Setting Up the Command Center and Getting Back Online

FINALLY!  And, yes, I’m aware that it has technically only been a few days since I disconnected the computer back on the other end (six), as well as the fact that I had plenty of internet access on my phone.  Really, though, details, schmetails!  I’m all hooked up in my office now.  It felt like forever let me tell you and setting things up in here feels great.

I’m calling the office the Den of Words and Sports and I'm lucky enough to be able to do everything from this one space now.  Matt accepted a new position which means he sadly no longer works from home.  But only sadly in the fact that it was nice having lunch together every day and that he was out of work by 3:00 (east coast hours).  It isn’t sad that he’s got a really great thing going at the new place and a far lower stress level to go along with it.  Even if it means he’s not home until 5:30, if his general career-self-ness is happier & more satisfied then he’s a lucky man.

And I’m a lucky woman too because with him out of the house I get the entire office area to dedicate to my stuff for the first time ever.  He gets a workshop in the garage, his man space and I get my Den.

It’s MINE!  It’s ALL MINE!!!  MY PRECIOUS!!!

Ahem…

First and foremost I have the desks set up for maximum writing and editing potential.  That’s pretty key considering I’m pursuing it from a career standpoint.  I kinda can’t just do it from my netbook on the sofa anymore.  The netbook with a 10” screen.  The sofa we’ve had for about seven years.  The sofa, like all of our furniture except the hand-me-downs, that came from IKEA when we were college-poor (pay no mind to the fact that we were in our late twenties/early thirties at the time, technically it isn’t a lie seeing as though I was in school).  Anyway, the sofa that needs to get the eff up on outa’ here.

But all in due time.  First and most important, did I mention I get the office all to myself?

So now that the writing station is covered that opens up the closet and the other 1/3 of the room to accommodate my hobbies too.  I have a permanent spot for my sewing machine for the first time in ages, and the closet can house stuff I’ve picked up for jewelry making that I actually kept after the Great Purge of 2009.

Oh yeah, and this is the room where all my sports memorabilia is going.  Booyah!

Mark Recchi (holding one of his three Stanley Cups, wearing a Bruins jersey), a Christmas gift from my Aunt (who rocks!), will be right across the room from me.  Obviously not the real Mark, the framed photo of his smiling face is perfect thank you very much.  My poster of Nomar (Nomah!!!) Garciaparra, the ‘We Got the Cup!’ poster we all got on Bruins parade day, the little Red Sox plastic cap that they sell you the ice cream inside of, and my New England Patriots bottle opener will all be on some kind of display.

Sorry but I can’t help that I’m a Boston sports nut.  I mean, when you grow up there you get it.  Even people who aren’t into sports at all are open to appreciating the fact that the Yankees suck.  Because they do.

But I digress…

The office will hopefully have a reading chair as well.  I love to read for enjoyment of course but aside from blogs and articles, there are paperback versions of guides and advice that I read for the business side and I want to keep business stuff in here.  Plus I’m hoping I can also do some reviews for other indie Author’s novels this year.  I have a couple friends who have written books and I’d love to get my take on them out there through Writesy.

Which reminds me…

If you’ll allow me another digression (which you likely will if you’re over here to begin with cuz this thing ain’t called Random Lunacy for nothin’!) I’d like to take a moment to just thank (profusely) all the amazing and wonderful people who have purchased a copy of my book!  In total, since first publishing this past April I’ve sold 68 copies of Ripple the Twine.  Holy crap!

That’s a whole lotta’ love and from the tips of my toes I cannot thank you enough for supporting my venture into the business of Writing and self-publishing.  I’m really proud of this book but it still humbles me that well over 50 people bought a single piece of my writing.  In all the zines, chapbooks, etc. I’ve never sold 68 copies before.  For this many people to believe in what I’m doing is actually (and not in that literally/totally/actually way but for real) about the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced.

And now I have an office all to myself to write in, a corner office with a pretty nice view of blue skies.

Apparently I must be doing something right because the gods of (whatever oversees the career track) are certainly smiling on me!

Anyway, thank you all so, so much for your love and support!

And now back to your regularly scheduled post about moving and setting up stuff.

I’ll probably hang some photos this weekend, things that are already framed and that we plan to use, but otherwise I’m taking the entire weekend off.  Matt too.  We both deserve it I can say that for sure after being on non-stop go-time the past month since we closed on the house.

There’s been a pool pump & filter replacement (including plumbing) done, epoxy overlay in the master bath shower, hanging of curtain rods and large poster art.  And that’s just what Matt’s done.

I pretty much painted every interior surface with the exception of ceilings (which I cut in and Matt rolled), a few bathroom cabinets, and all the doors.  But including kitchen cabinets.  Which I now somewhat regret because they were tough to do and the paint wasn’t the best quality.  But they admittedly look 1000% better and will do until we replace them.

We plan to rip out the bathrooms over the next year or so.  Functionally speaking they work fine for now but I figure if we leave them hideous it will speed up the process of saving to do what we really want not just what works to get by.  That’s here already, and as we all know Matt and I had the ‘let’s-make-it-good-enough-and-flip-it(-but-ha-ha-it-never-sells-sucka)-house in the past.

If nothing else Labor of Love taught us to be patient.

Um, yeah, that’s it.  Go ahead, ask Matt how I’m doing with that concept.  Patience isn’t in my vocabulary when I am setting up my house.  My house is my thing.  Some people have shoes or bags, I’m all about my house.

Regardless though I’m frantic over spending as if we’re destitute or something.  Which we’re not.  If we were, we would have never considered buying.  We’re doing fine and all that hoo-ha but scrimping and saving for years then watching the rapid depletion of your savings go ‘POOF!’ in one fail swoop called a down payment, well, it kinda gets stuck right there in the throat.  Especially when I’m not pulling in any kind of predictable income right now.

But enough about all that.  Have I mentioned I’m writing this blog post from my brand new, office?  The one that’s all mine?

In time, maybe over the course of the next five years or so, our plans include opening up all the kitchen walls to the living room space so we have a great room open concept feel.  The reason it’ll be years down the line is it also means the entire tile floor comes up because it was installed up to the trim, not under it.  And that’s a project neither of us will do ourselves, nor do we want to spend money on it right now.  There are priorities far greater that benefit the short term and long term.

For example, the plumbing must be looked at relatively soon.  Every time we run a load of laundry bigger than a medium sized cycle at one end of the house, the showers back up all the way at the other end of the house.  Um, so not okay.

Our plumbing plans include having that inspected as well as moving the water and gas lines for the laundry into the house from the garage.  Because, really?  I don’t understand what genius thought ‘Ooh I’ve got an idea! Let’s put the place where you’re cleaning your clothes in the dirtiest place in your house. Brilliant!’

Laundry in the garage never made sense to me and since the wall abuts the kitchen wall we’re bringing it into the kitchen.  Which of course means building out a closet for it.  Which would leave the kitchen with an off-balance design.  Which of course means building out a pantry on the opposite corner.  And if we’re installing such nice doors and cabinetry/countertops over there we’re going to want to rip out the kitchen with its painted cabinets and laminate countertops over here…

I think you can see where this is going.

It’s going nowhere right now, that’s for sure.  All in time.  And I stress all.

Anyway, we’re moved in and almost totally unpacked.  This week will probably be the final push.  Plus I’ll be posting stuff on craigslist and /or Freecycle and eBay over the course of the next week or so.

And I’ll be doing it all from my very own office.

Is There No Such Thing As Quality Anymore?

Sometimes it’s really, really hard to be a Writer. Mostly because I notice the spelling and grammar mistakes in every piece of printed anything now.  And no, I don’t like being a hypocrite, because I’m sure my blog is rife with grammatical liberties, but when your spelling mistake is emblazoned across something that ends up in the hands of tens of thousands of people I’m forced to ask how it got through the cracks.

I’m also forced to consider whether anyone has told you about your mistake.  If not is it because the general public feels too shy to bring up these types of things, or is it because no one noticed until now?  If it’s the latter then I feel it is my duty to pray for this country’s future.  Because it is most certainly headed to a hell where hell is spelled with an e on the end.

When I tell you what it was that I caught (on the first read, at 7:00 in the morning, before coffee mind you) you might laugh and shrug your shoulders wondering why I made such a big deal about it in the first place.  Then again, since I know most of you are like me, you’re probably already sending me an email to find out what the company is so you can alert their marketing department of their huge gaffe.

So as you know we closed with mortgage company one.  We’ll just call them American Slacker Mortgage (or ASM for short).  ASM was probably the most frustrating company on the planet to work with and our deal actually caused multiple people to place them on a black list.  Our broker considered leaving the industry as a whole.  I was counting down the days until we could refinance out of the loan and into a better company who gave a crap about their clients.

(READ: live in the fantasy world inside my head where rainbows shoot out of a unicorn’s ass and we all skip along holding hands, singing the Smurfs theme music with a big smile on our face all the live-long day.  Then everyone pats me on the forehead because of my forced naiveté that everything is sunshine and roses…)

Anyway, about a week ago we received the letter almost everyone gets these days - that our loan was sold.  I was doing the happy dance because it would save me the trouble of refinancing in a couple years.  The new company sounded promising, they were closer to our side of the country so our checks would undoubtedly arrive faster and though I’d never heard of them before I was assured it would all work out A-OK.  For simplicity let’s just call them Our New Bank, or ONB.

We started getting mail at the new house in the past couple days (wahoo!) and yesterday we received the first statement from ONB.  The first of the next, proposed, 360 months of my life.  I opened my statement this morning.  On the return envelope there was one of those tear-off thingies under the flap.  Most of the time those are there to fill out for a change of address or similar.  This one was there to request setting up automatic payment deduction.

I was slightly intrigued (READ: anytime I can be lazy and not have to think about things like paying bills if it can happen automatically then I’m all for it).  So I sat in front of my monitor and read the request.  And then there it was.

When I see spelling mistakes I consider a couple things.  First, is the letter that’s out of place next to a letter that should have been used and was hit in simultaneous error?  Second, is the letter in question next to the space bar and was hit accidentally?

Where this spelling mistake is concerned, the answer in both cases my friends, is a resounding no.  So here’s what I received.

I counted and there are 123 words in the little two paragraph blurb.  One hundred and twenty-three words and a spelling mistake like that slips through?  Especially when word 37 is the same word and spelled correctly!

That’s it, I’ve had it with the utter lack of attention to detail in this world.  The sheer volume of laziness on this planet is astounding to me.  Like I said, I crave laziness as well but not when it comes to stuff like this.  If I released my book including a spelling error within every 123 words there would be approximately 512 spelling mistakes in my manuscript.  Who cares so little they allow something like that?

The sad truth is that the answer to the question is most people.  But how could I trust they’d even get my information correct when entering into their computer?  If they can make a mistake like that on the request for my information, right there in my face in bold purple ink, can I really have confidence in the abilities of the company as a whole?  And as much as it pains me to say it, even with all the lack of caring by ASM at least they spelled everything correctly.

Sigh.

Guess I hold companies to a much higher standard than I should.

Eache and every one of them.

Something to Say?

The past week or so has been a whirlwind of drama to the nth degree with getting our house purchase squared away.  It was so much drama in fact that at one point I thought my next blog post title would read “The Foreclosure Market Giveth and Bank of America Taketh Away” but it turns out I would have been all wrong.

If anyone was going to be taking away our dream of homeownership it was going to be American Financial Resources with their lack of attention to detail, non-existent care for their clients, and complete lack of urgency in their jobs.  I have 17 months and 29 days until I can refinance out of their company and I fully intend to do just that.

It all started about 2 weeks ago when we were told by our broker that in Arizona we do an escrow close.  Now, forgive me on some of the technical terms because I’m not the mortgage professional in this household, but Matt isn’t the blogger, so you may learn even more about mortgages behind the scenes than you thought possible.  When closing in escrow you actually sign all your paperwork and give the title company the cash to close in advance.  The loan then funds and all the other hoobie-doos happen behind the scenes.

Yes, hoobie-doos is a technical term.

Then you meet with your realtor, get keys, and do a happy dance in your brand new, broom clean living room.

At least it reads great on paper.  In reality it went something more like this…

As of May 6^th we have all paperwork to our broker.

Our broker tells us she’d like to kiss us both because we’re so proactive.

Matt assures her it’s his many years of experience.

We start collecting boxes and packing material.

We are told we’ll have to sign & give money early.

We question this having never bought a house in an escrow situation.

We are told not to worry, paperwork should be coming in a day or so.

We sigh with relief and check the calendar – it is the 15^th.

By the 17^th we still don’t have final figures.

Matt has emailed everyone in creation at least 4 times a day.

Everyone but our lender has emailed him back indicating their attention to the situation.

Our lender finally sends a message that they missed the part where we close on the 23^rd but have to sign early – they say oops.

We hear a rumor that BoA (the seller’s mortgage holder) won’t close this if it isn’t done at least 3 business days in advance.

By the 18^th we still don’t have final figures and I start to panic.

The lender laughs.

I am not comforted by the fact that Matt starts to panic too.

We are forced to agree to a form that says we’re in breach of contract (even though it’s the lender’s fault, it’s on us).

I flip out screaming that our lender has had ALL our paperwork for 2 full weeks and question if anyone at American Financial Resources knows how to read.

The lender says they’ll have everything by Monday the 21^st.

I lose 3 pounds from not eating all weekend.

I gain 5 pounds from drinking all weekend.

I lose all I gained by helping move my sister into her very first house (HOORAY!!).

Monday comes and goes and still no paperwork.

I question where I can get heavier drugs.

The lender has literally said they don’t give a shit if it happens when we want it to or not.

Our broker has not one but about 50 panic attacks and calls in her boss to call their President.

The lender’s President all but laughs at our broker (again) and well over 200 emails go back & forth.

Matt takes the rest of the day off due to extreme overwhelming lack of concentration.

I begin drinking heavily.

We’re assured we’ll have everything Tuesday.

I pour another glass of wine and consider inviting our realtor and broker over to get hammered together.

Matt begins drinking with me and we zone out to crappy television.

Matt says out loud he will NEVER allow this kind of shit to happen to his clients.

Our broker’s President puts American Financial Resources on their black list.

Tuesday morning crawls at a snail’s pace but we arrive to sign docs at the title company at noon.

We hit the bank and withdraw our funds to close.

We shake hands and profusely thank our title company for their diligence in getting this done.

We continue to physically shake as we head to the car, hopeful everything will fund the next day.

Matt takes the entire day off and we both sit around biting off what’s left of our fingernails.

The 30^th call from our realtor comes in and we again commiserate that we’re all in this together.

Our broker contemplates leaving the industry this one has her so stressed out.

We pour ourselves another glass of wine.

Wednesday morning we wake up and know we have until 4:00 when the records office closes to have that deed recorded so we can get our keys.

Minutes tick like hours.

The title company says the lender received paperwork.

We pace frantically.

Another email details the wire has gone through.

I start chewing on random pen caps.

Another email that they’re standing in line at the records office.

Finally at about 3:30 we get word that the deed is literally done and we can meet our realtor at 4:30 to get our keys.

My excitement at the fact that we actually have purchased our very first home in Arizona is so overshadowed by all the stress and drama we dealt with that I can hardly get excited.  That is until our realtor opens the lock box and hands us our key.

Our key.  To our house.

I then proceed to do a happy dance in the middle of the living room.  Of course I have to avoid all the crap the seller left behind including piles of trash all over, a garage full of random crap, a backyard full of random crap, and 2 bedrooms full of her kid’s random crap.  Our realtor leaves us at our new house with a couple hugs and handshakes and we sigh in relief.

I start looking through all the stuff left behind.  This includes, but is not limited to, a chaise chair, a huge cooler, a shed full of screens and beach chairs, 2 patio chairs (score!), an entertainment center, her son’s baseball trophies and uniforms.  And then I poke through his closet.

There, in a far back corner of a shelf is the kid’s bong.

Oh how I wish I were kidding.  The trophies, her recipe box, and family photos at Disney were odd enough to find left behind but really kid?  I mean as a teenager isn’t that the first thing you pack?  Maybe he’ll swing by to fish it out of the dumpster.  Because that’s right where it will be.

Needless to say we spent a couple hours picking up new lock sets at Home Depot, installed them and a padlock for the backyard gate (for pool safety), swept out the crap from the house and skimmed the leaves out of the pool.

We drove away from our house last night at about 8:30, got Subway, and came back to our apartment ready to start our clean out, painting and pool maintenance the next day after work.  I’m counting the hours until the end of the day today.

And last night we celebrated the downshift in stress with the last of our magnum of wine.

It’s finally ours now. And no one can take it away.