March Madness

No, not the basketball March Madness. I'm talking the Meier March Madness. We have been super busy (in a totally fun way) and we haven't even made it through the last weekend of March yet. So let me get you up to date.

Two weekends ago we went to the Houston Livestock show to see my cousins and their heifers. I know, I know... not our usual style, but we always like to step out of comfort zone every once in a while. Plus, always good to see family. We had a great time catching up with them. This will be the last time my cousins Ann and Julia will be showing since they are graduating high school this May. Can't believe it. Only one young cousin left. Boy how time flies.

I can remember always looking forward to visit the Atzenhoffer's when we would visit Nana & Pop. Lots of swimming dates and playing around in the yard. Nana & Pop used to have this zip line that went from tree to tree and we would spend forever playing outside zipping from tree to tree and swinging on the wooden swings Pop hung on the trees. Lots of Easters together for sure. Anyways, I'm just reminiscing here on old times. We've almost all grown up and are finding our ways in our lives. Amazing how life has a way of doing that.

The next weekend, we actually went to the Houston rodeo! It was Rob and I's first big rodeo. Rob claims he's been to one in Springdale, but thats just not the same thing! I know I went to a rather big one as a kid in Texas but it would have been Abilene or somewhere thereabouts. So anyways, kind of a big deal for us as its one of the largest events in Houston. This event lasts a solid three weeks and there are about 5 concerts a week. And big names come to town. Rob and I bought the tix's to see Brad Paisley. But, before I share about Brad Paisley... lets talk about the rodeo.

The rodeo was great fun! Sorry Rob... but ladies, there's nothing much better than watching a man in a cowboy hat ride a bull. It'll just keep you up on your seat. It was all extremely entertaining.. I didn't feel bored whatsoever watching all the bull riding, horse riding, rope 'em contests and calf wrestling. I certainly couldn't do those events. You couldn't pay me to wrestle a calf, don't care how small. And these men take out of the gate on their horse, lasso 'em (is that the right word??), get off of their horse and then wrestle the calf to the ground and tie three of its legs together. I feel a tad bit bad for the calf, really. It looks so poor and hopeless with its feet tied up on the ground. But, it sure was entertaining. Makes me wonder what PETA thinks of a rodeo??

We then got to watch Brad Paisley. Slightly disappointing that he only played for an hour... but then again, our tickets were only $20 bucks a pop. So probably really can't complain. He put on a good stage and was all over the arena. Check out the pics below.

Really cool stage that spins around too so that everyone can see him. I think I'll definitely be going again to the rodeo. We had a really good time.

So, now for THIS weekend. We have been super busy. On Friday night we went to Winter Jam which was a concert made up of 10 Christian bands. The big artists were NewSong, Building 429 and Skillet. There were loads of other bands clearly (7 to be exact, haha) but we went mainly for those three. Okay well, Rob went mainly for Skillet. It was first come, first serve and the tickets were $10 dollars. We left work at about 4:30 to meet up at the apartment and then head downtown to get some dinner and then go to the concert which started at 7 at the Toyota Center (where the Houston Rockets play).

You know, I just really love Christian concerts. It never ceases to amaze me to watch everyone worship the same God. It's different than going to church. Generally, people who pay to go to a Christian concert genuinely want to be there (not always, of course... but generally). I love to watch the crowd and see how God speaks to everyone through a band's music. Really takes my breath way. Here's a great video of Building 429 for ya. Scratch that... can't figure out how to upload it on my ipad to Blogsy. So.. maybe I'll figure it out on Facebook or something. Instead, here are some pictures!

This one above and below is of Skillet. They like to "scream" just a little too much for me, but they definitely are quite the entertainers.

So, that's what we did Friday night until midnight. Then we got up on Saturday morning at 7 to compete in the Houston Amazing Home Race. I'm going to write a whole separate blog about this later, so I won't go into detail here. Because, it was quite the day. In short, we got 2nd place!!! We were two points behind the first place winner who won $10,000. But, we did win a free washer and dryer... retail of over $1,000. So, we are pretty stoked. It was a great Saturday. We had TONS of fun. Like I said, more details here in a bit.

We went to a celebratory dinner because well.. we just beat about 300 people in a competition!! And then we went to see the Hunger Games. I wasn't too impressed with the Hunger Games as a movie. The book is SO MUCH better. The movie really misses the whole point of the book which is what happens when you left the government or someone have too much power. People are supposed to be starving and barely making it, but you wouldn't really guess that by the movie. I think it probably needed to be R rated to really get the point across... or well, that might not needed to happen. It was just such a detailed book without the movie being very detailed.

Today we have been lounging out by the pool. High of 93 today, but it felt good to just sit outside and relax. We haven't been house hunting this entire weekend! (okay, minus the Home Race... but that doesn't really count).

Speaking of houses, here is where we are on that process, too. We had selected three real estate agents based on recommendations from Dave Ramsey's ELP program and have interviewed all three. We have finally made our decision, we just need to let that person know. We have also begun the process of applying for our pre approval of our home loan. Hopefully all of that will be ironed out this week and then we can begin the true, bona fide process finding our first home! I'm so excited. We even have a new washer and dryer to go in our new home. ;-)

Okay.. more coming in the Amazing Home Race blog, next! First... I must fold some laundry.

 

Update on the Home Front...

Ahh, yes. You may be wondering how the house hunt is going. Well, I guess I can say its... going...

Our car would say its going stupendously given the fact that it gets ridden in every weekend for lots of miles. Okay, probably not even lots of miles necessarily, but we literally spend hours in the car. We bring snacks, drinks and even stop for potty breaks. We are hard core. We just drive, drive around.

We have even stopped into a couple of open houses on the weekend. This tends to be a bad idea for me, because I get to excited to easily and need to take a step back. We can't afford to buy a house just this instant, so no need getting uber excited about what's out there right now because there's not a darn thing I can do about it at the current moment.

So, update on the downpayment. Things are mostly bright there. I'll go into more detail down below, but we will have 20% down in the bank by end of March. So that means, we'll get a realtor at the end of March! Yay! I'm very proud of this feat, because we've been tossing money at this thing hard core. I haven't been able to do my usual shopping in what feels like FOREVER. The budget has been pushed to the limit and we've had to be really mindful of we spend our money one, so I'm really proud of ourselves.

On the downside, we have to increase our budget if we want to live in the city. By in the city I'm referring to inside the loop (610) in the Heights area or even a couple of exits out of 610 on the west side. To live in a townhome type place, we're going to have to increase our budget. Meaning, I think the 15-year mortgage is going to be near impossible. This makes me sad. So, I'm kind of at a loss right now. It's either going to be increase your budget or move to the suburbs. And with gas prices outrageously high right now, that doesn't really seem to make sense. It's just hard to make yourself spend 2 hours in the car every day for no real reason... it's not like your benefiting kids to live in a great neighborhood because well, we don't have any of those. (Though, if you were to read my facebook, you will notice that almost, what fees like, every girl I know is having a baby or just had a baby.. so there's clearly something in the water).

So, that's pretty much where Robert and I stand. In general, I think Rob and I agree that it doesn't make sense to live far away from where we work and the places we like to hang out at, especially if we are going to be buying $4-$5 gallon of gas. Plus, they say houses inside the loop are more of a investment because people are always looking to live in the city so their value will increase.

The only thing that worries me living in the city, is that like I said before, Houston has no zoning laws. Most of the townhomes are in industrial parts of the city. Granted, thats definitely better than having the homeless rome around because we went down to "Midtown" to look at slightly more affordable places that is between downtown and the Medical Center and that really scared me. The industrial land is looking far more better. But, its definitely something to get used to. When you drive by's of these places its like a REALLY great townhouses, then pipe supply, welding shop, great townhouses, manufacturers, shack, great townhomes. There might even be a really nice house next to what I would consider a shack and then a really nice townhome neighborhood. It's exhausting. But, I'm not joking.

 

The first picture is of the townhome and the second picture is what's next to it.

 

I'm trying to convince my family to come down and visit and help me drive around because you just cannot believe it until you see it. For example, see this pictures. Nothing like this exists back in Arkansas. It makes it overwhelming. If we are going to live in the city, we'd also like to live close to the Heights Hike & Bike trail. That way we won't have to drive anywhere to go biking. That would be nice.

We've also discovered that some of these places have rooftop terraces. Those are really cool. Can you imagine living somewhere with a rooftop terrace that you can call your own?? I imagine that we probably won't get one with a rooftop terrace unless one just falls into our lap, but you never know. We'll put it on the "would love to have, but can definitely let go" list.

So anyways, that's where we are. We'll probably take some of March off and not look at houses as much because I think we've almost exhausted driving by the inventory that we can afford. So, we'll need some new listings to pop up. But I think people looking to move in the summer will probably start listing their houses for sale in March or so.

Oh, I should also say that I've got a slight addiction to HAR (Houston Area Real Estate) app on my iPad. I literally just look at the same houses over and over every night. It's quite sad. I sometimes even look at houses on my lunch break at work depending on how busy I am. It's crazy! I've got to lay off. We also calculate our potential mortgage payment over and over. Even while we are at dinner. The waiters probably think we are crazy because we have our phones out discussing possible scenarios and payment options. (No worries, in NO event will our house payment exceed our current rental payment... that would be insane and completely indicate we have fallen off the Dave Ramsey bandwagon. So, if you EVER hear me say that my mortgage payment will be greater than my rent, please shoot me because all is lost.)

Okay, that's about it! Until next time!

 

1, 2, Home.

 This weekend we got to set the house hunting aside and get on a plane to Arkansas.  We left Friday night and came back Monday afternoon.  So, it was an uber quick trip home, but... I got the flights for $59 so it was hard to pass up.

We went to celebrate my sister, Kirstie's birthday, my dad's birthday, and see Kirstie and Travis do their thing out on the track.  Ironically enough, we didn't get to see Kirstie's birthday.  She jumped Friday at 4 PM and our flight didn't even leave on Friday until 7 PM.  So, we missed her.  But she did place 6th which is pretty good.

We did get to see Travis run his races on Saturday though.  He did very well, too.  I know not his personal best, but nothing to be ashamed about that's for sure.  We spent all day Saturday at the track.  Kirstie down loaded this app on Kate's iPad (she got one for Christmas, too) so that we could record videos and then watch them back in slow motion.  So, picture us holding up the iPad and then replaying it back in slow motion. I'm sure we were a hoot to our surrounding spectators.  

Here is a picture of us spectators.  (The lady on the far left is Travis' mom, Gretchen).

 

We also went to PF Changs at night to celebrate Kirstie's birthday. Way too good of food, I tell ya.  Sunday, I had breakfast with my Michelle where we got to catch up after not seeing each other for probably like 6 months or something like that.  We also got to see Kathleen, Robert's grandparents' the Maguires, and Grandma Joan and Jordan.  We also went bowling where Travis bowled a 200.  It was definitely a great game.

Kate even managed to set the pace for the Ladies on the second game where she got her own PR (personal record)! I think she bowled like a 150 or something like that.  Trust me when I say, she freaking rocked.  The rest of us bowled so-so.  Dad and Rob also did a good job with each of them coming close to the 200 mark.  I can't remember who it was that got 4 strikes in a row!  Mega-stars, I tell ya.

Me, Trav, Kirk and Rob also played a few games of ping pong in my parent's garage (nice weather).  It was an intense game.. kirstie even almost busted it on the garage floor.  We played two people where you would pop in and pop out.  It was intense (at least for me)!  It turns out Rob, I think, was the weakest link because he liked to do the "fancy" stuff and the ball usually never hit the table.  (P.S. Should also never play on teams with your significant other... it never turns out well).

Our Sunday night ended with a fajita dinner, watching Shaun White win the X-games, and playing a game of Logo.  If you're really into brand names, you need to check this game out.  It won't disappoint you and keep you entertained for hours.  

Rob and I came home Monday with no real exciting news to report.  My only comment is, I guess my apartment is dirty because one of the first things Rob did was grab the swiffer and begin dusting.  He's so anal retentive!  So, I guess I'll be cleaning the apartment this weekend as you know its bad when Rob gets the swiffer... not to mention he got the swiffer when he was tired from traveling. See what I have to deal with?

Anyways, hope you have a great week.  I'll be cleaning this upcoming weekend (oh, what fun!) and maybe some house hunting and then watching the super bowl (of which I have no favorite).

 

The Capital Gains Tax Explained (In Simple Terms)

I've been seeing a lot on capital gains here in the news lately and wanted to educate myself.  I knew what they were in theory, but there seems to be a lot of arguments going around about them and their related taxes.  After doing my research I thought it might be beneficial to you as well.  So here goes...

Capital gains defined on Wikipedia:

The profit realized on the sale of a non-inventory asset that was purchased at a lower price. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property.

Real world example: On January 1, 2011 you buy Apple stock for $100.  On December 31, 2011 you sell your Apple stock for $200.  Profit of $100 ($200 sale price less $100 cost).  

Currently, USA has a 15% tax on capital gains.  Therefore, you would pay tax on your $100 profit.  You would pay $15 in tax and be able to bring home $75.

Generally, the 15% tax rate is lower than your ordinary income taxable rate.  Robert and I pay around 25% in income tax.  Why is this rate lower?

Well, to continue the example above:  I bought a $100 of Apple stock.  For me to buy that stock, I would have to pay 25% already on my income.  So, to have a $100 to buy Apple stock, I would have needed $125 in income.  So, I've already been taxed at my ordinary income rate on this money that I'm putting into the stock market.  Then, I get taxed again when I sell my $100 stock for a profit.  You are also only allowed a $3,000 deduction for your losses a year, too so while you can be taxed on your winnings... you don't get much of a benefit for your losses.

Generally speaking, the reason the 15% rate was assigned to capital gains was because its under the belief that people would invest less if those capital gains were taxed at their ordinary income rate.  The lower rate spurs more investing and the 15% rate would generate more income to the government than say a 30% tax rate would because there would be less money out in the market earning gains.

Final example: 

Annual Income: $1,000,000

Tax Rate: 30%

Taxes Paid: $300,000

Take home pay: $700,000

Assuming current 15% tax:

Invest $500,000 in the stock market.  Earn $30,000 on stocks (6% return).  Pay 15% on that profit: $4,500.  Total take home profit: $25,500

Assuming 30% tax:

Invest $500,000 in the stock market.  Earn $30,000 on stocks (6% return).  Pay 30% on that profit: $9,000.  Total take home profit $21,000.  

With the higher capital gains tax rate, its the belief that the investor would invest less to pay less in taxes since the investor is being taxed on that money once already.  Instead of paying more taxes here, the investor would likely move his money to other countries where capital gains taxes are lower or non-existent (USA has one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the World).

Anyways, that's pretty much the jist of it.  There's really a lot more to it in that these calculations don't take in the rate of inflation.  If you have a 2% rate of inflation, that 6% actual return you earned above is really more like a 4% realized return, but you're going to pay tax on the full 6% even though inflation just ate up 2% of your return.  Sad day.

Here's a great article explaining capital gains and taxes to further your knowledge.  Hope this has helped!

What's Shakin'?

 Been a bit delayed here lately, sorry about that.  You haven’t missed too much.  We’re still being frugal and still driving around looking at homes.  Over the past two weeks we have spent about 5 hours in the car on Saturday.  We just drive, drive around.  We’ll start on one side of town and end up in the other.

 

Two Saturdays ago, we forgot to bring a cooler with us (I know, I’m my father’s daughter and I forgot a cooler!) so we had to actually stop for a potty break and get something to drink and snack on.  I also might have convinced Rob to buy a scratch-off ticket, too.  I mean… you never know!  That $3,000 I could win would get me this much closer to my 20%!  Alas, it was not meant to be.  On our second Saturday out we brought a cooler and some goldfish for snacking.

 

So far, we are really liking Sienna Plantation:  http://www.siennaplantation.com/ Make sure you check it out.  This master planned community is in Missouri City, just down the road from Sugar Land.  We can get a pretty large house in this area and its well developed.  It’s more of an established neighborhood but all of the schools are located in that neighborhood as well as a Library, Community College and three daycares.  The only downside is it’s a 35 mile trip each way for Robert to get to work.  On the bright side, it shouldn’t be too laden with traffic.  That is a bright side, right?  It’s about a 20-25 mile trip for me as well.  Toll expense would be around $4,250/yr.  So, that’s technically cheaper than living in Katy.

 

Sienna also has a lot of pocket parks, equestrian center (too bad horses scare me, or this would be pretty cool), and full-blown water park, and a whole area devoted to baseball fields and soccer fields.  I know, I know.. it’s not in the city.  But I don’t seem to find anything I can really (comfortably) afford in the city.  Certainly don’t want to end up house poor.  But maybe we would be time poor???  I don’t know.

 

It’s just a thought right now, but definitely a cool place.  It’s 10 minutes from the Sugar Land mall and about 15 minutes from Highway 59.  There’s an HEB at the entrance of the community as well as a multitude of restaurants and home improvement stores (I mean, you never know when you need to fix something with a house, right?!).

 

Anyways… just wanted to keep you up to date with our house journey.  Not much to tell, we’re still just browsing as we’ll be for awhile.  Rob and I are headed to Arkansas this weekend for my dad & sister’s birthday as well as the track meet.  Ironically, I’m going to miss seeing Kirstie jump since she jumps at 4 PM on a Friday and I don’t get in until 8:30 PM or so on Friday.  I know, I know… crazy.  But, I bought my tickets on a special sale and I didn’t know what time she jumped with I bought them.  So, it looks like we’ll be watching her All-American boyfriend run his races on Saturday only… which is still pretty fun.

 

P.S.  I’m still Zumba-ing.  Don’t think I had forgotten about my last post on Zumba-ing.  I can generally get 5 starts now and my highest % achieved 96%.  I can do three dances, haha.  I still look hilarious, I’m sure…. But I can at least do the steps.  Tonight, I think I’m going to teach myself a new routine.  

Oh, Where to Live. Small Case of Anxiety

Yeesh.  I'm starting to get anxiety already.  That's probably a bad thing.  As published in my previous post, Robert and I will spend 2012 finding us a nice house to live in.  And as you know, we live in Houston.. filled with long commute times and thousands of places to live as well as thousands of school districts.

It's not like back home where you know the school districts are good, where all the roads take you, and how long it takes you to get from point A to point B.  

Houston doesn't have zoning laws, either.  Meaning, there can be something fantastic next to something not so fantastic.  You can find really cool townhomes next to the "ghetto."  Additionally, no one goes to school is Houston ISD.  If you live in the city you pay to go to private schools.  It's just a given.  Well, that's like $15K a year per child.  Uh... no thank you!

Now, I don't want all this school talk to sound like we're planning on having babies really soon or anything.. but it does help resale value to make sure that you are living in a sought after school district.  Plus, I guess, you never know what will happen.

Robert and I have been driving around Katy, TX which is west and found some really nice neighborhoods that we like.  However, Katy is AT LEAST 25 miles one way for each of us to get to to work.  Katy ISD also has a really great school district.  We started doing toll calculations and time calculations and kind of gone blown out of the water.  If we live in Katy and both take toll roads its going to cost about $6,250 a year in toll expense.  That's like an additional $500 a month.  That's a lot!  Not to mention that tolls don't guarantee a faster commute time.  Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't.

So, we realized that every time we were researching neighborhoods we were having to look at a map and run the amount of miles to/from work.  So, being the anal-retentive person I am, I created this map. (Don't judge me)

 

 Now, this map has where I work, where Robert works and various routes to work.  The routes are color coded down below.  In the boxes below lists out roundtrip mileage, roundtrip toll expense, and approximate amount of time it will take each way.  I'm not done with the map because I hope to incorporate school districts into it as well as ideal neighborhoods, but I'm getting there.  One only has so much time during the day, you know.

On the map, Katy is out west (left), Sugar Land is South West.  These areas are our ideal location areas.  The black lines are highways that I refuse to live off of because traffic is AWFUL.  It's not even worth it.  You won't convince me of it.

The yellow star is where we are currently renting our apartment.  Now you can see why we chose our apartment where we did.  Rather central location.  The first loop you see around downtown is known as 610 or the inner loop.  The second loop that you see is known as the Beltway or the Sam Houston Tollway.  This entire loop is a toll road.  No getting around not paying the toll, there.  You also see the Westpark Tollway which runs almost parallel to I-10 and also costs money every time you drive on it.  This is where all the great neighborhoods are in the purple bubble.

Sugar Land is also another great option that we didn't really count on.  I thought it would be too far away, but it is actually closer than living in Katy.  DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS.  I think what we are starting to realize is that while we thought our rent was high, living in a house isn't going to be any cheaper.  Robert has yet to grasp this concept and as of now refuses to drive on a toll road and pay money.  This means he'll be driving like 2 hours to/from work.  He can't accept it that paying money to drive on a road here is a way of life.  Having a house in Houston is not always cheaper than renting.  It's the price you pay to have a place to call home.

So, I'm still working on him.  You can probably tell we tend to get in a few arguments over this (all in good fun I assure you). Again, we're in no major rush... we won't have the money we need until  AT LEAST May, but we'd like to kind of focus on an area and monitor the houses that go up for sale there.

Alas, that's where we are now.  Today we're going to head to Sugar Land and drive around and see what we think.  I'll keep you posted. :-)  It always promises to be interesting.

New Year.. New Goals

I certainly can't believe that 2012 has rolled around.  Being an accountant, I seem to work a lot in the prior year (this case 2011) and, therefore, will never remember that I'm currently living in the current year (2012) and all my checks will be dated 2011.  Alas, it seems to be a recurring problem.  You know, not long ago, I actually wrote my birthday on a check as the date.  There, solves that problem... can't remember what year you're in? Just write what year you were born.  Done.

Okay, for real now... since its being a new year the Meier's have some new goals.  Of course, we have the usual goals such as working out more and eating more healthy.  So, far we seem to have been doing a pretty good job... I've been either riding my bike (mostly using the bike trainer so I can ride inside) and doing Zumba.  Rob has also been running.  I've also been cooking, too.  So, we're doing good there (so far).

Our really big goal for 2012 is... BUYING A HOUSE!!  That's going to be a really huge goal for us and is going to take some time.  I'm not usually just overly patient, but I'm going to have to be this for one.  As you've read in my previous blogs, Robert and I are going to put 20% down.  We're over halfway there... if we're lucky we will be there by May.  If we're not so lucky... it will be August.  Either way, we ARE BUYING HOUSE.  I'm not allowing any negative thoughts (no, "we're trying to buy a house" or "we think we're going to buy a house" allowed here).  We speak in only affirmative words when referring to buying a house.

Heck, the day after Christmas, Robert and I went Christmas light shopping for the house that we don't currently own yet!  Bought all LED lights for 50% off!!  Beat that, yo.  $3.24 cents a box for LED lights (pretty much the same price for mini and C9's).  I win!

Personally, I'm very excited about this whole buying a house thing.  Robert and I are definitely homebodies, so it will be nice to have a "home."  I look forward to having projects to work on around the house and planting some flowers.  Granted, I know there will be some things that I don't love (i.e. the commute for sure)... but overall, I know the move will be right for us.  

We've already been jolted by what we can afford and not afford in the city.  Bottom line, we can't afford to live in the city.  We're going to have to move out of the city.  We're leaning towards moving west, outside of the outer loop towards Katy.  This map below pretty much shows you the general area of where we're looking to buy.  (The red dots are elementary schools, but you don't need to worry about those).

So, anyways.. that's going to be our major goal for 2012.  Ideally, I guess we're looking for 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths and around 2,000 square feet.  We'll get a better feel for the size once we get an actual realtor.  Right now, all my research involves Robert and I getting in the car and driving around neighborhoods using the HAR (Houston Area Real Estate) app on my iPad or iPhone and seeing how much homes cost where.  This weekend, we even picked a neighborhood and went riding our bikes around it looking at houses.  It was pretty fun, not going to lie. 

To help make sure our financial plan is there I've been working on the Meier 2012 budget.  Got to start budgeting for "house" expenses now, even though we don't have one so that when moving day comes... we will have some wiggle room to buy some things that we don't currently need for the apartment (i.e. lawn mower, weed eater, and furniture) as well as moving expenses.  And remember, we're debt free people and won't go into debt again except for our mortgage, so it took me almost 4 hours to get our budget to equal zero at the end of each month for the next year.

Yeah, I know... who does an annual budget? I do.  And it gets updated monthly for actual results and then I re-project as necessary.  But, for example, I know Robert's car needs new brake pads and rotors.  That's going to cost me approximately $800.  Well, I don't have $800 in February just for Robert's car, but I do have $400 in January & February.  Same goes for a vacation and moving expenses.. I don't have $1,000 for a vacation and another $1,000 for moving this summer in just one month, but if I start budgeting for it now, I will by summer.  You know the saying, "A fail to plan, is a plan to fail."  Dave Ramsey has taught me well!  :-)  

Okay, probably definitely boring you by now, but this is what gets me excited!!  Total nerd, I'm not afraid to admit.  If we plan accordingly, buying a house should just fall into our lap and be less stressful (we hope!).  So, that's whats going to be on our agenda for 2012.  Get excited... we definitely are! Woo!

P.S. (How about them Hogs this weekend at the Cotton Bowl?!  Woo Pig Sooie!)