April 26, 2009
The April sky is heavy and gray with rain clouds and the wind is blowing fiercely. Trees are thick and green with spring but the branches thrash wildly in the wind. The wind and the clouds mean rain will come soon. Typical for this time of year. Tornado season has begun.
It’s called the Rite of Spring in Oklahoma City. No, not tornado season! Although I wouldn’t argue with that assessment either. I’m talking about the annual Festival of the Arts! We don’t miss the Arts Fest. It’s my favorite event and a big part of what I love about downtown OKC. Football – Sooners, Cowboys, Bedlam, Red River Shootout – is what excites most people here in the state. Not Joe and me! It’s the Arts Festival we look forward to each year.
It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this from a table on the 2nd floor of the library in Downtown OKC, overlooking Park and Hudson Avenues. I can see the Museum of Art from where I’m sitting. Leadership Square is behind us. Downtown Oklahoma City is a community all its own. Tall grey buildings. Concrete sidewalks. The Conncourse. Denizens scurrying back and forth between buildings and cars. Government buildings, office buildings. Parking garages, parking meters. And each spring the Festival of the Arts brings new life and excitement to it all.
Probably the main draw at the Arts Fest is International Food Row. It’s always the first place we visit, as we did yesterday. 25 or so local restaurants host food booths; each booth partners with an art venue in town. The kids were each allowed to get one “real” food, and one dessert. And there’s so much to choose from! Nathan got a slice of cheese pizza from Sammy’s Pizza & Prairie Dance Theater; Jodie got smoked ribs from Brewer Entertainment & [Artspace] at Untitled; John got a gyro from PaPa’s Greek Foods and Allied Arts Foundation; Joe got a bratwurst from Made 2 Grill & OKC Zoological Park and Botanical Garden; and I got a brisket baked potato from Sweet Corn Express & Oklahoma History Center.
The place is crowded and the lines can be long. Seriously, the 6-day festival boasts 750,000 visitors in all. That’s over 100,000 on any given day, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were 500 or more festival-goers in the food court at any given time. But the food is always worth the wait.
The day was warm and muggy, but we hardly noticed it as spring breezes filtered the air. The five of us found a shady patch of soft grass among the trees at the Botanical Gardens to sit and eat. John and Nathan, having already finished their lunches, skimmed back by the food booths in quest for funnel cakes for dessert. I kept seeing other festival-goers nibbling on fruit kabobs. Chunks of pineapple, banana, and strawberry were skewered on a stick and drizzled with chocolate sauce. They looked scrumptious! I mean really, how can you go wrong with FRUIT and CHOCOLATE, two of nature’s most delectable offerings? As soon as I finished my brisket potato I had to have one!
Hmm, ahh, um, actually, it wasn’t as good as it looked. That’s OK; you never know til ya try, right? Joe and Jodie each picked up a Strawberries Newport for their dessert. Flaky pastries are covered with a rich vanilla pudding, then topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yum. No wonder it’s a perennial favorite.
After filling our tummies with that awesome festival food, Joe, the kids, and I walked around to look at the 100 or so art booths. Artisans from around the country proudly displayed their paintings, pottery, sculptures. Artwork of every design and genre could be found. I bought one this year, a print of a painting by Keith Andry from Baton Rouge, LA. I’ve admired his work for many years, but during most of that time I was a single mom living on a solitary income and paying off debts. I couldn’t afford to spend $50 on such a luxury as a painting or sculpture or ceramic work. Thankfully now I’m in a much better place and can appreciate and support the Arts.
Music of all tunes and tempos floated through the air as bands played on the sound stages throughout the park. We strolled around the pond at the Botanical Gardens. Once at the top, Joe and I let the kiddos join other kids in rolling down the hill back toward the pond. Down, down, down they rolled! It always seems to be the kids’ favorite part.
Meanwhile Joe and I lay in the soft, thick grass under the shade of the trees, gazing up at the blue spring sky. It was peaceful. The smells of roast brisket and deep-fried funnel cakes floated through the air. Young children giggled and yelped with playful excitement against the background of music playing on the Water Stage.
Food, art, and music, all under the canopy of springtime in Oklahoma. So much excitement, so much to see and do at the Festival of the Arts!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Our Latest Adventure - Looking for a House
March 26, 2009
Now that our family is expanding, we’re going to need a bigger house! Joe and I are going to be married soon, and all five of us sure can’t live in the house I bought for Nathan and myself in 2002. This house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a 2-car garage, but the kitchen is small and narrow. It was like a castle after leaving that 750 square foot, 1-bedroom apartment we rented for a year, although our home now is barely 1300 square feet.
Joe and I have been looking at new homes for a few months now already, and we finally found one that could really work for us. We looked at it last Thursday evening, and we love how well the owners have kept it up, inside and out. It’s a 4-bedroom, 3-bath, about 2100 sq ft, built in 1983, on Elk Run. The home appears to be owned by a couple with 3 young kids. They have bunkbeds for the boys in one room, and an adorable baby room for the girl. The 4th bedroom is set up as a weight room.
The interior décor is very updated, very modern. Nice spacious livingroom, and lots of counter space in the kitchen. And, I really like the neighborhood. It’s a lot more settled and homey than some of the newer additions. Asking price is $182,900; of course we’ll have to get my house ready to sell too. According to Zillow.com, my home is worth $137,000 – although I seriously doubt we’ll get that much for it. Whatever we sell it for, I’m hoping to net in the ballpark of $30K from it. And, we’re wanting our payments to be in the range of $1,200 - $1,600/month. We shall see.
Before Christmas we found one on Platt Drive that we absolutely LOVED. Also in an older, more settled neighborhood, it’s 2200 sq ft and was built in 1981. The asking price was just $160,000, which is well within our budget. The couple selling it have lived there for 17 years and have raised 3 children who are now all married. Overall the house seems to have been kept up really well for being nearly 30 years old. The interior décor is lovely. There’s a good sized backyard, a nice pack patio, and a deck off the 2nd floor. We loved it so much that we had already started thinking how to arrange the furniture! But, it was just the first house we’d looked at so we decided not put all our eggs in one basket.
As much as we could have moved right in that very day, we don’t want our kids to have to change schools, and moving into this home would have required Nathan and Jodie to go to a different middle school.
In early February Joe and I walked over to 46th Street to look at a house for sale. At initial inspection the house already had one strike against it: we didn’t care for the small, corner back patio. But we were willing to give it a chance…until we saw the backyard. It sloped steeply downhill, a feature we didn’t like at all. So we struck that one off our list.
A week or so later on a Sunday, Joe, the kids, and I looked at a few houses after I got home from working overtime at the office. Joe met his realtor, a very sweet Vietnamese lady by the name of Mai, when he was looking for a house on his own before he met me. She emails him listings of homes on the market that match our criteria: Yukon schools, 4 bedroom, 3-car garage, 2000 square feet or more. And you know, although our nation is in a housing and mortgage crisis, it is true what they say that Oklahoma has not been hit nearly as hard as the rest of the nation. Yukon, anyway, has LOTS of homes up for sale. I’m surprised just how many meet our criteria; what we want is pretty narrow, especially the location.
So on this particular day, we had a list of 5 or 6 homes that we wanted to look at. One was on Derail Street. Derail Street? Really? A new neighborhood is going up just west of Garth Brooks Blvd. on Hwy. 66, and the streets are named for “railroad” words. One is Derail. Who would want to live on a street named after a potentially deadly disaster? And one is Hobo Street. Isn’t that a little derogatory? Isn’t “hobo” a politically incorrect word for a homeless drifter? Who thinks of these names??
We drove up 36th Street to view a home in the Sunrise Hills addition. It had just gone on the market so I guess the owners weren’t quite ready to show it. It was beige brick on a corner lot, was about all we could tell. We couldn’t go in; all we could do was drive by. But just looking at the exterior, I wasn’t very impressed.
Then we drove south on Mustang Road to 10th Street to look at a few in Drakestone. Neither of the two from our list on Ellsworth had “for sale” signs out; 613 Ellsworth for SURE didn’t look like it was on the market. So Joe, being the bold guy he is, went and knocked on the door to speak with the resident. Turns out, the resident is RENTING the home on a contract that wouldn’t expire until June or July. He was appalled that the owner would have the home on the market when he was on a contract, paying $1600 a month, at that. Same with 617 Ellsworth, only they are renting month-to-month. So that was 2 homes scratched off the list.
We drove around the neighborhood to 5th Street to view another home. It, too, did not have a “for sale” sign out front. So we surmised that the home might be being rented out also.
Then it was north on Mustang and back down 36th Street to Lakeview Estates to a home on 39th Street. This one was another “cookie cutter” house similar to the one we’re in now, only much larger. We liked what we saw on the outside but couldn’t go in. Joe said we’d have to have Mai show us inside this one.
Mai came over last night to look our home over and give us ideas as to how to make it more saleable. We’d sure like to buy the one on Elk Run so naturally we have to get our house ready to sell too. She said our light fixtures were outdated. Huh?! The house is 6 years old, and it’s outdated?! That blew me away. She said anything with gold plating looks “nineties.”
So we will need to put in some new light fixtures. She also said that ceiling fans are a big selling point, and the only one we have is in the livingroom. Joe said it’s no problem to install some of those. She was a little concerned with the paint color in the livingroom (mauve/plum)…and she said to take down all family pictures, because people want to see themselves in the house, not someone else.
Aside from that, she said that mainly we needed to de-clutter. We bought about 20, 18” x 18” x 18" boxes last weekend and I’ve gotten 4 boxes packed so far. She was looking throughout all the rooms in our house, and said a couple times, “You need a bigger house!” to which I responded with, “That’s what you’re here for!”
She asked, “So, do you think you’ll be ready in a couple weeks?” Meaning, to show the house. And my thoughts were, 2 weeks, no friggin’ way. A month MAYBE. We do have jobs. Joe and I both work full time, and it’s not like we have nothing to do but pack and clean.
And we do have a wedding to plan. Mai is estimating a selling price of $115,000. I was hoping for $120,000, but $115K is already at $90/sq ft. That’s about average for the market here in Yukon. So after fees and commission and other costs, at that price we’ll profit about $20,000. Not as much as I was hoping for, but of course, any profit from the sale will go towards the new house. Our worry now is, will we lose the house we want while trying to get ours sold?
Now that our family is expanding, we’re going to need a bigger house! Joe and I are going to be married soon, and all five of us sure can’t live in the house I bought for Nathan and myself in 2002. This house has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a 2-car garage, but the kitchen is small and narrow. It was like a castle after leaving that 750 square foot, 1-bedroom apartment we rented for a year, although our home now is barely 1300 square feet.
Joe and I have been looking at new homes for a few months now already, and we finally found one that could really work for us. We looked at it last Thursday evening, and we love how well the owners have kept it up, inside and out. It’s a 4-bedroom, 3-bath, about 2100 sq ft, built in 1983, on Elk Run. The home appears to be owned by a couple with 3 young kids. They have bunkbeds for the boys in one room, and an adorable baby room for the girl. The 4th bedroom is set up as a weight room.
The interior décor is very updated, very modern. Nice spacious livingroom, and lots of counter space in the kitchen. And, I really like the neighborhood. It’s a lot more settled and homey than some of the newer additions. Asking price is $182,900; of course we’ll have to get my house ready to sell too. According to Zillow.com, my home is worth $137,000 – although I seriously doubt we’ll get that much for it. Whatever we sell it for, I’m hoping to net in the ballpark of $30K from it. And, we’re wanting our payments to be in the range of $1,200 - $1,600/month. We shall see.
Before Christmas we found one on Platt Drive that we absolutely LOVED. Also in an older, more settled neighborhood, it’s 2200 sq ft and was built in 1981. The asking price was just $160,000, which is well within our budget. The couple selling it have lived there for 17 years and have raised 3 children who are now all married. Overall the house seems to have been kept up really well for being nearly 30 years old. The interior décor is lovely. There’s a good sized backyard, a nice pack patio, and a deck off the 2nd floor. We loved it so much that we had already started thinking how to arrange the furniture! But, it was just the first house we’d looked at so we decided not put all our eggs in one basket.
As much as we could have moved right in that very day, we don’t want our kids to have to change schools, and moving into this home would have required Nathan and Jodie to go to a different middle school.
In early February Joe and I walked over to 46th Street to look at a house for sale. At initial inspection the house already had one strike against it: we didn’t care for the small, corner back patio. But we were willing to give it a chance…until we saw the backyard. It sloped steeply downhill, a feature we didn’t like at all. So we struck that one off our list.
A week or so later on a Sunday, Joe, the kids, and I looked at a few houses after I got home from working overtime at the office. Joe met his realtor, a very sweet Vietnamese lady by the name of Mai, when he was looking for a house on his own before he met me. She emails him listings of homes on the market that match our criteria: Yukon schools, 4 bedroom, 3-car garage, 2000 square feet or more. And you know, although our nation is in a housing and mortgage crisis, it is true what they say that Oklahoma has not been hit nearly as hard as the rest of the nation. Yukon, anyway, has LOTS of homes up for sale. I’m surprised just how many meet our criteria; what we want is pretty narrow, especially the location.
So on this particular day, we had a list of 5 or 6 homes that we wanted to look at. One was on Derail Street. Derail Street? Really? A new neighborhood is going up just west of Garth Brooks Blvd. on Hwy. 66, and the streets are named for “railroad” words. One is Derail. Who would want to live on a street named after a potentially deadly disaster? And one is Hobo Street. Isn’t that a little derogatory? Isn’t “hobo” a politically incorrect word for a homeless drifter? Who thinks of these names??
We drove up 36th Street to view a home in the Sunrise Hills addition. It had just gone on the market so I guess the owners weren’t quite ready to show it. It was beige brick on a corner lot, was about all we could tell. We couldn’t go in; all we could do was drive by. But just looking at the exterior, I wasn’t very impressed.
Then we drove south on Mustang Road to 10th Street to look at a few in Drakestone. Neither of the two from our list on Ellsworth had “for sale” signs out; 613 Ellsworth for SURE didn’t look like it was on the market. So Joe, being the bold guy he is, went and knocked on the door to speak with the resident. Turns out, the resident is RENTING the home on a contract that wouldn’t expire until June or July. He was appalled that the owner would have the home on the market when he was on a contract, paying $1600 a month, at that. Same with 617 Ellsworth, only they are renting month-to-month. So that was 2 homes scratched off the list.
We drove around the neighborhood to 5th Street to view another home. It, too, did not have a “for sale” sign out front. So we surmised that the home might be being rented out also.
Then it was north on Mustang and back down 36th Street to Lakeview Estates to a home on 39th Street. This one was another “cookie cutter” house similar to the one we’re in now, only much larger. We liked what we saw on the outside but couldn’t go in. Joe said we’d have to have Mai show us inside this one.
Mai came over last night to look our home over and give us ideas as to how to make it more saleable. We’d sure like to buy the one on Elk Run so naturally we have to get our house ready to sell too. She said our light fixtures were outdated. Huh?! The house is 6 years old, and it’s outdated?! That blew me away. She said anything with gold plating looks “nineties.”
So we will need to put in some new light fixtures. She also said that ceiling fans are a big selling point, and the only one we have is in the livingroom. Joe said it’s no problem to install some of those. She was a little concerned with the paint color in the livingroom (mauve/plum)…and she said to take down all family pictures, because people want to see themselves in the house, not someone else.
Aside from that, she said that mainly we needed to de-clutter. We bought about 20, 18” x 18” x 18" boxes last weekend and I’ve gotten 4 boxes packed so far. She was looking throughout all the rooms in our house, and said a couple times, “You need a bigger house!” to which I responded with, “That’s what you’re here for!”
She asked, “So, do you think you’ll be ready in a couple weeks?” Meaning, to show the house. And my thoughts were, 2 weeks, no friggin’ way. A month MAYBE. We do have jobs. Joe and I both work full time, and it’s not like we have nothing to do but pack and clean.
And we do have a wedding to plan. Mai is estimating a selling price of $115,000. I was hoping for $120,000, but $115K is already at $90/sq ft. That’s about average for the market here in Yukon. So after fees and commission and other costs, at that price we’ll profit about $20,000. Not as much as I was hoping for, but of course, any profit from the sale will go towards the new house. Our worry now is, will we lose the house we want while trying to get ours sold?
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