Cheri and I, as of Friday, July 28th, 2000, are the owners of a brand new mortgage! With this mortgage comes the privilege of living in a house that will be ours 30 years and $257,000 (I'm not kidding. That's the total with interest, etc.) down the road. We hope to be living there for some time.

The new house is a three bedroom, one-and-three-quarters bath, two car garage (yeah!) with dining room, built in 1964. We have 1365 square feet to spread out into. It's got a gas stove, water heater, and furnace, and the AC, stove, dishwasher, roof, and garage door are pretty new. There's a pine tree in the front, an oak tree around the side, and several miscellaneous trees around back. Probably going to learn a lot more about lawn care than we wanted to know! Already learning more about drywall crack repair than I feel is healthy

We've already painted most of the inside of the house (it was *all* flat beige!), and I've replaced most (soon to be all) of the electrical outlets and switches. Some of the 30-year old outlets wouldn't even hold a plug in, fer cryin' out loud!

Future plans include a Cat 5 network, Cat 3 phone wiring, and a DSL connection. DSS would be nice, too. I'm also going to rewire the electrical system. The breaker panel is odd, has no main breaker, and has no open slots. That, and when I turn off one 15-amp breaker, 75% of the house turns off. Not good. Can't run the dryer and the washing machine off the same outlet either. Lot's of little updating needs to be done, but everything is operational, and the house is pretty solid for now. Which is good, because as I write this, it's been consistantly 100 degrees for the last month, and I have no intention of going into the attic until, oh, say, October. Heat prostration doesn't appeal to me!

More pictures to come!