As Irish as I get

Cold beginning of Spring weather and Buffalo's upcoming St. Patrick's Day parade this Sunday have put me in the mood for one thing.

www.irishcoffeerecipe.com

Mmm. Sweet Irish Coffee, how I've missed you.  Will you be celebrating this weekend?

Actual House Hunting

Aaron and I have been casually looking for a house for about 5 months now.   Our apartment is fantastic, great location, cheap rent and tons of space.  Unfortunately, not quite enough space for us anymore.  He screen prints t-shirts and baby onesies and I mess around with spray paint and fabric and the dog would probably appreciate a backyard (the cat seems pretty ok with her current situation).  Now it doesn't help that we decided to start looking when winter hit (slim pickings) and with wanting to stay in the city, we face the challenge of a ton of the houses being broken up into apartments.  But, we've still found some to look at.  Yesterday we went and checked out a place within walking distance to where we live now.  Single family, 1900 square feet, asking price: $84, 900.  Here's the pictures that made us call our realtor on a Sunday night in an excited panic: 

All the light, all the detail, all the hardwood floors!  Get us in there!  And get us in she did indeed.  The first 3 rooms definitely did not disappoint.  However, while waiting for our realtor to arrive we started taking a peek around the outside of the house and found this:

"Well, ok," we thought, "Let's give it the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe it just looks really bad on the outside and once we get in the basement it will all be alright."  Although, neither one of us really believed it having had a bad experience with foundations and house hunting a couple months ago (we were under contract and ready to go and then BAM! Home inspection from hell).

Alas.  Here's what the basement turned up for us:

 

And in case you can't spot it in that picture, the wall was also bowing in pretty badly.  Here's a picture of me standing along side the wall, looking down the length of it.

 

Along with a variety of other issues (majority of the windows were cracked, water damage on the dining room ceiling from the bathroom upstairs, teeny bedrooms, etc), this pretty much sealed the deal for us.  Goodbye, beautiful wooden pocket doors and wooden staircase.   

Weekend Homework

Image from here

This weekend is our turn to play host as Aaron's parents come to Buffalo for his mom's birthday.  Its always fun to act like a tourist in your home town.  Get out there and enjoy your city.

• Get romantic with this swoon worthy engagement story.
• We all put on a couple of pounds this winter.  Learn how to take them off quickly from your spring break photos.
• I don't think I'm quite this open-minded just yet.  Would you be willing try out this new ice cream flavor?
• Reclaimed wood furniture, get in my house.  I'll take one of each, please.

House Hunting

Have an extra $700K floating around?  Let's buy a piece of history in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods we have.

This house is located on Bidwell Parkway (designed by Frederick Olmsted- who you may know from lesser accomplishments, such as New York's Central Park, har har.)  A lot of the houses in this area have been broken up into apartment buildings, but this house has thankfully survived a butchering.  Let's have a tour, shall we?

The craftsmanship, oh my.  I would sleep on that staircase landing every night.  And the beautiful windows everywhere.  And the fact that its been updated without compromising the integrity of the house.  Beautiful.  I hope whoever gets into this house next shows it the same respect....and can afford the heating bill.

Interview-a-rama

After returning home from Rochester on Sunday, I had another e-mail waiting for me from the "They're Not" company.  They had a cancellation and could see me Monday afternoon.  Short notice (remind me to join this decade and get a phone that I can check my e-mail on) and the coarse e-mail exchange had me nervous about exploring this company further, but hey, saying no to interviews is just not something this unemployed lady does.

So I decided I was going to go in skeptical and completely honest about my experience and what I was looking for.

I still can't put on a menswear blazer without reciting lines from Annie Hall.  Thanks, Diane Keaton.

Hey, snow, I just wanted to thank you because I sincerely love showing up at interviews with the bottom of my pants wet and salt stains on my shoes.  Also, a note about those shoes.  I don't have comfortable brown boots.  Normally those pants get worn with a pair of heels.  Although, I also don't have a pair of plain brown heels that I find acceptable (me and brown shoes clearly have a bad history together), so these pants typically get worn with white (faux) snakeskin pumps (oh yeah, I have a pair.  And they're awesome.  Don't judge.).  But I wasn't sure how much this company would appreciate my experimental footwear, so I had to suck it up and wear these boots, AKA: Boots of Agony.

That line embedded in my pale leg is just from the drive to the interview, which was 20 minutes.  Okay, I probably could have just worn taller socks, but I guess I'm just not that forward thinking.

I got to my 4:00pm interview about 20 minutes early:

Hey, there's my nephew!  Hi, Jake!

So, I drove around until I was a more acceptable 10 minutes early.  Contrary to my expectations set from the e-mail, the interviewer was very nice (jovial, even).  And what followed was a record setting interview:  Three hours.  From 4:00-7:00pm.  When I left, I had 5 missed calls and 7 text messages.  Aaron and my friend that I was supposed to be meeting for dinner post interview were watching news reports for car crashes and preparing their routes to drive out there and look for my mangled body on the sides of the roads (not an exaggeration, that was actually their plan.  I'm just thankful no one called the cops.).

But, about this interview.  Definitely the most thorough explanation of a company, position, and expectations that I've experienced.  And it was genuinely appreciated.  It ended up being a position that I am interested  in at a company that I could see myself working at.  After an honest discussion with the interviewer about pretty much every scenario that could come up (remember, THREE HOURS), we concluded with already talking about salary and bringing me in to meet other people in the company that I would be working with.  I should be getting a call or e-mail the end of the week to set up the actual time/date (I'll be sure to set aside a large chunk of time this side to not worry loved ones) for this meeting to take place.  So we'll see what happens there.

I also have a different job interview this Wednesday at a non-profit foundation.  I'm glad that things are starting to happen in this job search, I was starting to take note of the "Help Wanted" signs when I drove by Mighty Taco.

(And I did get my dinner finally at Amy's Place, a diner over in our University Heights District.  You can get 99% of their meals made with seitan or tofu!  And its delicious.  And cheap.  Followed by a much needed glass of wine at Shango.) 

Valentine's Day, Part Deux

Our Valentine's Day double header continued yesterday with Aaron's night.  And my fella knows me well.

The night started with some food from our favorite Chinese restaurant in Buffalo: Tokyo Shanghai Bistro.  They have some mighty fine choices for vegetarians.

Ma Po Tofu and Vegetarian Duck

 
And I know what you're thinking, "what is that creepy eye peering across the table over your food?"  The answer?  Aaron's hockey jersey, because after dinner we went to a Buffalo Sabres game! (And yes, jerseys are completely appropriate dinner attire in Buffalo on nights that there is a home game.)

And after a little snowy walk down by the arena (it was around 45 degrees yesterday!  practically a heatwave!), it was time to get down to business.  Hockey business.

 

Unfortunately, it was one of the worst played games of the season, but we did it right.  Sitting in the nosebleeds, surrounded by screaming drunks.  Love this game.  Thank you, Aaron.

How was your weekend, dears?  Mine was wonderful and terrible.  First the wonderful, shall we?

.
Our nephew's first birthday.  You wouldn't know it from this picture, but he's a pretty jolly little fella (he hates hats, and was mostly confused by the room full of people he doesn't see often staring and singing at him, but hey, thus endures the strange tradition of birthday parties).

My sister and her husband love reptiles and its been a (year) long tradition to get Jake alligator items, but we went more traditional this year, getting him a Radio Flyer Wagon.  That sucker is heavy.  Trying getting that up the winding staircase of a big old Victorian house to your top apartment in order to wrap it.

Speaking of wrapping.  We didn't want to forgo alligators all together, so Aaron sharpied up our lime green wrapping paper for a little personalization (personal is always better than expensive if you ask me):

Excuse the glare!

Sunday was my mother's birthday, so we were back over there with her requested meal...Fried Chicken.  Hard to find good fried chicken when you and your boyfriend are vegetarians, but thanks to a little thing called the internet, we found Buckeye's Chicken down on Michigan Ave, and the more carnivorous members of the family all gave it good reviews.  We'll just have to take their word for it.

The unhappy news, is that Taffy, our older cat (she was a present from my father for my 11th birthday) had been acting strangely and unfortunately some blood work at the wonderful Summer St. Cat Clinic revealed she had advanced cancer.  She deteriorated quickly after her diagnosis and to avoid any further suffering, she was put to sleep Saturday morning.  We miss her terribly.

Now, go call your loved ones and tell them Happy Valentine's Day!

I may have an unhealthy obsession with homes.  I can get lost for hours looking at real estate.  Let's check out one of my dream homes, yes?

This one is located in Buffalo on Franklin St, right near our Allentown district.  Priced at a reasonable $199,900 (Well, not reasonable for me in particular, but definitely more than reasonable for some folks),this brick carriage house of joy would be mine tomorrow if I had the chance:

The hardwood floors!  The stainless steel!  The brick! Oh, the brick!  My love and desire for this house could only be expressed in song, unfortunately the title 'Brick House' has already been taken...  I'm sure my little dream home will have no trouble finding a new owner.