Aloha Friday: Imaginary House Hunting

Posted on August 21, 2009August 21, 2009 Posted in memes & carnivalsTagged aloha friday, an island life, back yard, down payment, homes, house hunting, houses, housing market, kitchen, meme, trulia.com6 Comments

It’s time for another Aloha Friday, the day that you take it easy and look forward to the weekend, in Hawaii and blog land anyway. As you should know by now, over at An Island Life, Kailani decided that on Fridays she would take it easy on posting and ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.

If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life’s blog. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

So one of my favorite hobbies is imaginary house hunting. I figure I’m doing something to stay familiar with the housing market, hone into what types of houses my husband and I like… and well it gives me something to fantasize about. Between our recent unemployment stint, the move to Wisconsin, the new baby and my upcoming dental needs I really have no idea how long it’s going to take us to save up a decent down payment although we do have the advantage of having excellent credit and no debt to speak of – point is – I don’t know when we’ll be buying the house of my dreams, but it doesn’t stop me from dreaming.

Last weekend we went for a drive through our neighborhood, checking out the houses I’d found nearby that were for sale, in our imaginary price bracket, that I liked from what I could tell in the pictures on Trulia.com. We’ve found quite a few drool worthy houses or houses that we liked enough to say, “Sure that’s a really nice house,” but this weekend we found It. The House. The place I want to raise my children. The backyard, oh my god, the backyard. We couldn’t stop talking about our little fantasies of what our lives would be like there – Dan cooking on the grill that would be on or near the gorgeous little patio – our children playing in the beautiful little garden that trailed the fenced in perimeter of the yard – and of course me, sipping some lemonade or iced tea while reading a book or blogging on the imaginary lap top I don’t own. It was perfect.

And from what I could tell of the pictures, the inside is perfect, too. Drool worthy kitchen, good lighting. And the curb appeal is nice, too, complete with a cute little front porch with a picturesque bench by the front door. It’s everything we want and if we HAD a price, the price would be right. If we could fast forward two years or so, giving us time to re-save up a down payment… and the house magically stayed on the market… Point is – I want it. And that makes me a wee bit heart broken because I know the odds of it still being for sale are slim. Now I’m sure there is something wrong with this house – there is something wrong with every house, but still. This is my fantasy and in my fantasy, it’s The House. So I’m in mourning for it because I’m 95% sure we’ll never own it.

The nice thing is my husband and I are getting good at spotting the types of houses we would both like and we know what we both look for in a home. The two first things I look at in a home are the kitchen and yards and I’d venture to say it’s the same for Dan. Anyway, my questions for you this week are:

What are the most important things to you when looking at potential homes? What do you look at first?
Do you have (or have you ever had) a The House – the one you would drop everything to move into if it were feasible?
Do you imaginary house hunt, too? Or maybe imaginary vacation shop? I do that, too. 🙂
If you were going to buy a house today, how much of a down payment would you ideally want saved? What do you think a bare minimum acceptable down payment would be?

Aloha Friday: What’s Cooking?

Posted on August 14, 2009August 14, 2009 Posted in eats, memes & carnivalsTagged aloha friday, an island life, cooking, dinner, meme, recipes19 Comments

My husband has gotten REALLY into cooking lately. At this point I’ve pretty much given into the obvious and accepted that he is a much better cook than me – and he LIKES it. These days he does all the cooking for dinner, yes even on week nights. Don’t hate me because I hit the marriage jack pot. 🙂 Anyway, he loves to cook and does a great job but he still asks me to plan the menu for the week / month – as in, give him an idea and let him run with it. It’s the laborious task of deciding WHAT to cook that he doesn’t like, at least not on a daily basis and he loves my monthly menu plans. So I’ve continued making the menus and he cooks the ideas I come up with, occasionally changing things up entirely when he gets inspired.

But… I’m running low on ideas and I’d really love to give him some new recipes to try. So my questions for you are…

What is your favorite dinner recipe? (Feel free to include a link if it’s online)
Do you like to cook? How about your spouse / significant other?
Who does what in your household (I’m guessing my grandmother and I aren’t the only ones with aspiring chefs for husbands)?
What’s for dinner tonight in your household?

Aloha Friday: Opinions Please?

Posted on August 7, 2009 Posted in memes & carnivalsTagged aloha friday, an island life, business ideas, cafe, children, family friendly, friends, kid friendly, meme, parents, playgroups12 Comments

So my friend Stephanie has a business idea – and she’s looking for opinions and advice, being new to the world of business – I thought this would be the perfect chance to help her out and get some opinions from her target audience – you (most likely)! Anyway here’s her idea, in her words, edited slightly for clarity…

“Do you think a “mom and me cafe” would take off as a business? It’s a cafe where moms and dads can take their kids to have a cup of coffee with other moms and dads and their kids can play in a safe environment. There would be parent only events at night such as scrap booking nights- and family nights as well… during the day, one day a week, there could be a play group, etc.”

Thoughts/ideas?

Aloha Friday: What Drives You?

Posted on July 17, 2009 Posted in memes & carnivalsTagged aloha friday, an island life, biking to work, bus passes, cars, dream cars, honda CR-V, meme, Toyota Matrix, used cars, Volkswagen Passat9 Comments

Yesterday my husband called me during MM’s nap with some not-so-great news. There was a hole in the thingy that the fluid stuff goes in and the car was over heating (Coolant something? Maybe? Can you tell I’ll never be a mechanic?). He was calling to ask me to come pick him up at the gas station he’d stopped at in between leaving one office and driving to the other (he’s still in training and often has classes at one of their buildings in one town and spends the rest of his time in his office which is in a different building about twenty minutes away). That night, after he came home from work, we went back to the gas station where he further investigated (yep, definitely a hole in the thingy) and added some water (so as not to waste coolant that would just leak out?) and drove home. He says by the time he got home the car was just starting to overheat again.

Anyway, right now we’re temporarily ignoring it and planning to live with just the one car until we decide what we want to do. It might be something he can fix himself or inexpensively get fixed. It might be worth it to try and live with the one car permanently – there are buses that will take him to any of the offices he needs to go to and bike paths all over the city. And then there’s the old, “We could look into replacing it with a slightly better cheap car.” This is a big maybe – we’d need to find an amazing deal that made having payments worth it. But of course it gets me to daydreaming about the cars I’d like to have. Currently at the top of my list are the Toyota Matrix, Honda CR-V and the Volkswagen Passat (and you know a half dozen other vehicles that occasionally flit through my mind). I’d love something with a larger trunk than my 2002 Corolla and more leg and shoulder room all around would be lovely, but we might not need something as big as the CR-V – that just happens to be a car I’m infatuated with to no end.

Anyway, my Aloha Friday questions for you today are…

If you could buy any car right now, what kind would you get?
How old is the car you are currently driving? How long have you had it?
Have you ever considered (or gone through with) divorcing a car altogether and doing the walking / bus / bike thing?

Aloha Friday: Do You Y?

Posted on June 19, 2009 Posted in memes & carnivalsTagged aloha friday, an island life, family, gym, meme, preschool, YMCA10 Comments

My husband has been telling me since MM was an infant that he wants to get a family membership to the Y – I’ve always said, “Sure sweetie, someday.” You know those things cost money – and it’s not like we used our gym membership enough to have justified buying them – would we use the Y membership?

But about a week ago he pulled up the website for our local Y and showed me all the things we could do there, what it cost, etc. and I have to admit I was tempted. They have free childcare for when Dan or I want to work out or take a class, they even have kids’ programs like, um, preschool and other fun classes the kids could take in art, sports, music, anything really. Swim school – yeah they have it. And the price was shockingly not bad for what you get out of it. But of course I am still sitting halfway on the fence, wondering, is this really the good deal it seems to be? Are their child care centers good enough? Are the classes that good? Would I use them? Is it REALLY as economically sensible as it seems?

So…

Do you have a Y membership or have you had one in the past?
Did you use it and like it?
What were / are your favorite things about the Y? Least favorite?
Any advice for Y newbies?

Aloha Friday: You Put Your Right Arm In…

Posted on June 12, 2009 Posted in family funTagged aloha friday, an island life, children, dancing, head shoulders knees and toes, hokey pokey, MM (my monkey), nursery rhymes, singing12 Comments

Lately MM has been very grumpy, irritable, restless. Despite his mother’s contentment with being a homebody, this kid is booooored. He’s bored with the routine and he wants to do something else now – he needs constant distractions. It’s made Dan and I grumpy, irritable and restless, too. The other day I was trying to keep MM preoccupied before bedtime while we waited for Dan – we like to do this bedtime routine together as a family – new diapers, pajamas, a story, all that – I don’t remember what was taking him so long but I do remember that MM was ready to jump ship and do this whole “bedtime thing” another day instead – what kid isn’t? So I’m trying to calm him down, distract him and convince him that bedtime isn’t the devil, when out of nowhere I start doing the hokey pokey. Just because.

I must be a genius or something because MM was immediately enthralled – he wanted to hokey pokey over and over. After about our 4th round of hokey pokey, I switched things up and we did head, shoulders, knees and toes. Another big hit – and I’m left thinking, “Why haven’t we sung these to him yet?” and “What other awesome distraction / song / dances am I forgetting?” Because this stuff is like activity gold – I don’t need to buy anything, grab any tools, or anything – I just have to remember all the dorky song and dance numbers from my youthful past.

So my Aloha Friday questions for you this week are:

(If you are a parent or care provider for a little one) what songs, nursery rhymes etc. do you like to do together?
What is your child’s favorite? What is yours? Feel free to include the words, etc. in case I don’t know them.
Any other distraction tips for my grumpy, irritable, restless little one? I know, I know – I need to take him out more – did I mention I’m hugely 34 weeks pregnant and live on the third floor? I’m trying people!

Mommablogsalot

Tag: aloha friday