Guess Who's Back

So I know you are all wondering, "I know Luke isn't working right now, and he's got nothing to do, but I haven't gotten a phone call, I haven't seen him, and he hasn't even written any blog posts...I think I might be done with that Luke fella...I'm tired of giving and giving and giving, and all he does is take...my friendship is worth more than he seems to think...to hell with you Luke...I hate Luke...he's such a jerk...I am so never talking to him...I might not ever read his blog again...he will learn to appreciate good people like me...I wonder what I should have for dinner...I've got those leftovers, but chicken never tastes the same after it's been in the refrigerator...maybe if I dip it in a little ketchup...is ketchup good on fried chicken?...is that weird...but I don't really have any money so I don't want to go out, and I am in no mood to cook either..."

Well, I can't do much to help you for dinner (unless you want to go out together, in which case call me) but I can tell you why I've been a little out of touch despite not working at the moment.

Lindsey and I jumped right into house shopping immediately when we arrived in Lafayette. The market here is really hot right now (though it slowing down because the summer season has ended). We looked all over town, drove through countless neighborhoods and looked at more online listings than I care to recall, and finally decided on a neighborhood we liked a lot. Once we determined which neighborhood we wanted to live in, we had to narrow down to a particular house. So, we dove into researching the houses. We went into a ton of the available houses in the neighborhood (it is a new subdivision, so every house in it is brand new construction) and after a while we finally saw one we just loved. Our agent took us through the house and showed off all of the details, and we were still enchanted. At that point we made up our minds...we want that house.

The problem was that Lindsey was still job hunting. So we began the process of praying that the house we decided we loved wouldn't get snatched up before she found a job.

Well, as luck would have it, she got an interview this past Tuesday and was very impressed by the job. The schedule was great, the pay was great, and the job description fit her perfectly. She was offered the position on the spot and accepted the very next day.

As soon as she accepted a job I got on the horn and arranged a pre-approval for a mortgage. Then, with our pre-approval letter in hand, we were able to meet our real estate agent for lunch (her treat...another reason to pick our agent if you are in the market in the Lafayette area...e-mail me for her name and contact info) and we put together an offer on the house. Later that day the offer was accepted by the builder and we had a contract on the house we wanted.

If you click on the picture at the top of this post, you will be taken to an album of photos of the house. We hope you like it and that you will all visit us there.

We made our offer for the full asking price of the house because it was priced really well. The homes in that neighborhood are selling for an average price of $122 per square foot over the last three months. Three months may not seem like a long time for an average, but a lot of homes in the neighborhood have sold in that period.

The reason that we didn't make an offer lower than asking price is because the house does not come with a fence around the yard. So in our offer for asking price we also asked that they build a fence for us before we move in. They sent us a counter offer which indicated that they would install the fence and pay for half of it. We thought that would work for us, so we signed the papers and sealed the deal.

The house is three bedrooms with two full baths. It also has a small study in addition to the bedrooms. Here is the description from the listing:

Traditional styled home by Generation Builders with 1761 sq ft living area in a new neighborhood, Custom cabinets with snack bar and island with slab, granite countertops in kitchen, triple crown molding, ventless fireplace, office/study, ceramic tile, wood and carpeting, varying ceiling heights (9+), master bathroom has separate jucuzzi tub and shower, front and back yard sodded.

Other things keeping us busy this week were car problems. The air conditioner in my car has been out for months, but living in Portland, it wasn't really a problem. Well, once in Louisiana it needed to be addressed immediately. I brought that in to have work done by my brother in law who works at a local shop while he's in college.

Lindsey's car has some damage from an accident in which some asshole hit her rear driver's side door while it was parked. We had to bring that in to Allstate to get an estimate, and then to a body shop to schedule an appointment.

Other than that, it's been a pretty quiet week here.

Please take a little time to look through the pictures of the house. I took the liberty of adding captions to most of them. We could not be more excited to buy our second house. We loved our first one, but this time around we plan to stay in the same place for a very long time. Leave comments to let us know what you think, and remember if you have nothing nice to say...