The Costons

We’ll close shortly after we leave Japan and arrive in Virginia. We are going full price with them, but they’re covering about 75% ish…. of the closing costs. It has been a stressful week since being here, and I thought we weren’t ever going to find a place for us…but we did. I just wish they’d have taken our initial contract as is….but hey…I really wanted this house….and we got it. It was priced fairly…it was just about getting as much closing as we could. I can’t say that i’m not worried about making sure we get all we need for closing…but we will have what we need, when we need it. So, we’ll be homeowners this summer. I’m so excited….and worried, and just…well, all emotions. It’s awesome, just scary since we’ve never owned a home before…..

*sigh* I can now relax (just a little bit) heheh

Here we go again. We made another bid on a house…the one right next door to the first one I bid on. Lets hope that we get this one. It looks just as good, if not better than the one we bid on before. I just want to get a ratified contract before I leave…..That’s all i’m asking for.

Well, we lost the house. Just found out today. The sellers gave a counteroffer to the first bidders on the house. They accepted it and didn’t give us a chance to counteroffer. Well, things happen for a reason. So, our house is still out there. We just weren’t meant to have it.

On a positive note, found a very VERY possible house that I love, on paper at least. We’re going to go look at it shortly. It came on the market today! Wish us luck with that one!!!

Well, we made an offer on the house about 20 hours ago. Yes, i’m counting the hours. LOL. Well, I am hoping that we hear back from them today. I can’t take all of this waiting. Almost makes me wish we put a deadline into the contract so that we can get an answer back quickly. For today, we will be looking at more property, but nothing will compare to that house…but you never know, maybe it will. So, hopefully we will get a phone call saying it’s our house!

I’ll update again later today!

Wow, I am so culture shocked right now. I feel so lost here. I’m going to be here for the next 2 weeks house hunting. Wish me luck on finding the perfect house, at the perfect price with the perfect schools(no pressure, eh)…I am up at 3am though, wishing I could have slept in until at least 7-8am. Guess I can get some extra time online getting addresses and looking at some more properties online. I meet the realtor later today, so I’m hoping for a good meeting with him, and see what our schedule will be like over the next days. I really hope i’m looking at houses every day, cause I don’t know what to do here…Driving on the right side of the road was weird. I haven’t driven in years…though it seemed to come back to me pretty quickly…that didn’t mean I didn’t drive around the parking lot a a few times, telling myself “Stay right”. I got in on the passengers side, wondering where the steering wheel was…haha. I was glad no one was around, they’d have laughed at me. And in trying to turn on the blinker, I turned the windshield wiper on. Then I kept trying to change gears on my left. hehe. I need to get used to this quicker.

Well, while here, I plan on updating the page more often. Even if it’s not much to update. It’s something that will pass the time. I’m looking forward to coming back to Japan though. Family is back there, and I just feel ‘at home’ there. Is it silly that i’m feeling culture shocked (like the movie Lost in Translation) here in the US? When you’ve lived overseas for almost 10 years, heheh guess it would be pretty normal huh? Been living overseas more of my adult life than anywhere else. Sorry, don’t mind me…i’m just doing my own internal fighting with myself. I wanted to stay in Japan another tour, but it wasn’t allowed. Boooo!

Ok, enough of my ranting, i’m off to do something. It’s 4:22am now, and all I can think of is that it’s dinnertime in Japan. I should be making dinner right now. Gotta go to the commissary when it opens today…need food. Gotta stay away from junk food. I didn’t just lose over 30lbs to gain it all back in a few weeks in the US.

Wish me luck! I’m gonna need it for everything!

I’m headed back to Virginia for a few days to go house hunting.  So many new things…I will be driving on the right side of the road with the steering wheel on the other side of the car.  I hope I don’t have an accident.  I have no idea how Norfolk and Virginia Beach are anymore.  I have never owned a home before, so the whole process is new to us.  I’m going to miss my family while i’m gone, and will probably have a larger phone bill than anything.  I’ll even get a quick glimpse of the new carrier i’ll be stationed on and meet some of the people I’ll be working with in the fall.

We haven’t lived in the states for almost a decade.  We’ve enjoyed overseas living, and we feel we’re coming back to the hectic, fast-paced world of the United States.  We have kids now, and pets…how will we even manage!?! I guess we’ve been overseas so long, we feel we’re inside a bubble, a protective bubble, and we’re about to head into uncharted territory.   I’m thankful, very thankful for the job I have in a world where everyone is losing their job everywhere you turn.  I know we’ll manage…just my fear of the unknown on what we’re about to get ourselves into.

I know things will work out in the end, but I think it’s going to be a bumpy path.  Wish us luck.  Hope and pray and will it for us to find a nice home in a safe neigbhorhood, with a good school system for the kids to go to.  I don’t really care about my drive to work…that is a moot point…the family and their comfort and happiness are more important to me.  I’m on twitter and facebook, so you guys join up and follow me and give me some encouraging words hahhaa.  I’ll need them. :)  Thanks for reading my dull and venting post.

I’m within standards now!!! I weighed in at 181 (I was over my weight max of 164). I was taped at 31%! (My max is 33% for females).  I measured in at 14 inch neck, 32 inch waist, and 40 inch hip…which, according to Navy BCA standards, is 31% for a person of 66 inches. But that was odd, because I’ve always been 67 inches tall. So, I got reaaaalllyyyy worried this morning when they measured my height at 66 inches. But, thankfully, I was not just ‘at’ where I needed to be, but below.

Now, i’m going to go enjoy a dessert at Chili’s that I haven’t had since my birthday in Dec. A white molten chocolate cake! Mmmm, I’m gonna share it with a friend. It’s all about keeping this momentum going with my weight loss now, and by the time the fall PRT comes, I won’t even need to be taped, becuase I should be below 160 lbs by then. I can do 20 lbs in 6 months…heck yeah!!!!

On the house hunting home front, i’ll be departing soon for the states to go search for a house.  It looks like we might be able to get a house upwards of $250k-$275k.  We’re hoping to find what we need below that though, so we can actually save some money, pay debt down, and enjoy life a bit.  We don’t want to be house poor.   We all leave to go stateside in July…so, hopefully all will work out for us there as well.

I’ll be updating this page soon!  Need to change the template and get something spring/summer-like!!!

Oh yeah, last bit of great news.  I walk in my graduation ceremony tomorrow.  I’ve earned a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems Management.  Now my sights are set on getting a masters degree!

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. Just got super busy. Well, while the scale hasn’t moved much, except for a few up, and a few back down, what has changed is my body fat. I was at 41% on 1/31/09. And on 2/27/09, I was 35%!!!! I lost 6% body fat! I lost 3 inches on my hips and 1 inch on my waist! I am hoping that the pounds will start melting off soon too, with all this muscle I must be building! To ‘make body fat’ or pass the BCA (body composition assessment) portion, I need to weight at/under 167 or be 33% or below body fat. So, in another 6 weeks I CAN lose 2% body fat. If I don’t, then i’m cheating on my diet and not working out, and that will NOT happen. I’m too damn close to my goal right now. Plus, I feel great! I love it! I HAVE to keep doing this!

Well, on another front, it is ticking down and getting closer to us PCS’ing back to the US. So we’ve been actively looking for a home and transportation. It’s a bit scary and stressful, but i’m sure we will be fine. We want a 4 bedroom 2 bath home, with a fenced in yard and a garage. hehe, that’s not too much to ask…

I’ve been having a blast with these workout though! OMG, did I just say that?!? Really though, the cardio kickboxing, spin class, and ‘Unleash the Inner Athlete’ classes really have me burning calories and having fun! I just need to get myself over to the gym other than doing the classes and i’m sure those pounds will start melting off too. At least the inches are going down though, and that’s all that matters! You guys should see the kids ‘working out’ with me though. They’re so cute. They get down and do situps/crunches and pushups with me. I want to get them out there in the stroller and go running or at least slow jogging. Something that will get my heart rate up, it’s all that matters. I sure wish I could bottle their energy up though.

Well, I’ll update next week.  Hopefully i’ll have a few more pounds loss to report. I’m hovering around 190-191 right now.  *sigh*  But it will drop.  I know it will.  Okay, before I go rambling on, you all take care and have a GREAT WEEK!!! ^_^

Ugh, the time is winding down! Well, weight hasn’t moved much, but I’ve been adding in some pretty tough aerobic workouts. I think they’re building muscle, because all week long, my muscles ached and ached. I’m at 192 lbs. right now. The weight is going down, but not as quickly as I want it to. This coming week, I am going to be doing at least 2 workouts at the gym, and one at home, in addition to walking everywhere. So, I hope I am sore again next week, so that I can get some more of this weight off of me.

Things are going great here with the family. My friend Mary just had her little baby, and all the kids are ooohing and aaahing over him. He’s such a cutie! Mason and Nevaeh just got haircuts today…I have to post a pictures, as this one was Nevaeh’s first haircut, at 2 years 3 months old. It was time. Oh yeah, I finished my last class for college, so i’m D O N E with school, at least for now. I should walk in April to get my Bachelor’s degree. Woot!

Well, guess that’s all for now. I am baking cookies this weekend (and next weekend), in addition to cupcakes…so, I’m going to be pretty tempted, but I will withstand it! Nooo cookies for me until April 26th!

Until next week!!! Thanks for tuning in and reading.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Looks like when the server the site is hosted on went down for maintenance, that our database somehow got corrupted. Stupid me doesn’t have a recent backup (I know..I know, the IT in me is baaaad!). So, i’m requesting the hosting company to do a restore of the database. I’m sure they have a very recent backup, so it’ll be up as soon as they can restore.

If not, we’ll restart…but I know it won’t be the same. Let’s not get too worked up though, I’m sure we’ll be back up in no time.