Moving Woes Part Deux

We are supposed to sign our lease Monday afternoon-ish, so our real estate agent, Liz (super terrific person), called in distress this morning; she said they faxed her the lease and it’s 14 pages long and horrific! It includes things like: “Payment is due on the 1st of every month and if not received by the 3rd, a $50 late fee will be applied, plus $20 a day each day after that.” (paraphrased); no more than 3 cars are permitted in the driveway; guests are not allowed to stay more than 4 weeks; no pools, spas, hot tubs or trampolines; not allowed to repair vehicle(s) on premises; tenant will notify landlord if going to be away from premises for 3 weeks or more — 14 pages worth of extreme madness! Not only that, but Liz was supposed to be the property manager and they totally rubbed her out of the contract! Liz said that she was expecting a standard 2 or 3 page contract, and was absolutely stunned when this came. The house is nice, but it’s not THAT nice. It’s not like it’s a penthouse in Trump Tower or something that would warrant such strict terms. I completely understand the landlord’s point of view, but at the same time, it sort of feels like we’re making a deal with the devil. I think some bills that go to Congress are less detailed and more lenient. So now we’re facing the decision: Agree to this contract that we feel a little uncomfortable with or let Liz try to find another place for us within 2 or 3 days. Ugh! We already went through a credit, income and reference check, so all we’d have to do is pick out another place. And it’s NOT cheap to move into this house! Between 1st month, security and realtor fee, it’s going to cost $4500, plus moving truck, utilities and who knows what else. We could have bought a cheap house for around the same down payment. But we’re holding off on that until we can buy the house in Orange county that we have our heart set on.

This is tough. We’re going to sleep on it and give Liz our decision tomorrow. We’re torn, we like this house but we aren’t crazy about the terms. We’d feel like we’re living on eggshells. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to spring this on us. *sigh* Everything will work out though, it always does.

So, I started the day off with that unpleasant surprise, then we had another unpleasant surprise when KERF went down. We tried ALL day and night to get Kath’s blog back up. Everything was fine, then it turned into a HUGE mess. But thankfully, as of right now everything seems to be A-Ok! In the midst of the chaos, I headed downstairs to zone out to my iPod in my obstacle course for 60 minutes, plus 20 mins of recumbent bike.

When I came upstairs, I wanted some comforting carbs, which I feel I totally earned via exercise and stress! So I had: a banana (110 cal), 1 Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain English muffin (160 cal) with 2 TBSP Philadelphia strawberry cream cheese (70 cal) and 1 cup Silk chocolate soy milk (140 cal):

I don’t know what possessed me to buy strawberry cream cheese in Hannaford the other day; I’ve never had it before, but thought it sounded good. It is good! It tastes exactly how you would imagine; like strawberry flavored cream cheese.

This was quite a filling and tasty post-workout carb fest for only 480 calories!

The day dragged on and on. I took refuge in playing Sims 2 and snacking on various crunchy things found in the kitchen. When it was time for another real meal, I opted for simple and voluminous. I picked up a package of Veggie Patch falafel at Hannaford the other night. They seemed like the right thing to go with the 100% whole wheat Joseph’s mini pitas that I got. I diced up half of a small red onion and a thick slice of seeded tomato, then stuffed 2 Joseph’s 100% whole wheat mini pitas (160 cal, 80 cal each) with:

• Diced tomato (~15 cal)
• Diced red onion (~15 cal)
• 4 falafel balls, 2 in each pita (180 cal, 380mg sodium)
• Yogurt sauce made with: 56g Fage Total 0% plain yogurt (35 cal) and 1 TBSP Bolthouse Farms yogurt ranch dressing (40 cal)

2 mini pitas, 445 calories or 222.5 calories each

I sprinkled a little dried parsley on them, too. The end pieces of pita bread are a terrible thing to waste!

Deeeeeelish! I’ve never had falafel before, so the flavor was new to me. I liked it a lot! I like almost anything with chickpeas in it, so I’m happy I can add yet another dish to my “love it” list. They tasted a bit sweet to me? Every now and then a bite would remind me of an Italian pastry, but I can’t think of which one. My only regret is that I didn’t have a cucumber, which would have been a nice addition either in the pita or on the side.

The sun is up now, so that means it’s time for beddy bye! Tomorrow we’re either signing the lease for that house or going to look at alternative houses. Either way I won’t be too disappointed. We’ll see what happens!