Life By Lindsey Rae

Ok, so awhile back I wrote about how I got a parking ticket for parking in front of my house after 1:00 am. My ticket is due by May 1st and I haven't paid yet. I have been waiting until the last minute, because of course, I don't think it's very cool to have to pay a ticket for parking in front of your house.
However, the last few days I was thinking about possibly going to court and seeing if I could get it taken away and maybe just get them to give me a warning instead. But, I don't know that I really have a good argument, other than this is an unfinished street, has houses still under construction and there is really nobody driving down it in the middle of the night. So, me leaving my car on the street an extra hour isn't hurting anything.
But, the city law is no cars on the street between 1-5:00 am. So, then, does any of that matter? Maybe not.
I just called to find out about going to court and they said that if I'm "found guilty" (doesn't that just sound so severe for a parking ticket?) which may likely be the case, I will have to pay an extra $13.75 in court fees. So that will be on top of the $20, making it a total of $33.75 for the stupid parking ticket. If they let it go, it will be nothing, but I don't know if it is worth the risk. Any opinions?

We've been thinking we needed to get some dirt to fill in some areas in the back yard that got trampled when the neighbors behind us put in a fence. The workers make huge trenches in our yard because it was rainy and muddy when they were doing it. We called the builder and asked them to come fix it, but they did a really mediocre job and we needed to do more to make it better. There is also a lot of water that runs back there into a drainage area when it rains so we needed to build up the dirt and work on re-seeding it to get the grass to grow after the damage.

We saw that some other neighbors behind us were putting in some new stones for a patio and they had dug up some of their backyard and made a pile of dirt. Jerrod saw them and asked if we could have it and they were very happy to give it to us, since they weren't sure what they were going to do with it anyway.
So, we spent awhile shoveling it into some wheelbarrows and hauling it over (not too far, thankfully, and closer than if we had borrowed it from elsewhere). It was just enough to fill the spots we needed, so it worked out pretty well. I learned that dirt is really heavy. Dirt in Tennessee is mostly hard clumps of clay and rock and is not easy to spread and break up...

It was good to meet these neighbors. They seem pretty nice. I wasn't really sure who they were, but as it turns out, they are a young newlywed couple. We talked with them for awhile and funny story, they told us that the night before when they were putting their patio stones in, they had some friends over helping them until late at night and had their cars parked on the street...so guess who got parking tickets?
They got three of them! $60 worth! They said they didn't even know about the no-parking-on-the-street-after-1:00am law. So, they were quite shocked and surprised to hear that I had recently got a ticket too.

I think I forgot to mention that last week I got a ticket for parking in front of my driveway. Yes, this is a true story.

The city of Mt. Juliet has a law that you can't park on the street between 1:00 and 5:00 AM. We usually keep all our vehicles in the driveway, but I happened to move my car out this day because I was trying to be thoughtful and helpful and do something nice as Jerrod was going to mow the lawn (for the first time) and I was trying to make sure he had enough room to get the lawnmower out of the garage.

Around 2:00 in the morning I realized that my car was still parked in front of the driveway and not IN the driveway and so I ran out there to move it and sure enough, I already had received a parking ticket, courtesy of the Mt. Juliet police. I can't believe they don't have any bigger crime to find than me on my quiet street (which is partially still under construction), and give me a ticket only an hour after the no parking time. It's a $20 ticket! For parking in front of my own driveway! (Actually, with the right 2 wheels pretty much in the driveway anyway). Not nice at all!

Ok, so my computer is rebuilt and back to me. (Jerrod put XP back on it instead of Vista, to speed things up, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about that yet...)

Anyway, on Saturday, I tried made a little video and this is the first chance I had to post it. I'm going to have to play around with the settings and editing more on the camera, I think, but this is my start.

It's a couple days after the fact, but here it is anyway.

Today was a little warmer, finally. Not that you can expect much in January. Even in Tennessee it gets chilly in the winter. But, today was alright for January weather. I have been waiting for a day when I could spray around my house for bugs and took the opportunity to do so today.
You may think that there would not be bugs this time of year, but in Tennessee, there is. As soon as there gets a semi-warm day, they are out and about and coming to find me. As I have mentioned before, I have a deep and intense fear and hatred of most insects, so I have to prevent them from coming near me and my house whenever possible.
I have some pretty good bug spray that I got at Wal-Mart a few couple ago. It was only about $7 for a huge jug of it and I used to drench the outside of my apartment with it. It seemed to help more than when I would get the apartment to send their pest control people over. I put it around the doors, windows, baseboards and pretty much anywhere else that the instructions say to and I could think of. Hopefully this will keep them away. It took awhile to do the entire house inside and out, but it will be worth it if I don't have to see them...especially the ones that I am really terrified of. Hopefully those ones only live in Nashville and not Mt. Juliet.

Jerrod and I also went for a walk around the neighborhood. There is still a lot of construction around here and we like to see what everyone else is doing to their houses and what options they are choosing. I'm still convinced that we got one of best lots and that we made some of the best choices we could have for options.
When I look at some of these houses and at the colors some people choose, I realize a lot of people just don't have an eye for these things. It kind of baffles my mind a little bit how they can mess these things up when all the choices are just neutral, but sometimes, they just do. Just the way I need help with technical and logical things as an artistic person, people who are not artistic need artistic help with these sorts of things.
It pains my soul to see it happen. They just need someone with an eye to tell them, "No!"

Oh, another funny thing: we just had a neighbor move in behind us and one of the first things they did when they got here was install an outdoor ceiling fan on the patio. It's so funny because they keep turning it on when the temperature was practically freezing. (It is January). I guess they're really trying to cool it down outside!

Why does Sunday always come so quickly? It seems like as soon as we get home from church one week, it is almost time to go back again the next day; like the week always disappears somewhere in between.
We went over to Providence for a few hours this weekend and had a little lunch. (Cracker Barrel!! My favorite!) And then we also spend a few minutes window shopping. I went to TJMaxx/homegoods store and Jerrod ran over to Best Buy. While I was there I saw a Japanese family and heard them speaking Japanese. I decided to get brave and asked them if they spoke English, "eigo hanashimasuka?" And the Mother replied, "yes." So we ended up talking for awhile about then and me. I told her that I am a singer and she suggested she might like me help her daughter with some singing lessons. I told her that I'd also like to help her with English if she'd just speak Japanese with me. I need native speaker friends to practice with.
So, I gave her my card and will hope that she calls. It would be fun to meet to new Japanese people around here again!

Here's the all wonderful house pictures....kitchen is getting to look quite a bit like a kitchen. I really love the counter tops. They are almost my favorite thing! Kinda dirty right now, not too much to see, but anyway...

On Saturday we went to Providence to see our house. And to our surprise there was progress- substantial progress, to see. About a week before I was so discouraged because I had driven by seen that there was once again WAY more done on all the neighbors houses rather than ours. (Even though we were supposed to be one of the first 5 finished). I was doing the math in my head and with the amount of time left until December 19th, when they said was the latest date we would close and then calculating what was actually done and how long they said it would take to complete the next steps, it was not physically possibly that it would be done. In fact, I could not figure that it would be done anytime before mid to the end of January. So, I sent and email to the builder and asked about this.
He replied back and said that it had taken longer to get the building permit for our house because we are beside an empty wooded lot, but that he still thought it would be possible to close by the 19th of December. I don't know how...the math still doesn't add up. Maybe they plan to work faster then usual.
When we went by this Saturday, the house was standing! A week before it had been only a foundation. Now it is a completely framed and even had a roof. Next time we go by, there might even be siding.
I took some pictures, and here they are.

(We are a little dressed up because we were going to a wedding after. I try not to dress like this while walking around new construction. It is surprisingly hard to climb up to the house in shoes like I wear.)


Jerrod upstairs in the (his) bonus room. I say "his" because that's one of his rooms he gets to "decorate." Decorate will include putting the TV, speakers, cables and stereo stuff...basic boy things. I think the Meerkat painting will also go there too. :) He also gets his office and the garage and I think the kitchen. haha. But I think I will put some nice things in the kitchen (when he's not looking.)



Standing in the hallway. The kitchen and dining room are to the right and a closet and bedroom are to the left...you can pretty much see everything when you don't have walls.


Me in my room: My place where I will put all my scrapbooking, art and music stuff...and attempt to keep clean....more so than I do now...that's what I'm saying.


Looking out the back door. So I guess that's what the backyard will look like...sort of...except hopefully a little better with some grass and without construction materials in it.


Living room windows. It looks so nice out them with the trees for neighbors. Very excited about that as always.


More potential walls. I know, it's just a bunch of boards and only exciting to me and Jerrod, but I'm showing it anyway, because it is exciting for me after many months of wishing to see a bunch of boards.


Hard to believe that we will be able to live here in two months. I am happy. My neighbor upstairs is not nice and I want to move! It's not so great to be stuck waiting in your apartment and having to pay an outrageous amount of money for month to month rent, especially when you have walk on egg shells around your mean neighbors.

Tonight after Jerrod got off work we went over our subdivision to take a look at an empty house, that is the same model as ours, that hasn't closed yet. It didn't have any upgrades that we wanted to look at, but it was the same floor plan and layout, so it's kind of nice to see the completed house without furniture.
Afterwards, we drove past our lot to see if any progress had been made...not much of anything, but they did have the building permits posted.So, I guess that is promising. We walked around to see what we could see...check out the neighbors foundations, look at the lumber...you know, fun stuff like that. I was able to catch Jerrod in a few pictures, which was exciting, because he will never let his picture be taken. (I've gotta sneak up on him when he's not expecting it.) Of course, most of them are from the back, but once and awhile I do get one where he shows his face, which is nice.





I also am more excited than ever about the wooded lot beside us. I went over there and looked down into it (it slopes down and is full of trees) and it just made me really happy to see it. I like having that little bit of nature there in the middle of all those houses and streets and that stuff. And actually, the house we walked through today was on a lot we had initially considered buying for a few days. Today we saw that their big living room windows open up to the side of the neighbors house and at the neighbor's bathroom window. Ours will open up to this:
Well worth the extra money for a premium lot! The other house definately does not have a good view! And this one is going to be so nice for us...and for the next person for resale. Maybe we could have got into the other house sooner, because it is in the previously opened section, but this location is much more appealing for me.

About 30 seconds down the road is the new retail area, so went over there to have some supper and then went to a movie. I haven't been to a movie in a long time. Jerrod goes more often, but I like to watch things at home, because I like to keep my hands busy while I'm watching things and I can get more done with my scrap booking stuff that way. And it's also always so cold in those theaters! I brought a sweater because I know that, but I was still freezing the whole time!!! I hate it! Not, that I'm not freezing at home too, with Jerrod blasting the air conditioning and all, but it's worse when I'm out and about. I really hate air conditioning.
Anyway, we saw 3:10 to Yuma. It was good. We liked it. We like westerns and it's not very often that you see them in theaters anymore. It will be nice to have so much of the retail, restaurants and this sort of thing so near to us when we move.

They finally got the roads on our future street recently. This is very exciting because that was the big thing that needed to be done before they can start building. They also put up a sign to show our lot is "under contract." However, ours got run over...hope that's not a bad sign of things to come! Anyway, I ran up there on that pile of dirt, in my high-heels, and nailed it back into the ground with a rock. But, a few days later, it is down again. Oh well. Since then they have also put in curbs and storm drains....now they just need to get building permits from the city. So, in July it should actually get started going up. We have to make decisions now on what kinds of things we want for options....in fact, we have our design studio meeting next week. It's stressful. I am always worried about making the right choice. My tastes are somewhat artistic and I would like to do some bold things, but then at the same time, we are trying to pick things that will appeal to future buyers since we are not looking at this as a long term home. So, that means we have to try to keep things somewhat neutral. Not as fun as some of the possibilities that are running through my brain, but I guess when we plan to keep our house for awhile I can do more artistic things.

I wanted to post some pictures of our newest excitement, which is our house. This seems to be the easiest way show them to multiple people at once.
We made the decision to buy and build it about a month ago. It's in the Providence area in Mount Juliet, TN, which is about 20-25 minutes east of downtown Nashville. It's pretty close to where we live now...just 2 exit's down and about 10 minutes from Jerrod's office.
One of the good things about this area is that it is growing and there is a lot of development going into the area. (I think Mt. Juliet is supposed to be the fastest growing city in Tennessee). So, within 30 seconds we have a lot shopping, restaurants, a movie theater...pretty much anything we will need. So, it's very convenient. If I have to live in the city, I prefer it would be a convenient area. Our subdivision also has a good park, four life-guarded swimming pools, walking trails and is near good schools; which isn't such a big deal to us, but I think it's good for families, so when re go to re-sell in the future, it will be a good thing. So, hopefully building in this area will be an investment.

One thing we were really excited about was getting a premium lot. We were able to be one of the first buyers when they opened up the new section, so we got to pick where we wanted to build. We decided to invest a little extra into the corner lot we got and really like it because we are going to have a wooded tree area on one side of us. And, it's the side that most of our big windows will open up to, so it will be great to not have anyone on that side.

Jerrod on our future street, beside our lot. Below is the wooded area we are so excited to get.
The exterior.

Floor plan. 3 bedroom and bonus room, 2 bathroom, 2 car garage. 1562 square feet. Initially I wanted more room...probably always will always think I more room no matter how much I have, but the layout of the space is good and for us right now it will work good. Maybe in the future we will need more space, but we think for the 2 of us it is going to work out well for our needs.
The next pictures are of a model house from the builder's website, which obviously isn't ours, but same floor plan. So it's the basic idea, until ours actually is standing. In a few months I can put the actual house pictures up!





This floor plan is nice because it's got the vaulted ceilings and is so open. We like that, and I think it's a good selling point of the house.

So far, they have just started to work on the roads, but they aren't in yet. But, hopefully that will be done by the end of this month and then after the roads are finished then the house can be built starting in July. I'm really hoping it gets started as soon as possible. Of course, I have no patience, but not only that, our lease on our apartment is up at the end of September and so we will have to pay month to month, which means rent is incredibly high anything over the lease date. So, the sooner the better. I am just feeling so happy and blessed that we were able to make a decision and find something. We were scared to make a commitment because there is a lot to be concerned about when you buy your first house, but the morning we bought it, I had prayed to know if something was right or not. We didn't know what we wanted...we knew what we didn't want, but it's so hard to know what the best decision is and when. But after we finally made the choice, I felt OK about it and Jerrod did too. Like, even if it wasn't the most perfect thing (who ever knows what that is or if there is such a thing?) it could be OK.