It's been a while...

... so much for my aspiration of writing at least weekly.

Things have been crazy lately. In the biggest news, we lost the house we had been waiting on for 4 months. They wouldn't budge on their price by more than $2000, which was way out of our price range. The house is now listed for the price that the bank has approved and it's way more than the house is worth in my opinion.

So we continued looking at other houses to see if we could find something else. We saw a few houses online that were worth looking at, one of them being a brand new house in a developing area. When our realtor showed us the house, I had to try really hard not to fall in love with it. I didn't want to get my hopes up again and then be let down. Although there were 2 houses that we really liked on that look, we decided to get more information about the new construction house.

The only reason the house was still on the market (since it was brand new and really well priced) was because it is owned by Arundel Community Development Services, or ACDS. They are a government group that's run by the county which helps mid to low income first-time home buyers purchase quality housing. For us, that pretty much just means lots of paperwork and hoops to jump through. To put an offer in on this house, we had to apply for a program that has an income cap and requires HUD-certified housing counseling for each participant. After they wiggled our income down to fit the requirements, we haggled about the offer a bit. But now, we have a contract!!

We're supposed to go to settlement before the end of the year, but it's looking like it's going to be the 31st of December. We had to put in a 30 day intent to vacate at our apartment complex, so it's going to be tight. We didn't want to pay any additional rent, so our move out date is the 31st. If we close that day, it's going to be a rough day! Oh, and did I mention that my inlaws are going to be here that whole week? Crazy (or as a friend would put it: cray-cray!).

I'm looking forward to Christmas because we will get to see family, but I'm also pretty sad. My family can't travel up here (since my dad's surgery... more on that later), and I can't take off work to go down there so we won't get to visit my family during the holidays. After some periods of introspection, I have discovered that this really upsets me. This will be the first time ever that I won't get to see my family during the holidays. I'm very glad that Nat's family is coming up, stressed, but glad. It will be really nice to see them and have them over for a little while, and we'll get to go down to Virginia to see additional family as well. Unfortunately, I still have to work. :(

Back to my family not being able to travel: my dad had some pretty invasive neck surgery in mid-November. He had narrowing of the spinal column, 3 bulging disks, and was beginning to have some nerve damage from the difficulties he was experiencing. So, the doctors decided that he needed to have the surgery sooner rather than later, so they had it set in less than 3 weeks from when the decision was made. Fast turn around, and a several weeks later, he is doing well. From what they tell me, it has been a long recovery for Dad as well as for Mom because she is the caretaker. For a few weeks, he wasn't allowed to do anything other than get up and go to the bathroom on his own. Anyway, he's doing MUCH better now.

Hate to be a downer during Christmas time, but I really want to go home! *insert sappy country song here*

I'll end on a happy note: I beat my sister at Words with Friends, and here's a picture of our house!