March Madness

It has been exactly a month since I last wrote in my own personal blog. Blame it on house hunting, work or the fact that every free moment was spent watching basketball, but whatever the reason there is a lot to update. Some of it good (we signed our first contract on a house) and some if it bad (Duke losing to a 15 seed). It has been a hectic month. Since life generally has both good and bad moments I am going to look at the positive and negative of each subject.

Basketball
Good - UNC didn't make it to the Final Four. I know there will be excuses about Kendall Marshall's injury and if I was more compassionate individual I would feel bad for UNC. It is rare to get a team together with a potential of 7 first round draft picks (Barnes, Henson, Zeller, Marshall, McAdoo, Hairston and Bullock) and to have that season end because of an injury sucks. Still, that didn't prevent me from drinking Jameson yesterday and toasting the end to UNC's season.

Bad - Since my last blog post Duke went 2-3. They were destroyed by UNC at Cameron and lost in a close ACC semi-final game against Florida State. Both of those were bad, but nothing compared to Duke being upset by Lehigh. The year began with little expectations, but Coach K did a great job in leading his team to wins against really good teams like Michigan State, UNC, Kansas and Florida State. Those wins gave hope to a poorly constructed and athletically limited team. The team peaked too early, and eventually their flaws were fully exposed. Now the team suffers the loss of Austin Rivers and Mason Plumlee (how can a team that lost in the 1st round have two 1st round picks?) and only has one recruit signed for next year.

House
Good - We finally signed a contract on what hopefully will be our dream home. It is a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom place in central Bexley. In terms of what we wanted it should have close to everything. The price was a little bit higher than we wanted to spend, but it is still in our price range based on every financial article I read on the subject of home buying. The home is being remodeled and should be ready by the end of May or early June. There will be a lot more updates to come.

Bad - The price probably prevents us from choosing the 15 year mortgage option, which was a goal of mine. I think we will go with the 30 year mortgage and just work on paying it off early. Also, on the day we signed the contract, I could hardly sleep that night because of concerns I had about the family room. It might sound strange, but I am very concerned about the placement of the tv compared to the couches. Our previous place in Edina was wonderful, but I never was 100% happy with how we had placed the couches in the room. Also, it isn't bad yet, but I really wonder what our stuff looks like after 6 months in the POD.

Travel
Good - So far through work I've been to New York and Miami (the one in Florida) and have another tripped plan to Dallas. The Miami trip was especially fun since I attended the Miami 2012 PINK Nation Spring Break Pool Party. Also, I'm only a few weeks away from my annual KC trip with some of my guy friends, which seems to be the unofficial start of vacation season. After that I have a Malphurs family trip to Florida and a week long trip to San Francisco to visit Nancy and Nicholas. It is hard to beat last year's trip schedule with Mexico and London/Paris, but this year should be a fun year.

Bad - Despite my bragging about my work trips (and I texted a lot of my friends with pictures from South Beach) it is actually a lot of work. During those work trips I tend to work more before, during and after the trip. For example my first day in Miami started with a wake up call at 3:30am, so that I could be at the airport in time for my 5:15am flight. That day didn't end till about 9pm and while it was great seeing a lot of stores and talking to so many talented coworkers it wasn't an easy trip.

There is probably stuff I am missing, but in the interest of time I will let that be for now.