Hunting for dignity

I go to the gym four to five days a week. It's a nice gym where each cardio machine has its own little TV screen and cable hook-up so for my 15-minute warm-up, I usually turn to HGTV because it can be a delightful train wreck that does not entail me having to use my brain in any way plus I always leave my Kindle at home. (No one needs to see the trash that is the entire 'Sookie Stackhouse' series that I have loaded on there. Also, Eric is an ass. Anyway.) Because I'm on an alternate work schedule, my lunch break generally happens between 1 and 2 pm so not only is the gym empty but for the older set, the best shows are on. And by the best shows, I mean of course, "House Hunters."

If you've lived anywhere but under a rock for the past ten years, you know what House Hunters is about but just in case, a quick recap: clients search for the 'perfect' house, choosing between three possibilities, one of which is always WAAAAAAY over budget. Oddly enough, it's actually compelling viewing...but not for the houses. For the people. Why the people? Think of all that you hate about humanity and wrap it up in 30 minutes. That just about covers it.

What do they want? Well, open floor plan for 'entertaining.' Literally, that is on every. single. wish list. And a gourmet kitchen. And a huge bedroom. And an office. Oh, a backyard would be great. Naturally, a large master bathroom with soaking tub, perfect paint and tile, hardwood floors, double vanities, tons of storage space, in a great location with amazing views and a fantastic school system...all for around $250,000. I so very much want whatever it is that they are smoking...and so do their real estate agents.

Last week I did an extended cardio session so I got to view two (!) episodes. There has never been a more wretched hive of entitlement and delusion. The first couple was in Baltimore (holla! Wait, does anyone say that anymore? Curses, my lack of coolness is showing.) With a $250K budget (check), they wanted, well, everything. The guy was obsessed with what other people would think of their house, the woman wanted uniformity. Seriously, he wanted an amazing space and his own 'man cave' and pitched a hissy fit over anything that wasn't 'impressive' enough. He was clearly still working through some high school issues. She just wanted everything to look the same but with character. Oh, and a master oasis. Their agent looked like he wanted to drop-kick them into the Inner Harbor. I was definitely Team Agent. I wonder if they ever went through with the wedding as they weren't even on the same genre, let alone the same page.

The second episode featured two newlywed twentysomethings from Naples, Florida who had been living with his parents, doing the golf-course dream. He was a physical therapist for a retirement community, she was the jewelry manager for a department store so naturally they wanted to buy in Naples, live on a golf course, have a pool and a golf cart, huge house, gourmet kitchen blah blah blah all for $290K. I really thought that their agent was going to shake them both senseless. Thank goodness my time was up before they made it through the second house so I have no idea which one they chose. Nor do I actually care.

I tweeted about it and it turns out that the production company actually coaches the people to act like entitled assholes, for drama or something. Listen guys, looking for a house is hard enough without being portrayed as a wildly out of touch brat on national TV. Anything for their 30 minutes of fame I guess.

Though, if I'm being honest, I wouldn't turn down a gourmet kitchen. Hey, HGTV, call me!

Once more into the breach

Back in November, Dyl and decided that we should probably start being grown-ups and maybe look into refinancing the house as our mortgage is absolutely killing us. (Knowing that we were paying a ridiculously inflated rate on our property tax also didn't help matters. Good thing we just got the new property value: $45,000 less than before. Yay?) So I did probably one of the dumbest things you could do: I picked up an envelope from the mail pile dining room table, opened the offer, read it and decided to call. (Yo! Print marketing! I'm your gal; call me). The lucky recipient of my tentative steps? Quicken Loans.

Now actually, they have been very great to work with - it's all online with some phone calls; they set up a personal website for you, it's very easy to upload documents and the initial interview was very pleasant. Notice before when I said we started this in November? Yeah, still not even close to closing and our rate lock expires at the beginning of February. And it is a very nice rate lock, 1.75 percentage points below our current rate which would bring our payments back to the land of reality from their extended vacation on WTF Island. The issue now? The supporting documentation. Lots and lots and lots of it. And re-faxing the same documents 3 times (I sweartagawd that if they tell me I have to send this one thing in again, I will fly to Michigan myself to administer the beat down.)  Complicating the process is that we've gone somehow from rolling the closing costs into the loan (as I had been able to do previously to get out of an ARM that had me quite worried) into needing to have cash on hand. A lot of it. Right after the holidays. Did I say fuck? I meant  FUCK. Also: headdesk.

So we called in favors, played the lottery, sacrificed a live chicken and our part of the bargain is done. And now? We wait. To hopefully get to close before the rate lock expires thereby making me snap and CUT A BITCH.

The ironic thing? The current holder of our mortgage sent us a nice official letter offering us the chance to refinance due to our outstanding payment history (read: being effin' gouged) and their partnership with another lender will make this all possible. That lender? Quicken Loans.

And that was the point that Dylan had to go running in search of the straitjacket and xanax.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time

I've learned some hard truths about myself recently. Mostly that I talk a big game but when push comes to shove, I will park my butt on the couch after putting the kids to bed to read or play Words With Friends or text with my sister or anything but trying to get a handle on the chaos of the house. That's why it surprised the hell out of me when my best friend was able to successfully browbeat/cajole/trick into participating in a giant local consignment sale with her. Her reasoning? "Well, you have so much stuff and you could make so much money!" And if I'm being honest, it's a hard battle cry to ignore.

So now the basement is in even greater disarray due to the emptying of boxes and wardrobes in the search to determine what will stay and what will go. Most. Most of it will go because I'm now in drooling lust with the thought of Getting It Out.

And it's been relatively easy; the system is completely computerized though I did have to go in search of white card stock that is not carried at Wal-Mart BTW and purchase a crap-ton of kids hangers which I didn't need as I was able to successfully cannibalize enough from the kids' closets and safety pins. I have almost 500 safety pins now which seems to be a bit of overkill. I'm also pretty sure that they won't work on Pinterest. After entering your items into the system, you print tags which you then have to cut and apply to everything you will attempt to sell. But you also have to punch holes in the tags to pin/tape/tie to the item which also requires a hole puncher so this little exercise is starting to add up in cost. But everything is added; all that remains is the matching up of each damnable tag with it's item then figuring out the best way to attach it. Which needs to be done by Wednesday since that is when my drop-off appointment is so can you guess when this has to be worked on? You got it. At night. After the kids are in bed.

And we've come full circle. Headdesk.

Never underestimate the power of nuns in large groups. And Mad Libs.

My sister and her husband are in the process of selling their house.  They have a lovely townhouse in the very desirable area of Columbia and have put a lot of work into updating it since they bought it six years ago-ish.  They replaced the kitchen, the roof, fenced in the backyard, repainted, updated the bathroom...you name it, they've done it.  But after an extremely low-ball of an offer the first day on the market, they've gotten nary a bite so they are understandably stressed out what with twin toddler boys and a spark plug of an English bulldog to keep the house show-ready and a settlement date on their new house at the end of July.

This past weekend we took a day trip to Pittsburgh to celebrate my great aunt's 99th birthday. In the car was my mom, my dad, my sister Cath and me. It's a four hour drive from central Maryland and we had the required entertainment: snacks, cell phone with chargers (thanks Cath!) and...Mad Libs. Halfway up I-76, I pulled out the Mad Libs, princess edition natch, and away we went. Within minutes, we were in hysterics, adding such gems as the band 'Drunk (adjective) Lynn (person in room) and the Spacesuits (plural noun) and the main selling point of the castle the stained-glass pubic hairs (body part). That last one? All my mom.  Cath and I kept it clean as I debated 'douchebags' for a plural noun and 'skanky' for an adjective but no, she went there. It helped to pass the time and before we knew it, we arrived at the convent.

Oh, did I mention that my great aunt is a nun? Yeah, Aunt Sis is a Sister of Mercy and lives at the convent adjacent to/part of Calloway (?) University. The party was held in a room off the cafeteria and was dry as we apparently did not choose the party date to coincide with the two times a year they are allowed wine. But we persevered. My mom's sister Aunt Jean and their cousins Becky and Berta organized the party. As usual, we arrived way ahead of time to help set up/prep/decorate for the party. And yes, Cath and I knew what we were getting into; we're not 4/5 of the Feakes Family Caterers for nothing. During the set up, Cath received a call from her realtor wanting to show their house that afternoon at 4:15. Hoping to God that Mike, my BIL, had the house is semi-respectable order, Cath gave the go-ahead and proceeded to flip out about that for the next four hours.

She got a hold of Mike and let him know to keep away from the house a little while longer. The story of the showing/difficulty selling quickly spread around the room and before long, the party started. The nuns arrived in force and the cause was taken up amid much well-wishing to the birthday girl and fond reminiscence. Two hours later, we were cleaning up and in the car on the way back home. Cath tried not to get her hopes up about the showing. After two weeks, interest had pretty much dried up when she got a call. The realtor had an offer to present to her and would they be available that evening? Her prayers and the prayers of the Sisters of Mercy had worked their magic and they might be able move onto the next chapter of their lives.

The moral? It helps having an express line to the big guy upstairs and never hurts to keep an unfortunately named fictional party band in your corner.

Home improvement in 4 easy steps....

The ghettofication of our bathroom continues!  While turning on the shower last week, something inside the handle snapped.  Because of course it did.  Which meant that turning the water on or off was...difficult.  Unfortunately, we couldn't ignore this one the way we did the kitchen fauct for 4 months.  So after working for 4 hours on Sunday morning (!), off to Home Depot I went with printouts of replacement shower/tub faucets in hand.  After wandering around the store trying to find said faucets (seriously, where the eff are they?), a kindly employee took pity on my smelly, sleep-deprived self (4 am comes awfully early in the morning) and led me to the promised land.  Not of faucets but of REPLACEMENT HANDLES!  Oh happy day!  I could just replace the HANDLE and not the whole contraption.  This was sounding better and better all the while.  No special tools, plumbing equipment, sealers/caulkers, etc. needed.  All the repair required was a screwdriver. WHICH I OWN.  I can DO this.  Watch out Ty Pennington, it is ON.
The 'So Easy a Mommy of Two Can Do It' instructions:
Step 1 - using a flat blade (such as a screwdrive), remove the cap of the handle
Step 2 - unscrew the screw from the handle and remove the rest of the unit
Step 3 - replace with new handle unit, screw into place
Step 4 - replace cap
Step 5 - done!

See, verra easy, only...not.  What actually happened:
Step 1 - removed cap.  It just pops off!  Awesome!
Step 2 - crap, it needs a phillips head, okay, fine. (trudges downstairs to get it).  Okay, now we are ready.  Insert business end of screwdriver, turn and....nothing.  Hm, okay, looks like it's slipping a little.  Try some more force.  And....nothing.  Uh, is the hole getting bigger?  No, just my imagination.  Okay, more force and leverage....nope, still not - wait, it's turning.  It's turning!  With more force and wrist action and yeah, now we're turning...but why is the screw not coming out?  And why is the screw head hole getting more round and less '+-y'?  And why is the water turning on...oh crap!  Forgot to turn off the water first. (Note to all home improvement peoples out there:  when working with plumbing TURN OFF THE WATER.) Run backdownstairs, turn off water to ENTIRE house, back upstairs, back to work with FORCE and LEVERAGE.  Which isn't doing anything except 1) turning the entire apparatus and 2) completely destroying the '+'.  What the hell is this screw made of?  Cotton candy?  *Grits teeth* Why. Won't. You. LOOSEN?  Screwdriver is now COMPLETELY USELESS as the screw head now resembles a BELLY BUTTON.  To hell with this, let's break out the big guns.  C'mere my little adjustable wrench.  Just grab hold like a good little tool and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU WON'T WORK?  FINE. I'LL GO BACK TO MY FAVORITE FIX-IT DEVICE: needle-nosed pliers (hey, worked for the kitchen faucet....). Go find needle nose pliers.  Keep in mind that THIS whole part of the adventure has taken about 15 minutes now.  And counting.  Grab the rusty pliers (see:  kitchen faucet) and try to force open.  Since it won't.  (see:  rust).  Okay, now we are ready.  Grab hold of that screw head and turn and...the whole thing continues to turn.  Repeatedly.  Adjust position.  Nothing.  Adjust grip. Nothing.  Climb INTO bathtub to get a better angle.  Nothing.  At this point it's a matter of pride. 

While this is going on, Dyl is trying to get Noah down for a nap (so not happening) and Noelle is running around being...3.  She keeps coming into the bathroom "What you doing Mommy?"  "Why you in bathtub?"  Mommy, meanwhile is trying very hard not to start yelling at the handle with words not meant for little ears.  I'm tired, I'm hungry, I desperately need to pump because boobs = full.  And the stupid screw will not loosen.  At this point I'm kneeling in the bathtub, tearing up in frustration and begging the screw to loosen.  Which always works, right?  It doesn't?  Well, crap.

Even the manic energy brought on by pride has given out.  FINE.  I 'll call a plumber.  I give up.  No mas.  'Uncle'.  This was not for lack of trying.  Though I have a suspicion that I just made things worse.  This whole time, Dylan has been wrangling the children and most likely wondering if he will ever be able to take a shower again.  And he brought up the Home Depot Repair Book (or something like that) which he was smart enough NOT to bring to me in the bathroom surrounded by tools from our toolbox flung haphazardly around said bathroom in the desperate hope that something would work.  Which it did not.  Of course.

I did end up leafing through the book later because, ya know, masochistic and all that, and think that I figured out why the screw would NOT loosen:  Because it most likely has some plumber's gunk on it to keep it from leaking.  There can be no other reason and I was in danger of going into a paroxysm of manic laughter since if that is indeed the case, there is NO WAY this would be an easy project.  I can't get the handle off to get to the screw to remove the gunk to allow the screw to come out which will allow me to change the handle to turn it for water. 

I am so not looking forward to making this phone call to the plumber.