Land of the Free Home of the Brave

My husband is a Memphis Police Officer.  He used to work downtown (Entertainment District Unit), but was appointed to teach at the Police Academy about 2 years ago.  He no longer has to wear his bullet proof vest everyday.  He no long has to work the night shift (7pm to 3am).  He no longer has to control crowds of thousands of partying/unruly people.  He no longer has beer bottles thrown at him or get in fights nightly.  He no longer has to worry about people with HIV/AIDS, knives or guns.  However the rest of the MPD officers have to.

Last night around 7pm EDU officers were dispatched to shots fired inside a local hotel.  The officers searched for the shooter but the shooter found them first.  The shooter fired a round that struck the officer in the head.  The officer was immediately transported to a local hospital, where he later died.  I my heart goes out to the family of the fallen officer and at the same time I selfishly thank God that it wasn't my husband.

We are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave because of our Military, Police & First Responders.  I hope we all can remember that daily and not just once or twice a year.

RIP Officer Timothy Warren

@ Noble 

Home sweet home?

Let me start off by saying it's all HGTV's fault.  Every time I watch one of their shows I end up on realtor.com looking at houses and every day I'm more and more sure that we are ready for a house.  I had been bugging the hubs for quite some time to just drive around and look for houses with me, finally he gave in and off we went.  I had my eye on house in particular and we were approaching the drive I was getting excited but then my dreams were crushed when the For Sale sign was replaced by a big fat red SOLD sign (ouch, dagger straight to the heart, internet you lied to me!).  So from there we just drove around and we came across this house and I was in love.  (side note: I grew up surrounded by 40 acres of woods and want a house out in the country!)

This house come with 5 acres of woods and lost of bonuses 

I saw the trees, the front porch, 2 stories and I was sold... then I googled it and saw the price tag of OMG almost a half a million dollars!!!  Sadly a police officer doesn't get paid good enough to live in the "dream home". 

So our search continued.  I thought Chaz was just driving in the most obscure places to piss me off.  We kept coming across houses like these:  

really? 

It was 800sqft our apt. is 1200!

Ok, Now I know I sound like a brat but our apartment is newer construction and I'm used to certain things, like central air condition, no bars on the windows or doors, no drug raids going on next door.  I really don't ask for that much.  Then after we got out of the ghetto (thats the funny thing about memphis, you will be driving around seeing half million dollar homes and then a block later you are in the slums, no joke), we followed the signs to a neighborhood that was mostly all new construction.  I perked up and felt safe enough to unlocked the doors and then I saw my dream home.  

Yup that's my SVU in the drive and it looks good! 

It's a simple 3 bedroom 2 bath home.  It has a great kitchen, living space, bonus room upstairs, 2 car garage.  The master bath has a jetted whirlpool soaking tub that is huge, double vanities, separate shower and large walk in closet!  I'm totally in love... now only if we knew how to buy a house. Chaz and I have ZERO debt, so to choose to go into debt for 30 years freaks me out, ALOT!!  Also, I have no clue as to what I'm doing.  I got online and googled "how to buy our pretty dream home" there were many helpful website but I'm afraid we aren't going to get a pre-approval for a mortgage in time and this gem is going to be sold and we will never find a house as perfect as this one.  The realtor said the builder was very motivated to sell (which translates to me OMG HURRY UP, cuz it's going to be gone soon!!).  I just want to send an email to the builder and let him know it's our dream home and for him to wait for us to figure out how in the hell to get a mortgage so we can buy his pretty home.  Think that will work?  Do any of you have any tips on how to buy a house?  How to find a mortgage?  How to re-build a broke heart if this house gets sold to somebody rather than us?  

@ Noble