New Chapter: Owning a House

It's been a long time since I've sat down to write something out...combination of lazyness and running around getting other things in life done. That being the case there's exciting news: I'm buying a house! I'm going through such an insane tornado of complex emotions it's hard to really find the right things to say. The process is far enough along that I feel like it's a done deal...but at the same time things can always happen last minute as so many horror stories tell me. It's one of those times where I don't think it's really sunk in... I honestly don't think it will sink in until I am finally all moved (which will be a few weeks after closing since I am planning on repainting the main floor first before getting all my stuff moved in).

3 years ago my mother asked me about saving up for a house when I moved out here the first time. The comment was more made in regards to which apartment should I get. At the time I was single, still young, and saw the house as something I've always wanted but outside my reach. I have friends who own houses by themselves, but the thought of buying a house for just me seemed very alien. Now look at me! Even though I'm not single I'm also not married, I have a kitty-who will enjoy running around in more space- and a boyfriend who comes over often.

The house itself is not without it's few flaws, ranging from minor to major repairs. Most of the big stuff is being taken care of by the sellers, leaving me with needing to do the minor things as well as replace the gutters, service the garage door, and bribe boyfriends Uncle to ground a few outlets. That and do some repainting and things will be well on their way. I might even start packing up some boxes of non-essentials this weekend, (who knows if that will get done as I am battleing some strange shoulder/neck pain) I know things will start sinking in a bit more once the apartment gets packed up....and sink even more when I start painting and buying stuff for those "little fixes". My dream of a garden crop won't really be happening this year. It'll be back to patio crops as the garden needs some work. But I plan to the best of my ability to get things rolling for next year, little by little.

All in all I love the flow of the house. I love the neighborhood its in, and I look forward to figuring things out and fixing things up. I'll be posting a bunch of before and after pictures as soon as I start doing work. Everything is scheduled to close May 5th and I plan on bribing folks to help me move on May 21st, after things have been painted.

It's been an exciting, nerve wracking, stressful, and wonderful process so far. I hope it all continues for many many years to come.

Jury Duty

A few weeks ago I got that dreaded piece of mail: Jury Summons. There's no way out of this, there's nothing that can be done, and it's an important part of our legal system and civil liberties. Still I have a lot of things to get done at work and being out for a day (or longer) is a bit of an inconvience. But I'm pretty sure that "deadlines" isn't a valid reason to be excused, plus I don't think there's much more than a day at work that doesn't involve a series of deadlines. So I wait my turn and head to the court house.

Jury Selection

Heading to the courthouse, I knew there was going to be a lot of down time, so I packed my knitting (the second sock) and a book to read. I arrive at the courthouse right on time and park at the very other side of the lot, because this compact parking lot is jam packed. I get up to the door and go through security, and well, my knitting isn't allowed. There are convicts about and somehow my knitting is more dangerous than a normal pen or pencil. So I walk ALL the way back to my car, drop off my knitting and head back through. I sign in and take a seat and wait. Now I am perfectly happy sitting there (though it was a bit uncomfortable) and reading my book. But it was difficult. The person next to me was constantly weezing and smelled of cigaretts and something else, the people behind me were talking loudly and complaing, wanting things to "move along" like they thought it would help, and the history channel was on and being pipped through the whole room. But I sat there, reading my book, paying attention when I needed too.


Finally they start calling people. I get called for the first group, and I'm called 19th. Shoot. I'm going to be on the jury, unless they don't like me. If I was 60th, maybe not, but 19th.... after more groups are called we head up, take our seats (with me in front of the jury box) and wait to figure out what's going on. The hillarious thing? I am sitting in front of Judge Volz. What are the odds?! My name apparently is more common in Colorado than I thought. We sit, get asked a bunch of questions, when you say yes or no and explain why, you then get asked a series of other questions, trying to determine if you really mean that answer (especially if you say no), and then the dismissals start. The DA, he was very nice, and thanked every juror who left, the defense council, was a cold, uncaring pair of women, never said thankyou, didn't even look at you. But as I suspected, I got seated up there, given my instructions, then went home for the day. Oh joy, 4 days of spending time with these random 12 people and listening to a case involving alcohol.

Trial

We come in the next day (and in fact the next 2 days) to hear opening statements, witnesses, and experts. All in all there are a lot of objections (which I understand why, some of the other jurors were just getting annoyed with it all) some interesting points, some interesting cross examinations, and one expert witness (there were 2 total) who I thought shouldn't have been allowed to be an expert and wasn't really a working scientist. So I threw most of her stuff out. It was interesting, both from a "what happened" perspective, as well as a look at the legal system. During breaks I bonded with some of the jurors and others were less interesting to me. I found it funny how some of them started off with good stories, then suddenly there was a turn, like "I didn't know it was a gay community, we got the hell out of there, thankfully our kids were sleeping" and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what the big deal was, things like that. Finally the whole thing ended, there were closing statements, some friendly arguments back and forth between the DA and defense council, and we were able to start deliberation.

Deliberation

I am not a person who likes to argue. Its a personality trait of mine in addition to being an introvert. Thankfully there were a few vocal people who were on my side and so I didn't have to be the super vocal one. It was, for me, a very annoying discouraging and disapointing experience in the deliberation room. Several of the folks were hung up on scemantics and I just wanted to scream! One of the points of 2nd degree assault is "Serious bodily injury" now I know that something immediately popped into your head as to what serious means. But the definition comes with some simple things: risk of death, risk of disfigurement, risk of impared function, or broken bones, fractures, or burns. Now, regardless of what you think serious is, spending weeks in the hospital or having a bone broken in half through your skin, it took us forever to explain that this guy had a fracture, fracture is on the list, therefore serious injury. I am all for making legal language easier to understand, but maybe "bodily injury in the 2nd degree" would have been more helpful.

In the end there were 10 of us who voted guilty, and 2 who voted otherwise, and therefore we had to convict of a lesser charge. I've never felt more dirty and upset. The man was guilty of second degree... one woman had her definition of intent, which is almost impossible to meet in any situation, and we couldn't convince her that her definition was wrong and she needed to reconsider. The other woman said "I don't want to change any of your minds, but I have doubt and that's all I need" and more or less refused to say/participate any more.

All in all the experience was interesting. Learned a lot about law, the overall system, and I'm free and clear for a year. I feel bad that we couldn't convict him, but there's nothing left that I can do. The only thing left for me now is to hit work full speed and get everything that needs to be done, done. Then I can get back to having a more relaxing week at work.

Resolutions

I know I won't keep all of them, but at least it will be a start:

1. Eat healtier, work out more, drop the spare tire. I put these all in one because in honesty without one the whole plan won't work. All in all the plan is to get my self confidence about my personal appearance and feelings up to where they should be, but dropping some weight and doing more to be healthy isn't a bad thing either. So it will all start, very very soon. The eating part will start now, and the workout part will start on Wednesday, I've been saying it for a while, but yes, yes it will :)
2. Stress out less. This will be a hard one, hopefully resolution #1 will help with this one
3. Keep my apartment cleaner. No brainer, but basically if I suceed in step 2, then perhaps I can stop feeling the overwhelming need to just veg out when I get home, which means being more on top of laundry and dishes and overall cleaning.

Those are the big ones. Those are the ones that I really want to achieve. Oh and saving more money, kinda failed on that recently, but it will be part of the overall goals for 2011.

Happy new year and resolution making, and hopefully keeping, everyone!