Joy Johnson 3/31/15 Joy Johnson 3/31/15

Part 4

Part 4: The Fun Part... Kind of

In my last update, we were hoping to start showings with our Realtor soon. This past weekend, we did in fact manage to catch an awesome open house and the following day, walked through a couple homes with just our Realtor. As much as this makes the process feel "real" now, it brought with it a new string of stresses.

Here's what happened:

We went to an open house on Saturday (Side note: we got there an hour after it was supposed to be going on and no one was there. So we called the number on the sign, and this cute old lady, who was selling it as an owner, but is also a Realtor IRL, answered and started cracking up because she totally forgot about the open house. So she came right over in her little sweatpants and gave us a tour) and the house was clearly well cared for. She had all new flooring put in, fresh paint, new siding, new water heater, was re-sealing the garage, etc... It really was cute and had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths just like we wanted. However, after more consideration, we realized there was no room for growth in it. There was no basement, no "bonus" room, and no extra storage. The kitchen was tiny. We had never thought about this before, but what about in a couple years when we maybe have a baby and there's no special space for them to play? We couldn't add a fourth room anywhere for guests in a basement or something. We felt that after 3 years, we'd be itching for more space.
On Sunday, we met our Realtor at a house we requested to see. Guys? It was horrendous. The flooring was put in incorrectly and in terrible shape, the rooms had bizarre sloping, the exterior and roof were in need of repair, and the electrical was exposed and looked like a total mess. Their asking price was higher than homes we had seen that were in far better condition. Basically, the main floor of the house was just the upstairs of a garage/basement... as if the actual living area of the house was an afterthought. Soooo it was an immediate "no."
The next house was adorable. It was on a half acre lot, had been recently painted on the exterior, and had a finished basement and tons of storage. The flooring was newer, the kitchen was open to the eat-in area and living room, and the bedrooms were generous sizes. But... the master bathroom was teeeennnyyy-tiny, there was no hood vent above the stove, the cabinets were in disarray, and the neighborhood wasn't exactly the right demographic for us. The house itself was in decent shape and their asking price seemed fair, but it did need a little work to fix a couple chop-jobs Tom found in the basement.

So here is what we can't figure out: What is worth buying and fixing up or replacing, and what isn't? How important is room for growth? When are you being "too picky" when buying a house? Here's an overview of the pros and cons of the first and last homes I mentioned:

Small Open House
Pros:

Move-in ready
Pristine condition
Great neighborhood and location

Cons:

No room for growth (it's only bigger than our current apartment by one bedroom)
Tiny kitchen with no options for better utilizing the space
The flooring in the kitchen and living/dining rooms, though new, was not good quality and not our taste, so we would change it.
The backyard was a steep upward slope. Curious to know if rain would cause an issue as it would run directly down towards the house.

Adorable Family Home
Pros:

Good flooring
Room to grow (in basement)
Slightly open concept
Large lot

Cons:

No hood vent or easy way to add one
Small fixer-upper projects
Iffy neighborhood
Poor cabinetry
Tiny master bathroom (like, we couldn't both stand in it at the same time)

So again, what is worth buying and then fixing up and what isn't? Is a bathroom remodel less of a headache than redoing the flooring throughout... or changing every light fixture? Is room to grow more important than a small home that's been better cared for? I feel like having a hood vent is important in a smaller kitchen, is that silly to think? It just seems crazy that so many pieces have to fit together in order to "make-it-work!" What if the house is perfect, but you hate the neighborhood? Should you just deal with it? It's so hard because we find a house we think we could make work, but if we wait to compare it to a home we see a week later, it'll probably be off the market! This is tough, guys! Any words of advice or encouragement?!

Joy Johnson 3/26/15 Joy Johnson 3/26/15

12 Things That Went Wrong With Our Wedding

Weddings are happy, beautiful, joyous occasions. Sometimes, though, things go wrong. Those things could be big (a wedding cake toppling over before it gets sliced) or little (a bridesmaid is a little late for hair-styling). No matter what, the day works out, and in the end, two marvelous people are married and their guests are rejoicing in their new life together. That's what really matters, afterall.

The fact does remain, though... almost every wedding has a few hang-ups. Whether that bridezilla can handle it or not, things go awry. Luckily for you, today I am going to share with you what went wrong on our wedding (or in planning).

We had two hotels listed on our invitations for people to get blocked rooms. Under each hotel was its address... but only after we had them sent out did we realize the addresses were switched. So the first hotel had the other hotel's address underneath it... My husband designed our invitations.
My wedding shoes were too big and I had to stuff the toes with Kleenex.
After my dad gave me away, I tripped going up the stairs towards the altar and almost fell. There was an audible gasp from all our guests.
Some friends were in charge of getting to the reception early to get centerpieces on the tables, but while family photos were being taken, they called my mom and informed her that all the doors were locked and they couldn't get in. There was some frantic run around, but they got it done before everyone arrived!
After the ceremony, everyone was to go to a gorgeous villa less than ten minutes south of the church. My parents who basically planned the whole wedding (mom, to be exact) put in the reception address on some ancient GPS and went 20 minutes in the complete opposite direction. They held up the reception until we couldn't hold it off any longer, and we started without them. They made a grand entrance when they arrived, of course.
At least my parents being late gave us more time to work on my bustle, because my maid of honor and new sister-in-law could not figure it out! It never ended up looking the way it was supposed to, but I was too busy to notice :)
Our $200 DJ was exactly what we paid for. He played S&M at a brunch. It was bad.
Tom and I were just getting ready to leave the reception. We were going to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago and fly to Cancun in the morning. Suddenly, I realized that my bag of makeup, toiletries, shampoo, etc. had been in my sister's car (who had left about an hour before). Frantically, everyone tried to call her only getting to her voicemail. Thankfully, she and her family had simply gone down the road to see Lake Michigan and were caught before they left town.
We had plans to go to a super unique bar in downtown Milwaukee after the reception and before we left town, to get cool pictures. But since we had a brunch reception, we didn't realize that the bar wouldn't open until 3PM, so we ended up in a weird bowling alley.
On our way to Chicago after the reception, Tom took a wrong turn and we ended up in traffic for much longer than expected. For a couple of newlyweds, that was not fun ;)
As we were descending into Mexico for our honeymoon, Tom couldn't find his passport. We dug through everything we had on board and the nice lady next to me even helped. Thankfully, I found it wedged between the seat and the wall of the plane. I got passport duty after that. And as any good new wife, I told him I would be going to Mexico without him if he didn't find it. Sorry not sorry!
Last but DEFINITELY not least... our marriage license got lost in the mail to the county registrar. It was never found and I couldn't get my name officially changed for a month. We had to get a new "copy" (we'll never have an original) and have it sent around to all our witnesses in the mail and have them resign it. The county was going to charge me an arm and a leg to get copies the same day (after waiting a MONTH and taking vacation time to be there so many times) and I completely lost it at the Milwaukee County Court House, bawling and unable to put together cognizant sentences, and a deputy officer had pity on me and (I think) paid the extra fees.

Some of these things seemed like such a big deal that day. In retrospect, who cares? Tom and I are married, happy, and about to celebrate our second anniversary. The best part of that day is that it was the start of our life together. And let's be honest, the most memorable parts of our wedding were definitely the screw-ups...

How about you? Have you witnessed some wedding woes? Did your own wedding have some fails? Let's hear about it!

Joy Johnson 3/23/15 Joy Johnson 3/23/15

House Buying // Part 3

Part 3: Leaps & Bounds... All of a sudden!

In my last update, we were looking at being in a house by year-end.

That idea has been tossed to the wind, and we are now hoping to buckle down and push this process to LEASE end. Like be in a house by the end or middle of June. At the very least, we are hoping to close on a house by then. Are we crazy? Yes. Probably.

Here's what happened:

We met with a mortgage loan officer (who was the nicest lady ever), and she got us pre-qualified for a mortgage. We discovered that the price-range we had been looking in was exactly the right range to be in, so that was great news. She showed us two options for loans, and both were similar, so choosing between them won't be rocket science.
While meeting with the loan officer, a buying agent was also present at the office. She seemed near in age to us and our loan officer recommended her, pointing out that as a less experienced Realtor, she would take the time to show us homes in our range. Older, more established Realtors may find us a bit pithy. So only a few days later, after some discussion we decided she would better understand our needs (as a fellow young person) and be more open to our lack of knowledge as first time home buyers. So we signed an agreement to designate her as our Realtor and so far we are very happy! She never makes me feel like I'm asking a stupid question and told me that our short time frame is perfectly doable. Her confidence is calming to me!
We can start house showings in a couple of weeks. She said that showing us homes that are on the market now would be useless because most probably already have offers on them and we wouldn't have much of a chance at putting an offer down. The housing market is INSANE right now!

So that's the latest. I cannot believe how fast this all happened, but am glad that our months of super-stress will now be compacted into a few short months instead of almost a year! (Again, are we crazy? Probably)

Like I said, the goal is to be in, or closing, on a house by the end of June. However, if that doesn't happen we have a little back-up plan:
If, by May 20th we have no prospects and the market doesn't seem to be in our favor, we're going to start a new lease somewhere else and spend a few months gathering our thoughts and creating a new time-frame. If it's May 20th and we haven't found something, but the prospects are promising and we have a good chance of finding something in a month or two, we have some awesome friends who offered some space in their home for any overlapping of time between our lease ending and getting into a house (so awesome of them, right?!).

So now, I will be spending lots of time with our Realtor, weeding out bad homes before Tom can jump in on showings. I'm actually really excited to hang out with her because she's really honest and fun! Hopefully my next post will be some ramblings on the houses we've looked at and how awful and/or great they are and what it's like putting an offer down! Stay tuned and say a little prayer that there aren't too many bumps along the way and I don't become a crying, emotional, train wreck... haha!

Any new advice for this stage? Do you think we're crazy? As a point of reference for how quickly things change, in my first post I mentioned that we met with a Realtor and would use them going forward... WRONG!

Joy Johnson 3/11/15 Joy Johnson 3/11/15

House Buying // Part 2

Part 2: Baby Steps

Since my last post, we have made significant strides towards buying a house. We have put together a time frame in high hopes that we can hold to it, and we are making baby steps towards that goal.

Here's what has changed in the last month:

Tom got a bonus that has really kickstarted our down payment savings.
Going to open houses every Sunday has deepened our drive to get a house. We know that by waiting a lot longer, we’ll miss out on some ideal neighborhoods or have to pay more for those neighborhoods the longer we wait. Atlanta and its suburbs grow so rapidly and time is really of the essence. The seller’s market is only going to get worse, and we want to start putting our money into equity rather than throw it away on rent.
We have come to the realization that if we re-lease with our current apartment, we'll have to fork out another $200+ per month (as they have jacked up rent since we moved here because of improvements across the property). As stated previously, we are already paying rent equivalent to the mortgage of a $300,000+ home, and we are not about to pay beyond that. Not to mention utilities are entirely separate.
Our current lease will end in the middle of a 10-day trip to Wisconsin. Horrible timing. So we need to move out in the month prior to our trip to a cheaper, possibly smaller apartment, and sign a six month lease instead of one year.

Here are our goals and next steps in this process:

During those six months or so, we'll put aside extra money saved on rent, cut expenses wherever we can, continue "paying off" credit cards that we've already paid off (pretend we're still paying credit cards, and instead push those "bills" into savings), and live as frugal as possible. Our end goal is that when six or so months have passed, we'll have a significant lump sum that can be used for a down payment and other expenses in buying a home, without running us completely dry.
Our end goal is to be in a house around the end of the year. It’s going to take a lot of consistency, sacrifice, and more times of saying “no”, but I know it will be so worth it in the end.

As you can see, there is still a long way to go. When we moved here, talk of buying a house was a far off venture, but because of recent circumstances I’m excited that it’s closer than we thought! Currently, our big challenge is finding an apartment/home for rent that is equal or less than the rent we pay currently. Safety is always an issue in such a metropolis, so that makes it hard to find something doable. Gated communities are prevalent to lessen crime rates, so living in a complex without gated access scares me a little. The phrase “you get what you pay for” keeps ringing in my head, but sorry, $1,350+ a month for rent is highway robbery to this Midwest soul… it’s so hard to stomach that. So, if you need me, I’ll be scouring the area for good rentals and touring every one I can. I've even gotten quite good at checking a place for mold, bugs, poor ventilation, iffy neighbors, and low quality carpet in the first three minutes of walking in the door (impressive, right?? I think so..). You need an inspector? Look no further.

So. Any advice for us at this point? A next step you think would be good?
People in the area: Know of any reputable rentals near to Alpharetta or at least access to 400?

Joy Johnson 3/4/15 Joy Johnson 3/4/15

Dear Tween Girl,

Slow down.

Please stop growing up so fast.

Dear Tween Girl,

Slow down.

Please stop growing up so fast.

I see you coming home from school, walking to your apartment just down the drive from mine. I see you with all that mascara and your hair perfectly curled or flat-ironed. I see you with your phone out, taking pictures of your friends and perfecting your selfies. I see your cute, grown-up looking clothes and how your outfits look more grown up than mine sometimes. I see you flirting with the boys who walk with you and remember those silly hormones that make you so giddy, that even walking with those boys makes your heart flutter.

But just hold up.

I see that you’re merely eleven or twelve. I can tell because I’ve heard you push your girlfriends and exclaim, “No way! He’s in 8th grade! He’s too much older!” when I’m checking my mail and you pass by.

Sweet girl, you are lovely. If you had been born in my generation, your clothes would be ill fitting and covered in glitter. You and all your friends would be getting braces soon and have them into high school, instead of getting them when you’re eight… how lucky you are! Your makeup would consist of bright blue eyeshadow and some Smackers. Maybe if you were lucky your mom would let you try a super basic mascara that wouldn’t last the day. Perhaps a concealer stick too. The trends would include basic Adidas shoes and sporty headbands across your slicked back ponytail.

You would still look like a little girl.

Mom could still cuddle with you and take you out for an ice cream treat. You wouldn’t take photos of all the moments you see and experience and you would instead capture them in your memories. Sleepovers would be time spent with girlfriends talking about crushes… not looking up any and all pictures of your favorite boy bands with their shirts off and texting the crushes at school. Sleepovers meant baking cookies, drinking soda late at night, and listening to the latest Now CD. We would watch movies that our parents thought were appropriate, but until we were in 7th or 8th grade couldn’t go to the theater by ourselves. Sometimes parents would even call other parents wanting to know what the girls would be watching at a sleepover, just in case the movie didn’t correlate with what a parent thought was appropriate.

Maybe so much of that is still the same. And for your sweet, innocent soul, I hope that it is. Please be careful with your phone, darling girl. There are things you can find, even by accident, that you will never unsee and words and phrases you don’t understand the horrible meanings of. There are people out there that want your naivety to drag you into an online world that will bring a world of hurt later on. People you follow believing they are your peer, may be a shadow of a predator behind a veiled screen. Sweet, sweet girl, those pictures you see in your social feeds of women’s bodies in bikinis and short skirts and low shirts are not #goals. Those images objectify the persona of what a woman… or man… should be today. Your body is a temple. It is for you to love, keep safe, healthy, and innocent until someday a man sees your lovely soul and loves your body the way God intended it to be loved. Despite what clothes you wear and how much makeup you apply, your body is not an object. It carries your laugh and your father’s eyes and your mother’s nose.

Sweet girl, I don’t have any children yet, but I want my girls to walk home from school and look at the world around them. When they walk through the door, I want them to tell me about their day, all the good and bad while sharing a snack, before they spend the time before dinner on their phones. I know they’ll have phones, but maybe I feel selfish about the time I hope to spend with them. Before they fall asleep I want my face and voice to be the last thing they see and hear, not the sound of a Youtube video or a text from a boy at school. I want to know they’re reading the books I once read at their age and hear them tell me their favorite parts. Maybe I don’t know a thing about what you do and I assume too much. Perhaps your dad puts your phone away until the next morning. But darling darling girl, remember to guard your heart and mind. Right now you will be so influenced by what you say, hear, see and do. Even without the feeds of women’s bodies on display, I managed to feel inadequate at your age, sometimes… I can’t imagine what those images do today!

Wash your makeup off, put on your jammies, sing into a hair brush, curl up next to dad, and stay young. You can share clothes with mom or sister when you’re in high school… but for now, sweet girl, stay a little girl because so very, very soon you will be grown up, wishing that you had snuggled your dad and made memories of talking after school instead of swiping through posts and news and photos. Tell your friends in person how much you love them or how pretty they looked in their selfie. Life is made up of moments, but please sweet girl, let those moments be seen apart from your screen, because your soul is so much prettier to listen to in person and laugh with in the car than any screen could ever do justice.

With love.

Joy Johnson 2/10/15 Joy Johnson 2/10/15

Shine Bright.

Sometimes you're the only sunshine someone might see all day. Shine bright today. Especially since it's Tuesday... don't let the Monday blues roll over!

Just for fun, today, here's a few ways to shine bright:

Listen to uplifting, happy music on your commute. Ed Sheeran is always a winner for me.
Read a short devotion before you even get out of bed.
Create a positive morning ritual, like this guy's. (Hint: no Facebook, news, etc... BUT there is one social media outlet he uses to start his day off right)
Smile at people. Even if they don't smile back... at least YOU did your part, eh? Most of the time, though, your smile can trigger a "hello!"
Check out this list of 12 Things Happy People Do Differently. Take note of some of them. Acts of kindness go such a long way... like holding the door for someone.
Compliment someone. Seriously. How much do you love being complimented? It's the best.
Listen more than you talk. Show genuine interest. Eye contact is more important than you realize.
Bake for people. Obviously.

What other ways can you be the sunshine and light to someone's day?

Joy Johnson 2/9/15 Joy Johnson 2/9/15

House Buying // Part 1

Part 1: Ugh.

Well everyone, we’re house hunting.

As we are starting this process, I have discovered there is little information on the internet about other people’s house buying journeys. Or even just a play-by-play of exactly how buying a house works. So I’ve decided to document our own journey in the hopes that others might find our experience helpful, or at the least something to be nosy about.

Here’s the thing, though… this is going to be a pretty long process and here are some reasons why:

We don’t have money saved specifically for a down payment (but it’s in the works).
We don’t particularly know what price range of houses we should be looking at (but we have a ballpark)
We are dealing with a seller’s market (meaning: houses are being bought quickly)
We aren’t in a terrible rush… but wish we were in a terrible rush.
We have no idea how to buy a house.

Soooo we have a few bits that need to be ironed out, obviously. You’re probably reading that list thinking “why the heck are you even starting this process if you have no money saved for a down payment, you idiots?”... we’ve asked ourselves the same question, trust me. There are a couple answers though. First of all, there are sometimes breaks offered to first-time homebuyers that can land you a home with little to no down payment required. Secondly, simply put… why not? It doesn’t hurt to start thinking about it, and frankly, I prefer to take things slow in situations like this because it helps me be sure I understand exactly what I’m getting myself into.

The other reason we’re seriously looking at buying a home is this: The amount we currently pay for the rental of our apartment is about equal to the mortgage of a $300,000 home. So why keep wasting our money something that builds no equity? The only problem, again, is that down payment. That’s really the only thing holding us back. However, with a few tweaks to our budget, we’re hoping to start building on that.

As of yet, we have met with a Realtor, who we will probably use going forward. We have searched out a handful of open houses and discovered certain areas that we must have in a home, and some things we can probably bend on. So far, here are some things we’ve learned overall:

Having a yard in this area of Georgia is a precious commodity, and we need one for a dog.
There is no such thing as “starter homes” meant for young, first-time, home buyers. You can either have a townhome mashed up against your neighbors with no yard and a road filled with parked cars, or a $300K+ house that two youngins couldn’t afford, or would be able to fill with furniture.
If you don’t want a giant, expensive house, or a semi-expensive, tiny townhome, you must live in the boonies and settle for a fixer-upper.
Neighborhoods matter. I honestly did not put much thought into this one. When you see a house in online listings, and it has a sub-par exterior, with a beautiful, updated interior, do not assume it’s your dream home. We drove a long way to what we thought was a promising open house, only to take one look at the meth-lab-esque neighborhood and high-tail it out of there. Neighborhoods REALLY matter.

There you have it. Part one of our gazillion part series on buying a house. Again, as you can tell, it’s going to be quite the process, and we’ve barely scratched the surface… but we are crazy-excited nevertheless!

In this series, I really want my readers’ feedback. What experiences have you had in buying a home? Do you have any advice for this first stage? Did you manage to snag a home with a small down payment, or no down payment at all? I really want to know!

Joy Johnson 1/30/15 Joy Johnson 1/30/15

Progressive Dinners

Maybe you've heard the idea of Progressive Dinners before, but if not, let me explain.

Back when I lived in Milwaukee, a handful of my co-workers lived in the downtown area and would occasionally hold a Progressive Dinner Party. Basically, you would begin at one apartment, for drinks, the next would be appetizers, the next a main dish, then maybe another main dish (depending on how many people offered to make their homes a stop), and the last place would be dessert. The whole group would move from place to place, and therefore the term "Progressive Dinner" was used to describe it. Along with the movement from place to place, there was also a recurring "theme." Maybe everyone had to follow a Mexican food theme... including Mexican drinks. Or perhaps a cheese theme (think Wisconsin), or maybe Italian, or even Downton Abbey themed. Sometimes each different stop had its own theme chosen by whoever lived and served there. Super fun idea, right?

Well, a couple weeks ago, I was blessed by the presence of my five best friends who all flew down to Georgia to visit me. How awesome are they, right?!

On the second night they were here, we all decided to go out for dinner, but we all have issues making decisions as a group (can you relate?) and ended up going to this adorable strip of restaurants. Upon our arrival, we somehow managed to decide on doing a progressive dinner in record time. Like, as soon as we parked we all agreed immediately.. phew.

Our first stop was called Zest. It was a fun, modern, atmosphere with a wonderful tapas menu. Here, we also decided on buying a bottle of wine at every stop to share amongst ourselves. As for the food, we ordered a delicious spinach and artichoke dip, mac and cheese (with panko crumbs and truffle oil... oh yummm), and grilled calamari. We ended up with two bottles of wine here, but who's counting?

The second stop was at Pastis Bar & Restaurant... French cuisine. We popped a bottle of champagne, and this time we "coupled up" to order. The wine from the last place might have gone to our heads a little, but we were laughing so hard in this restaurant, a crazy woman in the bathroom actually asked if we were drunk... which in fact we were not. Just so happy! We all mostly ordered the same things, and our excitement got the best of us when we saw a Caesar salad for $6. However, when we got our "salads" we realized there was about 50 cents worth of food on the plate and we completely lost ourselves making fun of the dish. It was good, don't get me wrong, but the disappointment was a lot to bear!

Stop number three was dessert at a cute little cupcake shop that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. We all bought different kinds of cupcakes and spread them across a table and tried each one. It was the perfect way to end the evening.

Stop number four doesn't necessarily count as part of dinner, but for old times sake we found a nice, rowdy bar and took our bottle of wine to the empty porch to play Heads Up. My! How times have changed! It seriously seems like yesterday when we were the girls on the dancefloor having the time of our lives. Now, we're sipping our wine on an empty bar porch laughing and yes, still having the time of our lives.

If you have never had a Progressive Dinner, I encourage you to give it a try. Whether it's from restaurant to restaurant, or home to home, it is always a fun new way to party. If you're wondering how the restaurant bills were handled, two girls were in charge of splitting the cost of the wine bottle at each place, and the rest of the bill was split amongst everyone. It was really pretty cost effective!

Have you ever done a Progressive Dinner? What other tips or ideas do you have? Theme ideas?