Tom Petty had it right

The waiting really is the hardest part.

 The good news is that we are officially approved for the refinance and the commitment letter has been signed. The bad news is that we are still waiting for the appraisal, which is a condition of the approval. As each day passes, I get more anxious about our home’s value. On Wednesday, our loan officer said that the appraisal was in the review process with the in-between company and that hopefully it would be released tomorrow. Gah!! Well, it’s Friday and the main thing standing between an incredibly fast closing is this stupid appraisal. The appraisal could make or break this refinance. If the appraiser wants to be picky, she could throw in a bunch of things like we have to install railings for our steps or repaint/cover the fascia and soffit. Or maybe she could throw in other things that I haven’t even thought of or noticed.

We’ve wanted to finish the fascia for quite some time, but didn’t know anyone who had a brake. We were not planning to repaint the wood yet again. The plan was to cover the wood with metal, which stands up to the elements much better than wood. It also stands up to birds much better. And squirrels. These critters love to gnaw and peck through wood and nest in our attic. We also haven’t installed railings yet because we are planning to get rid of the brick steps and replace them with wood. So obviously we will do those things, but we just have been busy with the inside of the house. So if we have to do those things first, it will probably put us out another few weeks with the refinance. We’ll have to get the work done and then the appraiser will have to come back out and confirm that those things have been taken care of. I would hope that she would be more lenient since it’s a refinance and not a new purchase.

Part of my relentless obsession over the dollar amount of the appraisal? How much was all of this work really worth? The blood, sweat, tears, stress and the amount of money that we actually put into the house. Will it pay off? Would it have been cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over? Emotionally, I don't think I could have done that. This was the place I grew up and the place I want to raise my future family. We have put about $80,000 or more into this project, so I am going to be heartbroken if our appraisal doesn't equal the amount of money we put into it.

So… if the appraisal comes back today in the amount that we need with no “subject to” repairs or conditions, I will be a happy camper.

On to the more gooderer stuff!  I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time - this is the first weekend since the beginning of November that we a) haven’t had guests b) have no plans and/or c) Jay hasn’t had to work. We are making a trip to the grocery store tonight and after we get home, our cars are not moving until Monday. I might make it to the gym sometime this weekend, but we’ll see. The Atkins diet is crazy hard, but I’ve had amazing results already. I lost 4 pounds the first week! I know that a few pounds might be water weight. However, I’ve been tracking my exercise and food using LoseIt, and according to that app, I should have lost at least 2 or 3 pounds last week. My clothes feel looser (hurray for less sausage legs) and even though it hasn’t been easy, the quick results have been worth it! I’m hoping that I can stick with the induction phase for at least a month. I do have some challenges coming up – wine and chocolates for the Women’s Club event next Wednesday,  a birthday shindig for a friend next Saturday, more festivities the following weekend. There are plenty of things to get me off track. My plan is that if I’m going to cheat in any way that I have to make up the difference at the gym. I’m going to try hard not to cheat and to stick to a single drink at each event – or have no more than two rum & diet cokes. Or club soda and vodka. Which is disgusting and makes me not want to drink anyway.

So that’s what is up in my world this week. What's up with you?

Wordful Wednesday

I had planned to do a wordless Wednesday post, but it didn’t quite work out. This past week has been particularly difficult. Then again, it's been difficult for everyone.

I feel ashamed to even mention my in-laws in this post, but they do cause me a lot of anxiety and frustration. They (my FIL and 2 BIL’s) have been staying at our home since last Friday, so that really puts a damper on my mood. These aren’t the kind of normal in-law frustrations that people have. These particular in-laws have serious issues and they should NOT be staying at our house. Fortunately, they leave tonight.

On Friday, I learned that a drama buddy from high school has stage 4 adrenal cancer. Karisa is two years younger than me and has two young kids. I don’t know why these things happen to good people like her. Some people have created the Karisification community on Facebook. Please make sure to like it, even if you don’t know her.

Then last but not least, the Newtown Shooting. What can I even say about it? I still feel sick to my stomach. The gun-loving conservatives are saying to arm the teachers. Really? The thought of arming teachers terrifies me… most teachers I know aren’t exactly the type that I would want around guns (nor would they likely WANT to carry a gun). The United States needs to take a cue from Australia when it comes to mental health care and guncontrol laws. 

So light a candle, meditate, say a prayer, hug your loved ones, do something good for someone else.

Last two weeks in photos

Piper aka Kitty Whore hard at work

Wine club. Er, I mean book club.

I hosted book club this month and made my Aunt Mary's French Meat Pies. They were a hit! Photos and my recipe to come soon. This photo I took for my sister-in-law Colleen to say that we missed her. She definitely should have come to partake in the festivities. Apparently we were extra loud and giggly past midnight. Sorry for keeping you up, Jay!

JT's kahlua cake was a hit. Sue couldn't resist grabbing a spoon and digging in. 

Kneading dough is great therapy

For the second year, we attended the Pealiquor Road crew's Thanksgiving Feast. I baked 2 loaves of french bread and an Italian whole wheat peasant bread to share with our friends. I used a new recipe for the french bread that called for only bread flour instead of the combination of all-purpose and bread flour. It was wonderfully crusty with a moist and chewy interior. I'm going to bake some more this weekend to go with the farm fresh butter that I just picked up from Nice Farms Creamery. 

Go ahead and put all of your eggs in one basket. The chickens will make more.

We brought eggs to our gracious hosts. 

Basket full of persimmon joy.

After dinner everyone goes for a walk (okay, we waddle) out to the golf course and collect persimmons from two trees. This year was the biggest haul of persimmons ever... there were 15 "grown-ups", 6 kids (all boys) and 5 dogs. It was utter mayhem and such a great time. Surprisingly, no one was injured! The persimmons are baked into bread for friends and family at Christmas. 

... and the persimmons jumped right out of the basket! Did you see that??

I'm blowing this up so you can see Angela's crazy eyes. Thanks, Instagram!

We needed painting supplies to get our last bedroom finished. 

We didn't crack open anything until the painting was finished, which was probably a good idea. The primer that Jay bought did a terrible job covering the drywall. We had to go over the ceiling three times until it was covered. We weren't as worried about the walls, because Lowes gave me the paint + primer product that I didn't ask for. So instead of paying about $75 for paint, we ended up spending $120. Oh well. Yesterday Jay picked up the laminate flooring for the room and ordered a ceiling fan that was on sale. The last bedroom will likely be done this weekend. We're planning to move the futon from downstairs up to that room... just in time too, because my in-laws may be coming to stay with us for a little while. Long and sad story there, and that's about all I can say about it. My mother left our house yesterday morning after a two week on and off stint at a temp job in Denton. So we are basically running a flop house these days. It will be nice when we get some time to ourselves!

Winter is coming, just like the Starks said it would

It's getting colder around here... these weird little balls of snow/sleet appeared on Jay's truck earlier this week. It's been below freezing the last two nights... 27 degrees this morning. BRRRR! I'm getting over a cold that I came down with last weekend. Still feeling a little tired and stuffed up, but I'm hoping to be over it by next week. We're taking a little 4 day trip down to Florida for our anniversary. I was really hoping to get to Key West, but we're visiting Jay's grandma while we're down there and she is in the opposite direction (we're flying in to Fort Lauderdale and she lives in Winter Park, near Orlando). The last thing I want to do on a long weekend is drive 14 hours. As it stands now, we'll be driving for about 8 hours. Oh well, at least we will be able to drive with the windows DOWN! :)

Sure we cut our own tree

With all of the insanity in our lives this week, we thought that we could use a little Christmas cheer, so we picked up our Christmas Tree on Wednesday afternoon. It's a Fraser Fir... I hate those other trees with the pointy needles. I don't like to be stabbed while I'm decorating the tree.

Our tree is crazy full and barely cleared the ceiling, despite Mr. Webby's assertion that it was only 7' tall. It's pretty close to 8.5'... you can't tell so much in the photo, but it is out of control. I will post some photos after we decorate it this weekend. Dr. Tasty, Esq. aka Dr. Tasty, aka Mr. Tasty, aka Mr. Draco is thrilled to have his tree back. He will be spending the next month lounging on the tree skirt and snacking on ribbons. I expect to find lots of bedazzled poop in the litter box.

Kitty Whore is unimpressed.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesdays

Fall Fun

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, and it's only going to get worse. Fortunately the end is in sight - I have nothing planned for the first weekend of November, and it is going to stay that way!

My girlfriend visited with her kids and hubby last weekend. We had a fun-filled weekend of pumpkin picking, alpacas, the Renaissance Festival and of course the Things game... or as my girlfriends and I call it, "Things in a box." Because, you know, it comes in a box. Duh.

Jen pulling Annabelle in the wagon while carrying Caroline... supermom!

Annabelle being silly

Oh hai! Wanna go on a picnic? Alpaca lunch!! (okay, I saw it on a meme)

Muffin has ears

This baby loves Phil... he's the alpaca whisperer (and also the owner of the alpaca farm)

Our game of things in a box and Jay carrying in the milk from Nice Farms Creamery.

 The products from Nice Farms are sooo freaking delicious. I've been buying their milk and yogurt for a few weeks (since the party). They recently announced that they are now making butter as well... I can't wait to smear some on fresh-baked bread. I've taken a bit of a break from baking over the summer. Now that the weather is cooler, I'm finding myself yearning for hot french bread out of the oven.

The reason I took the photo of Jay carrying the milk is because our chickens follow us everywhere... they think that they're dogs. They kind of are, I suppose. They come running when you call them and even come running when they see my car pull up. We give them treats and they're constantly underfoot and trying to sneak into the house. Naughty chickpoos.

Tim taking Annabelle down the slide at Ren Fest

Jay and Tim throwing pointy things... what goes better together than beer and sharp objects?

Nom nom nom oyster shooters! This is one of my favorite parts of Ren Fest

Late afternoon Mouse

One of my coworkers/old neighbors stuck this in interoffice to me. It totally made my day. This is me and my neighbor Neil in 1985. My dad made me my costume (looks like my antenna broke!). I love the duct tape on my wings... thanks, Dad! :)

This is one of my favorite fall activities...reading in front of the fireplace. :)

Hot mulled cider with rum enjoyed with good friends at Harry's on the Green 

Even my straw is happy, look at his smiling face!

There's a lot going on at work, home and pretty much in every aspect of my life right now. To be quite honest, it sucks. Work is busy and I've had some problems with the physicians' holiday schedules. Like getting emails so nasty that they make you cry kind of problems. It hasn't been fun. My volunteer position with the group in NYC hasn't kept me as busy lately, I think others have stepped up in my place because I'm not getting nearly as many emails or as much harassment. It's been nice. I'm supposed to go to the board meeting in NYC next weekend, but I really don't want to go. Since I'm stepping down, I don't feel like I have much to contribute, and I'm just tired of dealing with anything involving the group.

This weekend, Jay and I will be going to New Castle, PA to investigate Hill View Manor  with some of the celebrity ghost hunters. This is our fifth event and we're getting antsy to form our own group and go out on our own. We've grown more skeptical in our investigative tactics, so I hope that we get some crazy evidence this time. We used to be huge believers in the "flashlight test", but then realized that it's often just a malfunctioning flashlight. We did use the flashlight test in our own home and came up with some pretty wild results, but I think it requires more testing. I think it could possibly be used as an effective technique IF controls were put in place - using 3 flashlights, asking to light up certain flashlights, asking control questions and the like. 

I wish I had more time for things like ghost hunting!

That's all for now... maybe next week I'll have some scary ghost pictures to post. ;-)

Party Rock

Well, we never ended up tearing up the carpet. Maybe we’ll leave it on until the drywall is installed in dad’s old workroom.

A good time was had by all, even though there were two significant injuries. Doug and Marty were horsing around and Doug’s head met our brick steps. I’m surprised that he didn’t break the bricks! He could’ve used some stitches, but he said he’d be fine without them. The second injury was to Beth, who slipped with the oyster knife and stabbed herself in the hand. Fortunately first aid supplies were close at hand after Doug’s injury, so we got her patched up without too much trouble. The cat knocked over our dessert & Arnold Palmer table, which made a huge mess… and the cops cruised by after one of our guests decided to set off some fireworks late in the night. They stayed around the corner for a few hours to make sure it didn’t happen again.

We’re still trying to count the number of people that came, but I think it was around 45. Definitely a huge crowd.

I wish that I’d had time to take more photos, but I was too busy running around. It took me 4 hours before I was able to eat and grab a drink… then it still took me another 2 hours to eat my plate of food and finish my drink. Hopefully I lost some weight with all of my running around and lack of food!

Here is the night in photos (and a texting fail)

I found this article today and could relate to it so well!!

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Why-houseguests-can-smell-like-fish-2465934.php

Why houseguests can smell like fish

David Curran

Published 04:00 a.m., Sunday, January 10, 2010

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  Steelhead fish up on shore after Willson retrieved it from his drift net. Photo By Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle Photographed in, Klamath, Ca, on 2/12/08 Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle / SF
  Steelhead fish up on shore after Willson retrieved it from his...

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With January now here, we can all enjoy being well into our New Year's resolutions and the relief of the holidays being over: No more frantic shopping, kids are back in school and perhaps most of all, our houseguests have mostly gone away: No one will be sitting in your special chair, commandeering your TV or taking up way too much of your hard-earned household oxygen.

Having not had any out of town visitors myself this year, I had sort of forgotten the joy of others dropping in and staying and staying and staying until you find yourself hiding in the bathroom, but then I saw an ad in the middle of the holidays from the California Academy of Sciences, urging people to come visit their Morrison Planetarium:

"Houseguests getting on your nerves? Send them far far away."

Well if you live in the Inner Sunset, it actually isn't that far away, but the point is well taken that houseguests can be a big pain in the asteroid and sometimes I think my visitors have never heard one of the more memorable bits of advice my dad ever gave to me. He said:

"House guests are like fish. They begin to stink after a few days."

I think this bit of wisdom -- apparently a paraphrase of Ben Franklin -- stuck with me because it is pithy, fairly accurate and the element of timing was impeccable: My dad told me this after I had spent somewhere between two and three months on some friends' couch in their very small one-bedroom apartment in New York.

Having just gotten out of college, the situation in New York seemed pretty fabulous at the time, and I had no inkling I could be an inconvenience to anyone, even though this couple I was honoring with my presence was 20 years older and very set in their ways. And here I was camped smack in the middle of where they ate, read, watched TV, basically did all of their living. Then one morning I'm lying in bed -- aka their couch -- and hear this from the kitchen: "I DON'T THINK HE'S EVEN BEGUN TO LOOK FOR A PLACE!! IT MIGHT NOT BE SO BAD BUT HE DOESN'T EVEN PAY FOR ANYTHING!!

At which point a strange idea slowly sank into my cranium: These people weren't thrilled to have me.

I left their apartment within a week but not before I went out and spent about $10 in groceries to prove I wasn't a freeloader -- and in doing so proving I actually was a total freeloader minus $10 in groceries -- and sometime soon after this my dad gave me his sage bit of wisdom about smelling like a fish.

If I had gotten his wisdom before going to New York perhaps I may have avoided being the houseguest from hell, but then again I was desperate. And when you're desperate you really don't care if you smell a little like last week's anchovies. Plus, let's not forget the etiquette industry has been instructing people on how to be a decent guests for decades, maybe centuries, and still the stench continues.

If you quickly peruse Emily Post, you'll find many a page on dos and don'ts for guests. And if you ignore the warnings about not using the host's staff as your servants (tsk tsk), there are some reasonable tips:

"The guest no one invites a second time is the one who dog ears books, who burns cigarette trenches on table edges... who tracks into the house in muddy shoes and then puts them on the sofa or bed...."

Fair enough, but perhaps if Emily had said something more concrete for house guests to follow like:

"If one raises one's armpit and detects the stench of the common mackerel, then one is advised to close one's bags, bid one's farewell and head back to one's abode.

...then perhaps the incidence of horrible houseguest syndrome could have been lower.

Then again, no matter how one tries to avoid being thought of as a rotting undersea creature, there are always factors in a visit that can't be anticipated. I stayed at a cousin's in San Diego recently and tried to be barely detectable. But still my 10-year-old daughter and theirs clashed so badly that our meals became an endless series of glares and stares and putdowns until I felt like our family was beyond rotting-fish guests, we were carcass-of-beached-whale-with-50,000-flies-buzzing-over-its-remains guests.

Then there are those down-on-their-luck guests -- often relatives -- who need somewhere to stay for a while, at which point you may wish you never moved into a place with a spare bedroom. While you can't kick them out, they may slowly drive you nuts in various ways. I used to seethe having to give regular reminders to please not smoke in the house -- "I'm sorry, I thought it was OK if I opened a window" -- and then having to clean out all of the butts stuck in the potted plants.

If as a host you are experiencing a visitor who strikes you in this way, you may be the one who needs to go far, far away. Maybe that means a trip to the planetarium where you can get a little perspective on their interminable stay: Stare at the cosmos and realize, while your guests have been at your home for what seems like forever, that compared to the age of the Sun it could actually be much worse.

And if that doesn't help and your foul mood persists, you may need to slip over to the aquarium and walk around and take in all the fish: See which ones remind you of your houseguests and pray they get eaten.