Here Comes the Sun . . .

Spring has arrived! Yes, I know it's probably a bit rude to rub this fact into the faces of anyone from up north - say, the 140,000 without power in Maine thanks to the snow storm, but I'm so excited and it's so pretty!

The azaleas are really starting to crank the blooms out now. This is our largest azalea, out back besides the porch:

(Speaking of azaleas, I think the Florida Azalea Festival in Palatka is still going on March 7-8, even though I couldn't find a single mention of it on the Palatka Daily News web site. There is a web site for the festival, but unless you want to register for the parade or the Azalea Queen beauty pageant, there's not much there to look at.)

Right next to the azalea is a shrub that has little tiny buds that are starting to pop:

When it's fully leafed, it provides a great deal of privacy for our master bathroom - right now, anyone who really wanted to can see in.

One of the other trees in the back yard is also budding with leaves:

There's a few survivors in the vegetable garden planted by the home's previous owners, and most of them are doing pretty well. There's some sort of cabbage plant, rosemary and parsley:

The pineapple isn't doing so well:

I'm really hoping my plumbago comes back. It looks bad - Kyle thinks it's a goner.

Where in the world is Jen?

Not that I'm that prolific as a blogger, but I do realize that I've been missing for a while.

Kyle and I are in the process of buying a house. You can see it here: http://www.mmparrish.com/289728

They initially had it listed above our price range, so I hadn't seen it - I had all my searches on a pretty tight range, using Trulia.com and the best local site, MM Parrish/Coldwell Banker. Considering the current real estate market, Kyle suggested we look at some higher-priced homes; we might get a good deal.

This house had been suggested to us by our realtor before and I had ignored it, so it was first on the list for "expensive houses" to look at. It has everything we were looking for: older, concrete block, the part of town we want, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a nice, secluded backyard. For the first time, we were both equally excited - we loved it.

The day we looked at it, our realtor found out they were dropping the price to $217,900. (I wasn't going to mention numbers, and then realized if you actually go and look at the listing, you'll see the current price). That's $7K less, but still out of our price range. Fritz (our realtor) talked with the sellers' realtor and had good news - while they wouldn't accept $200K (what I wanted to pay for a house), they would probably meet us halfway, around $210K. It was intriguing. We decided to go for it - we offered $205K to give ourselves some negotiating room. Two days later - they accepted the initial offer!

We've had the inspections done, now we're fiddling over repairs. They didn't throw in any closing deals, which makes sense seeing that they had hoped for $225K originally!

The only big problem with the house is that the AC and water heater are 20 years old - big expenses. BUT the roof is brand new - that's a good thing. It was built in 1974, so there were bound to be some issues. I wanted a home built in the 60s or 70s - nothing from the 80s or 90s. It's (mostly) concrete block and it's in a lovely neighborhood. We still get a little traffic noise, but there's a retention pond (or something) behind us as a buffer.

And in the middle of all this, we went to Cancun for a week. Photos to come soon. It was wonderful, and wonderfully affordable. We basically crashed with some incredibly generous friends who own a time-share and I finally got around to using my SkyMiles for the flight. We did nothing - layed around in the pool or the ocean, drank Dos Equis and Pina Coladas, slathered on the SPF and enjoyed each other's company. These are the people who got married in Brazil last year, and we hadn't seen them since.

This weekend is Memorial Weekend and my birthday, so I will be making my annual trek east - the 20th Annual Blue Crab Festival is being held in my home town (every Memorial Weekend) and I've never missed one. Then it's on to St. Augustine for Reggae Sunday at the beautiful Conch House on Anastasia Island -yes, we have a hotel room for safety's sake - and the beach on Monday.