Home Sweet Home

A new year = change for the Grundman household. Is this welcomed change? Not really. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have decided to put our house on the market this month.

Ugh.

We’ve had the conversation many times asking ourselves why we spend almost all of our money on our mortgage payment. Is it really worth it? Personally I’d much rather have a little extra spending money to help me keep up with the latest fashion trends. However even though we talked about other options, we had yet to do anything about it. Now due to some financial changes, and the ever declining real estate market, we’ve decided to try to sell our home before we loose all of our equity.

Over the last few years, San Luis hadn’t shown any major signs of being affected by the market, but now we are starting to see a few. John has actually gotten his first two foreclosures in SLO, which definitely says something since he’s had this job for almost 2 years.

I think we might rent for a while and wait to see if home prices continue to drop…or buy if we see a killer deal on a place. I know I will be really mad if we buy a place and then prices continue to drop, ya know?

A few weeks ago we looked at a couple of properties with our Realtor. (Who has a really nice website).

One of the houses we looked at was a small, (850 sq. ft.), beach house in Pismo. It was really cute but it only had one bathroom and a one-car garage. I’m hoping if we find a place it would at least have two bathrooms, a two-car garage, and hopefully around 1100 sq. ft.

The house had some very interesting paintings inside. I understand the reasoning of course. You live by the ocean, and you want to see it right? But your property isn’t on the water. So what do you do? You paint the walls!
Since this house didn’t have a yard the owner decided that that wouldn’t affect her view.

The kitchen was actually cute, and I did like the counter tops.

We saw a couple of other normal condos, but nothing compared to this BIZARRE house that we saw in Arroyo Grande. I don’t even know how to describe it. It actually had a lot of potential if you didn’t mind redoing EVERYTHING. It was pretty big and had a real cool yard with a creek!

It had really cool original(?) fixtures:
It had a bizarre addition, which didn’t really seem like the interior…but also didn’t seem like the exterior. It also had this sweet built in BBQ! John was pumped!
The kitchen was super weird, but had this awesome ‘pass through’
I think this is on the market for $230k, but you are basically paying for the land. I am bummed that it is in such bad shape, because it would have been fun to fix up!

We also saw one condo that we really liked which is a short sale, but we are thinking of waiting to see if it becomes a foreclosure. It was kind of bizarre when we went to look at the place because it looked like someone was still in the house. I think the owner forgot we were coming and then left immediately when he realized he wasn’t supposed to be there! I was so worried that we were going to walk in on him doing who knows what! It was a total bachelor pad, which was dirty, but not too bad. I think he may have had a roommate as one of the rooms had an unmade bed, but there wasn’t a lot of possessions in the room. I also found it interesting how most of the space in the linen and kitchen cabinets weren’t full…when all of mine are maxed out!

Who knows what the future holds. I’m such a planner that this ‘unknown’ is killing me and it’s only been a month! There is a lot to do, and I don’t want to do any of it. Figures right? We actually don’t have too much to do to our house before we put it on the market, which is good. We are going to paint over the fuchsia wall in our bedroom and our fuchsia bathroom. Total bummer. I love the pink! Oh well. At least we don’t have to repaint more of the rooms.

Hopefully I won’t go insane keeping the home in ‘show’ condition. We only had to keep our condo clean for a month and I thought I was going to die! I’m sure it will take more than a month for our home to sell too.

They say buying a home is one of the most stressful life events…I better start scheduling some massages.

Here's to 33!

Greetings to my 5 faithful readers that (I hope) are still out there! I know I said I would start blogging once 2010 arrived and here I am! Granted it’s February, but hey…even I had doubts that I would be back. I must give credit to Chris, Sarah, and Cindy for inspiring me to start writing again. Thanks ladies!

So where should I start? Let’s see…how about with the most recent current event? Ground Hog’s Day was yesterday and Puxatony Phil saw his shadow.I know a lot of my co-workers were none too pleased with the forecasted 6 more weeks of winter, but I say whatever! Leave poor Phil alone. Anyone who lives in our area knows that we only have two seasons here on the Central Coast. Summer and Fall, with 2-3 weeks of rain a year. I will be really surprised if the temps don’t start hitting the 70’s by next month.

As most of you know yesterday was also my birthday. Yeah for being 33…I think. Who knows what 33 will hold for me, I’m kind of indifferent with this age, but I guess I should be glad that I’m not close to another milestone…like 35. Is that considered middle aged? Or is 40? Regardless…let’s hope that 33 is a good one.

Working on your birthday plain stinks, right? Well thanks to an awesome co-worker of mine she made my day realllllllllllllllllllly special. When I showed up to work there was French music playing on my computer, a chocolate croissant, a cappuccino, a French book, a box of fake French cigarettes, and mini roses waiting for me! It was such an awesome surprise. Are you wondering what is with the Parisian theme? Well this fall john and I are going to Paris! Granted we aren’t going until October, but by having my office all ‘Frenched’ out it made me even more excited to go! I think I need to start eating croissants weekly. My cappuccino intake has already increased thanks out our Italy trip…maybe I should wait until after the trip.
For lunch the theme continued when we went out to eat at Et Voila, a local French restaurant. John and I discovered the place a few months ago and really like it. I had homemade mushroom raviolis and they did not disappoint!

When we got back to the office I definitely thought the surprises were over, but low and behold there was dessert to be eaten! My co-worker tried to get a local baker to create a crème puff tower, (inspired by the Eiffel tower), but they were lame and said they couldn’t do it. So she had to create her own, and it was awesome!! It wasn’t as tall as this one, but you get the gist:

When I got home John had his gift and flowers waiting for me. Check out his awesome wrap job!
I had no idea what was in this huge box but I was SO EXCITED when I saw what it was.
I saw this suitcase in the airport last year and fell in love with it. John some how remembered it and bought it for me. I know this may not seem like that big of a deal, but some days John can’t remember what he had for breakfast! (No offence Honey, but you know it’s true).

After the suitcase excitement wore off we headed to dinner where I had my first good chocolate martini, (thanks to my friend Lori’s suggestion), and it was AWESOME.
It really feels like I’ve been celebrating my birthday for over a week thanks to all the nice cards and gifts I have received in the mail.Do you see that tin? Do you know that the WHOLE thing was filled with cheese and caramel popcorn? My sister had it when she vacationed in Chicago and wanted to share her love for it with John and I. At first it was a little odd, but that stuff totally starts to grow on you! I am ashamed to admit that we finished the WHOLE THING. Granted I’ve felt a little sick from eating it all week, but I couldn’t stop! It’s like crack!

I got a few more gifts for our trip, which include the French Rosetta stone from my parents and that cute Eiffel tower name tag from my friend Maggie. I had both the Rosetta stone and a Kindle on my Amazon wish list. Both are pricey, but one was a need, and the other was a want. As much as I am thankful for the Rosetta stone, I am mad that practicality won.

Do you see the Gnome Bowling kit? How awesome is that? I actually got that from my friend Cindy in the UK, who I met through this crazy blogging world.

I sent her some of her favorite Bath and Body Works products, and I received this in return. It just so happened that it arrived last week. What a great surprise! I’m hoping to take a few action bowling videos soon.

I also got the hat an necklace as gifts, so of course I had to wear them today!
So overall this 33rd birthday totally exceeded my expectations. In fact I’m still on a high from yesterday! I am so thankful for my wonderful family…friends…and blog readers!

November

It's been a month since I posted. I know...I know. I really have no excuse. I could blame Facebook (again) and now FarmVille...but how lame does that sound? I have all these things I could write about...long stories with lots of photos, but when I think about how much work it would be to create one, I think about how easy it would be to go harvest my crops. Seriously.

I got somewhat inspired by this entry this morning. Her DDD adventures in Portland were AWESOME...almost as awesome as mine in New Mexico. What adventures you might ask? I know! I have yet to tell you.

I actually feel guilty that I have been neglecting this blog. I think I'm going to take a break until 2010. Maybe if I tell myself that I can't blog until then it will have the reverse affect and I will want to blog. You never know.

Wedding #2

This past weekend John and I headed up to Napa for his cousin’s Val’s wedding. I love Val and I have actually unofficially adopted her as my cousin. John has quite a few cousins that are close to him in age and I’ve been telling him for years that he is so lucky. I have two cousins younger than me but they live on the East coast and I think the last time I saw them was 20 years ago. My other cousins I see every so often but they are all 10+ years older than I am. I had no idea how great it was to have cousins within a 5 year age span. Even if John doesn’t appreciate it at least I get to!

I was so excited to cruise through Napa with John. If you remember…I visited Napa for the first time this past March when I had my girls weekend. The whole time I was there I knew John would love it as much as I did, and I was right!

I was totally sketched out by our hotel as it looked like a total dive, but then once we got into our room and saw that it was nice and clean my attitude changed. I knew I had checked the reviews on tripadvisor.com and I remembered after the fact that the reviews said it had been recently remodeled. Thank goodness!

Saturday morning John went and played golf with the family and I had a mini adventure morning. One highlight was definitely all of the hot air balloons that I saw BOTH mornings! How cool!!!! Some flew right over the hotel. I am all pumped up about hot air balloons right now because we are going to the hot air balloon festival this weekend in New Mexico. It is one of my life dreams to ride in one but we won’t be able to do it in N.M. That is ok though, because I’m hoping to return to Napa for a ride and a meal at French Laundry. I may need to find a financial sponsor for that trip though. Anyone?

John's Grandpa on the course.

I know Napa is filled with spas so to treat myself, I got a massage. At which spa you ask? Try a place in a strip mall! I know, I know…I was totally weirded out at first but they seemed pretty legit and were actually a chain. My masseuse seemed a bit sketchy but after 15 minutes I was like WHATEVER get that knot out of my back! Plus it was only $50 for an hour. I hope I never become a massage snob…I love a good deal!

For lunch I was able to take John to Taylor’s Automatic Refresher…our 5th Triple D restaurant together. So tasty!

Val and Ron’s wedding was at Aburg De Sol. It was up a hill in Rutherford and had a great view. Here are a few of my fave shots of the night:John and his Grandpa

Me and Auntie Jane (Mother of the bride)Us with John's cousin Robert

Gramp and his kids...John, Jane, Allison, and Phyllis.

Keeping ourselves entertained while we wait for the party bus.

The next day John and I headed up north again to Yountville to go to Bouchon. If you recall…when I was there last March Molly and I surprised our friend Jeremy who was working there. Unfortunately he is no longer working there so we could not go behind the scenes and act all cool. Dang!

Apparently Yountville was having some sort of parade and we totally got caught up in it trying to find a parking spot! It was madness….for a very small parade. Needless to say we finally made it to Bouchon and feasted on some of the best bread in California…and two awesome cappuccinos to boot. It was so nice to sit in the sun and treat ourselves…I felt totally spoiled. I also wound up with two loafs of sourdough as I got one when I was there before and it was by far some of the best bread I have had.After our morning/afternoon exploring John drove me to the Oakland airport where I caught a flight home…but to Phoenix first. (A direct flight from SFO to SLO was $600). John is currently up in Fortuna spending the remainder of the week with his family. I had to pack my carry on very carefully. It consisted of my sleeping boot/sling, my cosmetics, my new pair of GAP pants (their outlets there are really good), and of course my two loafs of sour dough bread.

Iron and Candy

A few weeks ago John and I celebrated our 6th year anniversary. It seems as though the 6th year has been very anticlimactic compared to last year. Maybe it was because last year I got to have a photo shoot and I got an anniversary band to wear on my ring finger. No that’s not it…I think it might have been the fact that the day before was my sister-in-law’s wedding. We spent most of our anniversary traveling back to SLO and then lounging around for the rest of the day because we were so exhausted. We were able to pull ourselves off of the couch to go to dinner though.It was really tasty:
And I also got carded! (I think the waitress was a newbie and probably paranoid since a lot of the college kids were back in town).

The 6th year anniversary gift is iron…and candy. What a combo! I really had no idea what to get John as he had just purchased himself a new set of golf irons. That would have been the perfect gift! Dang. So I opted for two random items…a decorative iron ‘g’ and an iron piggy bank. I had no idea if he would like the decorative ‘g’ but the piggy bank he did need…although it’s only 3 inches high!!!!! A lot of good that is going to do! What is he going to store in it… 20 quarters? Yes…the site online did have the dimensions, but I really didn’t want to believe it was that small. I mean who makes a piggy bank to store less than a handful of pennies in it?
John also bought himself a new cooking knife as a gift from me, but it’s hard to count that as a gift when he picked it out…and paid for it.

Thank goodness I did come up with an awesome gift for the dude, but it was after the fact. I don’t know why it took me so long to think of this gift either. A t-shirt from Lance Armstrong’s bike shop in Austin Texas Mellow Johnny’s. I was so excited when it arrived and he LOVED it! Score one for the wife!

Unfortunately for John the gifts he ordered me did not arrive in time. The killer part is that he did plan ahead and even ordered them in August! I felt pretty bad for him, as I would have been really mad if I were in his shoes. He had nothing to worry about though because once the gifts arrived they were so good that I completely forgot about the tardiness!

I received some accessories for the MINI…two stickers. One says ‘actual size’ and the other says ‘no photos please.’ Then he got this small round magnet thing that hooks on to the front of the car and you can switch out the plates. I'll post a photo after it gets put on the mini.

How cute is the reindeer one? I can’t wait to buy some more. Will I remember to swap them out? Hopefully!

Then he got me the gift of all gifts…a custom Lisa Leonard Necklace!!! I almost keeled over when I saw what it was. I think I may have blogged about her work on this site before but I’m not sure. In case I didn’t here’s a little background. I came across her blog a few years ago via another blog and started following it. At the time she was making custom jewelry and selling it through her blog. Eventually her business grew and grew and she now sells her work from this site.

As some of you know I’m a sucker for personalized gifts and in so in turn my friends get personalized gifts. I started small by getting a few friends necklaces with their kids names on them. They loved them so much that I continued to give them to all my friends. It also helped that this was the year for my friends to have babies. Each time one of them received the necklace I would get the sweetest call or email thanking me so much. Granted it was my idea, but I really felt like Lisa should be the one getting the credit.

I also love to give this baby spoon.

I even gave a necklace to my mother-in-law this necklace with all of her grandchildren on it.
She has even come out with an ornament for this year as well.
Where was I? Oh right…every time I would receive one of the pieces in the mail I would show John and swoon over how beautiful they were. It has been a year since I’ve been ordering from her. A year. I really gave up the notion that John did not get ANY of my hints…maybe I’m a bad hint giver? Apparently I’m not because my some miracle he remembered and bought me a necklace! (Photo to come)

Needless to say it did turn out to be a pretty good anniversary, although it still doesn’t feel complete. Why you ask? Well we have yet to finish our anniversary traditions by watching our wedding video…and I need to put on my dress. With traveling every weekend since and being super busy during the week we haven’t had a night to sit down and relive one of the greatest days of our lives. Don’t worry though…I’m hoping after we get back from New Mexico we will do it.

Work of an Artist

A few weeks ago John’s sister Molly got hitched down in Pacific Palisades (north of Santa Monica). John and I were both very excited to be a part of her big day…I was a bridesmaid and John was the officiate. Molly and her husband Michael planned the wedding in three months and considering that time frame they did a great job.

One of the highlights was when one of Michael’s brothers got up during the toasts. Now Michael never officially named a ‘best man’ as he was worried what they all might get up and say. Needless to say that his preventative actions didn’t help. At the end of the brother's sentimental toast he finished with ‘At least we know Michael isn’t gay,’ and then walked off. It was so funny and uncomfortable at the same time.

I was going to post some of my photos, but why do that when I can steal…I mean copy and paste some of the professional photogs photos? I was lucky enough to convince my sister-in-law to hire my friend Ken to shoot the wedding. (Do you remember the awesome photos he took for John and I last year?) My sister-in-law was definitely hesitant with hiring a photographer that was way more than she had budgeted for but I kept telling her that when the day is over all she will have left is the photos. If you have to cut corners…cut it on the flowers. They are dead the next day anyway. I think a tiny miracle happened when she decided to take my advice and hire Ken…and let me tell you that she told me I was right. I mean take a look for yourselves!

I am still amazed when I look at these photos. During the day I thought ‘how is he going to make these photos look as good as his others?’ I was there…looking at the same things he was and I wasn’t seeing it. However that is why he is the professional.

The South

I saw this photo online today and it made me stop in my tracks.
As most of you know my good friend, Rebekkah, moved recently with her family to Atlanta. I talked to her this past weekend and she said that they have been in the clear of the flooding, although homes a half a mile away did get flooded.

If your local news is like ours, then you probably haven’t heard much about the floods, so I thought I would share with you the email she sent me after I sent her the photo of the amusement park.

I had heard the park flooded, but had not seen any pictures. They say it has happened before and that the rides were built to withstand floods. This park is about 10 miles from our house (at most). It is crazy that people all around us were hit this bad by the flood and we were completely unaffected. The houses 1/2 mile away were flooded past the second levels. Several of them are built 13 feet of the ground due to being so close to the Chattahoochee river, and they still got major damage. it was the worst flood ever recorded in history here. The record high flood levels were beaten in some areas by as much as 14 feet from previous flood records. That is amazing to me. One county near us got 22 or 23 inches of rain in 24 hours. I can't even imagine how that is possible. It is a waterfall more than rain.

I can’t even imagine being in that kind of rainfall, especially when it rains maybe 14 days out of the year here.