Super Quick Life Update: WE ARE BUYING A HOUSE!!!

February 27, 2020February 26, 2020 valmanwillLeave a comment

NEW HOUSE:

Sorry, I’ve been MIA this month. Things have been super crazy since we’re BUYING OUR FIRST HOME!!

excited 2

I seriously am in love so hard. Sometimes when I think about it, I feel all blubbery and teary-eyed haha. It’s everything I wanted and then some! We are signing all the closing paperwork TODAY and I honestly couldn’t be more STUNNED/ECSTATIC.

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THE KIDS:

Has everyone else been like non-stop sick? Because holy moly. This month has been the WORST. We’re just barely getting over the flu and thanks, it only took us A COUPLE OF WEEKS.

THE WRITING:

Things have been slow as hell. This is the slowest I’ve written in years. I remember when I proudly wrote a breezy 2k a day. Now when I write two sentences, I have to stop to wipe my brow and binge watch a horrible reality show because my fingers are so tired. It’s been some rough stuff man. In November alone, I wrote 50k words. Then it took December, January, February to wheeze out 20k.

crawling

And it’s not without a reason… House hunting and house buying has become like a full-time job almost. It’s so much work and time! One other hilarious thing that has slowed me down, is I can’t get myself to stop reading my own book. Usually, when I draft I have a strict no-reading-back policy, but with this one, I’ve been pretty naughty. I’ll try to refer back to a scene ‘real quick’ and ‘hey this is kind of funny’. Suddenly 100 pages later, I’ve been sucked in and I just wasted my designated writing time. That’s a good sign though, right? I mean, I don’t know if anyone else will be turning pages, but I LOVE THIS RIDICULOUS BOOK OF MINE. AND GOSH DARNIT I AM DETERMINED TO FINISH THIS FREAKING DRAFT BEFORE I MOVE! AND I WILL! JUST YOU WAIT NAYSAYER!

(I can’t tell you too much about the book yet, but what I can tell you is that it’s a dark-comedy time-travel story about The Beatles.)

Stay tuned for more updates, book announcements, videos of the new house, so on and so forth.

Why is House Hunting Exactly like Dating?

January 30, 2020January 29, 2020 valmanwillLeave a comment

So, I mentioned in my last post that Dan and I have become serious about house buying. Woo hoo! But also AAAH scary!

I’ve always loved looking at houses, browsing floor plans, perusing open houses and so I thought that the process would be a lot of fun.

Nope.

Guess what it basically was.

Dating.

I’m serious. It felt the freaking same dude. Every weekend you’re going out to see them and getting to know them and trying to figure out if maybe there’s a future there. And hi! It was just as stressful. To be completely honest.

One guy would have a great kitchen, but kind of a horrible backyard. Another guy would be like not great curb appeal, but wasn’t looking for cookie-cutter anyway I could give him a chance. Ooh, this guy has a lot of what I’m looking for… Woah, never mind, no way I can afford this guy. It was basically exhausting.

We had the long-distance relationship thing. Perfect house, great looking, big lot, kid-friendly. But he was just too darn far away. Like out in the middle of nowhere far away. As much as we loved him, we couldn’t figure out how to make it work between us.

We even had the toxic relationship thing…

One day I swiped right on Zillow. And wow, this house was really attractive. I mean, everyone was going after this house. I tried to set up a private date with my realtor but when I got there, everyone else and their literal dog were there. Like busier than an actual open house.

At first, I was insecure, like should I offer? He’s way too handsome! But he accepted MY offer! Out of everyone! And I was SO stoked!

And then we got the inspection done.

And I was like, wow dude. You need some work. Your AC unit is 30 years old. You need new paint and your pool is trashed, bro. But no, our relationship was AS IS. So OKAY FINE. I’ll just deal with it. Whatever. We can still make this work.

And then the appraisal came in.

20K LOWER than our original deal. He wasn’t going to change. He was seriously NOT GOING TO CHANGE A THING ABOUT HIMSELF, NOT EVEN HIS PRICE. So we were like BOY BYE!!!

And I swear to you, this ex house was pending another girls offer like not even a week later. WOW.

So glad to be out of THAT situation. Not worth it.

Things kind of lowkey sucked for the next couple of weeks. I just couldn’t feel a connection with any other house. I was even thinking about stopping the house hunt for a while and like hunting myself. You know? Just to slow things down and figure out what I really want.

BUT… I have to tell you…

Dan and I have been dating a house and it’s pretty serious. Like seriously serious. Like accepted offer serious. We still have to go through the whole inspection/appraisal snafu again. But, I really actually think this one is THE ONE.

Updates to come later!

2019 Predictions: Did They Come True?

January 23, 2020January 22, 2020 valmanwillLeave a comment

I needed a calendar last year. (2019) So I finally decided to make one of those personalized Shutterfly calendars. But I kinda sucked at it and it ended up having all this random blank space, so instead of fixing the format I just decided to fill it full of month-to-month predictions. You know, just what I thought maybe we would be doing in July or October or whatever. And honestly, it kept us all entertained all year!

So now (2020) I decided to look over just how many of my monthly predictions came true and how many did not.

I posted them here, so you could see each one:

January

“See a lot of Uncle Jeremy”

True

After we really started to struggle with The Residency, Dan’s brother came down for a couple of weeks to help out.

February

“Meet Donjeta”

False

My brother Collin had an Arizona trip planned so that we could meet Donjeta (his then-girlfriend, now wife). They had to cancel last minute due to an unexpected surgery and we didn’t meet her until March

March

“Deal with difficulties at work”

True

We terminated our residency in March.

April

“Jack will suddenly like nursery”

True!

My painfully shy firstborn did not want to be babysat. He did not want to run off and play at the playground. And he REALLY did not want to go to my church’s nursery class. Then one morning in April, just like I dreamed… he decided he was over that phase. And none of that stuff was a problem anymore.

May

“Have a hard time potty training, but a surprisingly easy time transitioning boys to new beds”

Mixed

They both still suck. Casey transitioned easily.

June

“Have successfully made it through residency and start the job hunt”

False

Already had the job

July

“Be trying to extend the contract on our apartment”

False!

We briefly considered leaving our apartment and renting a house but ultimately signed a lease renewal in early August

August

“Be going to Utah for a wedding”

True!

Both my brother and close friend ended up choosing August for their Utah weddings

September

“Casey will be walking”

True!

Casey took his first steps in September

October

“Have a breakthrough with a writing career”

False

Sadly no. By this time I had decided to put away my YA contemporary to work on something completely different.

November

“We will be cooking Thanksgiving ourselves”

True!

Dan worked on Thanksgiving so we stayed in Arizona. I wasn’t even going to cook a Thanksgiving meal but caved the day before.

December

“We will move into a house”

False

But December is when we decided to become serious about the home search process

Pretty interesting. I got it about half right. 50/50 chance your random prediction will come true! I ordered another Shutterfly calendar for 2020 with 12 more predictions. So tune in next year to see if the 50% still holds up…