untitled too

I had a very silly emotional moment yesterday. I was cleaning up in our spare bedroom (which is full of Dell boxes right now!) and I went to feed my two hamsters. I looked at Baby, the oldest, and she just looked really weird. She was laying funny and I thought "oh, please don't be dead!". She wasn't, she got right up when I tapped on her cage and looked at me with great annoyance. I fed her and moved down to Claire, who was also asleep. She was laying even more oddly and her eyes were partially open. I tapped on the cage and she didn't move. Our poor little Claire was gone. I kind of broke down a little bit and started crying! I know it's just a hamster, but they are like our little babies! When we got Claire, she was a blaze of gray fur. She was the fastest hamster I've ever seen, when she ran on her wheel we probably could have powered something off of it. Baby is also almost a year older than Claire is. They are two different types of hamsters, so perhaps Claire wasn't meant to live any longer than she did.

In other news, we had the inspection on the house and things are still going good. There were some cracked bricks on the west end of the house, but the inspector doesn't think they are from any foundation problems. No one will ever see the west end of the house, but just to be sure we are having a foundation expert come to look at it tomorrow. Also tomorrow, we are going to see Karmen to get the loan offically underway. I'm still a little nervous about this, but we're just giving them the information to verify what we've already told them. I'm didn't lie, so I can't imagine why we would have any issues!

I finally got my raise! It was supposed to take effect in September so on this next paycheck I am getting there will be all of the back-pay from then. It worked out for me because now that I know we're buying a house, it was like a little unintentional savings plan. I just love my job and getting paid more to do it is great. Every once in a while when things are "bad" (things most of you do for nothing, like very dirty diapers) I laugh and say that I'm really earning my money. There has not been a single day where Grace hasn't made me laugh from my very core. Next year when Grace goes to school full time, I'm going to have someway to occupy my day because I won't be working until 3! I'm thinking about going back to school and getting some sort of degree. I may never use it, but having one is something I've always wanted. We'll see! We've got a big few months ahead of us!