Life's Big Decisions

Hmmmmmm, life is full of big decisions. I had been hoping that the job at the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake would work out for me so that Greg and I could move back to Utah (and that would have been a really cool job), but with the current Church hiring freeze, that will not happen at this time. Unfortunately the job prospects aren't looking great anywhere, so Greg and I realize that we might need to stay here in Athens for a while since we at least have a regular income and insurance benefits. Athens is a nice place, and I wouldn't mind staying here for the time being, but after Saturday's freak storm I told Greg that if we're staying here into tornado season, we need a house with a basement. And, I have what you might call rentphobia. I realize that renting is nice because you're not tied down to a place, but I can't stand sending money each month into the black hole more commonly known as rent. So, Greg and I have been talking about the pro's and con's of buying a house. There is a cute little house here in town that Greg and I have been looking at, and I would appreciate any input that all of you wise blog readers have on the matter.


The house we're looking at belonged to Dr. William A. Mudd and was built in 1860. (It's a historic house and even has a plaque in the front yard!!!) You can see some pictures of the house by clicking here. The original structure consisted of just the two front rooms of the house--then the other parts were added on later. William Mudd's father, Dr. Henry Mudd, was friends with Abraham Lincoln and was excused from official service during the Civil War after he agreed to give medical treatment to both Confederate and Union soldiers. William followed in his father's footsteps and became a doctor. The realtor said that supposedly William Mudd was related to the infamous Dr. Samuel Mudd who was accused of helping John Wilkes Booth escape after assassinating President Lincoln, but I was checking today and couldn't find any close family relations. But with a name like Mudd, surely they must be related somehow.

The house is in good shape for being as old as it is, but it has a few problems. It has a totally ghetto paint job inside, and the floor coverings in the kitchen and bedrooms are not tacked down to the floor. It has new electrical wiring and a new roof, but there is a small leak in the roof on the newest addition to the house. There is also a little water damage (it looks like some old condensation) beneath the linoleum on the kitchen floor, and there is a little bit of black mold around the storm door in the basement. That being said, at least the house has a basement! The house also has a lot of character. The kitchen wallpaper would have to go, and the ceiling panels in the living room and master bedroom would either need to be removed or covered up, but the house has amazing insulation. Their utility bills are 1/3 of what Greg and I are currently paying, and they keep their house 10 degrees warmer than we do!

Here is a list of pro's and con's for buying the house:

Pro's

• It has a basement
• Utility bills are 1/3 as much as we are paying right now
• Our monthly payments on the house loan would be less than what we are currently paying for rent
• We could build up equity in the home
• It is a historic house
• It is a brick home and is very well insulated
• We would have an additional bedroom
• It would be our house
• We could make money when we sell it in the future
• It has a big bathroom
• We could have a little garden in the yard
• It comes with all of its appliances
• Did I mention that it has a brick-lined basement--good for taking shelter during tornadoes?
• It would be fun (though a lot of work) to fix up

Con's

• Owning it would tie us to Athens, and if we were to move in the near future, we would have to sell it
• It is old and could, at any time, have any number of problems
• Its furnace is kind of old and might need to be replaced in a few years
• It would need to be repainted and have the floor coverings fixed
• The mold problem around the door in the basement would need to be fixed
• We would need to make sure that the panels in the ceiling do not contain asbestos
• It doesn't have a garage
• It doesn't have a lot of closet space

What do you think?

Tornadoes in December

You've heard of Christmas in July, but how about tornadoes in December? Yesterday it was below freezing here, and today it got up to 65 degrees. With severe temperature change comes severe weather, and we got a load of that today. When Greg and I got back to Athens after our morning errands in Springfield, we heard on the radio that there was a bad storm headed our way. We walked outside and saw these crazy black clouds heading towards us. Why, you may ask, did we remain outside and take pictures when we should have been taking cover? That is a good question, and I don't have a good answer except that it was so fascinatingly scary that we couldn't help but stand there and snap photos. We saw the black clouds coming at us from the west, but then we looked on the northeast side of the house and saw this crazy downdraft. It wasn't actually a tornado, but it might as well have been. (Don't worry--we went inside at this point!) An 80 mile per hour wind gust then knocked out our power for a couple of hours. After the power came back on, I turned on my computer and found out that the storm that went over us turned into a tornado about 20 miles northeast of us. It was heading towards Champaign. Crazy weather! I think we need a house with a basement. Tonight it's supposed to get down below freezing again.

Merry Christmas!

We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas! Lily was the first one to wake up yesterday morning. She was very excited for her first Christmas. She got some kitty treats and a fun new fuzzy pink toy which she absolutely loves. Her favorite part of Christmas, however, was batting mini Snickers, balls of wrapping paper, and ribbons around on the floor. It was the happiest day of her life. Big Spike also got some treats as well as a squeaky hedgehog. Little Spike is in Iowa with Greg's parents for the next few days, so he'll have to wait to play with the Christmas toys. We received some nice presents from Mom and Dad and from Greg's parents--thank you for everything! Greg gave me a heated blanket (which I am using right now), "The Office" and "Bones" DVDs, the new "Narnia" movie, and some beautiful earrings; and I gave him some Xbox games and a new shirt and tie.

Here is the Christmas aftermath. We enjoyed a leisurely day of playing Xbox and relaxing, then we went and had dinner with the Henning family (Greg's boss). The Hennings are so nice, and we had a wonderful time with them.

I heard that Richard was finally able to sleep in on Christmas morning this year! He didn't have his sisters around claiming that present opening should begin at 5:00 a.m. :-) It sounds very, very snowy in Utah, and I hope that everyone is staying warm. (I am confident that Sarah, Joel, and Eliza are warm in South Carolina.) The weather here is really weird. It is still just cold and icy outside today, but tomorrow it's going to get up to 60 degrees and we're supposed to have bad thunderstorms! But I'll take thunderstorms any day over freezing rain. This was my first Christmas away from home, and I miss all of my friends and family, but Greg and I have had a nice holiday here.

All of my hopes for getting the curatorial position at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake were dashed by the Church's new hiring freeze. They are not going to be hiring anyone for a few months at least--including at the Church schools. I am sad, but at least the Church isn't going to lay people off. Unfortunately these are tough economic times--and I have a feeling that things will only get worse over the next four years. Speaking of which, did you all hear the ridiculous news that Barack Obama is going to be sworn in as President using the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used? Blaaaaaaaaah! All I can say is that he'd better be wearing some white cotton archive gloves so that his greasy hands don't ruin the Bible.

The Night Befo' Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve! We hope that you all have had a wonderful day and will have a Merry Christmas tomorrow. It sounds like Utah is getting a whole lot o' Christmas snow! The ground is white here in Illinois, but it's not really covered with snow--it's more like a few layers of ice and slush: yucky. This evening Greg and I went and had dinner with the Andreasen family. They are a wonderful family in our ward, and they have always been so kind to us. They cooked a turkey that had been grown at a local farm, and it was certainly the LARGEST turkey I've ever seen. It was 40 POUNDS!!!! I guess they had quite the adventures cooking it. We were also able to participate in the Andreasen Christmas Pageant as Mary and Joseph. We had a wonderful time and hope that all of our friends and family are having a nice evening. Now it's off to bed so that Santa can come!

Birthdays, Books, Blizzards, Branches, Bodies, and Brrrrrrrrr

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's cold in Illinois. Actually, it's frigid. It is three degrees outside . . . but it feels like -17! According to the current Wind Chill Advisory, tonight it could feel like 25 below zerooooooo. Ouch, that's cold. I wore multiple layers of warm clothes to church today, but there comes a point when no matter how many clothes you have on, you're still going to be cold. Right after we arrived at church this morning, Greg got a phone call that someone had died and needed to be picked up in Springfield. So, Greg drove back to Athens to get the "Van of Death" and pick up Mrs. Baum at the hospital while I went to sacrament meeting and taught our Sunday School class--then we were going to drive back to Athens together (church is about 35 miles from our house). The kids in class were terribly amused that my husband was going to be picking me up after class in a van carrying a dead body. I was a little creeped out when I got into the van. The last time I rode in the Van of Death with someone besides Greg was just after Thanksgiving 2007 when he and Mrs. Castle picked me up at the train station in Mattoon. Mrs. Castle had been transported on an airplane and was already embalmed and in a pine box in the back--which for some reason isn't as creepy as someone who hasn't been embalmed yet. Riding with Mrs. Baum was the first time I've ever ridden with a body that has not yet been embalmed. I can't really explain why it creeped me out, but it did. Poor Mrs. Baum.

But anyway, on Friday I returned from a wonderful trip to Utah!!! It was so fun to see family and friends--especially to be out there during Mom's and Sidney's birthdays. I flew home on Thursday, December 11, then on Friday Mom and I drove to St. George. It was great to see Grandma F.T. and Grandpa Dick, and they fed us some yummy chicken noodle soup they had made. Saturday was Mom's birthday! We all had a tasty brunch at the Bear Paw--home of the world's best quiche. The quiche wasn't quite as fantastic as the last time we had it, but it was still very, very good. That afternoon, Mom and I went over to the mall and I had my first-ever book signing at Barnes & Noble. A few people stopped by, but I think most of them were scared of me. The ones who did stop by were surprised because they thought I looked too young to have written a book, but they were very nice and interested. That evening Mom and I went to see the movie "Four Christmases," which was quite hilarious.

On Sunday we had a nice time at church with Grandma and Grandpa, then Mom and I headed over to Springdale. We were glad we went over on Sunday instead of Monday, because on Monday morning it started to snow like CRAZY!!! I had never ever seen snow like this in southern Utah. Though it made driving up the canyon difficult, it was beautiful.

We had dinner on Sunday and breakfast on Monday at our favorite Zion restaurant: Oscar's. For breakfast we even had some pumpkin pancakes! On Monday evening, I signed books at Sundancer Books in Springdale. We thought no one would come, but a surprising number of people showed up. I guess that when something like that is going on in a small town like Springdale, it becomes a social event for everyone. Once again, the best way to describe people there was surprised. They thought I looked like a high school student :-) But the feedback on the book was very positive, so that was good.

Mom and I were a little worried about the weather on Tuesday, but when we left Springdale in the morning, the sun was peeking through the clouds. It was all good until we got past Toquerville. All of a sudden, it was like you couldn't see anything--we were surrounded by thick, white clouds. As we approached the freeway entrance, we saw some semi trucks piled up and some Highway Patrol cars. They closed the entrance to the freeway, so before we knew what was happening, we were heading south on I-15 instead of north. It was clear to the south and when we got to the Hurricane exit, we wondered if we should just keep going to St. George. I convinced Mom that we should try to go north (we learned from Lindy that the freeway entrance closure was due to a truck accident, not the weather). But just when we passed the last exit before the Toquerville exit, Aunt Karalie called and said that on udot.com they were predicting three hour delays because of the accident. That would have been a serious problem, but luckily the cars on the freeway kept moving. We inched along for a while, but that was okay because we wouldn't have wanted to drive fast in the scary snow. It was really, really snowing when we finally got to Cedar City, but luckily the snow let up a bit after that.

We made it home just in time for the book signing at the BYU Bookstore on Tuesday afternoon. The best part of the whole thing was the GIGANTIC "Tiffany Taylor" sign they had hanging from the ceiling! It was so funny. They have the "Education" section of the bookstore, the "Science" section, . . . and the "Tiffany Taylor" section :-) Thank you to all of the friends and family (and even a few people I didn't know) who stopped by to see me!

On Wednesday Mom and I had lunch with our wonderful friend Yevon, then we went and got our nails done. Then we got to have dinner with the Barretts! It was so fun to see them, and we had a good time running around the house with Camden, Riley, and Sid. Then on Thursday we went to cousin Breanna's wedding at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. After the wedding, I made a birthday cake for Mom, and everyone came over that evening to eat Wallaby's tasty BBQ meat and celebrate Mom's birthday (since we were in St. George on her actual birthday). We were also in St. George during Sidney's birthday, but Sid had a fun Pirate Party on Monday.

Here's the birthday couple--only one more month until Dad's birthday!

I asked Camden, Riley, and Sid to make funny faces, and this was the result:

It was so nice to be with everyone before Christmas, and I was sad to leave, but it's been good to be back with Greg and our animal children. Getting back here was quite tricky. First of all, Dad, Mom, Rich and I were getting off the freeway at the Pleasant Grove exit to take Rich to work when we got rear-ended by a guy in a Dodge Durango who was talking on his cell phone and not paying attention. The back bumper of the Camry got a little crunched, but luckily it was Durango's fault, so he'll have to pay for the repairs. Then when we got to Salt Lake it started to snow like crazy. Mom and Dad dropped me off at the airport, and I got all checked-in and boarded the airplane, but then they closed the airport, and we had to get off the plane. We waited around for a couple of hours, then they let us back onto the plane. Then we had to get de-iced. I fell asleep for a while, then we took off. It seems funny to me that Greg left Athens just after I left Salt Lake, and I made it to St. Louis before he did :-)

Little Lily was glad to see me :-) It was so cute yesterday--she and both of the doggies all fell sound asleep together on the couch. Yesterday I had to take Big Spike to the vet while Greg was taking care of a funeral. Big had some seriously nasty poops, and we found out that he had a bacterial infection. He got a shot and some pills, and he seems to be doing much better. Last night Greg and I were watching the Las Vegas Bowl (a sad, sad game), and we heard a big KABOOM outside! It sounded like the house was blowing up. We went outside and saw that a huge branch from the neighbor's tree had come crashing down onto our roof and then it fell in front of our front door. Luckily the house seems to be okay, but it sounded pretty scary. Lily's has a new fascination with the aquarium screensaver on my computer. She thinks that all of those little bright fish look so yummy, but they're just beyond her reach. Greg's parents are coming tomorrow for a couple of days, then he and I will go over to the Andreasen's house on Christmas Eve and have Christmas here together the next day. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas week!