At 8:00am tomorrow morning we will be closing on our first house. Starting late last night I started to get the faltering countdown panic. I was thinking about how my main goal in the next day was to get out of work early enough to get to the bank and get a cashiers check made out to myself for the closing costs that are not covered by the sellers. It starts small, then grows sometime in the morning when I realize that I am in a bit of a haze because A) I'm a tad wigged out and B) because I slept like shite (see article "A"). Well, the work thing was no big deal. On my drive to the bank I thought I was going to break down. You know, standard responsibility anxiety. Not quite the same as having the baby (which hasn't happened yet, but is on the way) because given our current situation I know with some certainty that we can afford to have a kid. But, moving from renting to owning and paying almost twice in mortgage what we pay in rent (but hopefully/luckily much less on utilities, or at least getting a hell of a lot more bang for our buck), and at the same time losing one somewhat steady income (though hopefully saving money on eating out and child care to balance that out), well you can see why I got a little jittery dealing with all those unknowns.
Anyway, I just about lost it on the way to the bank. I mean, I think I was probably a little bit on the "weird freaky guy" side of things when I was IN the bank, given that I walked in, asked for a bunch of money in a cashiers check made out to me, then chuckled nervously and said, "Yep. I'm buying a house tomorrow." To which the teller girl replied, "Oh. Well. Good for you."
So, check in pocket, I called my agent and set up the meet for our final walk through. I got there about 10 minutes before he did and sat in the air conditioned car. Then I got out and started wandering around the property as I usually do until he usually shows up, as he did this time. I dunno...you walk around a horse and look at its teeth, in its eyes, check the bottoms of the hooves to see how much tread is left, or something. So I wander around the house and try to look like I know what the hell I'm doing.
We walk through the house, test out the faucets, opening all the doors and cabinets, looking for that one "Ah ha!" that will be worth $20,000 but never comes. Everything seems to get pretty good. I'm getting a bit lighter in the stomach. We poke and prod and shake and rattle every damn thing that's nailed down, then we look over and under everything that isn't, making note "Yep, this thing is still nailed down!" or "Whew, this thing hasn't become unexplainably fused to the floor!" when appropriate. Everything was starting to look pretty good. The house still smelled a little of paint, but not horribly. They fixed the broken step in the basement (from when they put in the new boiler) and, unbeknownst me us, fixed the gouged tiles on the side landing (which also was done when they put in the new boiler). All in all, I started to feel pretty damn good about things.
By the time I left, I couldn't wait to sign my life away and enter into a whole new level of adult responsibility hell that is mortgage ownership.
Then around 9:40pm tonight I just happened to check my email and see that our landlord has notified us a mere 20 minutes ago that she has arranged a showing at 2pm tomorrow. Yep, can't wait to not have to deal with a landlord again!!!
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
born-again
Have you accepted BLOG as your personal savior?
I have not, yet, but I'm coming back to church after a couple years hiatus. I was never a real blogger, but a journaller. I didn't make callouts and commentary on what was happening in the rest of the web-wide-world. I mean, I posted some links and commentary, but the meat of my entries was personal exposition. What happened to me on a given day, what thoughts I was having, what flights of fancy I had indulged in within the confines of my own head. Mostly I was entertaining myself and my small group of (mostly related) readers. Sort of a passive email system, if you will.
Well, right after I got married and I got serious about my life and my job I ended up either not having time or the desire to involve everyone, friends, family, and/or countless strangers in my business. 2 and a half years later and I'm professionally on-top of it, have a pretty good marriage, and find myself crossing "maturity milestones" in increasingly shorter intervals. And I find myself frequently thinking to myself, "I should write that on my blog" or "that would be great[sic] content for my blog...if I still had one."
So, what's going on? Here's what. I have stepped off of my high-maintenance-horse. I no longer care whether or not I host my blog on my own server in my own house. In fact, I'd prefer not to because it was a personal sysadmin nightmare that I never had enough time to deal with, and will not have time for in the present or future. Yes, it is fun to run your own webserver and be able to run your own site, etc. But you know, I never really took advantage, or rather, became educated by the tasks of running my own website. Most cases it ended up I was throwing darts in the dark. Well, I no longer have time to learn to walk by rolling, then crawling, then cruising. I'm going to take advantage of the tools that have enabled even the most inept to start polluting the blogosphere with their ideas of what's important or, in many cases, real.
So let's cut to the chase. This is not going to be an important blog. You will not hear this website quoted by the pundits or the meta-pundits or anybody. I'm sure to express some political opinions, but its unlikely that anyone will find them interesting or noteworthy. Also, I doubt if I will be spotting the latest trends in tech, style, or culture here. And neither will you.
This blog will be self-important, self-referencing, self-aggrandize, and self-sufficient. Take comfort in knowing that this journal exists within the confines of my head and may or may not be affected by anything that happens in the world unless I choose for said thing to affect the way I feel or think.
I am starting up blogging again because by and large, I think I'm hovering somewhere between level 4 and level 5 on any given day.
As it says in the description of this blog, 2006 is the year everything important seems to be happening. We close on our first home on Wednesday, our first baby is due in a little under 2 months, and I will be turning 31 in September, which will makes me officially OVER 30. Respectability never seemed so real.
I have not, yet, but I'm coming back to church after a couple years hiatus. I was never a real blogger, but a journaller. I didn't make callouts and commentary on what was happening in the rest of the web-wide-world. I mean, I posted some links and commentary, but the meat of my entries was personal exposition. What happened to me on a given day, what thoughts I was having, what flights of fancy I had indulged in within the confines of my own head. Mostly I was entertaining myself and my small group of (mostly related) readers. Sort of a passive email system, if you will.
Well, right after I got married and I got serious about my life and my job I ended up either not having time or the desire to involve everyone, friends, family, and/or countless strangers in my business. 2 and a half years later and I'm professionally on-top of it, have a pretty good marriage, and find myself crossing "maturity milestones" in increasingly shorter intervals. And I find myself frequently thinking to myself, "I should write that on my blog" or "that would be great[sic] content for my blog...if I still had one."
So, what's going on? Here's what. I have stepped off of my high-maintenance-horse. I no longer care whether or not I host my blog on my own server in my own house. In fact, I'd prefer not to because it was a personal sysadmin nightmare that I never had enough time to deal with, and will not have time for in the present or future. Yes, it is fun to run your own webserver and be able to run your own site, etc. But you know, I never really took advantage, or rather, became educated by the tasks of running my own website. Most cases it ended up I was throwing darts in the dark. Well, I no longer have time to learn to walk by rolling, then crawling, then cruising. I'm going to take advantage of the tools that have enabled even the most inept to start polluting the blogosphere with their ideas of what's important or, in many cases, real.
So let's cut to the chase. This is not going to be an important blog. You will not hear this website quoted by the pundits or the meta-pundits or anybody. I'm sure to express some political opinions, but its unlikely that anyone will find them interesting or noteworthy. Also, I doubt if I will be spotting the latest trends in tech, style, or culture here. And neither will you.
This blog will be self-important, self-referencing, self-aggrandize, and self-sufficient. Take comfort in knowing that this journal exists within the confines of my head and may or may not be affected by anything that happens in the world unless I choose for said thing to affect the way I feel or think.
I am starting up blogging again because by and large, I think I'm hovering somewhere between level 4 and level 5 on any given day.
As it says in the description of this blog, 2006 is the year everything important seems to be happening. We close on our first home on Wednesday, our first baby is due in a little under 2 months, and I will be turning 31 in September, which will makes me officially OVER 30. Respectability never seemed so real.
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