Today, Dominica discovered a house that had just recently gone onto the market up in Carrolton that was way too cheap for the pictures that we could see on Trulia so we called our agent and rushed up there to take a look at the house. We were hopeful that the house would be perfect for us. The pictures online looked great and the price was amazing – so we knew that something was wrong. It had to be.
This was our first time looking at a house up in Carrolton, a town that neither of us have even ever been in previously. The guys at work had turned me on to Carrolton as a good option for getting houses in the area. So we expanded our search to include that town and this amazing-looking house had come up on our radar today.
Before we even went out to look at the house we found out that it was a short-sale that is already under contract. There was a chance to put in a backup bid, however, so we figured that it was worth our time to go look at the house anyway – especially as it would give us a chance to see the town as well. So worth the effort either way, we figured.
The neighbourhood of the house was great – located on a quiet culdusac with rear alley access which is pretty nice. The front of the house was awesome. The inside was pretty good, lots of community space but small bedrooms. The yard, which we had been pretty excited about, turned out to be mostly a disaster. The house had shifted significantly and the patio and foundation had ripped apart. The outside of the house was supposed to be the highlight and turned out to be where the most work and money would have to be spent. Not what we were hoping to have found.
Our excitement was a bit tempered. It was good that we came out to look at the house today but we are undecided, but unlikely, to put in a bid on it. It is probably selling at a very good price but the overall house is just not well suited to us – especially the backyard dominated by a pool that we would have to completely fence inside of the small yard ruining the backyard completely.
Back to work, disappointed that we still have no plans for a house. We need to find something in the next two months.
After work, at six thirty, several of us from the office as well as Dominica and Liesl went out to Las Nenas for dinner. It was nice getting out with the work crowd and my family as well. We had a nice dinner but were not out very late. We left the restaurant at nine.
Dominica had some shopping that she wanted to do at Target so we headed there. Our most important purchase was a new set of cordless phones for the house. Our old set has been driving us insane. They have not been working at all for months now. When someone calls they will ring but the moment that you attempt to answer them the phone itself will crash, likely due to battery issues, and reboot itself so you have no way to answer the call. It used to be a matter of careful battery management and learning to answer the phone very, very quickly. But now there is pretty much nothing that we can do to get it to work. So we bought a new set of phones.
I finally bought the Apple iPad that I have been eyeing for a while. I got the WiFi only, 32GB model. It seemed the most practical model for me. I don’t plan to use it while traveling extensively, 32GB is a good amount of storage and I didn’t want too spend too much on a first tablet as it remains to be seen how much user we will actually get from one. I anticipate quite a bit but that might be quite premature.
I sent up the iPad tonight and am already loving it. Using it while sitting on the couch is better than I had thought that it would be. Almost instantly Liesl got interested in it and started playing with “My First App” which is a cute colour-matching video game designed for toddlers that only cost $.99. She was able to use it the moment that she saw it. The touch screen interface is perfect for toddler hands. This is going to be an amazing learning tool for her. Way better than the junk that they make dedicated for toddlers. This is a high quality, general purpose device with good toddler content available. We are very excited to see how the iPad and iPod can be used for her education.