3 Months as a Homeowner

We’ve been living in our house for three months now, and we finally feel as though we’ve settled in.

Last weekend we had to buy our first lawnmower. We opted for the lower priced, manual lawnmower, which cost us $99. For almost three months, our backyard consistently looked like dead, brown patches of grass. Then suddenly, within the last several weeks, everything turned green and all manners of weeds sprouted up from nowhere. The two trees that we have on our front lawn, which Christy that for sure were dead, also suddenly sprouted leaves. So…much of our weekend was spent mowing the lawn and digging up weeds. Just another adventure you get to have once you become a homeowner.

I was a little concerned about skyrocketing utility bills, but our electricity bill has been around the $100 level. This is without having to use any heat or A/C. In retrospect, I guess it was good that we bought a smaller house, as opposed to all the fancy, two-story homes we had looked at previously. Some of my colleagues here at work, who have much bigger homes than me, pay about $300 a month for their electricity. Our water bill is about $70. Again, much higher than I used to pay, but not shockingly high, considering we use the washing machine and dishwasher frequently.

I guess my biggest shock is when I get my mortgage bill every month and I see that only about $150 of my payment is going to the principal on our house. The rest is going to interest and escrow. No wonder it takes so freakin’ long to pay off a mortgage. I was told that once you buy a house, you normally spend your first few years paying off the interest, but this is ridiculous.

(Picture: our once brown backyard, now green and full of weeds)

Kyle's 3rd Birthday

Kyle turns 3 years old today. Unlike Sara's big, 5th birthday party, we decided to do something smaller for Kyle, and just have a small, family party.

Unfortunately, now that Kyle is 3 years old, he can't get into places for free anymore. So, maybe instead of having family outings to Disneyland or Six Flags or Sea World, we'll have more outings in our backyard. :)

The Art of Phlebotomy

So last weekend I took a crash course in "Basic Phlebotomy Skills" and by the end of the weekend, I became certified.

What is Phlebotomy? Basically, it's drawing blood from patients in a laboratory. I have to be honest, though, I had never even heard the word "phlebotomy" until recently.

The hospital where I work sent out an email offering free classes at Austin Community College, so I took them up on their offer. I figured, why not? Working in the lab would probably be better than what I'm doing now, and it pays more too.

For a good portion of the class, we had to practice on fake arms filled with red dye. Then at the end of the class, we were practicing on each other. That was fun. I thought I'd be a little nervous sticking someone with a needle, but I had no problem when my time came around. It was easy.

So when I came back to work I emailed my supervisor, telling her that I'm ready to start "sticking" people. She then goes on to tell me that to be certified with the hospital, I have to schedule time in the lab (during my time off), and perform 20 "sticks" while under the supervision of a lab tech. Wow, I was kind of surprised. It seemed as though she was trying to put up some road blocks for me to achieve the certification that the company was providing us.

"It's so obvious what they're doing." said a coworker. "They think that all of us will quit our current jobs and get lab jobs."

Yeah, she's right. That's exactly what I would do.