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My husband and I do not celebrate Valentine’s day. We’ve both disliked the holiday since before we met (in fact, a friend and I used to get together over Valentine’s day weekend and make hearts out of black construction paper and write “Happy February 14th” in white out on them). However, we both have a kind of guilty feeling on the day if we DON’T get each other SOMETHING even though we both agreed that it’s stupid.

I’ve heard the suggestion that Movado Watches make great Valentines gifts for those who think in riddles (Love that lasts a lifetime, love for all time, etc), which is actually pretty traditional. Just think of the Victorians and their fan language, or the language of flowers, and so on. Lovers have always sent secret messages to each other in these types of ways, and BlueDial.com makes it easy by including free 2nd day shipping to the continental US and free sizing with each watch sold.

To hubs, however, the ultimate in classiness is a Cassio watch, and I don’t wear watches. There’s one Seiko watch that I think I’d like, but I still can’t see me wearing it. I’m perfectly happy with my Christmas Mickey Mouse watch and my Nightmare Before Christmas watch. I rarely even wear bracelets, and I make those!

No, if I ever feel the need to wear a watch, I’ll probably just make one.

Hunting for a house, that is.

Hubs and I are sick of renting. Sick of having to call in the maintenance guy to fix the crappy equipment that comes with the place, sick of the horribly drafty doors and windows, the literally hollow baseboards and trim (I kid you not, what wethought was solid wood was in fact rotted out leaving the form of the original wood in the paint so that it looked totally normal until we accidentally pushed too hard on it and it caved in), the mysterious leak from somewhere around the tub that leaks through the ceiling in the kitchen and INTO the ceiling light’s cover. The kitchen faucet that can only be turned off by pushing down on the center of the thing rather than the actual handle, and now we just had to have a part replaced in one of the toilets to stop the jackhammer noise that woke me from a dead sleep 2 hours after I went to bed after a long day. I’ve already talked (at length) about the neighbors, and now the CO2 alarm goes off every time I make chicken or turkey broth.  I’d mention more, but I don’t like to complain. (insert tongue into cheek here)

So hubs and I found a cute little end of unit townhome in an awesome location. New community, immaculate exterior and yard, ditto for all the neighbors. Only problem is that it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath, and for all of its shortcomings, our current home is 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath plus an additional toilet (weird set up). So, we sat on it for a few days, unsure whether we should apply for a mortgage, set up a viewing, etc. A few days later, we looked at the listing again and it was under agreement.

No big deal. We really liked the house from the outside, but really? were we ready?

We’re still not sure. But after this weekend’s incident with the jackhammering toilet, we’re a little more ready than we were. My friend wrote a post on waterproofing basement walls which is a good reminder that not all is rosy in the home owning world. I would hope that a home we buy would be in better condition than this place, but at least the fix is free when you rent!

In the meantime, my internet marketing income as well as the posts like the one just before this is starting to creep up. It’s not enough to make the difference between home ownership and renting yet, but it’s getting closer. I just need to keep hammering away at my sites, and eventually we should be able to start looking at homes that are in the slums and actually have all the amenities we require. I hope.

Most of my life, my family has rented. The house I grew up in was actually the only real house in a trailer park (when my parents were expecting me, the landlady moved out of the house and into a trailer, and rented the house itself to my parents). From there, we moved to a rented half house, from there to a rented whole house. Eventually, my parents bought a townhome, and a few years later, I moved out.

Now, my husband and I want to own our own home for different reasons. Me, I hate being stuck with “landlord beige”. Luckily, the townhouse we’re renting now only has the lame eggshell wall paint (flat, of course, so everything marks it), but the carpet is actually more of a tan. SOOOOO much better than landlord beige! I want to be able to paint walls, buy quality carpet, choose my own washing machine, clothes dryer, oven/stove, dishwasher, maybe even bathtub if finances would permit.  Hubs just wants privacy. No maintenance guys having keys to our apartment (though all the maintenance guys here are great and the kind of guys hubs would invite over for coffee if he were the kind of guy that did that sort of thing), a detached so we’re not listening to the neighbors having band practice and they can’t hear hubs crank up the volume on his video games, movies, and music.

We really want to buy, but because of finances, we can’t. Not yet anyway. The housing market hasn’t come down far enough, and the economy gave the bosses a good excuse to not increase our financial situation for a while. I hope that’ll change soon, but since we’re having so many problems with our rental (the building itself), we’re looking to move again and may not be able to buy before we snap. That means hunting for apartments again. Luckily there are some amazing apartments just up the road. They cost a bit more, but they sit on a golf course and have their own little village shopping center right in it! Pizza place, needlework supplies, a bank, post office, and gift shop. Not too shabby!