Other Big Buys On Our Trip

As mentioned in an earlier post, there were a lot of things on the agenda for our recent trip down to Alabama.  Priority #1 was purchasing a house, which I detailed in the last couple posts.  Other things on our list were looking into getting a new car, new furniture, and new appliances for the house. 

New car:  Our first day in Alabama, we spent some time negotiating a deal for a new car.  It wasn’t long before we decided against this.  We found out from U-haul that none of their trailers to tow vehicles would fit any of the new cars that we were looking at.  Jet found out that the new cars are built with much lower clearance, so towing the vehicle would damage it.  Therefore, if we got a new car, we would have to have someone drive the U-haul truck and someone drive the car.  Since Jet has no interest driving the entire trip to Alabama, getting a new car was not an option.

New furniture: Since we only plan on bringing a few items (dressor, bed, couch) with us when we leave Milwaukee, we were in need of new furniture for our new home.  We visited five furniture stores while we were down in Alabama.  We checked out a few locally in Oxford, but these stores varied widely in quality and price.  There was one store where the quality of furniture was excellent, but price was outrageous, and another where the price was very low – matching the quality of their furniture.  In the end, we took a trip to Birmingham on Sunday and visited a few stores there.  We finally settled with a furniture store named Rooms to Go.  The prices were reasonable and the quality good, however, we had to pay extra to have the items delivered to Oxford.  We ended up buying a new bedroom set, a new kitchen table with chairs, and a new coffee table.

New appliances:  Since our new home is only furnished with a stove and dishwasher, there were a few appliances that we needed to purchase while we were in Alabama.  We were partial to Lowes since the store was nearby and the Home Depot is not finished being built yet.  We bought a new refrigerator and washer and dryer on Sunday to finish up our big purchases for the week.

  
  

Home Sweet Home

83 Victoria Place 
Oxford AL 36203

• 3 Beds; 2 Baths; 1768 Sqft. 
• Property Type: Single Family Home
• Subdivision/Neighborhood: Greystone Manor
• Style: Garden/Patio/Town/Con
• Pool or Spa: Jacuzzi Tub
• Garage: Two Garage Attached
• Ages: New
• Lot Dimenssion: 99.4×129.75×70x129.87
• Water/Sewer: City
• Flooring: Hardwood, Ceramic
• Heating/Cooling: Heat Pump, Heat Pump
• Appliances Included: Stove, Dishwasher, Disposal, Microwave
• Other Features: Pantry, Cable, Attic, Garage Door Opener, Walk-In Closet, Security System
• Exterior Features: Porch-Screened, Gutters, Porch Screened, Sprinkler System, Landscaping

                  

Back Home

We made it back to Milwaukee at 2:00am this morning after a very productive week in Alabama.  We drove through Birmingham this time back and traveled all the way up I-65 instead of driving through Chattanooga from I-24 to I-59 hitting Jacksonville through the North like how we arrived.  I have added a partial map to help show this.  The reason we took this route instead is that we were leaving directly from our new home in Oxford, which is right on I-20 (South of Jacksonville).  From Oxford, the quickest way back to Milwaukee is through Birmingham.  From Jacksonville, it is through Chattanooga.  Both drives are very manageable, but the drive through Chattanooga was more scenic.  Lots of mountains to pass through and wonderful sights.  Driving through Kentucky was a similar experience.  There is so much of the country I have yet to see!

We left from Oxford because we had a home inspection performed yesterday morning by a company named Pillar to Post.  It was surprising how professional and technology savvy this company was.  We arrived at the house by 11:30am after the inspector finished about a three-hour inspection.  The inspector had a binded report prepared for us on all of his findings with digital pictures depicting everything and supporting documentation to explain – everything done on-site!  Pretty neat.  In general, he had a few minor comments about the house.  However, since there is still work to be done on the house (e.g., fireplace installed, vent installed above stove, dishwasher moved, installation added to attic, drains put in) there were a few things that he could not comment on.  Overall, he felt that it was a well-built house.

 

Our New Home!

Lots has happened since our last post.  Sorry about the infrequency … without reliable access to the Internet, we have not been able to update you with our progress (and pictures!) as much as we would have liked.  We have looked at about a dozen houses, and of those, only one really stood out for us.  Our future address will be 83 Victoria Place, Oxford, AL, 36203.  We tried our best to negotiate the price down, but since the house was not on the market that long, we didn’t have much bargaining power.  Regardless, this is the home for us – it has everything we were looking for (and some additional features we liked) and should be able to increase in value in the next two years which will make for an easier sell, that is, if we choose to do so.  Tonight we will be signing the final documents and Monday morning we will have a home inspector take a look at it.  After that, we will be heading back home!  We still have other details to work on while we are here (purchase furniture, refridgerator, washer & dryer), but we are done with most of the “heavy” lifting.

We have decided not to buy a car down here, for several reasons.  I will share this with you in a future post.  We are now going out for dinner at a Korean restaurant in town.  I have never eaten out so much in my life!  We have had Chinese, Mexican, and (of course) BBQ!  Jet was surprised by the variety and number of restaurants around, in fact, Jet felt that one of the Chinese restaurants we ate at was the best Chinese food that she ever had in the US!  Needless to say, we have eaten there three times already.

Try to catch up more before we leave town.  We should arrive back in Milwaukee either Monday night or early Tuesday morning.  Bye!

We Made It!

Yes!  We are here and doing fine.  It was a balmy 98 degrees yesterday when we arrived at around 11:30am, but with air conditioning everywhere we went, it was more than bearable.  Just to give the low down on the statistics for the 800 mile trip, we ended up leaving Milwaukee at 8:30pm Tuesday night, so it took us 14 hours total (only 11.5 hours driving) to get to Alabama.  Best advice for making the drive is to do it in steps … about 200 miles (3 hours driving) and take a break.  Virtually no traffic once we left Chicago, so driving was a breeze.  After we checked in to our room on campus at JSU yesterday, we went for lunch at the school cafeteria.  As I have told many of you before, this is no ordinary school cafeteria.  It is an all-you-can-eat buffet of a variety of made-to-order food (e.g., pizza, fajitas, subs, burgers, etc.).  After we ate, we took a nap to rest up after the long trip.  Jet was able to sleep (although uncomfortably) for most of the drive.  I had an espresso shake (double shot) from Alterra in Milwaukee to help keep me awake for the drive, unfortunately, it kept me awake nearly the entire drive!  When we took our breaks during the drive to get a nap, I could barely close my eyes from all the caffeine!  I guess that is what I get for not being a coffee drinker.

After we woke up from our nap, we decided to take a look at the RAV4 from the Toyota dealer in town.  After over 2 hours of negotiating, we left with no deal in hand after Jet's counter-offer (the master negotiater she is!).  The offer we got, however, was pretty close to the offer we received in Milwaukee.  They will contact us back today with another counter-offer, so it is possible that we may be driving back home with a new car!  After all that work, Jet was starving.  We ate at a Chinese restaurant close by and were surprised at how good the food was!  A place we will be sure to visit many times over.  We then headed back to our room to catch up on the rest of our sleep and help us prepare for the day ahead.

Today we just had breakfast at the Waffle House (bacon and eggs).  In a little bit I will get the keys to my new office here on campus and hopefully meet with some of the faculty to discuss the upcoming semester.  We will be meeting with our real estate agent at 10:30am, so we already have a busy day planned ahead of us.  We will be taking lots of pictures and notes about each of the homes we visit, so there will be much to talk about in our next post.  Wish us luck!

Tomorrow’s Schedule

Well, the day for the big trip to Alabama has finally arrived.  Jet and I will be leaving at around 8:00pm tomorrow (Tuesday) so that we can (hopefully) avoid much of the Chicago traffic.  I plan on stopping for a cat nap sometime before we reach Indianapolis (around 4-5 hours driving) so that I can be rested up for the remainder of the drive (another 7-8 hours) on Wednesday.  Following this schedule, it will allow Jet to sleep for a good portion of the drive, which I hope will make the trip easier for her.  We will likely stop in Nashville for lunch (I hope Jet has a taste for BBQ) and will make it to Jacksonville by the afternoon.  We will be staying in a suite on campus at JSU for the entire trip.  One of the faculty members at JSU (Dr. Ford) was kind enough to reserve the room for us without charge.  Not sure if we will have any ambition to do anything on Wednesday evening, but on Thursday we will be already out looking at houses with our real estate agent, Judy James.  We will be taking pictures of the houses to help us assess which ones we prefer, and I will share these with everyone on this blog during our week in Alabama.  Wish us luck!

Morning Sickness

For those of you that don't already know, Jet is pregnant!  She is due around January 23, so that puts her at about 8 weeks right now.  And what a tough 8 weeks they have been.  Although she has not vomited (which is good, I guess), she has been terribly tired and nauseous during the past few weeks.  As many of you know Jet to be very active and outgoing, this has been very tough and frustrating for her.  Perhaps the most frustrating aspect has been that she can't eat the way she normally does.  Recently, in fact, she rarely has much of an appetite, which only seems to exaggerate her other symptoms.  Jet has been living off my cooking (yikes!) and going out to eat for the past few weeks.  The only bright side of this has been that she hopes the "worst" is nearly over and that she soon will feel like eating again.  I really hope that this is the case.

Busy Week Ahead

We have got a very busy week ahead of us.  Jet and I will be driving down to Jacksonville on Tuesday night (6/20) to spend a week looking at and (hopefully) buying a house.  We want to buy a new home in Oxford instead of Jacksonville for several reasons.  First, it is right off I-20 so it is closer (20 minutes) to both Birmingham and Atlanta.  We anticipate traveling to those major cities often, and since both locales are about an hour away from Oxford, the trip is very manageable.  Next, although Oxford is not that much larger than Jacksonville, there are many more amenities available in Oxford (shopping mall, dining, closer to Anniston).

In addition to buying a house (hopefully), we will also be checking out furniture and appliance stores since we don't plan on bringing much furniture down with us (only our bed and couch).  Hopefully we can find everything we will need at a single store so that we can bargain for a good deal.  Finally, we also plan to look at a car to lease when we arrive.  Jet and I have been looking around at cars in Milwaukee and taking a few for a test drive, so we have a pretty good idea of what we want.  One vechicle will be a "family car" (e.g., Honda Pilot or Honda Accord) and one will be an economy (e.g., Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Ford Focus).  Guess who will be driving which one?  We have lived for the past two years with one car, but we don't expect that this will suffice once we move to Alabama.

So that is our busy week ahead.  Until then, I will be working on getting directions, locations of places to visit, and scripting a schedule for our upcoming trip.  It should be very exciting for both of us … let's just hope that everything works out.

Welcome to Our Blog!

This is the web log of Andy and Jet Ciganek.  We will use this blog to share with you our experiences as we face several exciting transitions in our lives.  This will also create a way for each of you (especially family and friends) to maintain constant contact with us and check out how we are living, even though you may no longer see us every day.

Please feel free to stop on by periodically – we look forward to your visit!