Tough Decisions

We've spent a couple of days now in Portland looking at houses and driving around looking at property on which to build. We're having a hard time deciding what we should do. We found a couple of once-grand houses that now need work, but they seem priced too high considering the work they need. We struggle with valuing them correctly. We're not so good at accurately guessing the cost of those repairs and I have a hard time being realistic about the work necessary because I'm so good at imagining them all fixed up and beautiful again.

We're also struggling with the trade-offs of living in town versus living in the forest areas that surround Portland. In the forest, we'll get a bigger lot loaded with trees, but it doesn't come cheap. And we'll always need to drive where we want to go. For a while now, we've been imagining a life where we can get down to one car and take advantage of Portland's legendary public transportation; that won't happen if we buy one of the out-of-town lots. It is unfortunate we have so many competing and incompatible desires.

Tomorrow we're going off with the realtor again to revisit about four houses from Tuesday. One of them, the fixer on Multnomah, is somewhat in the lead of the houses we visited yesterday. But we've been told there was an offer yesterday. We're debating whether we just move on and let the buyers negotiate uncontested, but we're also wondering if it would be worth at least writing up the offer with the dollar amount we're willing to pay. How do we know if it's more or less than the current offer; the only way to find out is to write the offer. Perhaps Multnomah will go pending tomorrow and then that decision will be taken out of our hands. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

It is possible we won't be making any offers on this trip, as I'm not really enthused about any of the current choices, except, of course, Rupert. And, about Rupert, there's still no definitive word. We are keeping the communication open with the sellers, but there has been no forward progress. We are no longer in contract and if they were to get a higher acceptable offer they would be free to accept it. Likewise, we are free to make offers on other properties. We continue to watch and see what happens. Perhaps it will eventually go into foreclosure, then maybe we'd have another shot at it.

Beautiful Drive to Portland

We set off this morning at 5:31AM from Redwood City, CA. We drove pretty much straight through to Portland, OR and we arrived at 5:29PM! We had to stop for gas twice and we grabbed a quick BBQ lunch in Roseburg.

Shasta was a perfect dog child. She mostly slept the whole way, except for once when she asked us to stop at the next rest stop.

The weather around Yreka, CA was absolutely beautiful! Mt. Shasta was hiding behind the clouds, unfortunately.

Mom's 65th Birthday

Yesterday was Sharon's mother's 65th birthday. We celebrated it by having a little family gathering for her at my brother James' house. (Thanks James for hosting another gathering!) We took a bunch of family pictures, but they were all on James' camera, so it will be a while before I get a copy!

We got there a bit early to help prepare and we brought Shasta. Shasta had an amazing day with all the kids, especially Lizzie (shown in the pictures below). Shasta was so tired when we got home last night that she didn't even have the energy to jump up and sleep on our bed!


Happy Easter Everyone!

This morning we were supposed to go out for an Easter brunch at Olive Garden, but we've decided to skip it. Sharon just doesn't have the stomach for two more big meals today. Instead, we're going to spend this morning packing for our trip tomorrow and drop in on the family gather after brunch over at Aunt Sarah's house.

This evening we're going to Sharon's father's house for another gathering. Hopefully the weather will hold and we'll be able to bring Shasta to play with her "cousins" again. Having her tired out this weekend is a good thing, since she pretty much has to sleep in the car all day tomorrow.

More Portland House Shopping

After 3 years of steadily looking at houses, I admit I'm getting tired of trying to find one. We've basically given up on Rupert. It sounds like even the sellers' realtor can't get ahold of the sellers. I guess they intend to let it go to foreclosure. Oh well. So, our search continues.

We have a busy weekend scheduled full of family activities. Tomorrow is my mother's 65th birthday and we're having a small family gathering in the afternoon. And there are two family meals on Easter Sunday.

Then, Monday we're driving back up to Oregon. Our house shopping list for this trip include these properties:
Multnomah Street--This is a fixer in Laurelhurst. Way at the edge of Laurelhurst which is not really a feature; I'd like to be close to the park. But it at least has the historic woodwork, painted, but it's there.
SE 67th Ave
NE Hazelfern


We're also going to look at a few pieces of land this trip. We're seriously considering just building a house. Then we could spend all our money building the new "old" house we envision and wouldn't have to spend money remodeling. Here are three pieces of property we're hoping to visit this week:
Germantown Road
Groveland Road
Ramsey Drive

I actually doubt we'll be making an offer this trip, except maybe on land. I think we've agreed we'll be better off if we wait until May, when the First Time Buyer Tax Kickback ends. We won't qualify for this credit due to selling a bunch of Apple stock to buy the house, so we'll probably be better off waiting until the house prices drop this summer (assuming the government doesn't again extend the credit).

Working on My To Do List

Jeff and I are hoping to go visit Oregon again next week, so I am spending this week working on my To Do list. Some of the tasks are fairly old, and it's good to get them out of the way. I've scheduled a couple of appointments for later in April and I've taken care of some other errands I've been neglecting.

In school, I have a midterm due tonight, which I've finished. Also, I finished an extra credit book and report. On Thursday, I'm planning to spend the afternoon in the law library, working on a couple more projects being assigned in class tonight. I'm really trying to stay on top of things this semester, since I tend to get so distracted with house matters.

I've also finished the first pass on our Federal and state taxes. I have to go look up a few small details for the Federal taxes, but it looks like overall we'll be getting money back. That's a shocker! But I guess that's the benefit of employer's withholding taxes out of exercised stock options before they turn the proceeds over to you. We owe taxes to the state of California; I wonder how they would respond if we sent them an IOU? =)

Over the weekend, Jeff was quite the cook. On Saturday, we got to have vege pizza he made from scratch. And on Sunday, he made two loaves of bread. He was disappointed with the bread, because it was heavier than he was hoping, but I thought it was quite tasty. They sure looked pretty!

Vegetable Prep Night!

This afternoon we got this week's CSA delivery. This week we got: chard, 2 kinds of lettuce, rutabagas, green garlic, carrots, new potatoes, beets, and bok choy. We also got rosemary, but I traded it for another bunch of chard; we still have rosemary growing in one of our barrels.So, tonight was another vegetable prep night. I washed all the vegetables and then cut up the salad greens for salad. Jeff cooked the vegetables for putting into dishes during the week. He also made Roasted Honeyed Rutabagas and Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes out of this week's produce. OMG, the Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes were so good! (I can provide the recipes, just post a comment or email me and I'll send it.)

Then he used up all of last week's vegetables (from the freezer) and made up a vegetable fritatta. (A fritatta is basically a quiche without a crust.) I'm looking forward to trying that for lunch tomorrow.

First Produce Delivery

I mentioned quite a while ago that we had subscribed to an organic farm and we got our first delivery today! (The programs are called CSAs/Community Supported Agriculture if you want to look up the same kind of program in your area.) Here is today's delivery:We spent all evening washing, chopping and cooking vegetables. Okay, I washed; Jeff did the chopping and cooking... Now we've got almost all the vegetables packed up into small containers so we can add it to all the meals this week. Jeff is so awesome!


And here was dinner tonight. We used up some old veges from the refrigerator as well as used some of the new stuff. Lots of variety compared to our normal one-dish meals. Though, I probably went a bit over my calories for the day; I wasn't keeping close track because there were so many things in the prep stage at once.