What used to be known as The Wonderful World of Shan is now The Wonderful Life of Miss Ali Vi and family.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Indiana Wine Fair
Yesterday, JM and I went down to Nashville for the Indiana Wine Fair. We were looking forward to the outing, but did not expect to have as much fun as we did! If you click on the title of this blog it will take you to the website for the Fair. There were about 21 wineries from the Indiana area and they had tasting for many of their wines. $20 got you admission and a wine glass from Story Inn. There were a few big, white tents and all the wineries were stationed underneath them. You would just take your wine glass and go up to a winery and start naming off ones you wanted to try! Obviously, there were A LOT of drunk people there! We tried to be good...about halfway through we went and bought cheese, bread, water and cheddar popcorn.
The location of Story Inn was pretty cool as well. As their slogan reads, it's a VERY inconvienent location, but a beautiful drive! We thought it was in Nashville (like the website says), so we just drove down to Nashville then used the Garmin. It's actually in Columbus, so we ended up taking the scenic route. Turns out, it was the perfect day for that! We got to enjoy the sunroof on the crave and take all the windy roads through parts of Indiana we'd never seen.
The wine was amazing. I feel Indiana has great sweet wines, and since the day was hot, sweet wines sounded the most refreshing. JM tried a couple of drier wines, but I stuck to the sweets. I'll have to remember for next year to take a pen because I forget a lot of what we tried and liked. We did buy one bottle (yep, just one! We were proud of ourselves!!!) of wine from Carousel Winery. We discovered them at the Home Show last winter and JM really likes them. They don't hold events or sell their wine at other locations so we haven't gotten to enjoy them much. We bought a bottle of Pomegrante Wine there. It was towards the end of the wine tasting, but I seem to recall it being delish!
Wines that stick out in my mind were:
Madison Vineyard ~
Black Dog -- sweet red blend
Mystique -- sweet white blend
Buck Creek's Cranberry Apple (tasted just like juice!)
Most of the Simmons wines, especially the Harvests, were great. We enjoyed so many we're going to try to catch a few events there to remember which ones we want!
Ferrin's (which is in Carmel!) had a Caramel Apple that was dangerously good...tasted just like a caramel apple! It wasn't as sweet as some of the others and had just the right blend.
Easley's Winery was a great surprise. I had known there was a winery in downtown Indy but hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to it. It had "Reggae" wines that were very flavorful. They also had a Cayuga White that had won some awards and I was in love with it! They also have a lot of events planned for this summer that I'm excited to attend!
I was pleasantly surprised with Mallow Run as well. I had only heard of it a couple of times before the Fair. Their Rougeon won the gold for the sweet red at the Fair, giving them the first booth when you entered. I didn't think this seemed like such a great prize, but considering I wasn't tipsy when I tried it and I can remember it, maybe it was a great prize! The Rougeon deserved the sweet red win!!! They also have "Pizza and Wine" nights in the summer. Bazbeaux pizza, wine, and sitting outside...perfect sounding evening!
The winery I am probably most excited about is Chateau Thomas. It not only had great wine, but it has TONS of events planned this summer and it's so close to us!
I know this wasn't an indepth review of the wines, but there was a LOT of wine and I'm lucky I remember this much! If you're interested in events this summer, definitely check out the Indiana Wine Trails. JM will be out of town for the first event I'm going to try, but it's the Indy Wine Trail's "Race Into Wineries". It's $20 and on Saturday and Sunday you can go to as many of the Indy Wine Trails' wineries as you want and get free tastings as well as track food! The Indy Wine Trails include Buck Creek, Grape Inspirations, Chateau Thomas, Mallow Run, Easley, Simmons and Ferrins. That Sunday is Mothers Day so I'm hoping that's what Mom wants to spend her day doing!
The location of Story Inn was pretty cool as well. As their slogan reads, it's a VERY inconvienent location, but a beautiful drive! We thought it was in Nashville (like the website says), so we just drove down to Nashville then used the Garmin. It's actually in Columbus, so we ended up taking the scenic route. Turns out, it was the perfect day for that! We got to enjoy the sunroof on the crave and take all the windy roads through parts of Indiana we'd never seen.
The wine was amazing. I feel Indiana has great sweet wines, and since the day was hot, sweet wines sounded the most refreshing. JM tried a couple of drier wines, but I stuck to the sweets. I'll have to remember for next year to take a pen because I forget a lot of what we tried and liked. We did buy one bottle (yep, just one! We were proud of ourselves!!!) of wine from Carousel Winery. We discovered them at the Home Show last winter and JM really likes them. They don't hold events or sell their wine at other locations so we haven't gotten to enjoy them much. We bought a bottle of Pomegrante Wine there. It was towards the end of the wine tasting, but I seem to recall it being delish!
Wines that stick out in my mind were:
Madison Vineyard ~
Black Dog -- sweet red blend
Mystique -- sweet white blend
Buck Creek's Cranberry Apple (tasted just like juice!)
Most of the Simmons wines, especially the Harvests, were great. We enjoyed so many we're going to try to catch a few events there to remember which ones we want!
Ferrin's (which is in Carmel!) had a Caramel Apple that was dangerously good...tasted just like a caramel apple! It wasn't as sweet as some of the others and had just the right blend.
Easley's Winery was a great surprise. I had known there was a winery in downtown Indy but hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to it. It had "Reggae" wines that were very flavorful. They also had a Cayuga White that had won some awards and I was in love with it! They also have a lot of events planned for this summer that I'm excited to attend!
I was pleasantly surprised with Mallow Run as well. I had only heard of it a couple of times before the Fair. Their Rougeon won the gold for the sweet red at the Fair, giving them the first booth when you entered. I didn't think this seemed like such a great prize, but considering I wasn't tipsy when I tried it and I can remember it, maybe it was a great prize! The Rougeon deserved the sweet red win!!! They also have "Pizza and Wine" nights in the summer. Bazbeaux pizza, wine, and sitting outside...perfect sounding evening!
The winery I am probably most excited about is Chateau Thomas. It not only had great wine, but it has TONS of events planned this summer and it's so close to us!
I know this wasn't an indepth review of the wines, but there was a LOT of wine and I'm lucky I remember this much! If you're interested in events this summer, definitely check out the Indiana Wine Trails. JM will be out of town for the first event I'm going to try, but it's the Indy Wine Trail's "Race Into Wineries". It's $20 and on Saturday and Sunday you can go to as many of the Indy Wine Trails' wineries as you want and get free tastings as well as track food! The Indy Wine Trails include Buck Creek, Grape Inspirations, Chateau Thomas, Mallow Run, Easley, Simmons and Ferrins. That Sunday is Mothers Day so I'm hoping that's what Mom wants to spend her day doing!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Life is good store
I ordered 2 presents from this Life Is Good store, Jake's Lake Place, on Wednesday night. The only real reason I ordered through their site was because one of the items I was ordering was discountinued and they happened to have it. I checked out and somehow qualified for free shipping. Not sure if it was because it was my first purchase or it was over $50 or because they liked me...don't really care the reason I was just happy it happened! Anyways, it was shipped regular mail and I received it TODAY! Yep, amazing. I am so happy with this place so I wanted to share with everyone!!!
http://jakeslakeplace.com/
http://jakeslakeplace.com/
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Yet another one fell through
We were outbid today for the house. It was only a couple of thousand dollars, but their realtor said it was enough to continue working with the other offer instead of ours. Can't say it's easy to take, but we'll keep looking.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Ouch...
To add insult to injury, as soon as I hit "publish" on the last post my phone rang. The house had another offer so we have to put our very best offer on the table tomorrow by 3.
What's so frustrating about the tax credit?
Let me clarify before I start my rant. I am BEYOND grateful for the first time homebuyer's tax credit...especially since we're buying a house this year!!! The problem comes in because it's almost a tease. In less than a year, we'll receive $8000. But we can't have it now.
We found a house that I think is perfect. It has the potential to be a house we live in forever. All the other houses we've found in our price range we will grow out of in a couple of years. This house could grow with us. It has a loft that we could make into a 4th bedroom if we needed. It has a huge backyard and it's in a great neighborhood. I truly feel our family would have a great life in this house.
Here's the problem. We made an offer last night and they countered today at 157. The highest we can go, according to our mortgage guy, is 152. I don't think they'll come down that far. I want (soooo badly) to go back with even just 154. Just 2-3K more than what we can do. That's where the tax credit teases us. We WILL HAVE 8K more dollars in less than a year. But we could use it more NOW!
We can't borrow a couple thousand dollars from the bank because that would then make less we could afford in the mortgage. But the money is RIGHT THERE, dangling in front of me. We just can't have it yet. Why can't I have some really rich relative that would loan us the money? We're good for it...you know next spring we'll get the 8K! Heck, I'd pay them interest if we could just have it NOW.
Yes, I know, I'm horrible at waiting. I am probably the most impatient person I know, so this isn't helping. I just emailed our mortgage guy to find out if we put down 6500 instead of the mandatory 3.5%, would that help us much? I doubt it will but I figured it was worth finding out.
Next month I also get the last installment of my sign-bonus. (I know, can you believe I've been working in the real world for almost a year now!!! Time flies!) But I don't want to count on that too much because taxes kill those bonuses. This will be a bigger installment, but the last couple have seemed pretty small after taxes so I don't want to get my hopes up.
What makes everything worse is being shot down. You start to invision yourself in the house...walking the dog at night and meeting neighbors and all of that. Looking out the window into the backyard yesterday I swear I saw my kids chasing the dog around. Like my brother said tonight, you can't help but do it. And you want to be thinking positively, but it makes it hurt even worse when it doesn't happen.
That'll be the end of my rant tonight. In the meantime, if you find a couple thousand dollars on the sidewalk, please keep us in mind. :-)
We found a house that I think is perfect. It has the potential to be a house we live in forever. All the other houses we've found in our price range we will grow out of in a couple of years. This house could grow with us. It has a loft that we could make into a 4th bedroom if we needed. It has a huge backyard and it's in a great neighborhood. I truly feel our family would have a great life in this house.
Here's the problem. We made an offer last night and they countered today at 157. The highest we can go, according to our mortgage guy, is 152. I don't think they'll come down that far. I want (soooo badly) to go back with even just 154. Just 2-3K more than what we can do. That's where the tax credit teases us. We WILL HAVE 8K more dollars in less than a year. But we could use it more NOW!
We can't borrow a couple thousand dollars from the bank because that would then make less we could afford in the mortgage. But the money is RIGHT THERE, dangling in front of me. We just can't have it yet. Why can't I have some really rich relative that would loan us the money? We're good for it...you know next spring we'll get the 8K! Heck, I'd pay them interest if we could just have it NOW.
Yes, I know, I'm horrible at waiting. I am probably the most impatient person I know, so this isn't helping. I just emailed our mortgage guy to find out if we put down 6500 instead of the mandatory 3.5%, would that help us much? I doubt it will but I figured it was worth finding out.
Next month I also get the last installment of my sign-bonus. (I know, can you believe I've been working in the real world for almost a year now!!! Time flies!) But I don't want to count on that too much because taxes kill those bonuses. This will be a bigger installment, but the last couple have seemed pretty small after taxes so I don't want to get my hopes up.
What makes everything worse is being shot down. You start to invision yourself in the house...walking the dog at night and meeting neighbors and all of that. Looking out the window into the backyard yesterday I swear I saw my kids chasing the dog around. Like my brother said tonight, you can't help but do it. And you want to be thinking positively, but it makes it hurt even worse when it doesn't happen.
That'll be the end of my rant tonight. In the meantime, if you find a couple thousand dollars on the sidewalk, please keep us in mind. :-)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thank you
I wanted to send out a worldwide (at least worldwide web!) thank you to a lady I don't know. Last week I was at the United Methodist Church in Greenwood for my mini marathon training. Before I started my run, I used the restroom. I was wearing my cold weather workout gear...fitted black pants and a very bright fuschia long sleeved top. Since I've been feeling very overweight lately, let's just say this isn't my favorite outfit as it's a running outfit, therefore skin-tight. Anyways, I was washing my hands (as EVERYONE should do!) when an woman walked in and said, "You look so cute in that outfit. I love the color of your top!" Granted, I was in Greenwood so I probably fit in a little more (sorry to any South-sider, I just had to throw that in), but regardless, she made me feel so good! It was nice to have someone compliment you when you were feeling so blah about yourself. Especially a perfect stranger. I think it shows you should do things like that...compliment strangers. It can totally change someone's day.
Open house dance
Click on the above link to see the dance my husband began performing for me and my mom today during an open house.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Another one bites the dust
This whole house-hunting thing is getting a little frustrating. As you know, we've been back and forth with what we thought was "the" house this past weekend. I thought this time we did everything right...we looked at it twice, looked into the age of the roof & appliances, researched the area, etc.
We went in with a somewhat low offer ($11K under their asking price) on Thursday night, wanted them to pay closing costs and wanted possession at closing. They came back on Saturday and had come down 4K from their asking price, said they'd pay closing costs, but didn't want to give up possession until 7 days after closing. We countered yesterday at 9K under their asking price and possession at closing. I told the realtor (Judy), that if the possession was the only thing holding up the sale I was willing to work with it. Say they pay us rent for 7 days or something. She said to stick with the possession at closing and a little lower price and make them pick one that they really want.
This afternoon they came back and the same price they offered Saturday, but now they want possession 4 days after closing and do not want to pay rent or any other fees.
Ummm...no. I am not paying insurance, mortgage, utilities, etc., for another family that I don't know to live in MY house for 4 days, no strings attached. There is way too much liability there! Plus, they're obviously not budging on the price. It's not that we don't want to go up to where they're asking, which actually can't.
I understand their thinking with the price. It's a good neighborhood, they're asking an awesome price for the house, we thought it was great. Obviously, just not great for us.
I know there's other houses out there and all that stuff, but it's a downer. This is the 3rd house now that hasn't worked out. We're not even being totally unrealistic! Oh well, back to the drawing board! On the bright side, I have tomorrow off AND I get to pick up the bear tonight!
We went in with a somewhat low offer ($11K under their asking price) on Thursday night, wanted them to pay closing costs and wanted possession at closing. They came back on Saturday and had come down 4K from their asking price, said they'd pay closing costs, but didn't want to give up possession until 7 days after closing. We countered yesterday at 9K under their asking price and possession at closing. I told the realtor (Judy), that if the possession was the only thing holding up the sale I was willing to work with it. Say they pay us rent for 7 days or something. She said to stick with the possession at closing and a little lower price and make them pick one that they really want.
This afternoon they came back and the same price they offered Saturday, but now they want possession 4 days after closing and do not want to pay rent or any other fees.
Ummm...no. I am not paying insurance, mortgage, utilities, etc., for another family that I don't know to live in MY house for 4 days, no strings attached. There is way too much liability there! Plus, they're obviously not budging on the price. It's not that we don't want to go up to where they're asking, which actually can't.
I understand their thinking with the price. It's a good neighborhood, they're asking an awesome price for the house, we thought it was great. Obviously, just not great for us.
I know there's other houses out there and all that stuff, but it's a downer. This is the 3rd house now that hasn't worked out. We're not even being totally unrealistic! Oh well, back to the drawing board! On the bright side, I have tomorrow off AND I get to pick up the bear tonight!
Friday, April 10, 2009
Randoms
Wow, December was the last time I blogged?!? Yikes! What have my loyal followers been doing while I was away??? :-)
Happy Good Friday to all. Is that the right thing to say? Regardless, it's what I'm saying. I'm working today saving one life at a time with Albuterol while everyone else has the day off paid. It actually has been a hectic day. We had two codes this morning which were true codes. A lot of times you get there and someone just fell, etc. These were real they're-not-breathing-no-pulse-intubate-compressions type deals. Added a little excitement to my day! Although I have a new scrub top and it's made out of polyester and cotton instead of just cotton. According to the tag, it's a more comfortable fit. According to Shan, it doesn't breathe. Running flights of stairs to the codes was hard work and I sweat right through the shirt. Good thing it's a dark color so no one could tell!
We put an offer on a house yesterday. We want to be very excited but we're afraid it will fall through. A couple of weeks ago we put an offer on another house (which was wayyyy over-priced) and didn't really think it would work out...obviously it didn't. We weren't too bummed because it was a little far out in Fishers and honestly, I didn't "see" us in it. This house I see us in. That tends to make me a little more apprehensive about getting excited because we don't want to be disappointed if it doesn't work out.
Tomorrow night JM and I are going to an Egyptian restaurant with a group of people. I've never had Egyptian food and am very excited! Hopefully it's not a lot of lamb!!!
JM got his internship! He had an interview yesterday and they hired him on the spot! Smart people!!!
Back to work. Hopefully it will quiet down a bit. My legs are a little sore from all the running and stairs earlier!!!
Happy Easter weekend!
Happy Good Friday to all. Is that the right thing to say? Regardless, it's what I'm saying. I'm working today saving one life at a time with Albuterol while everyone else has the day off paid. It actually has been a hectic day. We had two codes this morning which were true codes. A lot of times you get there and someone just fell, etc. These were real they're-not-breathing-no-pulse-intubate-compressions type deals. Added a little excitement to my day! Although I have a new scrub top and it's made out of polyester and cotton instead of just cotton. According to the tag, it's a more comfortable fit. According to Shan, it doesn't breathe. Running flights of stairs to the codes was hard work and I sweat right through the shirt. Good thing it's a dark color so no one could tell!
We put an offer on a house yesterday. We want to be very excited but we're afraid it will fall through. A couple of weeks ago we put an offer on another house (which was wayyyy over-priced) and didn't really think it would work out...obviously it didn't. We weren't too bummed because it was a little far out in Fishers and honestly, I didn't "see" us in it. This house I see us in. That tends to make me a little more apprehensive about getting excited because we don't want to be disappointed if it doesn't work out.
Tomorrow night JM and I are going to an Egyptian restaurant with a group of people. I've never had Egyptian food and am very excited! Hopefully it's not a lot of lamb!!!
JM got his internship! He had an interview yesterday and they hired him on the spot! Smart people!!!
Back to work. Hopefully it will quiet down a bit. My legs are a little sore from all the running and stairs earlier!!!
Happy Easter weekend!
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