Pre-Approval on the Rest of my Life

We were pre-approved for a home loan. And we've contacted a realtor. And he's going to start sending us listing of homes in our area.

Bleh.

Dr. Nate sees this as a good thing. Something to do with "equity" and "place to practice trumpet without annoying the jesus-neighbors downstairs." I see it as "there is no guy that will magically fix the hot water heater for free anymore" and "I've never used a lawn mower in my life."

Seriously. I have never used a lawn mower in my life. I am not making this up.

Whatever it is that guy is doing in the picture is not something I know how to do. I think there's a pull-string on it. But beyond that and the idea of pushing it forward, I have no clue.

My dad is, if anything, exceedingly particular about his lawn. There is a certain way you care for a lawn in his household and no one is privy to this method except he. It's a vast method involving charts and graphs, two different lawn mowers and other various and sundry equipment, and a schedule of fertilization that follows the phases of the moon, with exceptions for reports of solar flares. One week mowing is done side to side. The next week it is corner to corner. The following week is paint the fence.

So mowing the lawn was, and still is, my father's domain. And at nearly 34 years old I'm not sure if I want my skill set to include lawn mowing experience. There are far cooler things I could add to my skill set. Gene splicing? Yes. Free diving? Yes. Use of lawn-grooming implements? Not so much.

I suppose eventually I'll get on board with this whole home-buying idea, but I plan to make sure that the place is zoned for sheep. I'm pretty sure lawn care is already part of their skill set.

We're Totally Yuppie Scum

Yep. Unfortunate as it is, over the weekend Dr. Nate and I became yuppie scum. We went to check out a town close to us as it is a potential place where we would buy a house. The downtown area has lots of "shoppes" - places I'd wander into but never buy anything from. However, there is a fairly good selection of bars there. We went into one for a beer and found soccer (football for non-American and Australians types out there) on the t.v. and a nice assortment of beers on draft. This does not necessarily make us yuppie scum. Leastwise not yet.

I noticed they have one of my new favorite beers on tap: Founder's Breakfast Stout. The bartender said, apologetically, that it was $9.00 for 12 oz. I considered this for a minute and ordered one anyhow. Yet, still, I did not feel like yuppie scum. (Incidentally, you can get a pint of the same beer for around $5.00 in Illinois. Damn you, Pennsylvania and your prohibitively-taxed beer.)

The place sells packaged liquor and they had the Founder's for sale there. Having been looking for it at the good liquor store in Delaware, I figured I'd pick up a 6-pack. Come to find out that it's a buy-by-the-bottle store, so you can get yourself a mixed-6-pack. Which we did....

....to the tune of $29.34. Yes, Dr. Nate and I paid $29.34 for a 6-pack of beer. If this doesn't officially make us yuppie scum, I don't know what does.

And they weren't big bottles or Lambics. Oh no - all were 12 oz. 3 Founder's Breakfast Stouts, one Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, and two Gulden Draak (some Belgium triple that Dr. Nate wanted. 10.5% alcohol they were; nearly stripped the lining out of my esophagus when I tried one).

It's bad enough that we paid that much for a 6-pack. Even worse that we both though the guy behind the counter said the total cost was $39.34 and we were willing to pay it anyhow. Luckily we'd misheard him and the total was $10 less than we'd first thought.

Yep, so one fell swoop of the credit card and we doomed ourselves. I wonder if there's a way to undo the damage. Avoid Starbucks for six months? Purchase all our clothes exclusively from Sears?

I suppose the only thing to do now is wait for the Pottery Barn catalogues to start arriving.