Sooooo tired

3 days of intense moving and cleaning will really take its toll on you. So my roommates and I had to unwind with a sushi dinner tonight. Mmmmmm sushi.


Back to my complaining/ranting. 3 days, 20+ truckloads, and 2 energy drinks (and you know how much I'm against energy drinks) all to move the lives of 6 people. It's incredible how much stuff we all have. We filled up the 3 car garage, and half of the downstairs with boxes and furniture. During the last few hours of our move, we just threw so much away because we didn't even feel like moving it over, and quite frankly I doubt we'll miss any of it. It all really makes a good case for being a minimalist.

(I bet you could move this house in one hour flat!)
Eventually, i.e. once we're finished unpacking, we're going to eliminate some of our more unnecessary belongings. I propose setting up 2 piles. A trash pile and a sell pile...whatever doesn't sell, we donate. It's that simple!

Moving Day

Well it's official, today, exactly 20 days after the seller accepted my offer, I am a homeowner!

I have been moving all day. Thankfully the house is only 2.5 miles away so it's pretty quick to load and unload.

The final move...for a while.

Well, our lease is up at the end of this month, which means another move. Except this time it's going to be a bit more permanent.

After tiring of our nomadic lifestyle which involved moving at pretty much the end of each lease and while having sat for years on the sidelines during the irrational housing boom, I have decided it is time to take the plunge and buy a home. I set my budget and criteria for a house and looked around until I found one that I liked.

What I found was a home in Murrieta with 4 bedrooms and an office, 4 bathrooms, and my favorite, a sweet double door pantry. It was selling at 50% less that what it sold for in 2006. I put an offer in and went through the whole exciting/frustrating/nail biting process of waiting to hear if it got accepted. It didn't. I was told via email that the seller rejected my offer. BUT! A day later while looking at other houses, we get a call from the seller's agent telling us the other bidder flaked on their offer so they wanted to take mine! Then the lengthy paper work process began. I'm sure you could care less about what I have to say about the process and you're actually more interested in just seeing the house. So without further ado...

My home for the next several years.

"Cazi's cul-de-sac Castle"
I just came up with that. Aren't I clever.

Of course this is much more house than any single person would ever need, so my roommates will be coming with me. They will have a place to stay for years to come and I will be able to maintain an acceptable level of saving. It's a win-win. And not to worry, I have made sure that I can afford the mortgage even if all of my roommates moved out.

All this goes to show that good things come to those who have patience and do things the old fashioned way. Like saving and putting money down on a home instead of buying everything solely on credit.

Update: A picture of my favorite feature of the house.

Better late than never...

Sorry for keeping all my readers (err...reader) waiting.

Plenty of things have been going on in my life, I just didn't want to get ahead of myself and start blogging about other things before I finished my Cabo post. I finally collected the pictures (courtesy of Aaron). So here are the long awaited details of my 2008 Cabo trip.

We took off out of LAX and ended up sleeping through most of the flight down to Los Cabos, since most of us stayed up late getting ready the night before.

We arrived at the Tesoro resort where it took them four tries before we got our correct room. It still wasn't the actual room we booked but it was a comparable master suite, even though we confirmed the room with them the week before, . Typical "Mexican sense". If it doesn't make sense, it makes Mexican sense!

I showed off my "perfect pack", which always impresses airport security.

We discovered an extra roommate hiding out on the balcony.

I planned on just having a relaxing vacation. But once you pay for the all inclusive, you pretty much HAVE to get your money's worth. So a typical night would involve a 3-4 course meal at the hotel restaurant. A couple pregame drinks back at the room to get ready.

Lounging around the hotel bar to see who would be joining us for a night out at the clubs. And a few more drinks of course.

El Squid Roe is the most popular Cabo hangout and we've closed it down on more than one occasion.

Most of the people staying at our hotel were Canadians getting away from the snow and less than 0° weather. We're so spoiled we think anything less than 60 degrees is cold. haha We ended up hanging out with these two Canadian sisters, Michelle and Laura, most of the trip. They were fun and easy to make fun because of their accents.

No, I don't have to pee really bad! I'm just doing the Dumb & Dumber dance.

We found out that one of our friends from our last Cabo trip, Jethro, who used to work at Tesoro, was now working at the Jungle Bar right next to Cabo Wabo. It turns out that it's a pretty happening place, so we spent most nights hanging out there and getting free drinks. It's all about who you know. ;)

More Jungle Bar goodness.

Each night we raided the 24/7 snack cafe. If you went there and didn't find any pizza left, that was because of us. What?! We needed 12 slices!

We took water taxis to the beaches (when they weren't being greedy bast*rds). You gotta love the ones where the captain is scooping water out with a pail as he steers the boat.

There didn't seem to be as many vendors selling whistles, Mexican rugs ("carpet"), and pipes as the previous years.

After getting tired of hanging out with the locals and tourists, we hiked to our own private beach.

Fun fact: This is the beach where my roommate Nate proposed to Sandra. It has since been named "Engagement Beach" by Mikael.

And of course, what Cabo tour would be complete without a picture of the world famous arch.

In closing the trip was still fun even though our group keeps getting smaller as our buddies get married off or work consumes them (from 7 guys at the beginning down to 3) but we always manage to meet new and fun people to hang out with for the week. Frankly though, Cabo is becoming too Americanized and the locals just see dollar signs when they look at us, so I think we're going to pick somewhere else to vacation next year. Instead of Cabo, who's up for Cuba?