The Busy American Family

What a busy month it's been! We have had to deal with getting back into the swing of the school year, as well as juggle dance, piano, chorus, plus the addition of french horn lessons.

And now we have added home renovation on top of it all. Mom and Gordy are at "The House" (we have begun refering to my Uncle Bob's house as "The House" instead of "Bob's House") and are working hard on cleaning and renovating. We spend our weekends and evenings with them. I'm getting excited as things have started coming together. There is new flooring in the kitchen and the appliances come tomorrow. I wish I had some pictures to share, but they are still in the digicam, and I would rather have Jenn share all of the details.

In the meantime I just wanted to let everyone know that we are, in fact, still alive.

On top of all of this, Jenn has a play which her students are going to be putting on sometime in October, and my job responsibilities have morphed slightly, causing some stress. My department has absorbed the computer programmers in the Customer Support department, which means we are now responsible for all new development and maintenance of my company's newest software. Yes, I am being intentionally vague since my contract forbids me from talking about my work online. :) Sorry. Since Monday, four new programmers have moved down to our little cubicle farm, and somewhere along the line my computer lost its network connection, which means I was completely useless today. Although the prospect of not having to work may seem fun, since I had 20 open issues I was dealing with I would have rather been able to work. :( I finally did get network connectivity reestablished (at least partially!), so I will be able to get back to work tomorrow.

Hopefully things will begin to calm down, although that may not happen until after we've moved in to the new house. *sigh*

Rally Day

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man."

-Abraham Lincoln

Kairi was presented with her first Bible at church yesterday at Rally Day. Pastor Mardy Von Harten made the presentation. We're so proud of her progress at Sunday School. Baby girl, I hope you can always find what you seek in the Word of God.

We love you.

Terror, Joy, and Guilt

I having a pretty rough day, and feeling a mix of emotions. The easy one is joy. The three bedroom, two and a half bath house in our school district that is shown above may soon be ours. There's a 150K mortgage on the house, but it's in an area where a 3 bedroom house is likely to be worth 300K. So if we can take possession of this house, not only will our children have plenty of room to grow, but the equity will ensure their college tuitions. So far, everything sounds rosy, right?

Let's take guilt next. It's not our house. It's Scott's uncle's house. When his uncle died in August, the house was willed to Scott's mother, but with the clear intention (expressed to the entire family) that Bob wanted the house to be ours. I don't feel comfortable accepting that. But Scotty does, and it's what he wants. And Scotty's whole family wants us to have it, and while they don't want to pressure me, it's clear they want it to stay in the family. So Scott worked me around to it. We've put a lot of work into cleaning up the place, both while Bob lived there, and in the past few weeks. Scott's mom and cousin cleaned and packed quite a lot, and then we moved TONS of things out to the garage for eventual donation or disposal, as you can see in the picture on the left. (And that's barely a fraction of the pile.) So I'm trying to get over the guilt part. Sure, I don't deserve it. But Scotty loved his uncle dearly, and if anyone deserves the gift of the house, he does. And since we're putting all this work into it, I feel like I'm at least working for it.

The other thing is, the house is in pretty rough shape. We're going to need to fix a large section of drywall that is water damaged. The kitchen needs to be completely refurbished. One bathroom is water damaged and non-functional - another needs a serious cleaning and a new toilet. And the outside, as you can see, will need some serious landscape work to make it look like that perfect painting. So while it will be worth 300K when it's in good shape, we're waiting to find out if it will even be appraised at more than the 150K that is still owed.

But then comes the terror part. You see, Scotty and I got married in college, and started our family right away. We were blessed by two gorgeous, talented, well-behaved (well, mostly!) kids, so I'd say it was a good choice. Financially, though, it left us in dire straits often, and our credit suffered. Then we went through a few years where we got involved with some short term lenders who bled away all of our money. As a result, our credit isn't great. It's pretty good, but there are plenty of smirches. Then there's the fact that due to all the money we spend on before and after care, lessons, and various other child related expenses (not to mention household expenses, surprise vet bills, and all the detrius of life) we're still living more or less paycheck to paycheck, although that's set to change now that we've finally caught up from those years of being behind thanks to unscrupulous lenders. (Although our student loans will most likely stay in forbearance until we can get the kids out of $800 a month childcare.) So, all things considered, while we make a seriously decent salary (our yearly wage is about 60% of the mortgage we want), and are more than capable of affording the mortgage payment, I was pretty convinced we won't be approved for the mortgage, based on our poor financial planning abilities. That is, I was, until Saturday.

Saturday was when we found out that the house is probably (not definitely, mind you) going to be appraised at higher than the mortgage, which means we wouldn't need to come up with a downpayment. We also found out that Bob had an IRA that will pay all his bills so the house won't need to be sold to settle the estate. So, out of a desire to LOOK like I was trying to help Scotty, I put our personal financial information into LendingTree.com. Then we got notice in our e-mail that three banks were willing to "pre-qualify" us for the amount we needed based on the data we entered. Well, we were shocked. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. But we called my mom and somehow got a on a whirlwind track to home ownership. All of a sudden, she's coming down with Gordy to help fix the house. Scott's mom is going to help us with closing costs with money from the estate. We're going to move by November. We spend the weekend clearing out the living room and painting the UGLY dining room. Here's the wall before....

Here it is after....

See what I mean? We went from 0-278 in 10 seconds flat.

But now it's Monday. And the lender called and wants all our financial information. And the official appraisal hasn't come through. And in my typical rollercoaster of emotion, I'm scared senseless. The house I didn't even really want before has become my central goal. And I'm flat out terrified that the lenders will take one look at our messed up bank statement (let's just say our overdraft protection had to kick in this month when my work decided to screw my paydates around), our not so great credit, and our lack of assets and flat out refuse to lend us money. So now I'm just nauseous, worried, tired, and convinced that none of this will ever work out.

Today, I got up at 5:30, left for work at 7, worked steadily through the day, dealing with the kids who threw fits about not being picked in last Friday's auditions, not to mention the kids who didn't do their first rough draft. I spent 1.5 hours after school teaching the stage crew about their responsibilities. I made sure everyone had rides home. I ran home to my own kids, fed them, dressed Kai for dance. Dropping her off, I ran to Scott and picked him up because he missed the bus. I grocery shopped, cleaned my house, picked Kai up, met with her dance instructor, dealt with her broken heart when the other half of the duet she wanted to do decided not to do it, so Kai can't. Then I came home and typed this. Tonight, I still need to finish some layouts for a client/friend, work on school work, find plans to build an opening sarcophagus for a play in less than 6 weeks that starts rehearsal tomorrow, and vacuum the upstairs. By Sunday, I need to plan a puppet play for Sunday School and contact 2 Sunday School teachers to find out if they're returning. By Friday, I need to finish cleaning out the downstairs of Bob's house.

Where, exactly, in my life, am I supposed to fit worrying myself sick over a mortgage application???

Impressions of Early Fall

As far as I'm concerned, fall begins as soon as school starts. If school starts before Labor Day, maybe it can still be summer until then. But once Labor Day is behind us, my favorite season is before us.

Anyone who knows me knows that I wax poetic on a semi-regular basis about how much I love autumn. So it should be no particular surprise that my blog entry tonight reflects the mellow humor I'm enjoying, thanks to the change of seasons.

How do I know it's fall?

The air has changed. There's a subtle chill in the morning air when I head out for the drive. The breeze is just a bit clearer, and sharper. The forecast never leaves the 70s, and often dips to the 50s and 40s. I hate the heat of summer, so that's enough to make me smile. Better yet, this fall, I can warm up with a soft sleeping kitten in my lap.

The grocery store is overflowing with bounty. Sure, there's always food. We're lucky enough to live in a society where anything we want is available at nearly any season of the year. But the particular glossy piles of apples, glowing crates full of clementines, mounds of orange wrappered candies and perfectly browned bakery pies that show up on the shelves around this time of year just FEEL like harvest. Throw in the mums lining the entryways and the gourds and leaves decorating the displays, and I get this goofy grin on my face. Pathetic, aren't I? Sort of a fall junkie, really. And speaking of food, I have a craving for anything pumpkin, apple or cinnamon. Bad for the waistline. (Well, in certain forms - like pie!) Good for the soul.

My sister and I are planning a party for Halloween, and the kids are riled and wild about their costume choices, which change daily. We have an entire weekend planned between the party, Octoberfest at Six Flags Great Escape, the pumpkin patch, and the apple orchard. I took TWO days off from work, and plan to *gasp* let the kids play hooky. You know it's fall when the outdoors can call me out of my classroom to leave my students to the not-so-tender mercies of a sub.

Scott's playing Madden, and talking about the roster changes on the Eagles until I want to scream. I'm looking at the roster for the Pack and cringing at the thought of another losing season, while I hope for a Favre -driven miracle. In short, football starts on Sunday, and I can't wait to come home from church and curl up on the couch with Scott to watch and cheer (and probably nap) my way through the season. I even started a new scrapbook challenge with a football theme - the Super Bowl of Scrapping.

My Google calendar is sending me daily updates on our schedule. It's not pretty. 7-8 dance classes a week, a piano lesson, 3 drama club meetings, Nicky's Tae Kwon Do starting soon, open houses, chorus, fundraiser due dates... But hey, that's our life for you. We're used to it. And the whirl of activity is just another sign that fall is here.

Another sign? I'm sketching plans for scenery and costumes, and fretting that I have 14 rehearsals to pull together another great play. Can it be done? Sure. Will I be going crazy by opening night? Oh, yeah. Do I care? Not even a little bit.

I guess that tells the whole story, really. In autumn, nothing is really THAT bad. No matter how stressed or busy or worried I am, nothing can completely dampen my spirits. For many people, spring is a season of hope and new beginnings. Maybe it's just because my "new year" starts with school. But for me, fall is the season of dreams.

The Sweetest Place on Earth

Today, we took a day trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, home of Hershey's Chocolate World. This complex, close to Hershey Park and the Hershey Chocolate Factory, is home to the chocolate factory tour ride and several other attractions. It was raining and cold, and we got a late start, so we didn't even attempt Hershey Park, but just Chocolate World provided us with hours of entertainment.

First, we rode on "The Great American Chocolate Tour", which took us on a trip through the chocolate making process. We've ridden it several times before, but Nicky didn't remember and it's been updated for 2006, so it was a new experience for all of us. Nicky LOVED the roasting chamber where we were "roasted" along with the cacao beans. The whole ride was (brace for pun) udderly adorable, especially now that they've added three cheesy singing cows, waxing poetic about how the milk from area farms is what makes Hershey's chocolate so special.

Still, we all loved the ride, and the free sample of Hershey's chocolate Take Five bars was a yummy ending. We later went back to ride the (free) ride twice more, because, hey, why not? The extra candy bars ended up in my bag though - after smelling all the chocolate during the ride, we were kind of over-chocolated without even eating any!

Next, we headed over to the 3-D movie. This does cost money, and Kairi STILL remembers being traumatized by it 4 years ago at age 5. So we tried really hard to reassure both kids that it was just like the 3-D movies we had enjoyed at Disney World earlier in the summer.


The movie started out pretty well, and the kids were starting to enjoy themselves, but then we realized why Kai remembers this show so negatively. At one point, a huge spider comes out of the screen, they touch the back of your legs and your shoulder, and make a skittering sound. Our entire family is freaked by bugs. So it took a bit of finangling to settle Kai down, and Nick looked a bit anxious for a minute. Fortunately, there was enough confetti and rain and bubbles and chocolate smells that WEREN'T scary to relax them both, and they were smiling when we left.

We headed over to the Hershey Factory Experience, and the kids tried their hand at factory "work." They helped box up some kisses, got cool hats, and had their pictures taken for their employee ID's. Afterward, Nicky got a special hard hat and got to spin a big wheel to fill a toolbox with candy as one of his souvenirs. He also got a Hershey Kiss plush for his bookbag. (Kai opted not to spend her allowance on candy, though she did eventually get some candy shaped erasers.)

We ate some dinner, the kids getting sandwiches and chips in souvenir lunchboxes and Scott and I eating chili in bread bowls. Everyone was cheerful and goofy, and I was glad we had decided to visit. Then we went up to see the "characters". The York Peppermint Patty was especially cool, sitting down at the table to "talk" to the kids and "share" their food.
Oh, and of course..... We had enough chocolate to put this look on Nicky's face! All and all, a great day.