Calling all opinions: HELP!

So in July our lease is up. My grandma has inheirited a house from a friend and she will let me live in it for "cheap" (keep in mind my grandma has a problem with honesty. To be fair I think the has a mental condition...or several). She started out saying rent would be $250 a month and then it was $350 so by July? Who knows.

The problem is I can't decide if I want to live there. It has some pros and cons but it's seriously a hard decision. I took some pictures of the inside when we first started cleaning it. I should have taken better ones. This is where the washer and drier go.
This is one angle of the kitchen. Some of the cabinet doors are missing. The sink and faucet leak so it'll have to be replaced. I'll probably paint the cabinets white if we live there.
This is another angle of the kitchen. Sorry it's sideways. The guy that lived here before was a horrible slob and hoarder. This picture was taken after we got everything off the floor. Things were stacked as tall as me! The fridge will be replaced...it was gross.
Another angle of the kitchen. Another one of the drawer faces had fallen off and there is this fake brick on the backwash. I'm going to try and get that removed and put tile. I'm not sure what that powdery stuff was on the floor, but I think it might be poison for the cockroaches. Yeah...this house was GROSS. While it's been empty we've been bombing it every so often and they seem to be going away...or hybernating at least. There are dead ones all over the place...
This is one angle of the living room. Again, this is after we cleaned up a bit. That thing in between the two bookshelves is a wood burning fireplace.
He liked to feed the birds outside, but the bags of food would get lost in the mess and become food for the mice.
This is the other angle of the living room. The doorway on the right goes to the kitchen.
This is the first and smallest bedroom. We took out ALL of the carpet in this house so there is a relief. That is a hospital bed that smelled like pee... it was too big to go out the door so my parents took it out the window and put it in the garage. My grandma was MAD and yelled at my dad for taking it out and putting it in the garage. She wants to take it home to Effingham and we have no clue why she was so angry.

This is the master bedroom. It is smaller than the room we have now. It kinda cool because it has two windows, but the window on the right faces the neighbor's house, which is kinda weird. We'll be getting extra thick blinds for that side of the house.
This is my least favorite room in the house. Upon first looking at it my first words were, "WHO PUTS A WINDOW IN THE SHOWER?!" Seriously...I want to know. It's not a small window, either. Then, I acutally looked at the bathroom and realized nothing in that room wasn't moldy. Everything from the window curtian to the cabinets. Luckily my dad is in the process of gutting the entire thing. My grandma wants to keep the tub, but it has rust on it... who wants to take a tetinus bath?

Seriously...

Okay so there is a 3rd bedroom. It looks a lot like the first, so I'm not going to post any more pictures.
Some pros for living in this house:
Got a garage (that needs a new door)
no attached neighbors
walking distance to Parkland
closer to work
fenced in back yard (with these pole things you can attach string to so you can hang your laundry)
cheaper rent (so far)
fire place
I can see the fire dept from my back window and I could walk to the post office
Getting to mow the lawn...I was never allowed to do it when I lived with my parents. I've always wanted to try it at the very least.

Cons:
Not the greatest neighborhood. It's not that much worse than where I live now, though. (grandma said she'll buy me a nice big labrador if we move there, though)
One of the neighbors lets her dogs roam wherever they want. No leash at all.
The house still needs A LOT of work.
Grandma will make me pay renter's AND owner's insurance
I'll have to buy a fridge. Might have to buy an oven if grandma won't.
Having to pack my stuff and move...again. Meaning I'll have to wax the townhome's floor and re-paint the walls back to beige.

That's all I can think of, now. I'll post some pictures of how the house is cleaning up.

The yogurt that never was...

So, I'm at Parkland waiting for Zach to get out of class. It hits me all of the sudden, I am HUNGRY. I go to the cafeteria in search of something and all that I see is sugar or grease packed foods. They've got giant pretzels filled with cream cheese, sausage and pepperoni pizza, bagels (non-whole wheat), sugared cereals (not even cheerios!), egg sandwhiches that I'm not certain that the eggs came from a chicken, bananas that look like they've seen battle with the soggy apples, and many other gross things. Then, I see one solitary vanilla yogurt. I get all excited as I pick it up. For sure I can eat this!!! I check the little cup. Yep, it's all natural and no added sugars. I all but dance towards the line to make my purchase and notice...it's expired. This poor yogurt cup has been expired for weeks, no less.

I give it to the lady and tell her that the yogurt's life has ended. She looks at me like I'm crazy then throws it in the trash.

I walk away... still hungry.

The lesson I learned today: buy some trail mix, beef jerky, or granola to hide in my purse.

Books...seems you need them to study.

So Zach is taking this class called Gender and Society. When he went to buy his books on his first day of class, there weren't any and so I freaked a bit and ordered his book online. It finally got here yesterday. Even though I KNOW I ordered the 4th edition of this book, I get the first. I could send it back, but they'll send me the other one in about a week. Zach has until the 21st to read 2 chapters, write in the discussion board (once for each chapter and about 3-4 paragraphs each), respond to another person's post to try and further the conversation, and take 2 quizes. We went to the Parkland bookstore at around 1100 and found out there are no books....still. They'll order us one and it'll be about a week. So we go to Follets. They don't have any 4th edition but in February they'll be getting the 5th edition in. We call the campus bookstores and nothing. We then start calling outside Champaign County. Zach starts to get really despirate and calls Rae and Amy. We call around to stores in Springfield and Carbondale and some place in Kentucky, Decatur, and any place in between. This book is non existant... We check all the local libraries including the Licoln Trail system (which has libraries all over Illinois) and we catch a break. The U of I Library has 3rd edition. We just got home and it is now 1745. I feel like I just wasted a day >.<

Thanks to Rae and Amy for helping him out.

In other news I have 3 more days left with my current job. I am EXCITED! I will have a whole week with nothing to do but chill at home until Feb 1st when I start my new job. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself. Any ideas?

Fog, log, and ... dog?

Yeah, I'm not really sure where I was going with the title... But I was going to complain about the weather. It is cold, wet, and gross. It was foggy for 4 days straight and I havn't seen the sun for at least 2 weeks. Today it's cloudy, misty, and rainy. We were next to foodless so we had to venture out into the nastiness to the grocery store. In the 45 minutes we were inside the store it went from misty and light to raining and dark. I am so ready for spring. I can handle rain if I knew that I can look outside at the bright green grass and watch as my tulips and daffodils sprout and bloom. I suppose I should enjoy the cold while we have it. Before we know it, it'll be 95 degrees, humid, and buggy.


As for the first weeke of school... It was actually pretty fun, color me sadist. The only issues I have is a teacher who won't call on me in class. Just because I refuse the offer to move to one of the closer seats doesn't mean I don't like you. What are real estate's Three L's? Location, location location! The spot I am in now is trash can adjacent, that's gold! Think of my re-sale value.
My computer teacher has some VERY good policies that I will deeply enjoy. For example: after x number (and we don't know what x is) tardies/absences the points start coming off the final. Play rock star enough and you can fail the final even if you get every answer right. Choose not to take the final because it seems pointless? Negative points, oh yeah! I'll pass.
My business teacher reminds me of someone... Seriously it is like Rachel in a pants-suit. Well... Rachel with some added bad habbits, the religion of pants-suit being one of them.
My english teacher, brace yourself, has a sense of humor. I know... Strange, isn't it? And... She cusses. Not excessively, but when she starts she figures "shirt's wet, might as well jump in the pool with my pants on."
As for my gender and society class... Totally hoping the book gets here before the first quiz. Faking it in an online course with a post-before-viewing policy on the assignment board is not possible. I suppose I could post gibberish so I can read their posts. Claim temporary insanity... Go streaking to support that theory... Yeah...

My new job and Zach's first day

Yesterday, I got a new job. As of Febuary 1st I am a Health Care Tech at Carle Hospital. Woo Hoo! I get benifits for the first time in my life! It'll be hard, though. I'll still be 3rd shift and I'll be doing 12 hours for 3 days out of the week. The good thing about 3rds is I'll get $1 more an hour and on weekends I'll make 75 cents more!

Zach had his first day of school. He said he wanted to go back home all day, but he enjoyed it. He had his first class in an auditorium. He said that was kinda cool. He seems to like his teachers so far. He's got all but one book, which will be here th 18th hopefully. He couldn't find his Gender and Society book at the bookstore so I ordered one online (for $1.99). I was hoping to overnight it, but the fastest shipping they offered was crummy. I guess I can't complain for a $2 book.

That's all I've got to say today. Zach will prolly post more on his school day later today or tomorrow.

Peace!

What's on everyone's mind? SNOW!

So, if you are currently under a nice warm rock, let me tell you...it snowed. It was -5 last night. I was too scared to find out the wind chill. It has been 4 hours since I've come home and I'm still cold. But, I come home and just watch Shadow stare out the window like a kid staring at a Christmas tree. This idiot dog loves it. So, like the good "mom" I am, I take him out and throw the Frisbee around. This is the result v v v v You can't really tell in this picture but this nutty beast is absolutely covered in snow. He even managed to grow some snowballs in his fur. He was jumping and prancing around and just being all together crazy. After about 20 minutes he was still willing to chase the Frisbee, but I decided it was too cold. I had to drag him by his collar to get him back into the house. He kept pulling away trying to eat as much snow as he could. When I get him in he whines and whines looking outside because he knows where it went.

My dog is the only thing in Illinois happy about this snow.

If you haven't heard, Zach would like everyone to know his milk prophesied the snow on Monday, January 4th 2010. He took a picture to prove it.

Zach says, "OOOooooOOOO Behold the Oreo prophesy!"

The begining and the end

Today Zach had his first and second interview with Carle. He's feeling pretty good about it and I'm starting to breath a bit easier. Zach is thrilled that I've stepped off my "Money Nazi" soap box and got us signed up for internet. He won't admit it but he's darn excited to be killing random people in halo again. I'm hoping this is our new begining and Zach getting terminated from that hell hole as the end of our rut and the begining of a social life. With Carle you get vacation days so spending time with family isn't a choice between money and love...which normally isn't a hard decision, but with money is shelter, food, and transportation. Family drama has calmed a bit and we both seemed to have gotten over it. We are just going to avoid the people that seem to have problems with me. Zach is a little worried about his nephew L and wants to see him, I think. He had a chance last week, but he was so sick. He's been on and off with some virus and I think some of it is the stress of being unemployed. I made what I like to call Turkey Corpse soup with lots of veggies so I'm hoping that'll make him feel better. Sometime I'll have to put up the recipe but it's in my head and I gotta cook it to know it.

I dunno how to turn this, but I had to add it. It makes me giggle every time I see it. I figured laughing is a good way to end our first blog.

Peace out!