So, here I sit at the start of a lovely long weekend sipping a nice strong glass of egg nog with a fire going in the fireplace of my very own house, as two pugs scamper from room to room. Life is good.

Merry Christmas

I know, I know, I haven't written since Thanksgiving, what's up with that??? Well, there are no excuses, I've been pretty busy with work and settling into the new house and it always seems the longer it gets since I've written a blog post, the harder it is to start a new one. It's just a bit overwhelming to think about having to catch up, so I guess I'm not even going to try.

I do want to mention, however, how much I'm really loving living in my new house. It is completely, blissfully quiet here, I hear no noise from other people at all. And it's equally great to be able to stomp around, allow the dogs to tear through, or watch loud movies late at night without worrying about disturbing anyone. This is almost a weird concept for me after so many years of apartment living. Anyway, I'm loving it. I have yet to do much in the way of home improvements, I'm still trying to decide what color to paint my living room to start. The color samples I brought home from the paint store I think are going to end up being darker than I want, so I'm going to go back there next week and pick up some new ones. I did find an unfinished furniture place nearby however, so I think I'm going to be able to buy some bookcases there and have them installed in my living room, in lieu of having them custom built. So, I think I'm going to do that, hopefully the store will be able to recommend someone to install them for me.

My father and his wife came up for a visit a couple of weeks ago. They luckily stayed at a local hotel as I (conveniently) do not have guest room furniture yet. It was a nice enough visit, but geez Lorie (the wife) exhausts me. She likes to constantly ask these probing questions, half the time I feel like I'm on some kind of interview or something. And the most disturbing questions are the ones about my childhood, my family and my mother. I frankly don't think most of this stuff is any of her business, but it's hard to blow her off without being rude. Anyway, my father was kind enough to do some odds & ends around my house for me. Replaced some light fixtures, a towel rack, put up a coat hook, etc. When we went to Lowe's on the Saturday morning he insisted on paying for the odds & ends as my Christmas present. He said he'd rather do that since it was easier for him and he then wouldn't have to shop. I was upset as a bunch of hardware odds & ends isn't a very exciting Christmas gift (not to mention what it says about his lack of interest in putting any thought into a gift for me), but he wasn't going to give in, so I just caved. Merry-freaking-Christmas to me. Oh well, at least I don't have to be in New Jersey this year to watch Lorie's daughter open the shower of gifts bestowed on to her. I've always found that particularly depressing.

While my father was here, I had my cousins over for cocktails to see my house, see my father and to meet Lorie, who they had not yet met. All seemed to like my house and we had a great time. Fitz was also a big hit, he spent most of the time sitting in my cousin's daughter's lap like a little hobbit. He's so funny.

Well, there is not much more to say. I have so very much to be thankful for this year. Just looking back on this year amazes me, my life is so different. I've been very reflective over the past few weeks and will probably be even more so in this coming week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So Weird ...

... to think that this time tomorrow I'll be in my new place! There are definitely things that I'm going to miss about this apartment though. First, central air ... uh, hello?! love me some central air. I also love my bedroom here. It is the perfect size and layout. I have room for my bed and dresser, my boudoir-style loveseat and even a low table with a TV, with plenty of room for more stuff, if I was so inclined. It's just a luxury of space that I've never experienced before. I'll miss my lovely walk-in closet. OMG, I don't know how I will live without a walk-in closet now that I've had one. I'll miss the access to the Heritage Trail out back.

But, I'm looking forward to having my own space. No longer having to share walls and floors with people. Having my own little backyard and porch & deck. Taking the dogs out first thing in the morning and late at night will no longer be any kind of a chore. And I look forward to hosting friends for laidback weekends of cocktails and BBQ in my space.

So, I'm looking forward to my move tomorrow, but a part of me will also miss my life here. It's probably the most comfortable apartment I've ever lived in.

A Few Pictures of My New House

The Drama That Was My Un-Closing

So, after all this waiting around, today was finally the day. I had been completely stressed about everything for about a week or so because the Good Faith Estimate (GFE) kept increasing (by like $2,000, at final count!) and I was worried about where that was going to end. I had my approved HUD statement by Wednesday of this week, where my mortgage broker pointed out that the settlement company had not accounted for any credit of closing funds from the relocation company (hello? We're talking over $8,000 here!) Anyway, my relocation contact and my mortgage broker were able to work that out and so I had the revised HUD that afternoon and it was a relief to see that I had plenty of money for closing with reserves, so all my worrying in that regard was for naught.

We had the walk-through scheduled for this morning before the closing. Everything was fine, except that I noticed that they had taken this second, big water heater that had been in place when we did the home inspection. This was obviously one that they had added because they are a family of seven and need the extra capacity, but still the exclusion of the water heater had never been in any document related to the sale at any time. Additionally, the house had been inspected with this in place and with the assumption that this was part of the water heating system. I just felt that it was kind of crappy to not have a notation about it on the contract. I think if you're buying a house, it is assumed that the water heater as part of the core plumbing. Anyway, I think it was a bit shitty. The bottom line is really not such a big deal, having the smaller unit will actually be cheaper for me (since I won't have to constantly pay to heat all that water), but still, I really feel like it should have been noted from the beginning. I was, however, happy that all of their stuff was completely gone. The house also looked a lot bigger without all their crap, but I really could see how the whole place really needs to be painted and the carpeting replaced, and the thought of it all exhausts me. It's not even the expense of it, I would gladly pay for having all of this done, it's just the thought of moving in and trying to deal with this around all my stuff ... I just want to unpack and be done with it all by now, UGH!

Well, okay. Then we had the closing. Oi Vey. First, when the settlement rep was going over the HUD with the seller, there was dead silence. Turns out that the money stated there that he was to receive was far less than he was expecting (by like over $8,000). And it also turns out that he needed every penny of this money to fund the closing on the house he was buying (the closing of which was meant to happen right after our's). It came to light a little later into our meeting that there was a pre-payment penalty with his mortgage. How can you have a mortgage with this clause and not know about that? Anyway, not my problem.

But the bigger problem turned out to be on my end. The settlement company confirmed that there had been no wire of funds for my loan! In other words, the money was not in place. My lender is in California (I got a really great rate) and apparently my loan was not one of the wire transfers they had sent out the night before (even though they knew we were closing in the morning on the East coast). Add that to a three hour time difference and we had a real problem. We had an approved HUD, we had verbal confirmation from the lender, but we didn't have the actual funds. In the meantime the seller's lender blew in to deal with his problems with the other closing. Yet, instead of setting him up in another conference room, he sets up shop at the end of our table! So, not only am I now privy to private info about how the sellers don't have enough money to close on their house, but he felt that it was his place to throw out sarcastic and snide comments from time to time about my lenders and the situation I'm in. I was stressed out enough and this guy really got on my last nerve. When we were leaving the closing, he took out a pile of his business cards and literally threw them at me with some comment about the next time I needed a lender. What a jerk! I just looked at him without comment and didnot take one of his cards.

Finally, after about two and a half hours of this Hell, there was nothing much more we could do and we left the sellers to the conference room to deal with their problems with their other closing. All the paperwork for mine was signed and I gave the settlement rep my check for my downpayment and share of closing costs, it's just not officially completed until my loan funds are physically in place. I had an email from my mortgage broker late this afternoon that he had confirmation that the funds have been wired, so I guess everything is okay, but tonight has not turned out to the celebration of relief that I had hoped it would be. I'm pretty disappointed. Well, it's not tragic, I have the keys, the house is empty. I'm supposed to move first thing on Monday and had hoped to start moving some stuff over myself this weekend, I guess I can still do that, I feel a little weird about it though. On the other hand, it's not like someone will think I'm going to abscond to South America with the house or something, so I'm not really sure what to do, honestly.

Anyway, so that is my story of woe. Nothing is the end of the World, but it adds just another layer of stress to this process that I had not counted on. Luckily I have all of next week off from work to deal with things, so that should help. I'll probably come up to the house tomorrow and will take a few pictures and post them here at some point.

OMG! Fitz is humping his stuffed lobster!

The Landing Strip

GAH!!! I swear I'm suddenly living on a runway ... literally! The airport is directly across the river here and all of a sudden all the jets coming and going are passing directly over my building. I mean, they are actually coming in for a landing over my apartment (just a few feet above), WTF???!!! They must have just changed flight patterns, I've never heard air traffic noise like this here in all the months I've been here. TG I am out of here in less than a week (also TG I didn't ever get seriously interested in that nice condo just down the street).

SHEESH!

and a few more ...

A Few More Pictures of Fitz ...

Okay. I know that today is Halloween and everything, but ...

There is a guy here, who is walking around in a Hawaiian shirt, Mardi Gras beads, shorts and flip flops!!! (And I don't even mean Tevas or Merrells or something, but rubber flip flops like you would wear in the shower at the gym or something). And the thing is, no one else around here is wearing any kind of a costume (well, I did pass someone in the hall wearing a Bozo wig, but that was it). Totally bizarre.

Dinner Time

Introducing a New Member of the Family ...

I'm still tossing names around, but I'm leaning towards "Fitzgerald" or "Fitz" (Fitzie) for short.

FROST!

So, I actually had to scrap off my car this morning. Amazing.

Insult to Injury

And now I have a sneezy-snuffly cold to boot. Not. A. Good. Week.

Dental Update

So, it turns out that I have an infection and am going to need another root canal (on a different tooth). Just shoot me and put me out of my misery. They didn't even give me any good drugs, just antibiotics. Phooey.

This dental place I went to was weird. I've been going to my old dentist in NYC for so long, that going somewhere new is a strange feeling. Anyway, the first thing that made me nervous was the attached a credit application for Capital One with the paperwork I needed to fill out. WTF do I need Capital One credit to get my teeth checked? If someone needs to charge treatment, do they really need to open special credit cards just for the service? Sheesh. Some of these credit card companies have got balls, I'll tell you. And I'm sure the dental company is getting a kick-back for every application they get. I'll bet plenty of people fill these things out too, thinking it's just another part of the required paperwork. Well, they didn't get one from me anyway. Sneaky bastards.

So, after filling out all the paperwork I was finally brought back into the treatment area. This was the really weird part, there were all these dentist chairs in this open air room, separated only by a set of shelving between each. Like a hair salon. I swear I felt like I was at Super Cuts or something. This makes me very nervous, I have to say. Well, to their credit, they were all very nice and seemed very professional. They're referring me to a specialist for the root canal which is good because I really don't know how comfortable I would be having root canal there. I am coming back for a cleaning and a minor re-filling on another tooth though.

Tooth Pain

So, I woke up yesterday with very bad pain in the area where I had root canal last year. Today it is worse and has migrated up into my ear. I'm trying to concentrate on work and am hoping the handful of advil I just took will kick in soon. I made an emergency dental appt for this afternoon. ARGH! I hope my insurance covers it all, I need to save my immediate cash for the house purchase (by December I will be less stressed about the money thing, but this is pretty bad timing).

You realize that it's not likely to be a good week ...

... when you start it off by wearing the wrong color shoes to work! (black shoes with brown pants, for those who are interested). Argh!

Sundry

Wow, I just realized that I hadn't written in a while, over a week. Anyway, nothing too much is really new really, so there is not much to catch up on with me.

It's that time of year that I love so much and I seem to be enjoying it even more so here in New Hampshire. Today it feels that Autumn has fully and finally settled in. This week we had some pretty warm weather, but then that was all blown out by wild storms yesterday and last night. Today is rather cool and breezy, but very sunny and beautiful. It's feeling rather like Halloween. I actually turned my heat on last night too, it's definitely getting chillier.

I've gotten in the habit of driving home from work the "long" way, down some of the back roads that twist and turn their way through the town that I am moving to (which is one town south of where I have been living all of these months). Not only does it help me to get to know my way around, but it is a lovely drive and a pleasant way to unwind a little bit from the work day. It's been an especially nice drive as the seasons have changed, watching the daily and weekly change to the trees along my route. Once the days get much shorter I imagine I will be back to taking the shortest route home, but for now this has been a very pleasurable alternative. Certainly a far cry from the stress and annoyance of my old Long Island RR commute (or my former subway commute, which was worse). What a difference a year makes.

Things seem to be coming along with the house purchase. I believe all that needs to be in place before closing has been done at this stage. Home inspection, appraisal, title search, second earnest money deposit ... the final thing I did yesterday was arrange for home owner's insurance, so now even that will be in place. I guess it's now just down to waiting these last few weeks for the closing date (scheduled for November 17th). I had a local moving company come by to evaluate my stuff to give me an estimate for moving. They're projecting about $485, so I went ahead and booked them for Monday, November 20th, that's exciting, it kind of makes it "real". Of course, now I need to start to do some packing (I've been procrastinating about that, for sure).

Oh, in my search for the information I needed to establish insurance, I ended up speaking yesterday to the president of the home owner's association. Very nice guy and it was a pleasure to talk to someone who actually lives there. Anyway, he told me that this is actually not a condo at all (here I was all this time thinking I was moving to a condo) but they are what is called, "clustered housing", which is a new term for me. Whatever. Anyway, he said that the HOA offers various discounted landscaping services which sounds great to me! At least now I know I won't have to run out and buy a stupid lawn mower.

Work seems to be going well these days. I just had a meeting yesterday with our customer sponsor who announced that the business has officially decided to adopt our reporting method as their standard. So we are officially out of the experimentation mode and into true development and support mode. This means that there will much more and varied opportunities there for myself and for my team, so it's all pretty good news. I guess I've managed to do something right over these past many months. Because there have been some failures and some successes, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster, so this news is very welcome. After this meeting, I told my manager about this announcement and he seemed very ecstatic (those were his actual words, "I'm ecstatic", LoL). I know he has been working very hard and has invested a huge effort into getting these services in place, and in getting the team entrenched as a force there, so I'm glad that this has worked out so far for him.

Anyway, so things are generally pretty good these days. I'm content here. I go through emotional ups & downs at work where I worry about whether I'm doing a good job, but I have to just try to move forward with the assumption that I am, and use this energy less on worry and more on work and focus. I'm looking forward to my move to the new place (I just wish all the logistical details were over and I was moved in already), but I am also lamenting about a few things that I will be missing here too, so it's a little bitter sweet. Still, it will be nice to finally be settled in somewhere, almost a year after the start of this process.

I have no plans for the upcoming holidays, but that's actually okay. I'm kind of looking forward to my first holiday season here. Settling in, making my house a home. Maybe I'll enjoy my fireplace some and get a second dog. In any case, I think I can perhaps finally relax a little bit.

These Days

I'm addicted to HGTV. I. Just. Can't. Stop. Watching. I suppose it's better than being addicted to "The Bachelor" or something.