The Newest Addition

Several months back, at the last rabbit adoption show I attended, there was a rabbit there named Nashua, being shown on behalf of our local animal shelter. He was a shy, young gray rabbit who had been found loose in a field and brought to the shelter June 7, 2011. When I saw him, I was a bit startled. His resemblance to our very first rabbit Buster was uncanny.

It might not seem unusual to find rabbits that look the same, but in all my experience with rabbits, I had never seen another rabbit that looked like Buster. His coloring was an unusual gray mixed with brown, and he had a unique look to his eyes and nose.

Buster:

Nashua:

I was immediately drawn to Nashua, but knew that we needed another rabbit with approximately the same urgency as we need a snowplow. I figured somebody would adopt him. Apparently I was wrong.

He sat at the shelter. For the past 8 months. Finally, yesterday, he was put on the euthanasia list.

I received an e-mail seeing if I could help with any of the 4 rabbits that needed out of the shelter. I saw that Nashua was among them, and knew I couldn't let that happen. Steve gave me his blessing (he's truly the most tolerant man alive) and we picked Nashua up from the rabbit adoption show today.

I really don't much care for the name Nashua. We're going to try out Bruce on him and see what he thinks. I am really thrilled to have been able to save him.

On a strange coincidence note, when I looked up in my records Buster's date of death, I found that it was a year ago today. And Bruce was picked up in a field as a young rabbit last June. So he was likely born in early spring 2011. I certainly don't believe in reincarnation... but an interesting coincidence, nonetheless.

Valentine's Day

My Valentine's Day flowers:


I just really like them, so I figured they warranted a picture. Steve and I did our usual... dressed up, ate at a nice restaurant. I suppose what we did for lunch was a little unusual. We met with a loan officer at our local credit union about getting a home loan.

Steve and I have been saving money since we finished paying off his student loans in summer 2010. We're not quite at our goal yet, but houses have started coming on the market in Santa Cruz in our target price range (which is low $300,000's). So we figured we'd see how things were shaping up for us.

Our loan officer Beth ran the numbers on us. We gave her a ton of financial info (all prettily organized in a folder... I am an accountant, after all) and she checked our credit. We were pleased to hear that we have "excellent" credit and qualified for their best rates. We should have no problem getting our desired loan amount approved. Official word can take up to 10 business days, but she was certain it wouldn't be a problem for us.

A co-worker of Steve's referred us to a Realtor. We are going to meet with her this Friday and hopefully look at a couple houses. If we find the right one, and all goes well, we might actually be homeowners! Steve and I have really wanted this for years, and we are beyond excited. Just so everyone reading this is warned, don't rain on the parade. We know houses are expensive, lots of work, etc. We are ready. We are extreme homebodies and it's time our hard work fixing things, organizing and working in the garden was on something that belongs to us.