I hate Tampa (but love good food!)

Yeah, so the "mini vaca" turned out to be horrible. I won't go into details here..but I pretty much hate Tampa. The only good thing that came from it was last night's delicious steak dinner. I had salad, french onion soup, half a bottle of wine, 8oz filet mignon, carrots, green beans, and shoe string onions. THEN we got a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar. THEN... we went upstairs to this cute little intimate dessert room and had some kind of flaming deliciousness. It was yellow cake, macadamia nut ice cream, with a marshmellow topping, which was doused with liquor and set on fire! YUMZORS! I wish I'd taken a picture. :-( I want to show you all how pretty the dinner was.

Mini Vaca

The past few weeks have been especially hectic at work. My schedule changes almost daily. I can hardly keep up with it anymore. Fortunately, Kevin has a business meeting in Tampa coming up and I get to tag along! I probably won't do anything more than drive around Tampa and we'll go out to dinner the night we're there, but at least I won't be here and I won't be at work. The sad thing is, this is the first time I'll be leaving the Orlando area since we got married (over six months ago!).

I got promoted a month or so after the wedding and started working weekends. Since my days off are in the middle of the week, Kevin and I haven't been able to go anywhere together. We didn't have a honeymoon and I'm now really regretting that decision. We figured we'd have the weekends together. It's sad because I really miss my husband. I feel like we never see each other except for a few hours here-and-there and I'm usually dog tired when we do see each other. So, even though he'll be working I hope we can use this "weekend" of mine to spend a little bit of time together.

Another No

Pembridge house behind UCF is a big fat no from the seller.

First Time Home Buyers & update

So, I'm watching this show on HGTV called "First Time Home Buyers." I have to say, it's reassuring to watch a couple go through the same issues we're facing. In this episode, the featured young couple put an offer on one house, and it went under contract before they even got to put in an offer. The second house they put an offer on they couldn't get because the seller wouldn't budge on price. The third house was a foreclosure, they put an offer on it and then had to go into a bidding war with a cash buyer and ended up offering more than asking price. Luckily, they got their house (which has yet to happen for us) but then the inspector came out and he found tons of issues with it. (The same thing happened to us with the Lancer Oak Dr. house.) They decided to buy it anyway (the issues weren't as significant as needing a new roof, like the Lancer Oak house needed for us), and as far as the show tells us, they live happily ever after in their "fixer upper."

Anyway, it was interesting to see them really excited, then upset and frustrated all in one episode. It's reassuring to know that we're not the only ones going through these types of issues. I know we aren't the only ones, but still, it seems like buying a house is so easy for some people. And it was still easier for the HGTV couple than it has been for us because they found their place and closed on it in six weeks. We've been looking since June and have met disappointment after disappointment.

Our fingers are still crossed for the Pembridge house which we currently have an offer on, but my hopes aren't up. Like I've said before, I'm over the home buying thing. I'm ready to move on with my life and have decided spending my time thinking about a "maybe" house is a huge waste of time. In a few weeks our deadline will be up and we'll be looking at rentals.

However, I don't know if we actually will be looking at rentals. Things are actually improving a bit here. Our landlord still hasn't paid his HOA dues and, as far as we can tell, he's still behind on his mortgage, but we got a letter in the mail the other day from Bright House saying they now offer cable to this community without going through the HOA. So, we now have cable! I'm very excited to feel connected to the pop culture world again and if we have to put up with this place for another year or so until Kevin graduates, then so be it. If we don't have a house here when he graduates, then we'll definately be leaving Florida.

Orlando Housing Market

Home sales are up this month for the Orlando area and prices are down. The median price is $125,000 and yet we haven't had any luck finding a place!

For more on the new statistics click.

4319 PEMBRIDGE AVE

We have an offer in on this one. It needs some roof work, but we'll try to see if the seller will pay for it. (terrible pics on this one. Whoever took the photos has no clue how to show a house in a picture.)

Kevin's favorite - 4221 FOREST ISLAND DR

Kevin really likes this house. It's ok, but I need to spend more than 10 mins in it to know if its the one. It's smaller than the others we've been looking at. Only 1300 sq feet.