La Petite Chic

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Before I get started, I want to send a big congratulations to Maria P, the winner of my Pepsi Super Bowl Party Pack giveaway!  Though I no longer have a vested interest in the outcome of the game (ohh, my poor sweet Ravens...), I hope you enjoy hosting a fun party with your awesome prize!  Thanks to everyone who participated :)

Moving on, Jon and I leave for Puerto Rico in (ohmyholyheck) 10 hours!  I had planned to do a super packing post last night like I did for our European vacation, but I was having a seriously difficult time packing last night.  I got started at 7:30 PM, right after I kicked Jon out of the bedroom and out of my hair to go have a beer with our neighbor, figuring that I would be done in a couple of hours or so.

WRONG.  I didn't go to bed until after midnight last night and I didn't finish until 6:00 tonight.  I usually don't have a problem with packing but I just couldn't seem to get it right this time because I kept second guessing my choices.  Oh well, I decided to just give myself plentyof options so I think I'll be fine, rain or shine, fancy or casual.

We've had this cruise booked since last January and I'm thrilled that it's finally here!  The ship departs on Saturday so that means we have a day in Puerto Rico and then we'll set sail for St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbados.  We haven't been back to St. Lucia since our honeymoon so it's going to be so lovely to get to spend some time there again.  We've never been to Antigua or Barbados though Antigua has been on our list of places to visit for quite some time so Jon and I are both very excited to finally see those islands.

I decided not to do guest bloggers as I think I'll try to check in at least once next week and say hello and post a quick update.  I'm not making any promises though!  I might get too swept up in the sunshine and margaritas to make a trip to the internet lounge!  When we return, we'll be meeting with our realtor to discuss our plan to get our condo sold, so I definitely want to make the best of this vacation before it's back to reality.  I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll catch up with you soon!  

Hopeful

Like millions of other Americans, today marks a day of profound hope for me.  Hope for our great nation to shine brightly again in the glow of renewal and unity, of course, but also more personal hope.

I hope that one of my best friends (my college roommate, my bridesmaid, my sounding board, my comedienne) will come home from Iraq soon, soon, soon and that none of my loved ones will have to worry about ever going there again unless they so choose.

I hope that I'll be able to find a good, stable job in Maryland, one that affords me benefits (such as maternity leave) and a decent salary.

I hope they'll leave Alaska alone so that my parents can take that 40th anniversary cruise they've been dreaming about and still have wildlife and wilderness left to see.

I hope that my good friend can marry the man he loves, without question, without stipulation and without boundaries.

I hope that our condo will sell swiftly and painlessly and give someone else the same joy and pride and sometimes heartache that comes with owning your own home.  I hope that we'll recover quickly from our own housing crisis.

I hope that Jon and I are blessed with a baby when the time is right and that he or she will never know the word nigger, chink, honky, raghead, faggot, and kike or any other word that's based purely on hatred.  I also hope that child will one day say "Yes, I can" and believe it.

I hope that Americans will continue to care about this government of the people, by the people and for the people because for a poly sci/history nerd like me, it's breathtaking to watch.

What do you hope for?

Not As Cold

I was kind of blown away by 2 comments I received yesterday that were mean-spirited and completely missed my point.  As I stated in my post, we realize how lucky we are in life and how fortunate we are to even be able to make the kind of decision we are making, but we find ourselves in an unfortunate market that we have no control over.  We work very hard for what we have and have our reasons for making the decision we are making.  While some might not agree with it, it is our decision and ours alone to make.  I have no problem when people disagree with my opinion, respectfully, but when the comments turn personal and nasty, they get deleted.  I have no room for hate in my life nor on my blog.  End of story.  I do so appreciate the supportive comments I received and feel better knowing that some of you have been there or are there now and have gotten through it.  Many thanks to you all.

Moving on, I had to laugh at the forecast for this weekend from Accuweather:

 

Friday...Mostly sunny and very cold

Saturday...Not as cold

Seriously?  Not as cold?  Is that the best forecast they could come up with?!  Too funny!  I'm just glad it doesn't say colder!

The 30 Day Shred couldn't have come at a better time because I just can't bring myself to go running outside in this bitter cold.  I've done three days of it and I have to honestly say that I think it's working!  My abs already seem more toned as do my arms.  Jon has been joining me in the workouts and it's so much fun (and easier!) to do them together.  We're still doing Workout One and that's plenty for me for now as those push-ups in the first circuit are still seriously kicking my butt.  If you haven't tried it yet and are looking for a good workout, I would highly recommend it.  Plus, as Jon and I keep marveling over, you're stretched, worked out and done with the whole thing in under 30 minutes!  We can definitely make time for this every day and Jon will still be able to manage it when his weeknight classes start back up.

Speaking of class, Jon will be at school all day tomorrow and Sunday which leaves me and Lola to entertain ourselves.  I think I'll use that time to touch up all the trim in our place and do some more decluttering.  Not exactly what I would call fun, but it needs to be done nonetheless.  What about you all?  Anything exciting on your weekend agenda or will you just be trying to stay warm like me?

P.S.  Don't forget to enter my Superbowl Party giveaway if you haven't already done so...I would love for you to win!  And I'm enjoying the recipes! 

On Not Becoming A Statistic

We were just 24 and 25 when we bought our condo.  Young and naïve and filled with the same "the world is our oyster" optimism that most couples who are months away from their wedding feel.  We thought we were getting ahead, we thought we were making a smart investment, but we had no way of knowing that the housing market would drop so quickly and drastically so soon after we bought.

Now we're faced with a suggested sale price that's $30,000 less than our purchase price on the high estimate and $60,000 less on the low estimate.  And that's not factoring in the upgrades we've done, which, thank god, we've done with our own two hands. 

Renting our condo to wait out this horrible housing market is not an option because not only is the condo sales market bad, but the condo rental market is even worse.  We would still be paying over half of our mortgage with the monthly rental price we would be able to get.

Staying put is also not an option because as Jon put it, "We don't want to put our lives on hold."  We want to start a family, oh how we want to start a family, and we just can't do that in our tiny place.  Yes, I know people have done it before us and managed just fine, but it's not for us.  And as much as Northern Virginia has to offer us in terms of jobs and location, location, location, we're over it.  We're tired of having to wait until 8:00 PM to even think about getting on the Beltway and tired of fighting for parking spaces and tired of being far from our families.

This whole experience thus far has taught me some very valuable lessons.  Namely, those two dirty words, short sale, is not necessarily a reflection on the seller in any way.  We pay our mortgage and the rest of our bills on time every month.  In fact, we carry no credit card debt and the only debt we do have is our mortgage, one car payment and student loans from Jon's MBA program.  We are not the faces you picture when you hear the words short sale.  But indeed, when you sell a home for less than what you owe on it, that puts you in the short sale category unless you can make up the difference.

Making up the difference is exactly what we intend to do.  We refuse to taint our credit in any way by accepting a short sale.  We've been dealt a very bad hand but we're going to do our best to come out of this with our credit and our sanity intact.

It might mean dipping into our savings account which we've dutifully been stocking money away into for years.  It might mean taking a loan from our 401k.  It might mean no anniversarymoon trip this year and it might mean cutting our budget even further.  It might even mean moving in with my parents for a bit until we can get back to zero.  But we're definitely not going down without a fight.  Jon's been working his financial magic all day to think of more options and I've been on the phone setting up appointments with more realtors to get second opinions.

In the grand scheme of things, we really are lucky because we're gainfully employed, we can afford our mortgage and we have each other to lean on.  Still, it's times like these that make me silently utter my favorite prayer over and over again in my head: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

We will get through this.

Paring Down

You know what completely sucks about saving to buy a new home?  The whole pesky saving=not spending money thing.  We keep a very tight budget to begin with and have always had a house fund that we put a little money into each month, but since we have aspirations for a much bigger home than what we're currently living in, we decided to dip into other areas of our budget.

Namely, our personal spending allowances.  We have enjoyed a very plush monthly allowance (which Jon never spends all of and I always spend over!) that allows us to buy ourselves frivulous things like shoes and clothes and handbags and whatever it is that boys buy for themselves.  Probably video games.  Anyhow, starting this month, our monthly allowances have been cut back by 60% each!  That's a whole lotta money and a lot less clothes for Katie! 

One visit to Urban Outfitters (where I got a steal on a super cute denim safari dress) and a visit to Barnes and Nobles (to get a novel for the cruise and to jump on the 30 Day Shred bandwagon) later and I only have $30 left of my budget!  And it's only January 14th!  And we're going on a cruise at the end of the month!  EEK.  This is going to take some getting used to. 

Speaking of the 30 Day Shred, I decided to give it a shot because the other area that we cut in our monthly budget is our expensive gym membership.  $120 a month for a gym that we rarely go to is not money well spent.  That could add up to valuable down payment money!  I tried the Shred for the first time on Sunday night and I actually really enjoyed it.  It's tough, yes, but by the time you're at the point where you think you can't go on, it's over!  I guess that's the beauty of a 20 minute workout.  I felt good enough to do 30 minutes on the Wii Fit right after.  I was a little sore on Monday but not nearly as sore as I thought I would be based on feedback from other bloggers who "Shred".  I think the push-ups killed me more than anything.  I was using 5 pound dumbbells in each hand for the other moves which I think that was a little aggressive for my first try so I'm going to switch to my 3 pound dumbbells the next time. 

Overheard in our bathroom a few nights ago:

Me (flexing my abs in the mirror):  "This 30 Day Shred is going to get me in great shape for the cruise!

Jon: "You don't need to do anything, you're solid."

Me:  "Solid?  Honey, the last thing a woman wants to hear is that she's solid.  That means thick!

Jon: "Well, what should I say?"

Me:  "Toned, baby.  TONED."

P.S.  Sending a special birthday shout-out to two of my favorite gals:

My big sis, Kacey...

   

and my lovely friend, Jess...

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are!

I ADORE our realtor.  We walked through our condo with him yesterday morning and then chatted for a few minutes so that we could discuss our expectations of him and the sale of our home and make sure that we're all on the same page.  He left us with a big packet of information to review on his sales record on other one bed/one bath condos in our neighborhood and leafing through it left me with a much better feeling in my stomach than I had a few days ago.  

In the past year, the majority of the condos he has sold have only been on the market for a month.  A MONTH.  That is remarkable not only in good times, but especially in the housing market we find ourselves in now.  The one exception to that was a condo that took four months to sell.  Even that is reasonable to me!  The sales prices are a bit (okay, a lot) lower than what we expect to get for our place, but since we have some time to play with, I have no qualms with listing it for what we want to receive. 

He advised us not to replace the carpet in our bedroom since it's still in decent shape and we've already put so much money into our place, but he did recommend replacing our bedroom ceiling fan, which, it turns out, was a bit over-sized for our room.  A quick trip to Home Depot yesterday and a short hour of my hot, handyman husband installing a new, smaller one and it was done.  Now we just need to put a back-splash in the kitchen and we will be all set.  We sit down with him again on Wednesday to discuss all things financial and his recommendations for listing and staging (which his agency does for us!) and what-not, but oh, I'm just feeling so much better about it all!  And guys, he has a blog!  True, it's a real estate focused blog, but still...our realtor is a blogger!

Oh, and thanks to a reminder e-mail from the awesome Chris, it turns out that today is Delurking Day!  I love comments just as much as the next blogger, so please, take this opportunity to expose yourself (hee hee) and say hello.  Don't be shy!  And for fun (since I'm daydreaming about summer on this crisp January day), tell me what your favorite summertime activity is.  Mine is going to the beach.  And cook-outs!  Ooh, and outdoor concerts!!  Go ahead, what's yours?

Putting the SUPER in Super Bowl Party

This has been the best football season ever!  My Richmond Spiders won the NCAA National Championship in December and yesterday my beloved Ravens beat the Titans to move onto the AFC championship game.  And today?  Jon's Eagles bested the Giants to move onto their respective NFC championship game.  This could be a very interesting Super Bowl if both of our teams advance! 

Of course, what's the Super Bowl without a fabulous Super Bowl party?  The delicious snacks, the hilarious commercials and for those who are actually paying attention, the actual football game! You know what would make that Super Bowl party even more fabulous?  Letting Pepsi take care of it!

Leave me a comment telling your favorite Super Bowl party snack (if you're feeling fancy, feel free to leave the recipe as well) and you'll be entered to win the Ultimate Pepsi Super Bowl Party Pack which includes:

• one Super Bowl XLIII football
• one Super Bowl XLIII beverage pail
• one Super Bowl XLIII snack helmet
• two Super Bowl XLIII key chains
• two Super Bowl XLIII hats
• two Super Bowl XLIII tee-shirts
• five Pepsi 24 packs coupons
• five Frito Lay coupons

Do you want an extra entry?  Link back to this post on your blog and make sure you e-mail me to let me know that you've done so.  Comments will be open on this post until midnight on Wednesday, January 21st at which point I'll let a random number generator select one very lucky winner.  I'll announce the winner on Thursday, January 22nd and then your awesome party pack will be mailed to you in time for the big day.  Make sure you leave a valid e-mail address so that I'll be able to get in touch with you.  And sorry, Dad and Jon, you guys aren't eligible to win!

Game on!  Let's hear those favorite snacks!  And a big thanks to Pepsi and Tara for giving me the opportunity to share this with you all!

The Lovely Housing Market

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Jon and I went on an exploratory house hunt the weekend after Christmas and we were very excited to find that we can afford a lot more house than what we originally thought we could thanks in part to the falling interest rates.  After the past couple of years of living in a cozy one bedroom condo, we are obviously thrilled at the prospect of having more than 690 square feet of living space.  Just the thought of being able to cook in the kitchen at the same time or not sharing the bathroom sink or having a spare bedroom for guests tickles me pink. 

Before we can even consider buying a new home, however, there are a few obstacles in our way.  The most glaringly terrifying and important one, of course, is selling our condo.  We bought our home right before we got married in the summer of 2006, when it was still a seller's market, which means that we paid a whole lot more than what they're going for now.  As you might remember, we've done a lot of upgrades in the past 2½ years: installed granite countertops in our kitchen and bathroom, installed stainless steel hardware on all of the cabinetry, installed a beautiful vessel sink in the bathroom, installed gorgeous and eco-friendly bamboo hardwood floors in the dining area and living room and have painted every room except for our bedroom. 

There are still a few to-dos on our home improvement list such as replacing the carpet in the bedroom and putting a backsplash in the kitchen but before we put any more money into our condo, we want to meet with a realtor to see if it would help with our home value at all.  We have an appointment with a local realtor tomorrow in which he'll do a basic walk through of our place and then we'll meet with him again on Wednesday so that we can talk numbers.  Cross your fingers that we'll get positive feedback!

If selling our condo turns out to be easier than expected, then the only other worry we have is finding new jobs for the both of us.  I've been casually looking for the past couple of months and so far the job market seems to be pretty dismal.  It's just our luck that both the housing market and the job market is down just when we need to delve into them!  I'll be sure to keep you all posted along the way, but for now I've been preoccupied with decluttering our place and pre-emptively searching for a new home.  It's kind of disheartening actually...I've found several gorgeous houses with a big yard and everything else we're looking for, but we can't do anything about it until the other pieces fall into place.  Le sigh!

P.S.  I think those of us in the "hair grows back coarser and darker boat" totally won this unofficial poll, but it seems there are some lucky girls out there who don't share our problem! 

The Great Debate

Okay, I need y'alls help in settling a disagreement that Jon and I are having.  I told him that any woman would agree with me on this one, so I guess I should put it to the test.

When you shave your hair, whether it be on your legs or bikini line, or hell, even your back if you happen to be that unfortunate, doesn't it grow back thicker and darker than it's original state?

I realize that science tries to convince us that that is impossible, but I would love for them to prove it to me because I swear to god, the hair on my legs and elsewhere used to be light and thin and now it's anything but.  Jon thinks I'm exaggerating.  If I were to shave the blonde hair on my arms (I wouldn't), I'm convinced it would grow back darker and thicker.  What are your thoughts?

Thank you and that is all!  I'm hoping your comments will help convince Jon why laser hair removal is a wise investment and beneficial to him, I might add.

Ringing in 2009

I have always wanted to "do it up big" for New Year's.  Wear a fluffy party dress, toot on a paper horn and dance the night away with a never-ending supply of champagne and jumbo cocktail shrimp.  Jon and I are planners in most every way, except we never seem to make New Year's plans until about a week prior when most of our friends have had their plans in the works for months.  We usually just end up going out to dinner and heading home to drink and watch the ball drop in the comfort of sweatpants, which is in no way inferior, and hell, which I might prefer anyway, but sometimes a girl just wants to get dolled up, you know?

Considering that this might be our last New Year's celebration sans La Petite Bebé, we decided that this was the year to do it up big.  As luck would have it, our friends Allison (the friend who was with me the night Jon and I met) and Ryan also wanted to do something fancy this year as New Year's Eve also happens to be their anniversary.  I actually missed their wedding two years ago after catching the worst stomach bug I've ever had in my life (lost 5 pounds in 2 days from all of the vomiting!) so I was so thrilled that I would finally get the chance to celebrate with them.  We decided to go to a hotel that overlooks the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.  The hotel's fancy restaurant (where they had their rehearsal dinner) was actually hosting a celebration where there would be delicious food, an open bar, live music and fireworks over the water!  Just what we were looking for!

The night started off wonderfully with Allison and I getting ready simultaneously just the way I used to get ready for Homecoming with my best girlfriends.  So much fun to have girly time!  She just had their baby Matthew in July; doesn't she look gorgeous?

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(I'm wearing my new J.Crew Ballerina dress that I got on ebay for only $50!  It's a bit poofy but it makes me feel like I'm in Center Stage!)

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It was an adventure getting to the hotel as the Metro decided to just skip our stop.  Well, I mean, the train stopped but it didn't let anyone on or off!  Lovely.  So we hopped out at the next station and as we were trying to hail a cab, a sketchy passenger van pulled up beside us the man inside called out to us, "Hop in, I can take you!"  Allison and I looked at each other with a look that said "Like hell we're getting in some strange van!" but Jon and Ryan talked to the driver, deemed it safe and we all jumped in!  The man tried to convince us that he was some sort of undercover cop, but it was quite obvious that he was just a wanna-be.  He had binoculars and a radio and told us how he tried to join the regular police force for 20 years but they never let him in.  Uh-huh.  You should have seen the look on the doorman's face when we pulled up to the hotel and all of us in our shiny dresses and suits popped out of a beat-up van...hilarious!

The spread of appetizers they had out was simply amazing.  In included Maryland crab legs (yum!), jumbo shrimp, Waldorf salad in martini glasses, sushi and the best cream of crab soup I've ever tasted.  Everything was so delicious and I pretty much filled up on the appetizers.  There was an unfortunate incident where Jon accidentally hit the end of his spoon which was resting in the cream of crab soup and a huge spoonful flung through the air and landed in my lap.  As in on my new dress.  Thank god I was wearing black.  I love Jon's "oops!" face in the picture below, taken right after it happened.

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As I mentioned, the hotel is in the beautiful Inner Harbor and the restaurant had huge windows overlooking the water.  Unfortunately, it was so windy that night that the city of Baltimore called off the fireworks display.  It was a bit disappointing but the view was still spectacular. 

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  We had a wonderful dinner with salmon and some sort of beef and couscous and a whole bunch of stuff that I don't remember because by the time we decided to eat, we had already downed a lot of the bubbly stuff.  Before we knew it, the band was counting down the last dwindling seconds of 2008 and then it was an all out celebration.  Horns were tooting, noise makers were rattling and Allison had somehow managed to snag our very own private bottle of champagne!  The photo below shows the reason why Jon takes all of our self-portraits...my arms are too short!

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Thanks to my Wii Fit training, I was able to hula hoop one of the zeroes from the 2009 balloons that had been hanging so nicely above the bar.

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And then it was time to leave, both the restaurant and 2008.  I have a feeling that 2009 is going to be our best year yet.  We have so many exciting plans for it already!

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