House Buying And You

Hi kids, it's been a long time since your uncle Akbar sat down and talked to you, but me and my friend Scotchy would like to take a moment to tell you about the joys and perils of house buying. House buying is a perilous journey, fraught with... well, perils... Some of those perils are obvious: financial ruin, humiliating exposure of one's ignorance, getting shot at while you shop for houses in the neighborhoods you can afford.

But less known are the other burdens you'll face: erroneous MLS sheets, lackadaisical bankers, and best of all, inconsistent sellers! But despite all of these, there are benefits. Shocking, I know!. Uncle Scotchy tells me I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the key benefit, which is that you get to be a home-owner. Landed gentry. To quote an incredibly wise man, "you ain't no kind of man, unless you got land." So true. So poignient, yet so true.

The long and the short of our current situation is that we've got a signed contract in on a house. We recently had said house inspected by a licensed inspektor general, which was pretty cool. He found lots of things that didn't sound so bad when he found them, but read like a laundry list of things that are about to condemn the house once committed to his inspektor's report..en...stag. Ok, I may give up on making the house inspector sound more german. He wasn't really germanic at all, to be honest. All the same, the inspection was pretty cool, we got to see all of the things we'll need to work on, and a few things we'll need to have fixed before we can move in (one in particular will be a requirement for our loan to be approved).

Needless to say, things are pretty exciting over here... Court's been talking to our bankers, and generally being a really good people person (networking, making sure things move on the financial end of things), and I've been trying to coordinate with vendors (inspectors, other kinds of inspectors, our agent) and make sure we have all of our bases covered for the impending closing (April 1, no joke!).

So while we're busy, and a touch stressed, I think we've both calmed down a lot, as we approach home ownership with glee and the utmost readiness. Oh, and the afore-mentioned scotch.

--Ak out

Cattywampus

Cattywampus is a great word. The first time I heard it was in the description of a young horse that was trying to figure out how to carry itself. If you've ever ridden a two-year-old that's trying to figure out how to balance itself and your weight while loping, you get why it's such an apt description. The horse is trying to figure out where it's feet are and appears to be having some issues staying upright, so you just try to stay out of its way and keep one leg on either side of the horse.

Cattywampus is the best way to describe our lives right now. We have completely lost our groove. Our previous lifestyle involved waking up somewhere between 8 and 9, me doing most of the house and animal chores while fitting in my freelance work, and more spare time than we could shake a stick at. We had lunch together everyday, and generally spent our weekends in blissful nothingness. It was really not a bad gig.

Things are a little crazy around the Beck house these days... we knew it was going to be a change for me to start working full time again, but I don't think we had any idea how to prepare for it. Now, we have to get up much earlier to do animal chores, we pay someone to walk Marty for us and weekends are spent either running errands or blankly staring at the TV. My new job already involves some working from home after hours as well as business travel. It's definitely a shift from being a freelancer/stay at home pet owner.

For extra stress, we're in the midst of house buying! We fell in love with a house last week, and now we're working on an offer. We keep telling ourselves that life will slow down soon, but I'm wonder if maybe that's just a cosmic joke? More updates soon, but for now, we're pretty slammed being cattywampus.

If this is the Calm Before the Storm, We're in Trouble

It's the day before I start my new job, and I'm feeling pretty stressed out. I expected yesterday and today to be fairly relaxing days, with lots of house cleaning and lounging on the couch. No such luck -- yesterday was spent wrapping up a freelance project, meeting with a bank to discuss mortgages, several hours worth of errands, and finally some chill time before book club. Thus far today, I worked on a V21 volunteer schedule, met with a pet sitter who's going to help us out with Marty (forgot she was coming, oops), and did some random house chores. Later today, I'll pick Ak up from work so we can go visit with another bank, then I have to pick up my clothes from the tailor and swing by the pet store. Today's tasks are compounded by having a baby kitten shadow who's torn between his deep love for me and his discovery of a new plug under the TV that is apparently lots of fun to bat. That's definitely a perk of going back to an office -- a cat-free work space. Have you ever tried to type while a cat chases the words on the screen? It's exciting.

I think most of my stress is stemming from the sheer volume of tasks I see before and around me. I feel like it's the day before vacation, and I'm frantically rushing to get everything done. I grant that this line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. Yes, going to the pet store and the grocery store on my days off is a good thing to do because that's one less thing I have to worry about this week. However, those things are going to need to be done again... and again... until, well, pretty much forever. And if there're things I don't get to before I start work, then I'll just get to them over the weekend. There's definitely a mindset change that needs to happen here.

Another stresser -- house hunting and all the fun that goes along with that (see above conversations with mortgage lenders). We had a really successful outing last weekend and found several houses we were interested in. We're heading out again this weekend, and the tentative plan is to pick our finalists after that and start narrowing down to THE house. This is all very exciting; we've seen some houses that we would love to live in. But picking a house and finding a lender and all the other bazillion processual tasks associated with this is definitely stressful.

I have a feeling things will be a lot better next week and even better the week after that. Until then, there's yoga and red wine!

SNOW!!!

Yesterday the weather people promised me snow, but I didn't quite believe it til I woke up in the middle of the night to find... SNOW!! And more this morning with much more coming down. No idea how much we actually got, but it lasted until about 3:30, and I read a WRAL article saying the area average was 5 inches. Here are a few pictures from the Beck family snow day.

Ben watches the snow from inside.

Marty seemed to enjoy himself frolicking in the snow. He ran and played and acted like a young pup. Look how deep it is on his legs!

"Oh, snow in my eyes..."

After he frolicked, he sat, which made me laugh. Dude, isn't your bum cold??

My dashing husband, shortly before he initiated a snowball fight. My aim's better.

View from the street looking at our house.

Careful Kids, This Could Happen to You

Do you think maybe I've read so many Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella books lately that I actually turned into one of their characters? Kinda like when you're little and making nasty faces and someone says your face is going to freeze like that?

Less than two weeks ago, I was just getting into the swing of 2009. I was stoked to not be a student and had finally decided to embrace that I had a job as a freelance writer. When people asked how my job search was going, I told them that I wasn't looking, which was an honest answer. I had just finished my third chick lit read in a row and was pondering the recurring message of a simple life. All the books were about a girl who thought her life would be complete if she just pulled off one more business achievement, only to find that true happiness (and true love, of course, this is chick lit) was often found in the most quaint of places. Now, this was a message I could get behind. I was working, contributing to the household and feeling the fuzzy glow of entrepreneurial success. I was also sleeping late, working in my PJs, being a stay-at-home pet mom, and taking frequent breaks during the day to have coffee with the girls or walk my dog. All in all, not bad.

Then, last Wednesday, I stumbled upon a job opening and sent in a resume on a whim. That night I was called for a phone interview and a few days later spent an entire morning in their office interviewing. Two days later, another interview, and the following morning a job offer, which I accepted this morning. In less than two weeks, I will begin my new job as a Senior Writer and Public Relations Account Executive at a Raleigh-based agency. Um, wow, how did that happen??

In true Rory Gilmore fashion, let's do a pro-con list:

Pro
1. We have just become DINKs (dual income, no kids). This doesn't elevate us to wealthy, but we've certainly achieved comfortable. And since I haven't been there in a long time, I'll take it.
2. New business-woman clothes!!! (Getting the Keyes/Kinsella character connection more now?)
3. This isn't an entry-level position. It even comes with an intern!
4. A job. A career. A reason to leave the house every morning. A company that will accept what I have to offer them and has something to offer me in return. That feels like coming home and makes me want to cry, in the best of ways. I had no idea how much I'd missed that.

Con
1. Man, I'm going to miss my boys. Sure, they drive me nuts sometimes, but I like being with them all the time, laughing at them when they do stupid things and knowing the right time to pick up baby Ben for a hug. I grant that it is rather challenging to get anything done during kitty hyper time.
2. Losing the flexibility and autonomy that comes with working from home will be difficult. I trust that this agency will be less rigid than places I've worked in the past, but I still doubt they'll be cool with mid-morning yoga and People's Court at 4.
3. We've gotten pretty spoiled around here what with me staying at home. Right now, we eat home-cooked meals almost every night and have as much hang out time in the evenings and on weekends as we want. Things are going to get busier, that's for sure.
4. House hunting just got a lot more complicated too. If we move to Durham to be closer to our friends and church as we'd originally planned, we'll both have longer commutes and probably be forced to eat out everyday and pay someone to let the dog out. If we stay in Cary or move to Raleigh, we have to find a new community group and perhaps switch back to the Raleigh church. Sacrifices either way.
5. No use of my Master's degree in sight. Course at the moment I'm still so disgruntled that it's hard to call that a con.

So I guess it's good that we didn't make the decision to accept the job the Rory Gilmore way, as the cons appear to outweigh the pros. I think I probably rolled several pros into one for pro #4 though. This is definitely a weird de ja vu moment for me, what with going back to the same line of work I left to go to school, in the same building even, just one floor up. I anticipate many awkward elevator moments in my future.

Anyway, as Dylan says, "You'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing!" I've still got a solid week and a half of freedom, so until then, it's hamster suits and People's Court breaks for me.

The Becks in: "Bellyachin'"

This week's story involves potty humor, near-tragedy, and some infantile language (such as "potty humor") Parental discretion is advised.

So this morning two of the Beck boys had a Dr's appointment. Those two boys would be our very well behaved black cat (Alex) and our loyal, yet lazy dog Marty. The morning started about as normal as can be expected... The mother in law was staying the night with us, but all-in-all, it was a normal, bleary-eyed morning. My plan was to swing by the vet with the boys (and Court) in tow, and then head to work a bit late. Boy was I in for a surprise...

So we mosey on into the vet, convinced that we're 10 minutes late, only to find out we're 5 minutes early (the appointment was for 8:45, not 8:30, apparently). We then proceed to saunter back to the exam room where they do the normal stuff (shoving random objects up poor cats' butts). After a while, our vet drops in and proceeds to do the normal check-up stuff for the boys, when he gets to Marty, he stops, asked if he had a full breakfast, and looks generally concerned. After some discussion, it turns out that Marty's abdomen was more swollen than normal, so the vet suggests we have him x-rayed, which we dutifully do. After two sets of x-rays and a lot of sitting around (positive that our dog is deathly ill), the vet determines that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with Marty, but that he had a huge breakfast. Why was his breakfast so huge, you might ask? Well, it has something to do with our perfect dog availing himself to some... {ahem} "sand brownies". If you don't know what a sand brownie is, let me just point you to the cookie jar they come from...

Yum.

But in the end, Court & I were just super-relieved that our venerable old farm dog didn't have something seriously wrong with him. We would have preferred not to have had to spend all the money and time finding out he was fine, but we're glad he is. Man, dogs can be disgusting.

A Rant, or Damn the Man

I wanted to share a link that irked me a bit this morning and see if anyone else had any thoughts on the matter. It appears that Durham has decided to enforce the collection of a pet tax. While I am not currently a Durham resident, I may be within the next few months. Also, I do not have buddies who died face down in the muck for our rights to own pets, but I'm channeling Walter too: "This affects all of us, man! Our basic freedoms!"

Anyway, here are my problems with this idea, as it relates to our animals. We own two cats, both indoor-only and neutered. We paid the adoption fee for each animal and pay all other expenses (vet, food, etc.) out of pocket. Since the cats never step paw out of our house and onto county property and the county does not contribute to their upkeep, why should I pay taxes on my animals? What benefit am I getting from paying those taxes?

The dog tax makes a little more sense to me, but not much. Perhaps the argument is that the dog does go outside and may make use of county recreational facilities. This argument seems to fall in line with people who don't want to contribute to public education because they don't have children. My question on the dog portion of the tax is this: if I pay a dog tax, does give me free use of public dog facilities, such as dog parks? It seems unfair for the county to continue to collect a fee for park usage as well as charge a dog tax. Also, why should I have to pay an animal tax on top of property tax and HOA dues?

I understand that $30 a year is not much in the big grand scheme of things, but this strikes me as an unnecessary and unfair tax.