowest price he could possibly sell for. They would also buy us a new refrigerator, washer and dryer, and banister. Moreover, they were going to cover almost ALL of the closing costs (whatever that means). Basically, he had reached an awesome deal! After we crunched numbers one more time, we decided to go for it!

We are now home owners!

We own a beautiful, new, 2-story townhouse. It has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a loft, a study, a dining room, a kitchen, a living room (with fireplace), and most importantly, NO yard work! 🙂