My Colonial Cottage

So Ann Nicole at oursuburbancottage.blogspot.com is having a party today. What is this party about? Its a  How I Met My House Party!  I thought what the heck I just need to finish a painting project, mow the lawn and make dinner...so I think I will join in.

I met my home about 4 year ago. We lived in a cute suburban town in New England and wanted to stay in that town. However we had out grown our 1850 village colonial and decided it was time to look for a new home.  We knew from the start that we wanted to pay no more then we could afford, so we chose our max price and stuck with it.  We put our old house on the market .   We found our present home after looking at many newer homes which were at the top of our budget and I did not feel like we were getting all that we wanted.  Our wish list included: 4 bedrooms, a fireplace, at least 1/4 acre and an area for a playroom for the kids.

After looking at all the newer homes we finally stepped foot into our present home. It is a colonial and  was built in 1973.  It was love at first sight but definitely not love at first scent.  The realtor who showed it to us made a point to tell us that one of the upstairs bedrooms was the cats favorite room. Now the house was empty at the time and when we went upstairs to take a look the smell of cat urine was overwhelming.  I tried my hardest to look beyond the smell and found that I loved the bones of the home. Yes, the carpet was disgusting,

 and yes the wall paper was dated,

 and yes the yard was a little smaller then we would have liked,

  but it was still 1/4 acre so it fit the bill.   So we put in a bid on it and the owners accepted,  but we did put a contingency in the contract that we needed to sell our other home. Time passed and the contract did too.  However  two days after the offer on our new house expired,  we sold our old one. We talked to our realtor and she suggested we make another offer on the new home and after  a little haggling  we had a new offer accepted which was almost 10,000$ less then our first offer. We were thrilled and relieved at the same time.

We lived in a hotel for 10 days while we had hardwood floors installed in our new home and were so excited to return to a fresh and cleaner smelling home. They actually had to remove the subfloor from my sons bedroom because the cat urine was so bad.  Anyhow it has been four years and we are still in love with our house.

The floors look better,

The wallpaper is gone,

The yard is still a work in progress.

  We are still working on the inside too!

 I am from a family of 8 kids and my home is always full of family and friends.  Family members are always calling and asking  if we have any openings in the spare room.   My sister got married two years ago and we actually had 11 people staying with us plus my family of four, thanks to many aero beds, couches, and the double bed in the spare room.  I hope you all enjoyed the story of how I met my house. I can't wait to read about how you all met yours!

MAURA

Free Starbucks

Just got back from starbucks with my husband (work from home day). Today only you can bring in a reusable mug and get a free fill up! I guess it is for earthday/ tax day. If you like starbucks, why not get it free today!
 If you want to learn how to get more items free check out my new blog- gotnotcentsatall.blogspot.com, It is all about saving by using coupons and such!  Let me know what you think!

Could this week get any worse?

Well my son went in for another check of the nose this week and He is in good shape. Still swollen inside the nose but it is healing . So my sister came over last night for dinner (which was awesome- chicken picatta) and while she was here my daughter stubbed her toe on the coffee table. My sister thought this was so funny as I have always stubbed my toes-  I never wore shoes as a kid, if I did not have to, and my toes were always hurt. Anyhow my daughter woke up this morning to find that she can't put any weight on her foot and her toe is red and bruised. So It is back to the Drs again to  have her foot looked at today.  The pediatrition is not going to believe this. UGH! I will let you know what I find out later.

Maura


Follow up: Just got back and the toe is just bruised and sprained but not broken- Thank goodness!

A Trip ...but not the kind everyone likes

Well I hope everyone had a nice Easter! We were having a great time at my mother in laws. The kids were getting a little tired and we decided it was time to go. So my son decided he wanted one more run around the back yard which has a railroad tie retaining wall in it. . I said to him.. you know you are getting tired and it is time to go I don't want you to get hurt. Not one minute later I heard his foot hit wood and turned to watch at he went nose first into the corner of another railroad tie. The blood was a gushing and it took 40 minutes to get it to stop bleeding. We decided it was time to call the doctors.

So I call the doctors line and the answering service said they would put in a call to the doctor on call. Well 15 minutes later we get a call back from the answering service saying that the doctor on call is not on call at this time. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ANYTHING SO DUMB!

Anyhow we did get a triage nurse to call back and she told us it would be a good idea to take him to the er to have the nose looked at. Which we did. The Dr. told us it is a good thing he is only 7 because the nose is all cartilage.  How ever he has a pretty big blood clot in his nose which the dr said will come loose and  he may bleed again. So for now we have moist air in his room, vaseline in the nose to keep it moist and tylenol for pain. He does not look too bad today. Just a little swollen but he said that everytime he smiles or makes his nose big ( I think he means flairs his nostrils) it hurts. I told him not to make his nose big if he can help it!  As for smiling - well that just can't be helped and I am glad to see that even if it hurts a little.

My son loves school and wants to go today so I said he could but no running around at recess and no gym this week. They are playing soccer and I can not imagine the pain if he ever got hit in the nose. Other  then that we will be back to normal in no time.  Hopefully!  Well enough about us. How was your Easter?

Maura