Last night my sister helped me find buttons for my cardigan for under ten dollars, including shipping, on etsy!  Yay!

Aside from that I have been experiencing a string of bad luck.  First there was the no cell phone.  Then my debit card got cancelled because of some security breach but it took me two days to find out why.  And my ravelry swap partner still hasn't received my package.  

Today we signed the papers officially ending our contract on the condo.  We found out that contrary to what our mortgage broker told us, the property would be FHA approved even with all the roofing issues.  Also, the sellers did offer to put some money in an escrow account for us, but only a third of what the estimated assessment would be.  

We've seen all three of the houses we were interested in.  The latest one was quite interesting: everything in the house was bought between 1960 and 1975.  The living room and dining room had olive green shag carpeting, three dimensional wallpaper, a mural, and ashtray stands.  In the attic there was an original easy bake oven.  In one closet there was a program from a NBHS football game from the 70s.  It was almost more fun looking at all the stuff than the house.  It was my first time inside a bungalow - over 1,600 square feet on one floor.  

We saw the second house we had looked at a second time and we've decided to move forward. 

Slightly related:  because of all this house business, we have been trying to be a little more careful with our money.  So when the screen on my phone broke, I didn't mind because the phone still worked.  A few months later when the all the keys stopped working it still wasn't a big deal because Paul-John had an old phone that I started using.  But this morning, when I dropped that phone into the toilet and it also stopped working, I realized that I might actually have to buy a new phone.  

FO real

A few months ago I whipped up a cozy for my French press but never got around to sewing on the buttons until this morning.  So, here it is:

"The reason why I far prefer the autumn to the spring is because in the autumn one looks up to heaven - in spring at the earth." -SK

Fall is my favorite season from about mid-August through November.  Right now, I am very excited for spring.    

We saw another house today and we're both feeling really good about it.  I think an important difference between this house and the condo is that the house better reflects both of our personalities; the condo was way more Liz than Paul-John.  We may still go and see two more houses, but we are going to mull it over for at least a day.

Last night the other Mike came back from California for spring break AND tomorrow Tess moves back to CT.  It's going to be a good week.

Back at square one

We pulled our offer on the condo.  We are currently investigating some things, and may possibly still reoffer, but it doesn't look promising so far.  We found out that in the next couple years there will be an enormous special assessment.  Today we looked at one house and have three more we want to check out; possibly one tomorrow.    

Monday was officially my 25th birthday.  Since we are in the process of condo acquiring, I didn't want to do anything big - I would rather save money for lots of new paint.  And possibly someone to apply all that paint for us.  At least on that one 14ft wall - a little out of our painting league.  So Monday we went to City Steam with a couple friends.   I accidentally had honey barbecue sauce for the first time and realized I do like it.  

We also went to the dugout on Saturday "for my birthday," but it was a pretty normal time.  Afterwards I tried to convince everyone to do TV karaoke but no one wanted to, so I just made a sweet playlist of songs I like and really silly songs on Tim's computer. (Kelly Clarkson, Sara Bareilles, and Maroon 5?  Too funny.  Ok, maybe I think two out of three of those are pretty catchy.)  

In other news, Josephine and Lucy are totally best friends already.  They even clean each other!

Buttons

I have been pretty hesitant to start any new projects because I still don't consider my last project to be really finished.  My Ubernatural needs buttons.   It technically has buttons, but it needs new ones.  The current buttons are too heavy and makes the buttoned side flop around crazily.  I thought maybe if I only sewed on every other button it could work, but I think it looks pretty dumb.  I have been to the three major chain craft stores locally with no luck.

So today was my day off and I spent the day running errands.  I was so proud of myself for actually driving to the bank to deposit a birthday check (and, um, a check from my mother to go towards taking my brother out for his birthday in November) I decided to check out my lys to look for buttons.  

I ended up with two skeins of 220 and no buttons.  I have encountered three major problems whilst on my button search:

1.  I need buttons that are large.  The ones I have now are 1.25" but I could probably go larger.  The majority of buttons are much smaller.

2.  I need 14 buttons.  Apparently, not many places stock this many of any type of button, which I find surprising (more so for the large stores than the lys).

3.  I need 14 buttons, and although I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be most likely paying more for these buttons than for the yarn, I still only want to spend so much.  

There are maybe a couple of other smaller places to check out (how does one pluralize lys?) but I really hate going there.  The closest ones to me, including the one I went to today, are at least a 20 minute drive.  Not a big deal, but these stores usually close about the time that I get out of work and are closed on Sundays, one of my normal days off.  

I am desperate for a solution, or I might end up buying another cardigan just for its buttons... 

Happenings

I received my annual review, which was better than I anticipated.  

I also received a lovely package from my ravelry swap partner, but I think I may dedicate a whole post to that, with photos, later.  

While pulling into my parking space, I sideswiped the house with my car.   Yup, that's right.  I hit the house with my car.  Sigh... 

More Lucy

My nickname for Lucy is ratface because her ears are big and pink.

Lucy

Meet the newest addition to our family, Lucy.  We weren't really in the market for a second cat, but we just had to take her in.  I have long suspected that the second floor tenets have no souls, but this was confirmed on Friday when I saw her locked on their front porch at about 10pm.  She was crying loud enough for us to hear her above what we were watching.  I was appalled - our porches are enclosed, but not heated.  I knocked on their front door to see what was up, but they weren't home.

Saturday Paul-John actually ran into one of the girls outside, and it turns out that Lucy was an unwanted gift, and was only on the porch for a little while, because "she was too loud and annoying."  She said if we were interested, she was ours.  And so around 4pm this afternoon they brought her down!

Josephine is not thrilled about this and has spent the whole day stalking and growling.  She probably thought nothing would be worse than her vet visit on Thursday; it is really not her week.