Fun and Frolic With Long-Term Love

[Hannahfluke]

AHHHHHH!

Got an email today that we are conditionally approved and OUT of underwriting. Holy crap that was fast. Conditional means that we have to provide additional documentation, but as soon as they get it, they'll check the box that it was received and we are DONE.

I am freaking over how fast that happened. I guess they don't have a lot of loan apps to look over this time of the year!

That said, fuckin A! The paperwork they want is a mile long. I can get it all, but it is a pain in the ass.

Ahem:

1 form attached to the approval email, that DarkKnight had to sign and date, explaining why there was an inquiry on his credit report back in August. (COMPLETED)

1 form attached to approval email, that PunkRock had to sign and date, giving them permission to verify his employment. He's not on the loan, but since he shares a checking account with DarkKnight, they need to verify that the money in the shared account doesn't come from drug deals or illegal arms sales. (COMPLETED)

November and December Paypal statements, to source the deposit amounts transferred into the joint account. I printed the November statement, but the December one won't generate until January, so I supplied a screenshot. More than likely, this will hold us up temporarily, because I know they want the statement. (COMPLETED PROVISIONALLY)

A notarized letter signed by me, saying that I am currently not employed outside of the home and I am not seeking employment. I type this up and printed it, and will go to the bank to get it notarized tomorrow.

A listing sourcing every single deposit made into the joint account since November 10. Fuck y'all. I knocked this shit outta the park. I was really tempted to label transfers with stuff like, "PunkRock wanted tacos, so he transferred funds to cover his portion when I paid cash." I was a good girl though and kept it all official. (COMPLETED)

Statement saying that DarkKnight has full access to all funds in our joint account, signed by PunkRock and I (COMPLETED)

Copy of DarkKnight's retirement account statement for December. This won't generate until January, so we are on hold with this til then.

Copy of the home education counseling certificate. This doesn't exist yet, as we take the class January 5. We will have the certificate January 6.

They want DarkKnight to sign a notarized letter saying our daughter is 18 and out of the house. Er, this isn't the case. So I emailed our contact back and let him know that, and asked what he'd like instead.

Contact info for our hazard agent. I didn't know we had one or needed one and I don't know what it is. So I guess I will find one tomorrow!

Documentation on our daughter's adoption subsidy. This exists someplace in my files. I will go digging tomorrow.

Hopefully I will get all this nailed down tomorrow, other than the paperwork that is non-existent until January. Tonight was busy!

The hazard insurance should be whomever you have rental insurance with to cover the loss of your items if something happens to the rental house. I'd suppose that they want proof that you carry that type of insurance as a way of telling whether you will carry home owners insurance or try to get out of it. That's my guess anyway.

 

[Bluebird]

That was actually my guess as well - our insurance agent is out of the office until Tuesday, so that one is on hold as well. I think the underwriter wants a copy of the insurance binder for the new place, not our current renter's insurance info. So I will have to set that up on Tuesday.

Feeling weird today. I've put my hands on all the paperwork that I can do today, so that is a good thing. I haven't heard back from the underwriter, but I sent an email to our loan officer. The underwriter is in Baltimore, so I am thinking it is best to drop off all this paperwork with the loan officer here in town. Hopefully she responds soon.

I am kinda bummed because one of the things the underwriter requested was our adoption subsidy paperwork. I found it immediately - it was located right where it should be in a closed file, meaning a file box that I never have to access since it is nothing new or currently active. Anyway, I read through the document, and oh, it makes me so sad to read about how my youngest was described back in 2008 when we first met her! She is NOT that child, and she wasn't even then, actually. However, she does still have all of those labels, and it is such a sad thing to know that all of these scars she will carry forward with her in life, independent of anything her father and I have done for her. It is the same with my older two kiddos who I adopted - love doesn't heal everything and this fact is heart wrenching.

Crazy thing is that there are two ways to qualify for an adoption subsidy - or there was back in New York, almost a decade ago. One was being an older child over the age of 10 and has a sibling in the system. My daughter had 4 siblings in the system, so she would have been a shoo in this way. However, she qualified the other way - by being a "handicapped child" with serious intellectual incapacity or brain damage.

This makes me nuts. She had an IQ - at that time - of 70. Anyone that has met my daughter would laugh heartily at that. She does have some cognitive delays and brain damage, but that sort of thing manifests itself in her short term and long term memory. Not in her everyday living. She presents and IS a normal almost-19 year old girl. The main reason her IQ always tested so low is because she was TERRIFIED during the process and couldn't read anything above a first grade level or do any math other than simple addition. Her education had been delayed so significantly for her age that trying to get useful information was impossible. Like, she was 10 and didn't know the names of shapes. Literally could not point out a square or a circle.

I mean, that worked out well for us in terms of subsidy, but it sucks ass that she was in the position where that was the issue for her. But, it led to me becoming a stay at home mom and a homeschool mom. So it worked out in the long run. Holy fuck does it hurt to read about her issues again though. It's been a while since I pulled out the initial paperwork. She was also diagnosed with PTSD and ADHD, disrupted attachment and oppositional behavior. Ugh. Fuck her birth parents. Seriously.

 

[Bluebird]

So I got all the paperwork that I could completed and handed over to the loan officer today. We updated one form so my daughter is now listed as part of the household, and DarkKnight had to sign off on a financial piece of info, but those were both quick to do.

Right now the only stuff we have left to provide are things we have to wait on - my December PayPal statement, the Homebuyer education certificate (which we will have next Friday) and our home owner's insurance binder. That last one we should have next week as well, as I did contact our agent today, but she's unavailable until next Tuesday. It's all good. The loan officer said everything looks great.

I also ran over to the title company office today, to drop off paperwork regarding the surveying stuff that will be getting done. There was a typo with DarkKnight's middle initial, so they fixed that on the spot.

I have been feeling totally down since this morning, and when PunKRock got home at 2:30 all I wanted to do is curl up on him, on the couch. He was off to play Infinity at 4 pm though, so instead I started packing up all of my serving plates and dishes that are currently housed in the dining room. I grew tired of that after 4 or so boxes so now I am on the couch waiting for DarkKnight to finish making dinner.

I have decided I will be selling my dining room table with 6 chairs and my antique server. Neither will fit the aesthetic of the new house and even if they did, they are the wrong size altogether for the spaces. I seriously want to cry over the server - I love it so very much. But, well, the new kitchen has space for all the dishes and none of the rooms will fit the server. Hopefully I can get them sold and free up some cash to buy the new table and chairs for the eat-in kitchen. That's what I hope to do with the money on those two pieces. I would give them to my daughter but they are likely too large for her first apartment, so off they will go soon.

I am torn about waiting to sell everything in one big sale or to piece stuff out as we go along. Honestly, I think I am going to start listing stuff now if I can find some time. I don't want to end up giving this stuff away because I can't sell it on a particular weekend in March before moving!

 

[Bluebird]

I really need to start a spreadsheet that lists all the expenses for the first 6 months of renovation in the new house. There's going to be a huge outlay in the first two months, but then of course there are more plans in the pipeline. I did put together a list that shows every piece of work and how long it will take to complete, but now I need to parce out the individual costs.

Example: On the very first day we're buying and installing a new chimney cap ($200 because it's a double flue), all new locksets for the exterior doors ($200? I haven't actually priced these yet), and we'll order our the dumpster rental (?? No idea because we are trying to decide between the largest Bagster or the smallest metal dumpster). We'll have the electrician come in that first few days to install the wired smoke alarms and put in the new outlet behind the stove (we're switching from electric to gas) and hire the plumber to remove the gas line to the fireplace and run a new one to kitchen for the stove. So yeah, there's at least $1000 and we've just barely started. I need to make sure I keep a sharp eye on the budget! Of course the basement egress window is a cool $4000. So now we are up to $5000 and we haven't purchased any appliances for the kitchen yet! We need the new stove ($700), a refrigerator ($1100), dishwasher ($400) and a washer and dryer ($900). $3100 for all of those, so now we are up to $8100. And we haven't actually done any renovating yet.

I know we need to buy a chop saw and a table saw and a thing called a ramjet gun. And someplace I have a listing of all the number of sheets of drywall and 2x4s we need to do the basement. And gallons of paint for the entire house. And wood for the cat highways. Drylocking the basement walls...yeah I am going to put the breaks on this line of thinking for the moment, but this afternoon I might just whip together the spreadsheet finally. We are probably looking at $15000 or so. None of this will go on a credit card. I fucking refuse. But our closing is set for January 30 and I am running out of time to prepare for this! Me fucking over our budget with that stupid date mistake is going to hurt.

Sigh.

Okay, well it is New Year's Eve! We haven't made any crazy plans but this morning DarkKnight and I are going to go out for breakfast. Waffle House maybe? And then I need to go to a fabric store to get some rug binding - you know, the long strips that hold a rug together on the bottom, The small wool area rug in our dining room has these coming off, and since I want to sell it soon, it needs to be in good shape. The strips should only cost $4 or so, and it'll take a short bit of my time to hot glue them on. I have heard they have iron-on ones, but we shall see. Anyway, a trip to Jo-Ann's and possibly Walmart. We are thinking about doing wings for dinner, but at the present time I only have one pack with like 10 wings. So if we are deciding on that, I need to pick up some more. I think last year we just ordered in - maybe we will just do that!

Tonight we are going to play Betrayal at House on the Hill, as we haven't had a chance to break out the new Widow's Walk expansion set yet. And DarkKnight just got me the new character card holders, so I am excited to test those out. That's all the plans we've actually made! I don't want to go out this year because of the budget situation and it just feels so frivolous when we have so much to plan for with the new house!

 

[Bluebird]

Before I forget, I wanted to mention that yesterday Facebook gave me a reminder that PunKRock and I had been friends there for 3 years! That made me squeee so hard! He friended me the evening I met him. I had gone to the game store to meet up with C3 and play a board game - which coincidentally was Betrayal at House on the Hill! - and PunKRock was there, in a suit. He caught my eye because guys just don't wear suits in game stores! Lol Anyway, this reminder from Facebook made me so happy and brought all those great memories to the forefront! PunkRock and I spent a few minutes last night before bed, being all lovey-dovey and talking about the beginning of our relationship.

It doesn't seem like 3 years. It seems like forever ago. We've always been together, right? Now I am feeling all happy and squee remembering how happy and squee I was last night. Lol

Ok, I am off to shower and get my day moving. Breakfast time with DarkKnight!

 

[IndieSolo]

Oh, a kitchen in your basement! The former owners must be Italian, LOL. They do come in handy for cooking big meals, and storage if there's a pantry and big freezer. But if the kitchen upstairs has enough room and you're not going to make humongous meals, it makes sense to rip it out. I have to admit I kind of like the retro basement cabinets, you could probably sell them.

 

[Bluebird]

You think so? I thought they were ugly and prolly wouldn't sell. I am all for carefully removing them and listing them, if I could find a buyer, that's for sure. I am all for making money. But yeah, we don't need a second kitchen and will use the square footage for living space.

That said, Happy New year's everyone! We ordered in Ledo's pizza and wings last night, and I loved playing Betrayal with my guys. I ended up as the traitor - I was bitten and turned into a werewolf and had to hunt down everyone else. I changed PunkRock and then accidentally killed DarkKnight by biting too hard. Oops! Anyway, I won.

The rest of the evening I packed up the rest of my China cabinet and loved on the kitty cats until midnight.

Today I got an email early on and ended up heading out with DarkKnight to sell these two big floor vases that sit in my living room. They are full of long tall dried grasses that the cats love to attack and chew on. They won't match my new decor, so I listed them last night on a Facebook sale site. This morning I collected $50. Pretty sweet.

DarkKnight, PunkRock, my daughter and I went to Chambersburg in PA a little before noon for a fundraising dinner for DarkKnight's second cousin who has bone cancer. I think I have posted about her previously. They had ham & green beans, pork & sauerkraut with mashed potatoes, a roll and cake for $10 a plate. Yum! DarkKnight's aunt was there and she gave me a hug and I was pretty surprised because she was one of the people who froze me out this past summer at the family reunion. I am sure that she could have been performing for the huge room of strangers, but I would like to think she has decided to not be so judgemental. I guess time will tell.

After the eating, DarkKnight went off to go see his mom and her new husband - they stopped by during our wild NYE party last night. lol Apparently they need assistance with their computers, so away he went to help them out. He will be home by 3:30 though, because he has D&D at 4 pm and my daughter needs to keep the car so she can work tonight. PunkRock dropped me off at home a short while ago, and then he left to go meet up with a friend in Urbana. He will be home later and he promises to bring dinner for the both of us, since we will be home alone together tonight.

Oh! More house stuff - a close friend's husband contacted me today because I had posted on Facebook about my New Year's resolutions being to learn to crochet and to learn to use a miter saw, and he wanted to help with the latter. He has a shit ton of wood working tools and has only been doing things by hand lately so he is looking to sell at super cheap prices. I sent the list to PunkRock and had some discussion with him and DarkKnight, and we are going to buy a bunch of his things on Thursday afternoon. We're getting the chop saw with a stand, a table saw with a stand, the auto nailer ramjet gun thingy, and a brad nailer with two batteries and a charger for $400. The brad nailer is brand new, the chop saw has been used like 4 times and all the blades are like new and there are extras too. I am excited!

 

[Bluebird]

DarkKnight has today off, so we were supposed to be sleeping in together. I woke up at 7:30 though, as the two FeLV kittens that are in his room are crazy in the mornings! Now I am downstairs, writing a to-do list today.

I started back with MyFitnessPal yesterday, but I am not dieting really. I am just trying to be more mindful of what I am eating and to try and make better choices. This morning I had a cup of Activia blueberry yogurt, which is pretty much my favorite yogurt in the history of ever. DarkKnight and I joined up with our city's 100 miles in 100 days program but that doesn't start til mid January. The thought of it just exhausts me. PunkRock says he will do it with us too, so I hope having the two of them in it will help motivate me to move.

That said, DarkKnight will be out of town on business starting next Sunday, for an entire week. If I had delayed the start of my Biology class I could have gone with him, but oh well. I am starting to feel low-level anxiety leading up to him leaving, but so far I am keeping it in check.

Oh shit, y'all. I have to share! A friend of ours called me yesterday and my daughter and I went to his house STAT. He had found a stray kitten. After talking with him, there is apparently a cat colony living behind his house. I counted 12 cats while I was there. Sigh. We took the kitten home and it is now living in our master bathroom. It is jet black with yellow eyes. My daughter said we shouldn't name it so we decided on V. He who shall not be named - Voldemort - V. Later we found out it was a girl, and V works. We are full as a foster home so she will be going to the shelter on Tuesday, but as the place is closed today we are keeping her shut up in the bathroom. Not that it is a problem - she's about 6-8 weeks old and sick. She's probably never been this well fed or warm in her life! She's spent most of the time curled in the cat bed, sleeping. Poor thing. She definitely has worms and her nose and eyes are running. Hopefully tomorrow we will get her on some medicine and into a good foster situation.

Today I am planning on setting everything up for my first Biology class, which is tomorrow at 1 pm. I am excited that I am only teaching one session, so Tuesdays will be my only blocked off day. Today I need to locate the lab sheets and get those all printed out for the kids, and finally pack up my Chemistry cabinet and fill that with the Biology stuff. I will have to go shopping for gloves and plastic tablecloths. I am not sure if I need new scalpel blades or not, so that is also something for me to inventory. Our first 3 labs involve the microscopes though, so that isn't a huge priority.

 

[Bluebird]

Today I need to take the stray kitten into the shelter, which opens at 10 am. I know they will get her the meds she needs. Yesterday she was much more active and feeling better - you could really tell. She began using the litter box, and I am SO FREAKING GLAD about that! She also has become very lovey-dovey and just purrs like crazy whenever someone is in the bathroom with her. I feel bad we can't foster her, but there really is no room and I have no time to focus on her. So, off to the shelter at 10, and I hope she gets a foster placement right away!

I just looked and it is raining outside. I much prefer the rain to snow!

We got a couple of house related messages yesterday - our closing is now scheduled for the morning of January 26, pending approval of the sellers. They are apparently in Florida until like January 23! Also, the painting is supposed to be completed this week and they are scheduling a time next week for the appraiser to come out and sign off on the work.

This morning I am up and about and I need to really get things prepped for my Biology class. I did get my cabinet sorted, and I had to order some new disposable scalpels yesterday. I also went to Sam's club and bought a pack of 400 size medium disposable gloves. I have a few large pairs left from the last time I taught a class that needed hand protection, and I believe there are some smalls in my upstairs bathroom, since I wear those when I color my hair.

I am still not good to go yet on class this afternoon - the lab sheets need to be printed, and I need to review the material. That latter part won't take any time at all. I mean, this is the first session. "Characteristics of Life and Cells." I could probably teach that with no prep. lol I do need to set up the microscopes though, and make sure that they are in good working order. There is no reason to think that they aren't, though.

My nephew who is graduating from high school in June just won a $48000 scholarship to a private college. My sister was bragging like crazy - as she should - but when I talked to my nephew, he isn't thrilled about the place. He is a huge drama kid and this school doesn't have that sort of program. He said he'd probably major in human services if he went there. I told him not to go. Neither he nor my sister had looked into the college any further, but it was $15,000 a year room and board, and the tuition was $35,000 a year. I'm like, a $12,000 a year scholarship isn't even covering a fraction of things, and if you take out $120,000 in loans to become a social worker, I will kick your ass. My sister was irritated that I pointed out how this was not a good idea. I didn't do that part on Facebook, but over Messenger. I mean, definitely be proud, but have some fucking sense! My nephew is getting zero in state or federal grants, and my sister has saved up zero funds to assist him. Yeah, this should be a solid pass. That said, I hope the other schools he has applied to - state schools with solid drama programs - are as generous, because then he will have nothing to worry about. He lives in NY. It's just sad to see my sister being all proud and everyone telling my nephew congrats and no one explaining that there is no way in hell he can actually afford to take this scholarship and attend this place.

DarkKnight & I had a long date day yesterday, and we ran errands together and went to a thrift store. He needed to buy some new pants for his work trip next week. He went up a size. He's not happy about that, but he's now working on going back the other way. Our day together was nice though! We went to dinner at Boston Market, and then went and saw the movie Loving. It was part of the Film League that PunkRock and I joined, but PunkRock had to work until 9 pm last night, so he couldn't attend. Usually there are about 40 people at film league, but this time the theater was SOLD OUT. Crazy! It was a one night only showing of this first run movie, so that is very different from the older and foreign and arty films they normally show.

DarkKnight and I both loved the movie. I would highly recommend it. It really got me thinking about how these political organizations choose families to represent a cause. They showed the lawyers discussing how yeah, they wanted a supreme court case, and it wasn't completely altruistic - they wanted to spotlight on them. I remember reading a while back about how Rosa Parks wasn't the first person to refuse to move on a bus, and how she was chosen by "the powers that be" to become a rallying cry, because the first chick who did it had a past and they didn't want that sullying the movement. I wonder how many other interracial families were experiencing the same issues as the Lovings, and how many had their cases ignored because they didn't fit "the profile" or whatever.

It also made me feel like maybe we personally aren't doing enough for the poly movement. We've turned down video and print news, and last year we told Dr. Phil nope. That said, I don't think my V is exactly what anybody would look at and say, wow! They are perfect for this! So I guess it isn't something to worry about. I like to think that we are doing our part - whatever that means - by living life authentically and openly, the best we can. That said, I am very sad that I can't legally be married to PunkRock, and I wish we could fix that somehow.

 

[breathemusic]

I'm finally catching up on blogs and just wanted to make a quick comment that even if you don't want to put your expenses on credit cards, I highly suggest that you charge them and then just pay the balance immediately. No point in passing up on all the cash-back points since that is basically free money!!

 

[Bluebird]

I honestly didn't think about that. PunkRock closed all his cards before I met him because he was unemployed for a span of time, and I currently don't have any either. I lost all of mine and my good credit in my divorce. I am going to start rebuilding my credit in June - the last of my judgments back in NY will be off my credit report then. My foreclosure is already off, but I just don't have the time to mess with the rest. I will take a look at DarkKnight's credit cards and see where they would best be used! It's just been so long since I paid attention to points - all last year I was worried about balances and utilization and keeping his reports solid and clean. Right now he only uses one regularly to pay for his myfico credit monitor every month ($15? I think) and his subscription to lootcrate ($20). As soon as the bill hits, he pays off and just revolves a $2 balance. It was a huge part of his credit score being so great - nothing maxed or even used. We have no car payment, and his student loans got paid IN FULL finally, last summer. So his credit is beautiful at the moment.

But yeah, once we get the mortgage done, the utilization hit won't matter, and then we could pay it off. Whoo hoo! Actually, I had planned to look into getting him a new credit card from either Home Depot or Lowes - if they have a points program, because we will be spending so much there really soon. I am going to have to look into that. Something else to put on my plate this week.

Thanks for the reminder about that!

I ran out of time today and never got a chance to call about the house insurance. So that is all me, first thing tomorrow. I got a call from the loan underwriter in the middle of Biology class this afternoon, asking me PunkRock's birthdate. I guess they did his verification of employment today!

I took V to the shelter and everyone was excited to see her. Apparently they have zero kittens right now. So they are going to get her healthier and bigger and then she will be available for adoption (of course after shots and spaying). My friend called and we talked some more, and this evening I went to his house with DarkKnight to drop off two traps. We are going to work together to knock out the cat colony behind his house. We've got to catch at least 12 cats. Tomorrow the shelter doesn't open until 1 pm though, so that sort of sucks. I am going over to check the traps at like noon prolly, and hopefully we will have caught two. Then after taking those kitties to the shelter, PunkRock needs one of the traps at his work - they've tapped him as cat wrangler, as they have several strays living in the garden department. The only difference is though, is that they want the strays back! He's got to catch them to get them fixed, and then they'll come back to live their lives there. They keep the place free of mice! However, they are generating a ton of kittens and that needs to be stopped. So yeah, he'll get one of the traps but I will take the other back and hang out for a bit to see if I can catch another cat in time to take in at least 3 tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed!

 

[breathemusic]

Check the rewards for any of those stores vs the standard cash-back rewards on a regular CC. Lots of times the store rewards are worse, or at best equal to the reward level on a regular CC, so it might not actually be worth getting a store card. Citi has the 2% cash back card if you qualify (sounds like DK has a great score and probably would) and that's a really good card that I use for basically everything just to build up the rewards. I had a different citi card and called them and they just switched my same account over to the different rewards program, so it didn't show up as cancelling and re-opening a new account on my credit report. The other thing that you can do is just as for a credit limit increase. That would allow more of the purchases to be put on a card without messing up your credit utilization (though I believe utilization is based on the balance when the statement comes out, so even if you max out a card, if you make a payment immediately so that the balance is low when the statement is generated, I don't believe it dings your credit). Of course, all of those things still require discipline and you shouldn't charge it if you're not going to pay the full balance off at the end of the month.

If you really wanted to spread expenses out over more months you can also opt to sign up for a card that is offering a 0% interest for a year or whatever. But again, that requires careful planning because if you don't pay off that whole balance by the end of the 0% period, you get hit for the interest (sometimes on the full amount). So it's doable, but requires that careful planning.

I definitely suggest that all of you have a credit card. Even if you don't carry it with you and you just keep it tucked in a drawer and just charge something tiny like Netflix, or just 1 random purchase every so often... the longer you have an existing account open, the better it is for your credit. So it's better to have it and not use it, or barely use it, than not have it at all!

 

[Bluebird]

Yeah, PunkRock never paid attention to his credit and now I will have to spend some time fixing his. He let a couple charge off and closed some himself, I think: Maryland has a very short SOL which he is right on the verge of being out of, so as soon as that happens and he is no longer in danger being sued, I will start credit repair for him.

I wish I had some older accounts, but most have fallen off since more than a decade has passed since my ex and I split. He was supposed to cover the credit card balances in the divorce decree but he didn't. It was a huge mess and issue and the aftermath has been ugly. Thankfully that is all over with now and my student loans still look pretty good on there. I will prolly get added as an authorized user on DarkKnight's, if any of them report, to reap the benefits of that.

Believe me, I want to maximize our credit matrix and all have cards and good scores! Just got to work on it in a few months when I have the time. I don't dare add any new cards for DarkKnight until after the house settlement!

That said, I got a confirmation call today on tomorrow's home buyer class so we are are set there. I spent the morning talking to our insurance agent, and our regular insurance company won't insure the new house! We worked it out but it took a couple of phone calls. It's a problem that we are doing renovations for 2 months prior to moving in. We had to go with a different company who will provide coverage while the house is not being used as a residence. It cost $100 more on the annual premium, but most of that will be refunded when we cancel it and switch back to a regular home owner's policy. I guess it makes sense but it was a small hassle.

 

[Bluebird]

So our first day of trapping cats was a complete bust. It was way too windy out, I think. When we went to check the traps in the morning, there weren't even any cats out and about, and during the second visit we only saw 4. I just made the last trip and no cats to be seen again. I think if I were a cat on a day like today, I'd be hiding and snuggling with my friends under the shed too! We will try again tomorrow.

I am going to gather some more stuff to post and sell on the local facebook sale sites the rest of this afternoon. DarkKnight is working later tonight and PunkRock won't be home til 9:30 pm or so.

Tomorrow we get to visit the new house again for more measurements, so I am excited about that. I need to make a list to make sure we get EVERYTHING we need this time through!

 

[silencebreaking]

Regarding changing the locks on the new house, depending on the type of locks that are currently on the house you may not have to spend a bunch of money to replace them. I didn't realize that when I bought my house, but my locks are Kwikset SmartKeys. You can buy a kit at Lowe's or Home Depot or any of those stores that sells that brand, and you can rekey the lock for less than $20. I was able to change all of the locks in my house once I knew that. But unfortunately, I didn't know that when I bought the house. So I spent $263 on a locksmith to use a $15 tool on my house. You just have to have the key that it is currently keyed to work with, and one that you would like it to be keyed to match, plus the tool and you can rekey anything. You can even rekey the house to use the same key as what you currently use for where you live now (my house is keyed the same as my parents, so I have one less key to keep track of).

 

[Bluebird]

Cool beans! We were actually over at the new house about an hour or so ago, and PunkRock said more or less the same thing, after looking at everything.

So, we caught a single cat in the trap over at my friend's house today. It was a gray male. He bit the guy emptying the trap at the shelter, got loose in their clinic, and then had to be netted. Not my fault! lol To put it mildly, he was most definitely feral.

After I returned home from that crazy morning, I sat down to eat lunch, and in my email was another long list of paperwork the underwriter has come back with, requesting. I seriously wanted to cry. Especially since some of it was kinda obscure. I buckled down and started churning out paperwork, and after a series of 8 or so emails and a few phone calls, I am getting it done. I had to make a trip to the loan officer's place of business, and I am about to go make another one. Crazypants. I am not in the mood for this right now!

We had an okay visit at the house. The painting was supposedly all done, but I swear it was definitely NOT a professional job. Globs and streaks EVERYWHERE. It was seriously shitty. It'll pass, but damn. That said, half the places were not yet done, so I am not sure what is up with that. The realtor sent over a message to the seller's agent - with photos - to tell them they need to fix this shit ASAP. I am glad we planned this visit, because if not we would have paid to have the appraiser come out and then got screwed when the house didn't pass. So, that is now being handled.

Anyway, we measured a whole bunch more of the house, and we are changing up plans with the fireplace. PunkRock wants us to get an estimate on rebricking the entire thing up to the ceiling, just to see what it would be, because otherwise we will be paying to frame out the entire wall. He thinks it might be about the same, and if it is, we might as well pay somebody to do it. So, that will go on the list but I don't have to deal with it until after settlement. Sigh.

I am going to talk to our contractor again soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Tonight is the homebuyer education class. DarkKnight and I have to be there at 6 pm. PunkRock is taking the two FeLV kittens to the cat clinic at 5 pm for their last distemper shot.

My day has been busy!

 

[Bluebird]

The Homebuyer education class was very helpful - to some people. DarkKnight and I were not those people! Lol First, there was a 15 minute videotape from the 80s about why buying a house is a great idea. Then there was a loan officer who spoke for 45 minutes - he had lots of information about credit reports and how best to improve credit. He was just under a shade of being smarmy. A lot of people in the class had questions for him, but really, I knew every single thing he talked about and well, we already have a loan officer, so i didn't need his business card!

Next up was an older guy, who apparently was a real estate professional and his own broker. He handed out business cards and talked about how to read listings and how to find a house. The last speaker was a home inspector who said he wasn't used to speaking to groups, and we all definitely believed him! Lol Again, I think this would have been great at the beginning of the process but right now it was just kinda boring.

Yeah, 3 hours and we learned nothing. This morning we went to the one hour individual session, and that was marginally better. I guess it is normally used to go over credit and to fill out a mock loan application, but since we have a closing date that would be pretty stupid. So instead the lady had us make a budget and since I do that every month I was kinda meh about it. She told us we spend a lot on groceries and way too much on eating out. Nothing we don't already know! Lol That said, we did learn some stuff about security deposits in the state of Maryland, and apparently we should be getting $240 worth of interest back, as well as our $3200 rental deposit. I am not holding my breath about that, but I do say that I better at least get $2700 back or I will flip out legally. The only damage I can think of being called out for is that my daughter's carpet is torn up in the doorway from when she used to lock her cat out and he went nuts on it. If they want to charge us for the replacement of that, ok. Other than that, this house is in good condition. Anyway, the lady told us in Maryland, that you can sue for return of security and if they are found to be improperly withholding, then they have to pay it back triple. Holy crap, right?

Anyway, that was the only new information we got from this program. We qualified for the $5000 first time Homebuyer thingy and our certificate is now in the hands of the underwriter. Apparently there is another program where if you buy within our city's limits, you get an additional $6000, but we don't qualify for that as it is income based and we make way too much money for that. We almost didn't qualify for the $5000, but that is for "moderate" income families ($126,000 max for a family of 4) and we make just a smudge below the limit on that. So it's all good.

This morning I got all the new paperwork that was requested turned in, so I think we are done with the conditions we had to clear, EXCEPT I still don't have my PayPal December statement because it hasn't been generated yet.

 

[Bluebird]

Today is a good day. Still bitter cold out, but I'm inside now where it is warm.

I woke up when PunkRock left for work at 4 am, but fell back asleep at 5, and then DarkKnight woke me up at 8 am. Since he is leaving for New York tomorrow, he had to go pick up his rental car and my daughter transported him over for that, as she needed to fill my gas tank. It's been a couple of weeks, and since she drives more than me, she chips in. Anyway, DarkKnight is all set now. I miss him already, but so far the anxiety is at a low level.

It's my oldest daughter's birthday today! She is 26. That is so hard to believe! Wow. We are sending all of her birthday presents to her with DarkKnight; he is going to take her out to dinner on Monday. Tomorrow he is actually going to go spend time with my mom! Crazy. Her birthday is later this month, so he is taking some KFC over to her, and a card. She probably needs help with her ipad too. lol

Earlier today, DarkKnight and I were out to lunch and we went to both Sam's Club and Martin's for groceries. I think we are all set now at the house for a little bit!

Right now I am waiting for PunkRock to arrive home from work. We need to go pick up the woodworking stuff - we are buying a chop saw & stand, a table saw & stand, a ramjet gun and a finishing nailer. Then we need to get back home, because his friend from work is coming over - this is the guy we had over previously to play Zombicide. He is a big gaming guy too, so he is going to join us as we start playing Pandemic Legacy. I am so fucking excited about this - I can't even express it. It's a long term RPG tabletop where we try to save the world from different diseases. I am bouncing up and down, and seriously can't wait to play! DarkKnight and I played regular Pandemic a couple of days ago to get back into the swing of things and it was just as fun as always.

We are planning to get pizza and wings for dinner tonight since this guy will be here. Should be a blast, for real. He is going to bring another game or two along, since it's going to be an all-day/night thing. Well, not super late night, actually he has to work Sunday morning at like 4 am, so we will prolly be wrapped up by 8 pm. But 2:30 pm to 8 pm is a good amount of time for games!

 

[Bluebird]

Pandemic Legacy yesterday was complete awesomesauce. The differences between the regular Pandemic game and this were amazing. Not too different, but the changes made the gameplay fun, exciting and well worth the money my daughters spent to get me this for Christmas! DarkKnight, PunkRock and Punkrock's friend from work all played with me - the plan is to get together every Saturday to do another run. The game is laid out so every time you play, it's a different month of the year, and the board is altered each time you play - those changes carry over.

We lost the "early January" game, so we have to replay that scenario again next, but it's now called "late January." The objective stays the same, but now that we've lost, the "government" has given our team more funding (helper cards) and we earned two upgrades to help us succeed next time. We are all really stoked and confident that we will win this next time! You can only play each month two times, so if we lose, we will have to move forward with early February regardless! The way the game works is that when you finish with December, you can never play again, because the board is all marked up. Already we have several stickers and various writings on character cards and the board, and we have torn one objective card in half! Yikes!

We were also supposed to name all 4 diseases, and we've had some discussions. The main contenders right now are: Shame, Religion, Apathy, Kittens, the Borg, Tribbles, the Internet, and the Phantom Menace. We'll have an official discussion on Saturday.

DarkKnight left today and he made it to New York just fine in his rental car. He is actually over visiting my mom at the moment. He was going to bring her dinner. Tomorrow night he is taking my oldest daughter out and giving her all of her birthday presents. I am envious. I wish I could hug my family!

Right now my son is here doing laundry. My youngest daughter is at work with my car, and PunkRock is off playing Infinity at the game store with a friend. I am more glad than ever that I never gave in to the pressure to start that game up - I am always happy that PunkRock has a tabletop option that has nothing to do with me!

Today I started off the morning with some sexy times with DarkKnight, since he was leaving for the week. Then I had some breakfast and around 10 I went and woke up PunkRock and we had sex as well. I am well-fucked today! Anyway, aftter showering, PunkRock and I went to lunch at Ruby Tuesday, and then he was off to play his game. I spent about an hour in DarkKnight's bedroom, playing with our two FeLV kittens, Conlan and Fergus. They were so excited to have me in there, and they gave me the most betrayed look when I finally left!

I packed a couple of boxes in the dining room today but I wanted to have a really low key, boring, do-nothing day. So I stopped that after a while and spent time looking at ideas and stuff for the new house on Pinterest. A friend of mine in WV had posted on Facebook that her sister and BIL were moving and needed more kitchen cabinets, so I offered them the basement kitchen from our new house. Apparently, it matches exactly to the existing stuff they have and they are ecstatic about it, and willing to come do the demo and transport them away. Uh, ok!

 

[Bluebird]

Home improvement blog break!

So yeah, today I have spent some time on Pinterest, working out more ideas about my kitchen/dining area in the new house.

Here is the current state of affairs there:

My plans are as follows:

* All new slate-colored appliances
* All new cabinet hardware - switching to silver-tone door pulls and hinges.
* New light fixtures. The one on the dining room side will be a "Sputnik" style, over the new table with Eames chairs. I have done some local and Amazon searching and found some good buys, and I managed to find some sturdy chairs that are rated at about 400 pounds a piece, so no worries about the size of my guys (none of them weigh that much!)

*All of the window trim, baseboards and doors and molding are going to be painted white.
*The soffits are going to be painted, and they will gain some trim at the ceiling. Not full on crown molding, but something that will frame them out and look a billion times better than that stupid swag stencil!
*We are removing the door leading into the kitchen from the hallway. It's weird as hell that it exists! The door that leads to the sunporch will get a cat door on the bottom.
*The walls will all be painted, but the dining room wall with the table will get a neat graphic treatment, similar to this, but with the green that matches the cabinets

That will be it for the first two months, prior to us moving in. Later in the Spring, prolly May, we will get a new floor in there. Long term, I want to replace the wall with the window and door to be a solid floor-to-ceiling window. When we get the backyard done the way we'd like, it would be nice to sit at the table and look out at it. That won't happen this year though. Maybe next summer? I have decided not to do any long term project planning until we are moved in, as then I can decide which things are more of a priority!

Editing to add that the kitchen sink is getting a new faucet too, and PunkRock has to fix the garbage disposal and the plumbing underneath is the wrong type of trap. I forget which kind we need, but what is there now won't fly.