Good Tidings...

DSC00858, originally uploaded by kyredbutterfly.

Oh, where or where to begin?!? First, happy belated birthday to my dear friend Kat, who spent her birthday on Sunday enjoying Portland's Rose Festival by dragonboating. Such fun. My birthday was on Saturday. I managed to extend the celebrations from last Thursday through this coming Friday. Talk about a successful birthday bash!

While I intended to blog about her regardless, the sadder reason for using this picture from my April visit to Portland is that I think I've permanently lost my camera. Boo hoo. There's still a possibility that it's at a particular restaurant, but it hasn't been seen since Friday night, and I just realized that yesterday. And unfortunately, the money isn't there to replace or upgrade this camera at the moment. So we may be stuck with iphone pictures for awhile.

There's good news, though. The reason a replacement camera isn't in the budget right now is that the budget is completely devoted to the condominium that I have a contract to purchase on! Woo Hoo! I should be closing sometime in August. Pictures to come - I downloaded some onto the computer, but was too lazy to upload them onto flickr a few weeks ago.

I'm very, very excited about my new place. So far everything's going along fine. There are a few things I want the seller to fix, but the place is in really great shape. I am definitely hoping to have enough time between closing and moving to paint throughout, but that's about all the work that will need done prior to occupany.

As you can imagine, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of looking, making an offer, getting financing lined up, having the home inspection, etc. Being totally new to this process, each step is like a new discovery to me. Oh, I need to do that now? Okay. I can't imagine selling a home while buying another one. The buying alone is complicated enough. May I live in this condo for years to come!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. Here's hoping that one of them helps me find my camera. But at least I'm finally moving towards the "home of my own" goal!