December 24th, 2007
Hi,
We were at trader joes the other night and P told the cashier we weren’t going anywhere for the holidays and he responded that we were just kickin it, and yes, that is just what we’re doing. P sent his grades in, I’m off for a week (kind of), and it has been a nice blend of days so far spent mostly relaxing and reading. I’m reading about giant squids (very interesting).
Thank you to everyone for their wonderful cards and gifts! We loved them all.
News:
I’m a year older! Birthday was good, we went to the art museum in san jose to see a miro exhibit, dinner and cake the following day with friends.
We won the war, turned down the house and opted for this one instead http://www.movoto.com/real-estate/homes-for-sale/CA/Santa-Cruz/167-Molly-Way-100_752609.htm. We opened escrow and started inspections. We should close on Jan. 16th. Fun packing! We were trying to think what we would miss about our current apartment…still thinking.
Tomorrow, we’re going hiking and cooking dinner. We may even see the new national treasure movie. Looking for a good bollywood movie to netflix? Try veer-zaara. P didn’t like it but he’s not a fan of bollywood.
Happy birthday Noel! One day older than me, can’t wait to celebrate together next year.
Peace,
- N.
December 11th, 2007
Hi,
As of last night, we are officially in a bidding war. I got a call from our realtor that the house was going on the market yesterday and we need to put our offer in. P and I hustled to her house and spent the next four hours working on it and e-mailed it off first thing this morning.
So far, we are up against a lot of people. The bank listed it very low, $200,000 lower than its original price, and it caught a number of eyes already. All of the offers are being sent off to the bank this afternoon and we’ll know who wins on Thursday.
Back to the battlefield…if only I had listened to Edwin Starr.
- N.
December 10th, 2007
Hi,
We got news late last week that ‘the house’ house would be on the market early this week, exciting but trying not to get my hopes up in case it takes longer.
Weekend was good, too short as always. P and I had separate holiday parties Friday night, Saturday we had friends come to SC and we had brunch, visited beach/monarchs, and lunch. My conclusion, a low fat brunch just is not fun. I’ve decided to pretend I’m vegan to help myself with a low-cholesterol diet. So far, I’m a bad pretend vegan. Hoping to get better soon. I really want to avoid having any pills added to my diet and would like to get this under control. Saturday night - we watched a bad movie, something called brothers grim(m?) from netflix, bad, so very very bad, avoid it at all cost. Sunday, slept in and worked. I went to the Princess and the Pea with my mentee at UCSC, it was well done and we both enjoyed it.
Back to work work work,
- N.
December 5th, 2007
Hi,
We saw the great Youssou N’Dour here in Santa Cruz at the Rio theater last Wed. We have never seen a show at the Rio before, and in truth the venue is not that great but tickets were cheap and the performance was so uplifting and fun. I really enjoyed it. N’Dour, for those who are not familiar with his work, is a musician from Senegal and is amazing, definitely recommend checking him out.
Yesterday, we moved a stove into our storage space. It was generously donated to us by one of P’s colleagues who are updating their kitchen. We had this perfect plan where we would get our house (which is coming with no appliances) and they would need to get rid of their stove around the same time, however, the timing was off on our end and we had to get a small storage space to put it in. It’s an antique retro stove, very heavy. The small truck I rented from Penske did not come with a ramp and when we saw that it took four large construction workers to load it into the truck, we were a little (very) nervous that the two of us would not be able to get it out. However, once at the storage space, P (and two very nice gray haired men) pushed it out of the truck, it slid down the dolly and landed perfectly without killing anyone or being damaged. Pure luck. Also, after doing some research on how Rachel Ray has created a super surge in these antique stoves, we (I) are now considering refurbishing it and either keep it or turn a profit. They are selling for between $4,000-$6,000. I’m trying to find out how much this will cost of course, but hopefully one day it will look like this. http://www.vintagestoves.com/stove/05dec4385/
Our last weekend was good, really busy. I’m not sure why it was so busy but it was. It started off bad because P had a departmental pot-luck dinner and I decided to make this easy recipe with beans and corn tortillas and we rushed to finish it and in the end it just all turned out bad, so bad that he had to bring a bottle of wine instead and now we’re left with all these beans in the fridge. Saturday we worked and I had a holiday party for one of the groups I volunteer for. Sunday, we had a quick brunch in Los Gatos and went to open houses. Several were for homes that were $2-3 million, the last one was in SC for only $750,000 and it wasn’t really nice, so we’re still looking/waiting.
Yesterday, we retrieved P’s laptop from Bestbuy, looks like it’s fixed. On the way home from San Jose we drove through a 50s style christmas light show in a large park that came complete with holographic 3-d glasses that made all the lights look like either snowflakes or snowmen, they had their own music channel playing all the classics. It was fun and silly.
This is P’s last week of classes…woohoo!
A happy birthday to my sister!
Also, late happy 30th to Julie!
- N.
