Oh ya. I am totally trapped by him. There are days he interrupts what I’m doing and I fully fall under his spell. And then I have let him take over, which tanks me again for a while.
*sigh*
It all started today from going back and reading another post and discovering that a linked video had disappeared. The hunt was on to find the missing piece.
And one of the very first things I found was Michael.
Oh. My. Stars.
I had forgotten about him singing this one.
Wait. What? What am I talking about?
Not what. WHO.
Michael.
Michael Ball.
*le sigh*
If you don’t know who this is, let me hold up your rock so you can crawl out from under it. Don’t beat me for failing to educate you, because I’ll do a little to get started.
It’s not just that I’m a sucker for curly hair and dimples. Nope. It’s not just that.
I am very sure I was crushing hard before I even got a look at him. That was just frosting on the cake.
Have you heard him sing?
The man has serious {and I mean SERIOUS} pipes. *sigh*
See what I mean? *sigh* I’ve watched this one at least 5 times today.
And it’s not even one of my most favorites. They’re all my favorites, but there are some I especially ♥♥♥.
You may remember he was the original Marius in Les Miserable. I’m sorry, but no one compares to him. Except maybe Ramin. But I digress. I’ll get lost in Ramin later.
{If you’re a geek like me and totally get sucked into this stuff, here’s a good comparison of the various Mariuses:
See where I’m coming from? Good, but not quite the same…..}
So. Michael. Marius. Les Miserable. *sigh* {I’m sorry, but Nick Jonas as Marius in the last anniversary special was just, well, terrible. No offence to Nick, but music theatre is just not his forte.}
Obviously, he’s done all kinds of stuff, including another one of my favorites, Aspect of Love.
Even in this grim show, his dimples betray him. ♥♥♥
The kicker is that he followed with this role after his Olivier Award-winning spin as Edna in Hairspray, which I think is hilarious.
This year, Michael is again nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. And, while he continues to rock on with different roles and keep me trapped, I still have to say my favorite role was Marius. *sigh*
Well, I might as well move on with my day and try to enjoy escape to doing something productive. I’m pretty sure the kids are sick and tired of playing ‘name that tune’ with me.
This should probably go into the “Ooops, I did it again” invisible category. If you’ve been reading along, you’ll remember me mentioning the untimely demise of our beloved kitty that went missing and was finally discovered when her body started smelling.
When Yin’s brother, Yang, passed, we got Little Dog. This time, we got our Oreo.
And still, my middle daughter kept going on and on and on about wanting barn kitties. We kept trying to explain that barn kitties are not going to be very loving. {To be fair, her experience with barn kitties was out at my dear friend B’s house, and all of her barn kitties were snuggly even though there were technically feral…………}
We thought the puppy would be a lovely distraction. And it was, for about 2 minutes.
{Yep. You know where I’m going with this…….}
Thus, the hunt was on. We had the chance to get some sweet little boys, but Hunny deemed them too old and in need of too much medical to be around the kids and the horses.
A few days before Christmas, we went looking. While I think it’s generally a very good idea to not have animals available for purchase/adoption around the holidays- because, yes, they really do make terrible long-term gifts for unsuspecting folks- we, on the other hand, were looking high and low for kittens for our own daughter, knowing full well that it’s Mama driving them to the vet and going and getting food, etc, and ultimately, being responsible for the health and well-being of said creatures.
We totally struck out. I did, however, get information from a pet store on a rescue group that has periodic adoption events, and had some kitten available.
I worked on this thing for two weeks! First, we thought about a single kitty. “But, but but,” I protested, “kitties are better in pairs!”
Really. The only time we had a single kitty was when we went to animal control for a dog and I saw a cat that was an owner release and was slated for being put down the next day. She was fixed and declawed already………
We had her for several years as an indoor kitty, and she never did do well with kids. They really stressed her out. One day, she got out of the house somehow, and the mailman came to tell us she was laying in the road. BOOO!
{You already know this, but I’m going to tell you again anyhow- if you are in a populated area, the number one cause of death for cats is cars.}
It wasn’t too long after that we got Yin and Yang from the Human Society. Smart people, they are, to have the Humane Society right next to Animal Control…… there was a litter of kittens and a mama brought in; all of them sick. We waited a few weeks before they were both healthy enough to go home; Yang was touch-and-go several times in those two weeks. We loved him, and were really very upset when he got sick and succumbed to intestinal cancer 6 years later.
Yin was never really right after that, and she was pretty lonely for him once he had passed. Ironically, she loved living in the rv. She loved hopping from bunk to bunk, and there was always someone right there to walk on love her, even though we were always at home in the house. Go figure.
When she passed, we got Oreo, and were cat-free for the first time ever, really. There might have been a month or two 20 years ago when we didn’t have some kind of cat, but I can’t really remember actually not having a cat.
So, it was time. Even though we now had 3 dogs, 5 abandoned horses to feed and take care of, 1 rescued horse of our own, and chickens on the agenda, we thought, “What the heck. Why not?”
Initially, we were going to get the 1, as I mentioned, but my gentle reminder put us into the “2″ category. We were looking for a gray kitty and an orange kitty; both boys. When I saw the pictures, the two gray kitties were boys and the orange kitty was a girl. Awwwwwwww…………………………
If you’ve figured out the puzzle, yep, we’ve got 3 kitties. One orange, one gray, and one black. We got them during an adoption event at our local PetCo. These babies had been fostered, so we were able to meet their wonderful foster mama, who was very, very sad to see them leave.
Fostering is so, so important, as you can imagine. We can tell that they have been much loved, and have been completely socialized. They are a total riot!
I introduce to you The A Team- Apollo, Athena, and Ares.
At this point, the kids are not liking their names. I am, however, holding firm in my ode to Greek mythology. {We briefly thought about Edward, Jacob and Bella, but I thought we’d be better off to follow Yin and Yang with something more intellectually subtantial. } I am confident the nittens will grow into their names.
Because life is a soundtrack and I’ve had it stuck in my head {thanks to my kids singing it!} for the last two days, I bring you “Soft Kitty,” courtesy of The Big BangTheory’s crew’s Sheldon and Penny.
Or, if you have nothing better to do and want something worse stuck in your head, here you go. You can thank me later.
Do you believe in magic? I think I might……………………….
It was purely an accident, us becoming horse people. This wasn’t something we set out to do; yet here we are.
And we are loving it!
It didn’t take us long to figure out that horses are awesome. And then we started looking at our land and coming up with ideas. In a perfect world, everyone who wants to ride would have a horse. At some point, that means lots and lots of fencing redos.
In a perfect world, we’d get the surrounding land {and barns} and we would just have to deal with repair, instead of making new and also clearing some land to accommodate all the horses.
I’m not sure we’re living in a perfect world just yet, but we are still working on it.
The abandoned horses are doing well, all things considered. We’ve gotten halters on all 3 of them, including the two Saddlebreds. We’ve learned that Flicka has been ridden, which we assumed she had been, given her price tag. It’s just going to take a bit of time and effort to get her back to where she was years ago. When horses have been abandoned for so long, it takes a bit to get them trusting people again.
I’m thinking I might need a new category; you know, a “Ooops, I did it again” category. We seem to keep falling into those kinds of situations.
For example, we’re not really set up just yet for horses. You may have learned by now that some of the best things we end up with are not planned, and come on a totally different time-table than we had been thinking of.
Yep. You guessed it- we got a horse. Another horse. That actually belongs to us.
Just over a week ago, I got a phone call from our friend D. He knew of a horse that was being given back to the Diamonds in the Rough Equine Rescue group. The horse was *exactly* the kind we were looking for, and even better, the price tag was unbelievable. She was totally trained and vetted, with a clean bill of health. Did we want her?
I started emailing Hunny, and D sent me some pictures. !!!!!!!!!
By the end of the day, we had it worked out to go get her in Va early the next day. We loaded up the next morning, and off we went, in the rainy cold.
Several hours later, we were home, and getting Magic settled in. It was a rough start; she had been moved around several times in the previous days prior, and was a bit stressed out. We were counting on her being trained the way she was promoted, despite her having gotten loose and having a little bit of a challenge to get her trailered.
But she doesn’t live here yet, because I have a stallion in my front yard that needs to get dealt with so he’s not jumping fences trying to get nookie. Our fantastic friend down the road is letting us house our girl there until we get fencing and get the situation with Boi settled. He’s going to get sick of us, because we’re there twice a day now, for both feedings.
Yesterday, many of us went Magic riding. Well, sort of. We rode around while being tethered to the lunge line.
When you get a new horse and you don’t know much about them, you have to figure out their cues. Obviously, since we’re new to horses, we’re pretty much clueless. Thank goodness for our awesome neighbors!
Because she was a breed that D hadn’t dealt much with personally, he called his neighbor, T, to come on over. She helped figure out Magic’s cues, and we’ve come to the conclusion she was a show horse.
Several things lead us to this thinking. Her tail has a tendon cut so she’ll hold her tail higher, and she primarily uses finger cues for steering. In some ways, I’m glad we’re all “learning” on her!
Today we’re going to talk money. I never anticipated a need to share this information, but given the events of the last few days, here I am. You can thank me later.
Before we go any further, I need to let you know this: I’m not an accountant, nor do I play one on TV. Don’t use any of the information here as fact and then come back and try to sue me later. Do your own homework. Check with your own accountant/tax or retirement adviser.
You may have heard about 401K accounts. You may even have one. Or, rather, your employer may have a plan that you contribute to. And, you may have a situation where your employer has some kind of matching contributions into your account.
These are the primary things to know about a 401K:
• The government actually defines these programs- there are certain requirements and restrictions that apply for ALL accounts. For example, there is a maximum amount of money that can go into them in any calendar year. According to Wikipedia, the limit right now is $17,000.
•Your employer deposits your money into your account BEFORE taxes. And then it grows until you are 59 ½ tax free when you can start taking distribution from elected deferrals from it without penalty. We’ll talk about penalties later.
• There are ways to get to your 401K money while still with your employer, but you really don’t want to have to touch it unless you absolutely have to. {There are withdrawals that count as ‘hardship’ withdrawals, but the need must meet very stringent requirements.}
• If you leave a job, you have 60 days to deal with your 401K funds without penalty. Some people leave the money alone; many opt to rollover the funds into an IRA. We’ll talk about IRAs later, too.
• Yes, you can have a privately paid (non-employer) 401K type of plan; those are called Solo 401Ks. We’re not going to talk about those at all.
Because employers determine the particular {employee sponsored} plans within government guidelines, you may or may not have options available to you with regard to getting money out of your 401K.
For each plan, there may be provisions for hardship, but the requirements are very clear, and pretty stringent. Some plans don’t have any provisions, but if they do, they still have to meet government requirements.
Some plans also allow for loans from your account. Again, the particulars depend on the actual plan, but in general, here are some of the conditions:
• Can’t exceed 50% of the vested balance
• Must repay within 5 years
For plans that have matching employer contribution, because you are paying yourself back, the employer may opt out of giving a matching contribution. Over the long term, this could be a considerable chunk of change. I’ve seen plans that say employer contribution will kick back in after 6 months of a loan, so it’s important to talk to your plan adviser and have a thorough understanding of your options and the plan requirements.
Let’s say that you have taken a loan on your 401k. You’ve been paying it back, but now you find yourself not working for the company {and while it’s generally the same whether you’ve left on your own or were fired, you’ll want to ask your plan administrator this question before you take a loan}What happens next? What happens to the money you’ve borrowed and still have to pay back?
Most plans require re-payment of funds in full to be paid back within 30 days of termination of employment, or else it gets counted as an early distribution {withdrawal} and is then taxed through the nose. Not only are you charged a 10% early distribution tax, but you also have to pay taxes on the money as regular income, which can go up to 25%. Depending on the tax bracket you fall into, this means you’re looking at anywhere from a total tax of 20-35% tax on the amount taken.
Did you get that? If you take a 401K loan that is not paid back by the time you leave the job, you have 30 days to pay back the remaining funds. If you can’t pay back in full, they count it as an early distribution and you get an automatic 10% tax plus regular income (federal and state) taxes on the amount withdrawn.
The other aspect of this is that because those funds count as “income,” they may well push the rest of your income taxes into the next bracket, which can leave you with a tax bill when you file your annual income tax. This is why you really don’t want to take money out of 401K plans early. It really does defeat the purpose of having a pre-tax retirement fund.
We’ve known people who have taken small loans and seem to do this consistently. Not only does a person risk not getting matching employer contributions, but obviously, they don’t have the same amount of funds growing towards retirement.
Now, things can get interesting, as I’ve recently learned, if you leave a job. Only then do you have the option to “rollover” your 401K funds into another retirement account called an IRA. You can also leave it right where it is without penalty, but then you continue to be subject to the plan rules with regard to distribution of funds.
There are two different IRA choices; Traditional and Roth. A Traditional IRA has mandatory distribution of funds beginning at age 70 1/2; both plans have regulations for distributions and contributions and rollover eligibility.
One thing to know about both 401K and IRA accounts is that they don’t just have a lump sum in them. {I mean, I suppose you could put all your eggs in a single basket, but by-in-large, retirement accounts are “diversified”}. This means that the overall account is a collection of individual accounts, like stocks, bonds, and other investment accounts.
When you rollover your funds, it’s not just a quicky thing. EACH account {each stock, bond, etc} needs to get rolled over.
For each account within the IRA, you have a certain amount of shares. The cost of the shares combined with the number of shares determine how much you have in that particular account. If certain stocks aren’t performing well, they can get moved into another holding- this is why you want to work with an investment firm, unless you are a stock broker and know all the ins and outs of this stuff yourself.
If you’ve had funds in a company sponsored 401K, you’ve no doubt noticed that periodically, the investment firm the company uses will send you a notice telling you that certain holdings are going to be moved into other accounts, and you have to notify them within a certain amount of time to opt out of the change.
But enough of that- we can summarize and say that that these accounts have a lot of moving parts. You can usually set up and online account to monitor what’s going on.
So, you’ve left your job and you now have 60 days to roll everything over. When this happens, you have the opportunity to move all your money from one kind of retirement account (the 401K) to another kind of retirement account (an IRA) without paying taxes on the money. If you choose to roll over only a portion of the funds, the funds that are distributed to you are taxed at the regular income tax rate in addition to the additional 10% early distribution penalty rate if you’re under 55.
You may be wondering why, if you are taxed the same, would you want to bother rolling your funds over? The difference is what you can do with an IRA in comparison to your 401K plan. Of course, there are conditions, but if you contribute to an IRA, you may be able to take distribution so long as,
• “You did not take a deduction for the contribution.
• You withdraw any interest or other income earned on the contribution. You can take into account any loss on the contribution while it was in the IRA when calculating the amount that must be withdrawn. If there was a loss, the net income earned on the contribution may be a negative amount.” {http://www.irs.gov/publications/p590/ch01.html#en_US_2011_publink1000230701}
{Again, contact your plan, tax or retirement adviser- don’t take my word for it!}
So, now you’ve rolled over all your money into an IRA. You can keep the same individual stock/bond accounts and corresponding shares, but you are going to have a new type of account with a new account number, which contains the original moving parts. {I suppose you could change them into different investments pieces-parts, but you’d have to have the plan administrator work with you on that.}
Because your IRA is a new account, there is no quarterly statement; there is no monthly statement. IT IS A NEW ACCOUNT. And it will clearly state that that it’s a rollover.
You cannot get any kinds of funds, open an IRA and have it considered a rollover. You can’t, for example, borrow a ton of money, tell someone it’s a 401K account, and then roll them over into an IRA.
A rollover is a very specific kind of transaction; as determined by the government of the United States of America. Really. I am not making it up.
And honestly, you’d be stupid to open any kind of personal account, roll it over and pay penalties if you don’t roll the entire amount over. If you have the money in a savings account, you’d be better off to take it out tax-free instead of going through the government mumbo-jumbo.
Not just that, but it legally could not be CONSIDERED a rollover account. Legally {as determined, again, by the government}, it doesn’t work that way.
I spent the better part of a week trying to explain this to our mortgage lender. Apparently, the loan processor and the underwriter weren’t capable of adding up the rollover account funds to see that the balances were actually the same on those 22 pages. And then, they actually tried to tell me that they had no way of knowing where those rollover funds actually came from; that we hadn’t taken out some kind of loan {that they didn’t see on our credit report} to make it look like we had retirement funds and then as soon as we closed, we would take the give the money back to whomever we had gotten it from.
You know, not to mention you can’t do *anything* with a new IRA for at least 30 to 60 days. Or, not to mention if you did that, you would then be subject to the early distribution penalty of 10% plus taxes unless you meet certain conditions.
Ya. I honestly do not remember the last time I was that angry and frustrated. This process has been a nightmare. The required paperwork- despite getting it in writing- has kept changing from day to day, and it’s not what was required in the beginning.
I realize mortgage rules have changed drastically. I get it. But to basically accuse someone of lying and fabricating documentation of funds- even though they called the investment firm {and somehow came away with information that wasn’t actually something that could legally be done}- is not acceptable; especially when it concerns actual governmentally restricted programs that actually CAN’T be forged, fabricated, or artificially manufactured.
It took me telling him that if they weren’t able to understand and accept the legal documentation provided to them that he needed to tell me *today* so I could secure another lender. Enough is enough.
It also took me copying and pasting from the documentation I had sent him earlier to physically show him that he already had the required documentation.
Maybe I would have been more patient if this was the first time he decided he needed something more. We had gone around and around over my other mortgage information.
Apparently, seeing my actual mortgage statement/bill showing what amounts went where- to principal, to interest, and into escrow- wasn’t enough. It also wasn’t enough to show what amounts went out every month in other documentation.
Nope. It took me sending him *2 years* worth (including the schedule for 2013) of monthly statements of money going into escrow- and an explanation that there was physically nothing else I could send to him- that he finally relented. And that was after changing what he needed numerous other times, on other various pieces of documentation.
I’ve never felt, up to this point, that I was being set up to fail to get a mortgage. First he needed the offer letter- then, two weeks later he said he couldn’t use it because it wasn’t signed.
“Well, no, it wasn’t signed because he’s working there. What- you need me to print it out and have him sign it and fax it to you, even though you can see on his paycheck that he’s being paid according to what was offered?”
Then it was, no, we can’t use a partial check- it has to be a full month of checks, when before it was a ½ check combined with the offer letter were enough. Then it became, ok, we don’t need the ½ check; we have the one check with current employer {paying as documented in the offer letter}, but now we need the old paystubs from your previous employer.
Um, why? What’s the point? The only benefit to that, as I pointed out to him, was that they actually HAD the documentation to show funds being paid into the company sponsored 401K account. Gee, seems he forgot about that. Guess that really does show we didn’t crap out fake money for an account and try to bamboozle them into thinking we had retirement funds when we didn’t.
So, fine. He’s got all that now. I’m just waiting for him to send me something else telling what strange thing he needs now. But at the very least, he knows I have other lenders on backup and have no problem using them.
I’m a very patient person {hahahahaha, no really, when it comes to this kind of stuff, I understand there are a certain amount of hoops to jump through- and I always have all my ducks in a row- because it’s too important not to}. I understand logic and reason. I cannot understand sheer laziness and incompetence in being able to add numbers and being able to look at and use information provided to you.
I cannot understand the distrust of people who have all the required documentation, as dictated by the US government, but yet because you either can’t add or aren’t otherwise familiar with those retirement plans {And really? It’s not like they aren’t new concepts and haven’t been around for years and years} you basically accuse them of lying.
I understand the need for proof. But let me tell you- there are other people who actually do understand these programs who are thrilled to get my business. Trust me- you are not the only fish in the pond. You aren’t doing me a favor- you should be happy to be getting my business in this market.
And now that I’ve put you to sleep, I’ll let you get back to your regularly scheduled programming.
As for me, I’m hoping my blood pressure-induced headache will relent and that I have a tangle-free day. I am tired of fighting.
Because life is a soundtrack, I’m leaving you with yesterday’s theme song: Bang Your Head by Quiet Riot.
Another thing to know about me is that I have chronically itchy feet.
Yep. I do.
I am pretty sure in a former life I was a gypsy.
What a contradiction, eh? An introverted traveler.
Seriously, though, traveling is in my blood- so much so, that one of my more frequent dreams {besides running when I’ve been slacking; like now, for example } is driving. Usually in the dream, it’s highway driving. Before we moved, that highway driving was the single highway driving out north east; the route to anything northeast of here. That was the road “to the green,” as I fondly thought of it. And I was driving it in my dreams a few times a week.
It then, should come as no surprise that I’ve been known to drive around seemingly aimlessly; just for the point of driving. In reality, there has always been a method to my madness.
Before we moved, I spend serious time on the local roads, trying to find the right spot to build. We actually had found a 5 acre plot several years ago, that we had decided to build on until we tested the water. Yikes.
Having a whole-house RO (reverse osmosis) system was not what we wanted to do with a large chunk of the budget, because that was in addition to the other necessary water treatment processes. Replacing all the pipes in a few years due to the off-the-chart mineral content in the water –IF you could get water- wasn’t in the budget, either.
Nonetheless, I did what I could to obtain quotes. One of the only groups who did those kinds of things gave a cost somewhere around $40,000 {if I remember right} for the necessary systems, and then went on to seriously advise me against it. Turns out, the water in that rocky volcanic part of the country was very nearly untreatable if you had to get an Artesian well.
Now, there are some that may argue, but honestly, there is a REASON no one is building out there, AND there’s a real reason that the city hasn’t gotten permits to set more water meters. Basically, you are on your own and it’s a crap shoot. And YES, we had the water tested by a professional who just happens to be a good friend, {waving to J }
It was probably a given that we would have also had to have an Artesian well. Did I mention that one of the deepest Artesian wells in Roswell is a mile and a half deep? I doubt we would have had to go that deep, but it was still a crap shoot that we would even hit anything {despite the surveys being provided}. The combination was unfortunate, and we decided not to build.
You might be wondering why, if there is nothing out there in the desert and the water so bad on that side of town, why not build on the other side of town?
We had a few requirements. We didn’t want to see junk. If you’re anywhere out in the country, you no doubt know what I’m talking about {and this is no offense to those living in trailer homes! }. One of the biggest things when you buy and sell a home is location. You can change your house; your neighbors can change, but you cannot change your location. You also can’t change the people around you who are living on their country properties.
And- it’s important to protect the value of your investment, unless you plan on living out the rest of your days in the home, which we, of course, we were not {as in, first chance we had to get out of the desert, we would take- even though it didn’t come for 17 years }. So yes, we were {and are} picky about what kind of a view we have. It’s a priority that the surrounding homes are similar in structure so that appraisals come back right.
On the west side of town, the water wasn’t so much an issue, but there the issue was the ground. The ground was notorious for moving, based on the high clay content. When I say ‘moving,’ you can assume I mean ‘causing your home to crack terribly.’
I remember being freaked out when we first moved there, because all the houses had cracks- cracks in the walls, cracks in the ceilings. Every single house had cracks.
In fact, the one main pool installer’s company had said they would no longer put in any fiberglass pools on that side of town because they had a tendency to, um, lift and stuff, which meant they had a ton of warranty work to do. They weren’t also keen on doing gunite pools, but it was better than the alternative.
But I digress. The main point there is that the water was better on the west side of town, but the ground moved more. And after years {yes, literally years} of driving around and around the country roads, I pretty well knew them all inside and out.
Did I mention that they are mostly straight lines? When you are in the desert and don’t have things like trees and water to build around, it’s very easy to lay roads out on grids.
Yesterday, I decided to get familiar with my surroundings.
I don’t mind saying that I went out with the intent of getting lost and seeing where a few specific roads went.
I am here to say that my sense of direction is non-existent, even if the compass in my truck tells what direction I’m going in.
The roads out here are wind-y, y’all! They start out in one direction, and before you know it, you’ve gone all the other 3 directions and you haven’t seen a cross road! It is bizarre!
I started out my travels on a road that headed north. Somehow, it totally turned east and south and then I turned around, made the loop, and went right past where we started. I kid you not.
The ‘big thing’ of the day that I was looking for was the lake. When we were out at the house the second time, the lovely elderly neighbor man came to see what we were doing say hi. The realtor hadn’t gotten there yet, so we got to talking a bit.
Apparently, there is a lake out here somewhere that is private, but if you lived right around it in the area, you could join the private club. From the sounds of it, you could do a lifetime membership for cheap and because the original members were all near his age, it sounded like we’d pretty nearly have the place to ourselves. He didn’t draw a map, but he gave us directions.
Ya. Like I knew any of the road names by that point? We hadn’t even been here a week!
But, I was bound and determined to find it the day before yesterday. Off I went, with a full tank of gas and two little girls in the back seat.
I’m very glad to say I found the state park 13 miles away after close to an hour of driving.
I did, though, finally find the lake. At least I think it’s the one he was talking about.
It is fantastic!
There was even a little waterfall {didn’t get a picture}, and there was not just the lake, but also river access. I can see some kayaks in our future!
As I was making the pass numerous times, I noticed the bones in the road. I had never seen such a thing; a whole skeleton picked clean and lying in the middle of the road. Finally about the 5th time, I stopped and took pictures. Because the head was missing, I’m not really sure what this is.
Any guesses?
Sadly, by the time Hunny and I went back to the lake after work, someone had driven through them and smashed them all up. I’m glad I took a picture when I did.
Because life is a soundtrack, I bring you Roll The Bones, courtesy of Rush…………..
{Although, honestly, ‘bones in the road’ kept making me think of “Pants on the Ground” so you’ll have to suffer through that one too. My gift to you: }
You know how it is when you have a plan and you are determined to stick with it because you know you don’t have any other feasible option? And then something comes along and turns the whole thing on its ear and you end up doing something else entirely?
Ya. It’s like that.
When we got our second house in NM, we still had the one we had been living in for 7 years. Before we could put it on the market, we had to repaint inside and replace the carpet. None of that could even begin before we got moved out.
Moving took about 2 weeks, before I was able to get in to paint. Then it took about another several weeks before we could carpet. All told, it was about a month after we had moved out before we got it on the market. And then, it took another 45 days to sell; this in the midst of the inclining housing market.
Did I mention I very nearly went insane? Yep. For reals.
The baby at the time (#3) was 14 months old, and that was the last year the oldest went to school. He was in 1st grade. So I was driving back and forth to school 2 times a day in addition to having a baby and a toddler and trying to keep them entertained while I was painting and moving all the stuff I could move into the other house.
That wasn’t what was making me crazy. Nope.
What made me bonkers was the stress of having 2 houses and 2 house payments. I could see our financial future swirling down the drain.
I swore at the time- and for the subsequent 10 years- that I would never, ever, EVER do that again. Never, ever, ever, EVER again would I buy a new house without having the other one sold; I would never, ever, EVER again have 2 house payments.
Apparently, I lied. And I’m totally, completely nuts.
When we got here, I went and saw 5 houses I had seen online that seemed to meet our space requirements; had some acreage, and as best as I knew, would allow us to have chickens.
In that group of houses was a house that I had only seen online a few times. The few pictures I had seen left me really confused. And, it was a foreclosure, which I didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.
To get a feel for the market, though, I put it on my list of houses to look at initially. I’m pretty sure it was the last house we looked at that one day.
I remember saying out loud when I got into the master bedroom and saw the fireplace that we had a winner. I really was joking, of course, but told my realtor that the house went on the really short list. I mean, after all, it was missing a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and it needed *a ton* of work- work that we had decided we’d rather not have to do if we didn’t have to.
It didn’t have a garage, either, which was a major strike. I had 2 freezers, an extra fridge, and all of our tools in the garage. We really needed a garage, even if it wasn’t tall enough for Hunny’s truck to get inside. Otherwise, the space was good, but it wasn’t perfect.
The next few weeks brought a lot of other houses. I think I looked at somewhere around 20, which for this area, is not a huge amount, but one of the defining “must haves” was the ability to have chickens.
I’ll say, I was really surprised at the number of houses that had acreage but didn’t allow chickens. One house that really fit the bill only allowed a total of two pets- even though the current owners had 3. The other knock against a lot of the houses was location.
I’ve been spoiled for forever, because Hunny has been coming home for lunch nearly every day since we moved to NM. One of our ‘most desired’ wishes was that the new house be close enough to work that he could continue to do so, but we realized going in that this was going to be a very slim possibility.
Over the course of the last few weeks, I learned a few things. I learned that the bulk of the houses that we looked at all needed the same amount of work, yet cost around $100,000 more. I also learned that the market here, unlike where the other house is, is still moving quite nicely.
The other thing I learned was that interest rates had hit another, new low. It baffles me, honestly, that people are not jumping all over this, since the housing market in many locations has slowed, as I understand it, due to the impending presidential election.
This makes absolutely no sense to me. It won’t matter WHO is in the White House if your mortgage rate is locked in. Could jobs be lost? Sure. That possibility is not going to change from where it’s at now, imo, regardless of who is sitting in the big chair.
What *could* change, however, are mortgage rates. And it’s my supposition that with as low as they are now, they are most likely only going to go up. NOW is a fabulous time to buy a house and get locked into a stunningly low interest rate. Just sayin’.
You’ve probably figured out by now that we did actually do the thing we swore we’d not do.
The day I went in with the offer, I was having a hard time keeping my stomach contents in. Too much was unknown, but the only way to get actual numbers was to make an offer and see where things were going to land.
We’ve also figured out that long-term with 2 parents, 4 kids, 2 dogs and a cat in an RV really of any size leads to a whole other kind of stress.
The kids are crabby. The dogs are crabby {well, not little dog so much, but big dog has been going after her, and it really is a matter of time before little dog gets injured} There is a substantial increase in the cost of food for buying smaller amounts and not being able to shop sales, in addition a HUGE increase in gas when you have to drive 50 miles round trip every few days to get food. It became apparent that something needed to change, because this situation was absolutely not sustainable.
This basically left us with two options: either I would need to go back to NM and take a few kids with me, or we needed to buy something here.
The other end of this was the knowledge of knowing you’d found the right house, and knowing it would not be there come spring, because of the moving market. Surely, someone else would see the value and know they needed to snatch it up.
As scared as I/both of us was/were, I have maintained from the beginning that this whole thing has been divine providence- if the house was meant to be ours, it would be. It wouldn’t be, though, if we didn’t DO anything to make it happen, and we needed to seriously look at all of our options.
So. We’re closing on November 8.
Interestingly, I am not stressing over the financial end of this. We’re still hoping the NM house will sell soon, but the back-up plan is to rent, which we absolutely did not want to do. We have never aspired to be landlords, but with the property management group, it’s going to be better than if we had to deal with everything ourselves. If we get folks in for the short-term, we can get the house listed back on the market come spring, when things pick back up.
I had hoped to close a little sooner, but there is a load of stuff that needs to happen, like getting my move settled. I’ve also got to get the new carpet arranged, and get the floors refinished, if it’s in the budget. I have to get utilities arranged, and hopefully get better internet out there than we get here. {I’m not holding my breath, though}
Here’s the short list of why we love this house:
The space. The main house is 3603 sq ft and 3 stories. The top floor is the bonus room with attic that we’ll completely finish down the road. It actually has all the right spaces- 4 bedrooms, plus office, eat-in kitchen and dining room. It has a large living room, which we much prefer over a smaller ‘great room’ and formal living room. The office is actually an office space, which we love.
Fireplaces. It has 3 in the main house. 2 of them have gas inserts. I think we might leave the one in the dining room alone, but the one upstairs we’ll change back to wood-burning like the one in the living room.
It’s got gas for the cooktop. As I was looking, that was one thing that was next to impossible to find out here. All told, there were a total of 2 houses I looked at that had gas.
It’s got the floors that I absolutely adore.
The porch/balconies are awesome! We have our own door off the master bedroom.
Great storage space.
Property. Have I mentioned HOW MUCH I adore this location? ♥♥♥ We’re working on getting the surrounding acreage. It was chopped up when it went into foreclosure, and when/if the other acres get taken back by the bank, we’re going to snap them up. Both surrounding pastures are being leased, as we understand it, to someone who has horses. I love seeing the horses- I’ve seen 3, including a baby.
And then there’s Moo. Moo is the cow that lives across the street. The rest of the surrounding plots are active hay fields. You simply cannot beat the location and the view, imo.
It’s about 2.5 miles from the campground. That means it’s absolutely no problem for Hunny to come home for lunch.
And, one of the main selling points was the guest house. Yep. It has a whole second house. It needs some work {like getting rid of the acoustic ceiling, painting, and repairing the deck}, but getting a second 1,084 sq ft house wasn’t even on the radar, so it’s a huge bonus.
It has the same reclaimed floors {from some ‘historical’ building- probably a barn is what I’m thinking}; full kitchen, large master bedroom, etc. The walk-in closet in the little house is bigger than the one in the big house.
There’s also a loft for short people up top, and another fireplace that has been plumbed for gas. Apparently, the folks who built the big house lived in the little one while they were building. It has a fully functioning kitchen including a dishwasher {which needs to be replaced} and utility hook-ups,
Obviously, I could go on a good long while about this house. I’ll be sure to take before and after pictures, because this house needs a *ton* of work love.
But- and this goes without saying- I am ESPECIALLY excited to get in and get to work on getting more chickens. We’re going to try and get the bulk of the other stuff done first, so that may well put us at springtime for chicks, but that’s great motivation to get {and then stay!} crackin’.
For the first time in a really, really long time, I am looking forward to decorating for Christmas. I am looking forward to going all out and doing the big holiday meal for Thanksgiving, too. There is always plenty to give thanks for, but this year, we’re feeling especially blessed.
Here are some pictures to share my excitement.
Because life is a soundtrack, I leave you with Defying Gravity, from the Broadway show, Wicked. I quite feel like this at the moment.
I’ve totally got Tom Petty’s song running through my head. If you’ve been watching the news, you probably know why.
If you haven’t been paying attention, you have missed out on a record of epic {and I do mean EPIC} proportion that happened yesterday Sunday in my former home town.
I have to admit that this was probably one of the only times I wasn’t there that I kinda wished I would have been.
Why, you might ask? Yesterday Sunday was the day Felix fell from the sky and broke all kinds of records- records like:
• Largest manned balloon
• Highest ever manned balloon flight
• Only skydiver to ever break the sound barrier
Did you get that? HE. BROKE. THE. SOUND. BARRIER.
As in, Mach 1.24 with his body, in the sky.
And not just the sky. He was literally IN the stratosphere,
24 miles up- on the very precipice of outer space – and then he jumped.
On his way down, he hit speeds of 833.9 miles per hour.
And he lived to tell the tale.
WOW.
Interestingly, this record was set 65 years to the day that Chuck Yeager first broken the sound barrier. But, it wasn’t planned; this particular date.
Nope. Last week, he had two delays. One was wind and a combination of other factors, as I heard from friends on the ground; factors like some people who were supposed to document it weren’t there or something along those lines.
The past week has been filled with friends posting pictures of themselves with Felix around town. And this is why for the first time in recent memory, I was actually wishing I was in my desert of 17 years, Roswell, NM.
I would have like to have watched that. Schools had been set up live for the kids to watch, but alas, the jump happened on Sunday.
You may be wondering, why Roswell? You might be surprised to learn that in addition to yuccas and mesquite, Roswell actually has one of the longest runways in the world, and the second largest {commercial} runway in the US. It was known, too, that it was a suitable {although not preferred, obviously} landing site for the space shuttle. So, Roswell made a good launch site for not just the final jump, but also for the other test jumps.
This doesn’t translate to passenger flights, though. But if you fly over, you’ll see a ton of planes on the ground. Not only is a giant parking lot for planes, but it’s also a graveyard for them, too. They land and then get parted out and taken apart. Pretty interesting stuff, really.
I am hoping that maybe, just maybe, in addition to the annual Alien Festival resulting from “the crash” on July 3, 1947, Roswell will also be remembered as the site of “when the guy fell from outer space.”
Felix. Amazing, amazing {and maybe slightly insane } man and an event to remember.
That’s what I keep thinking. Yesterday, I was pretty much hating things.
Today? Not so much. Not everything sucks.
I’m consciously making a point to remind myself of specific things to be grateful for.
Let’s see….. you know about the awning crashing down on us in the wee hours of the morning. It took me long enough {and really, this was because I needed some time to fortify myself for bad news}, but I finally got off my rear and called insurance.
I was very pleasantly surprised. Because of our ‘vanishing deductible’ and lack of claims, it’s going to be 100% replaced with $0 out-of-pocket. Yay!
I have heard horror stories about Progressive insurance, but let me say this: I have *never* had an issue with them. We’ve had a total of 3 claims in the last 11 years we’ve been insured with them. 2 have been RV claims; the other for my truck when we had a major storm blow through.
They had their CAT adjuster come out, and within something like a week, we had a check in hand for damage on the trailer. The truck they arranged for and we paid our deductible and that was that. These claims were *considerably* easier to deal with than with the home owner’s insurance to replace the roof. {That was the year where most everyone in town got a new roof- really!}
So, that’s a good thing. The lady I talked to said it would take about 2 weeks. They’ll order the parts, drop-ship them here, and then send out a mobile unit so we don’t even have to pack up and take it to them. In my opinion, you can’t ask for better service!
And, each time I talked to someone, the first thing they asked was “Is everyone ok? Did anyone get injured?” And- it was like they really actually were interested in the answer, and then relieved when I told them we were all inside sleeping and were ok.
So, that was good. I spent the bulk of last week on the phone and computer gathering information. That work, combined with the rain, meant no running at all, which never helps my mood. You don’t know how dependant you are on those good endorphins until you don’t get them for a while.
A cold front blew in yesterday. {I’ve heard there is snow in Denver already!} It’s deliciously nippy, and I can’t wait to get out and run. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rain will hold off long enough for me to get some kind of run in. If not, I need to head back into town for- you guessed it- milk. *sigh* I have to go regardless, but I was hoping to postpone that until this afternoon.
Another thing to figure out is Halloween. The little girls want to go trick-or-treating, but not only do I not know where to take them, the thought of buying costumes and then having to store them afterwards is slightly irritating.
We brought our fiberoptic witch, but alas, I have no idea where to put her. Nonetheless, she needs to come out and spread some cheer. I need a plug, though, and those are scarce. I figure, if we have camped during Christmas and had a lighted tree, I should be able to accommodate a witch.
Anyhow. That’s my ramble for this morning.
Because life is a soundtrack, and honestly, I’m tired of it being stuck in my head, I’d like to share with you a classic we’re probably all always tired of hearing: Tomorrow, courtesy of the show Annie.
If that’s not your cup of tea, listen to this version, as done on Korea’s Got Talent.
Last week, I managed to get tv. We have long been Dish Network customers {like, over 10 years}, but, of course, didn’t bring any of the stuff with us. Several years ago, we went looking at satellite options for the RV, and basically struck out unless we wanted to go with Direct TV, which we absolutely did not.
As it turns out, about a year and a half ago, Dish Network came out with the Tailgater; a portable satellite dish designed for easy transport. Originally, I thought we’d have to pay the retail price, which I wasn’t necessarily happy with, but it’s something we would continue to use when we went camping down the road; plus, at this point, with no tv options at all and living in the rv, any bit of creature comfort has got to help.
Incredibly, the big cities here didn’t have one. Nope, they didn’t. And I was shocked. I was not of a mind to drive an hour one way to get to Raleigh to get one. Fortunately, the people Dish Network sent me to in Roanoke Rapids actually had one- as in, a single unit. AND- they got me the receiver for free. I, apparently, was eligible for an upgrade.
Little did I know, however, that getting one meant signing another 2 year contract. *sigh* Oh well. We’ve been happy with DN all these years, and we didn’t see anything changing once we got here. I figure it was worth the trade-off.
We have some more fiddling to do with it, but after climbing and putting it on the roof to grab a signal, we were still not able to, so the cable is strung across the road. I just hope no one steals it. Yikes.
5 am Saturday morning, amidst the continued downpour, Murphy came to pay us a visit.
If you’re an RVer, you know how to angle your awning so the water drains off and doesn’t collect. Well, apparently that wasn’t enough of an angle for the kind of rain we had gotten overnight. Yep. You can see where I’m going with this.
Our awning came crashing down. *sigh* It’s like, close to $1,000 to replace. *sigh*
I know this, of course, because when the spring went out on our trip to Oklahoma{the one where we lost the tires and had the blowout on the way home}, we got home and priced it out to replace the hardware. And, because the underside of the awning was stained from campfire smoke, we thought, why not check and see what it would cost to replace the whole thing.
Needless to say, the sticker shocked us right out of that thinking. Now, however, we’ve got no choice. *sigh*
So my tasks this morning are to call insurance and see if that’s covered.
I’d like to run if the rain will hold off.
And I need to get back to Wally world this afternoon. On the list also, in addition to finding shoes that we didn’t get to last week, are ear plugs. Seems oldest dd has an ear infection, which she has gotten from swimming. It’s been really only the last year or so that she’s had continued issues with her ears after swimming, so it’s time.
I also need to write down ingredients to see what I can find for treating it homeopathically {don’t laugh, but now is the time I’m wishing I had some breast milk…… you probably think it’s really gross, but I’ll tell you from experience that it DOES work, because it’s teeming with live antibodies that help all kinds of stuff- works on pink eye, too, and is used for cancer treatment…………
but I digress. } to help knock it. I have never gone looking for tea tree oil, but I know I can find some olive oil; maybe some garlic oil. If nothing else, I am sure we’ll be vampire-free for a while.
Now’s the time I am wishing I would have had the space to pack my family herbal book. *sigh*
I will say it feels like a time warp ala Murphy. I am working on options, but honestly, I’m feeling a lot discouraged. I knew going in this was going to be difficult. I just didn’t figure on getting no respite from it. I was hoping new patterns would be established; new habits would take root. And I can say that we’re not there yet.
I can look at the situation logically and know it could be worse; we are blessed to be able to have the option of me and the kids even being here; most of the stress is material, etc etc; we are blessed to have opportunity. I can also look at this and realize the things I did to fill my tank are sorely leaving a gaping hole, and I may really need to seriously think about taking that on sooner than later.
So. We’ll see what this week has in store for us.
And, because life is a soundtrack and it’s Halloween month and I really need a good giggle this morning, I leave you with Time Warp {dance} from the Rocky Horror Picture Show
{I actually wrote this yesterday, but couldn’t get enough of a connection to post it…….}
Here I am again. I had planned to take the day off, but while signing in to like another blog I read, it dumped me into my dashboard. *sigh* I think it has the most issue with sites that have their own url.
Let’s see……. where were we……………. Yesterday I didn’t make it to town. Hunny now doesn’t want the boots because he doesn’t think we have space. I had gotten a shoe tote for outside, which I reminded him. I’m not sure he’s entirely convinced. I think I’ll hold off on that for a few more days.
It’s going to be a busy weekend. He’s got a closet repair to make, which, in theory, will give us more critical space for the kids’ stuff. And we need to take a look at more permanent storage solutions and see what we can do to additionally utilize the little bit of space we do have left. I may be using the back of my truck for storage, and then just emptying things out when we go shopping in the big town.
And, we need to get things more settled for our little satellite tv thingy. He needs a gizmo for the widget so we don’t have to drag it across the street to get a good signal. More on that later. {I had to drive to get it; nearly to Virginia. Had it been a little earlier in the day and a little more time to map it, I would have driven across the border just so we could say we’ve been there. My one sister had taught school in a town in Va that is, according to my parents, about 30 minutes from us.}
Anyhow. Today looks like more laundry, a run, and a trip into the little town to get something for dinner. I am totally not loving the limited food space. I’m thinking of doing a smaller Sam’s run and then just packing smaller portions and freezing the meats for individual smaller meals. It’s a totally different way of thinking, particularly since the oven in RVs is generally wee tiny, which means a likelihood of doing things in smaller batches. I suppose the kids could eat earlier………
{Because life is a soundtrack,} I leave you with Bryan Adams singing {yep, you guessed it } Here I Am.
BOOO!
} I am confident the nittens will grow into their names.
I also learned that the market here, unlike where the other house is, is still moving quite nicely.
