Final Approval!

Our realtor called last night to let us know that we've received final approval from the underwriters on our mortgage! I believe that this is what I've heard people refer to as the "clear to close." According to our mortgage officer, the final closing paperwork is now in the process of being drawn up!

In our contract with the bank (because, if you remember, it's a bank-owned home), we agreed to close on September 15th. However, it sounds like nothing has technically been scheduled yet, so it could be slightly sooner than that. Frankly, Shawn and I would be happy with the 15th, because the only advantage we can see to doing it sooner is that we'd have a few extra days to get in there and do some work. Our lease at the apartment doesn't end until October 6th, so it's not like we're really in a hurry to get things done between closing and moving, though. And closing earlier means that we pay more in loan interest at closing. So...if we have a say in the matter, we'll stick with the 15th as our closing date. :)

In non-house news....not much has been going on this week. We went bowling last night. There were about 15 of us from church who went, so that was fun (even though I'm really not a good bowler!). I should've practiced first on the Wii. :) I've bought the materials to make a "home improvement binder"...I'll post pictures once I actually get it started. I've also been getting started on my online teaching job....I had four students enroll on Monday, and so far, one of them has done one assignment. I was wondering how quickly high school students jump into starting their online classes...I guess that's my answer!

Today is Shawn's last day of work before vacation! We leave first thing Monday morning for Hawaii! :)

Where Did Summer Go?

We've been having a beautiful summer this year! Sure, we had that week of super hot temperatures, but other than that, it's been pretty much perfect for the last couple of months. Despite the stereotype of Seattle weather, it really doesn't rain very much during the summer here. If you've noticed, most pictures that I've been posting lately have shown sunny skies! Sure, the temperatures have dipped lately back down to normal (in the 70s, basically), but we've had lots of blue skies and sunshine!

That's definitely not the case today, though! It's currently 10:30 in the morning, and if I didn't know that the calendar still says August, I would tell you that it feels like October. Or maybe November. I just took this picture from our porch:

So it's obviously gray and cloudy today, and the temperature is probably only somewhere in the mid-50s. I'm really glad that my week's menu planning had pot roast on the list for dinner tonight! The first thing I did this morning was chop the vegetables and get the crock pot started! The smell of the meat cooking (and the onions and garlic) definitely is adding to that cozy fall feeling I've got going on today! Here's what you'll see in my kitchen right now...sorry you can't smell it!

But frankly, I'm not ready for summer to be over yet. I like sunshine and warm weather! So maybe it's a good thing that at this time next week, Shawn and I will be waking up in Maui! :-)

Weekend Update

Shawn and I had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday, he broke in his new mountain bike! Yep, Shawn got a new bike on Friday night. He had had his old one for about 15 years, and frankly, he was spending quite a bit of time (and money) trying to fix it and keep it in working condition. Especially since he really does ride his bike to work pretty often (and plans to keep this habit up even after we move 9 miles farther away), he needed a new bike. So even though it cost more than I was hoping to spend right now, I'm reminding myself that it's quite a bit cheaper than buying (and insuring!) a second car. I'm not going to post many pictures from his bike ride on Saturday, but I am jealous that he got to see this view:
On Sunday, we decided to get up a bit earlier than usual to go to an earlier Mass. After church, we headed down to Ballard. Shawn wasn't able to come with us when I took my parents to the Ballard Locks, and he really wanted to see the salmon. Here's a quick science lesson. Salmon are some pretty darn cool fish. Salmon eggs are laid (and therefore hatch) in fresh water. The young salmon spend their first months or so in this fresh water before eventually making their way downstream and into the salt water of the ocean. I learned yesterday that there are 147 different species in the ocean that depend on salmon as their food source! Only about 1 in every 5000 salmon survive to spawn and lay their own eggs! But here's the really cool part...those salmon out there in the ocean know that when it's time to lay their eggs, they need to get back to the fresh water. So not only do they know that it's time to start swimming upstream....they also know that they need go back to the same fresh water in which they were born! How cool is that?!

So here's where the fish ladder concept comes in. It's already pretty difficult for a fish to swim upstream. But when they suddenly have to make their way through man-made structures like a lock, it's darn near impossible. So at the Ballard Locks (and lots of other places), the engineers have designed fish ladders. They are these sections off to the side of the Locks where fish can "easily" jump from one step to the next. Each step is kind of like a fish tank at a slightly higher altitude. At Ballard, there are 21 steps in the fish ladder, and once the fish gets through it, they've gone from the low level of the (salt water) Puget Sound to the higher level of the (fresh water) Lake Union. At the Ballard Locks, one large "step" of the fish ladder has glass walls so that visitors can watch the salmon that are in there. Here are a couple of the fish we saw yesterday, on their way to the fresh water:
At the Ballard Locks, there's also a really pretty garden area. It has lots of local and exotic plants and flowers. We didn't take the time to go through all of it yesterday, but I wanted to show one specific flower to Shawn that my parents and I saw when we were there. I have no clue what it is (I couldn't find a label), but isn't it unique? I've never seen anything like it:
After the Locks and the fish ladder, we stopped by Cupcake Royale again. Seriously, any visit to Ballard is just not complete without a super yummy cupcake. While there, we decide to wander about a block away...and stumbled onto the Ballard Farmers Market! We didn't know it was there, and it's pretty darn cool. Shawn got himself some organic blackberries. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning/early afternoon!

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, 1985 (388 pages)

I picked up a copy of this book at the used book store in Friday Harbor last weekend (when we ended up waiting near the Ferry terminal for 6 hours, waiting to get on the boat back to the mainland). It's been on my "to be read" list for awhile now, but I realized when I began reading, that I really hadn't known anything about it. I actually thought it was a relatively new book...so I was surprised to see that it was originally published in 1985!

The story takes place at some point in the not-too-distant future, in what used to be the United States. A revolution has taken place, and society is now completely different. We never actually learn the narrator's real name, although she is known as Offred. In this society, women have very few rights. They are not allowed to read, and all women have been classified into strict categories: Econowives (although this section isn't really explained well), Marthas (basically cooks and housekeepers), Wives ("married" to high ranking officials known as Commanders), and Handmaids. In this society, fertility is extremely valuable, and the Handmaids are given to Commanders whose Wives have been unable to bear children. As the title says, this book is the story of one of these Handmaids.

This is a very well-written book, and it's scary to think that the things that happen in this dystopian society have actually happened (or are happening) to women around the world. It's also scary to see how easily the change in society happened in the book. I'd like to think something like this could never happen in the U.S., but could it?

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Total number of books read in 2009: 31

Total number of pages read in 2009: 11667

More Hurdles Cleared

I actually can't believe it's Friday! It's been a busy week around here. Now that I think about it, it's actually been a good balance of fun and responsibility.

In house news...after my parents left on Tuesday morning, I was able to go hang out at the house with the realtor. We knew that Lowe's would be delivering our new stove between 11:00 and 1:00...and they actually showed up at 11:15! Also on Tuesday, we received our title report and title insurance information, and we were able to confirm that there are no leins on the property or anything else for us to be worried about. Later that afternoon, I was also able to get things squared away for our homeowners' insurance (and we're going to switch auto insurance, too...so much cheaper than what we've been paying, with better coverage!). We had our appraisal done on Wednesday, and we received the report last night. The valuation is higher than our purchase price, and the appraiser didn't find anything negative to report! It's been sent off to the underwriters, and now both our realtor and our mortgage officer feel very confident that we've cleared all the hurdles and should have smooth sailing from here until closing (knock on wood!).

In work news...I've been busy this week with meetings for my new online teaching job. I've gotten my courses loaded (with no students yet), and I'll be teaching American Lit. I've been told that this is a challenging course (for various reason), but I'm excited to get started. I need to spend more time going through the course more carefully, and I need to read Of Mice and Men (which I've actually never read, but which is required reading for my students this semester). Also, Shawn had a bit of a panic moment yesterday when 5 or 6 engineers at his job were laid off unexpectedly, but he was told by a "higher up" that there are no plans for anymore lay offs (and this guy said that he's heard "nothing but good things" about Shawn...which is good to hear!).

In social news...on Wednesday night, Shawn went over to a friend's house to play video games with the boys on a projection TV. Since the guys were all over there, I invited the girls to come over here. There ended up being six of us that enjoyed ourselves, just hanging out, chatting, eating food, and playing with babies. :)

And now we're heading into the weekend! We're hoping for another good mix of fun, relaxing, and responsibility this weekend, too. Maybe we should go pick out paint colors for the new house......

Called to Love

Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body

by Carl Anderson and Jose Granados, 2009. (244 pages)

I won this book through the Goodreads First Reads program. I was intrigued by the title, as I've been wanting to learn more about John Paul II's Theology of the Body. That being said, for whatever reason, it took me forever to read this book!

JPII's Theology of the Body is actually from a series of talks that the Pope gave during his Wednesday audiences over a period of a few years. It's basically a series of teachings that shows the holiness of God's design of the male and female body, as the Bible tells us that we are "made in the image of God." This book explains the concepts of JPII's teachings. There is a definite emphasis on sex within marriage, although the book does discuss what these teachings mean for those who are single or who are consecrated virgins.

Truth be told, I would give this book 2.5 stars. I really wanted to love it, but I had trouble getting into it. I was hoping that the book would be very easily understood by a layman (like me), but I felt like it ventured into philosophical language a bit too much. There were times when the reading got too heavy, and I found myself feeling determined to just plow through it (instead of soaking it in and enjoying it).

I have read a couple other reviews on Goodreads that lead me to include one other "warning" here. If you choose to read this book, you need to understand that it is absolutely Catholic teaching. There shouldn't be anything offensive in the book (it doesn't disparage those of other faiths in any way); however, if you're not Catholic, you may find yourself disagreeing with certain aspects of the book. Please understand, again, that the author is simply discussing the teaching of John Paul II...and those teachings are 100% Catholic.

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Total number of books read in 2009: 30

Total number of pages read in 2009: 11279

More Catching Up!

Okay...after I published that last post, I realized that it really wasn't very long at all. At least, not for me. :-) So I thought I'd go ahead and finish writing about my parents' trip.

On Saturday, Shawn and I had planned on taking my parents downtown. However, we had to make a stop first. We went shopping for our stove! We spent the morning doing that, and then we came home for lunch. The plan for the afternoon was to go to the Seattle Aquarium, followed by the Pike Market. However, the traffic getting into the city was insane! It literally took us over an hour and a half to get to the Aquarium. There were apparently a few issues going on. First of all, it was a gorgeous, sunny summer day in Seattle. Second, it was a Saturday. Third, it was HempFest. Yep...you read that right. HempFest. I never would have guessed that a festival dedicated to all things hemp (aka - marijuana) would've drawn such huge crowds, but it apparently does! The Aquarium itself was also pretty crowded, but we had a good time anyways. My parents really liked it, which was the whole point of going! Unfortunately, because of all the traffic and the crowds, we decided to skip the Pike Market. Instead, we just headed back up north towards home and went out to dinner at Boston's, one of our favorite restaurants.

On Sunday, we decided to head up to the San Juan Islands. Shawn and I have been up here a few times...we've explored San Juan Island (and Friday Harbor), we've gone kayaking near Anacortes, and we went whale watching here last year. The four of us left at 8:45 for the drive to Anacortes. We got there around 10:00 to get in line for the ferry that was scheduled to depart at 11:05. Getting out to Friday Harbor took us just over an hour, since this particular boat didn't stop at any other islands on the way out. Once on the island, we had lunch overlooking the water. Then we basically just drove around, looking at the scenery and stopping at a few historic sites. (This island was occupied by both American and British troops in the 1860s.) We got to the ferry terminal at 4:00, hoping to get on the 5:00 ferry. To his credit, the guy who was directing traffic didn't laugh at us too loudly. When we told him we wanted the 5:00 ferry, he quickly said that they've already "suspended parking" for the 6:55 boat! We should come back at 6:00 and see if we could get on that one. So we got some ice cream and Mom and I each bought a book at a used bookstore. As soon as they opened the parking for the 6:55 sailing, we got in line...and were #24 in the overflow line! They loaded the cars on the 6:55 ferry, and we didn't make it. The good news is that we were number 10 or so in line for the next sailing....at 10:00pm. So we all got dinner and found ways to kill time, and at 10:00, we were finally sailing towards the mainland. By the time we finally got back to Anacortes and then drove back home, it was almost 2:00am.

My poor parents were exhausted after this weekend! The original plan was to head back downtown on Monday and do a few more touristy things (Underground Tour, Space Needle, Pioneer Square, Pike Market). But my parents chose instead to just hang around the apartment and relax. So that's what we did on Monday! This morning we all (minus Shawn) were up at 4:30 Tuesday morning, and we left for the airport at 5:30. The nice thing about this...the traffic to the airport was actually pretty light. :-)

It was really nice to have my parents here! And hopefully the next time they come, they'll get to stay with us in our new house!