Our New Kitchen

Well, this last week has been fun. Not. My husband's dad was taken to emergency last week, so J had to rush home to Edmonton. Coincidentally, the day before we closed on our new home. Bit of a mad panic arranging power of attorney so that I could sign everything necessary the next day.

Fast forward to almost a full week later, and I'm kind of physically and emotionally drained from the stress of getting into major debt, moving from a fifth floor walk up to a new state (ok so it's only across the river) and undertaking major renovations on my own. I have, however, had a few rays of light. One of them is this company called Basic Builders.



This is Peter Welles - and he's drawing me a new kitchen. Look at him with his old-timey tools! He's using a real pencil (which was tucked behind his ear) and graph paper. He did make a few concessions to modern living though - he had the most wicked laser pointer-er measuring thing.

My good friend Sarah had already been hard at work looking for pictures of kitchens that she thought would work, so I was able to at least provide Peter with some design direction - mainly that we have 'champagne taste on a PBR budget'. I'm sure that everyone says this.

Here's the dream kitchen:

We may just be 10 days away from getting to this point. Fingers crossed.

My first session with a Career Coach

I had my first session with a career coach yesterday. It was ok. Just ok.

I'd been thinking about using a career coach for a while, and a friend had recommended checking with our company health plan to see if we had EAP (Employee Assistance Program) coverage for at least an initial consultation. At the time, we didn't, but by the time I actually got to really investigating the services of a coach, our health plan had changed, and voila - coverage.

So how was the session? A bit like a therapy session actually. I was shown into a small room that had a coach, a lamp, strategically placed boxes of tissue, and a chair. I guess I'm supposed to take the coach? I was SO tempted to sit in the chair and let the coach take the coach. It would have been fun to see her reaction.

My coach was a young woman, probably not even 30. Quite studious looking, and pretty, but pretty unkempt. I had fretted over my appearance for an hour in the morning, knowing that I'd be meeting someone that had the potential to be a business contact. I made sure that I was dressed professionally, had on a watch and stud earrings, had a ball point pen as well as a highlighter, had a notebook filled with notes I'd prepared, and that my breath was fresh. The young woman I met with had on a pair of pants with a fallen hem on one leg, was covered in cat hair, and had a limp, wet handshake. Not an auspicious start, but appearances and first impressions aside, we plowed ahead.

In the end, even though it was all classic therapy moves ("what I hear you saying is....", "it sounds like what you need is ....", etc.), there was still some value to the meeting. Just repeating my own words back to me served to crystallize some of the thoughts that I had. Also, presenting my 'case' to a complete stranger made me realize that I'm actually pretty prepared for a serious job search. I have a good understanding of what I need in terms of job satisfaction, I'm taking all the right steps in my research and I'm hiring professionals to do what I can't do well (a resume that acts as a marketing tool).

Now if I can convince Britney Spears to hire me and pay me $150,000 a year to be her big sister, I'm all set

Vernal Equinox

Today is the last day of winter, the Vernal Equinox. To celebrate this, it snowed. Thankfully, it didn't last very long, or even stick to the ground. Still it was an annoyance though, I'd already had an outfit all planned out that included somewhat inappropriate sling back shoes. Instead, I had to pull out the trusty Australians:


holy moly, they really need to be taken care of....I've had these boots for 11 years and they should last me another few at least. Jay bought these for me when we lived in Toronto. It was my birthday, and while I'm sure he'd rather have bought me a pair of red patent leather stilleto's, he knew my affinity for butch footware.

Today, in celebration of the last day of winter, I'm thinking ahead. I'm going to plan next years winter landscape for our new home. There's a big backyard and I figure that I can leave out some very specific items to create a snowscape. I wonder if a rusty old lawnmower will make a lovely shape. I think it will.

House assesment for financing

I had some crazy good news yesterday about the house situation yesterday. I'm still pinching myself.

We've been trying to close on our new Union City house for the last week, and the assesment has been holding things up a bit. Gone are the days when banks gave away mortgage money like mardi gras beads - now they are not only doing an assesment, they do a physical inspection. It just so happens that there aren't very many single family homes in UC (mostly multi family and condos), and there hasn't been a lot of home sales recently. So, that means that there isn't much to compare our property. In fact, there were only FOUR, as in 4, like quatro, over the last 12 month period. Isn't that insane? Four single family homes sold in this city in the last twelve months. That sounds too ridiculous, maybe it's four homes in same size/neighborhood? In any case, their is not a lot to compare to.

So the assesment happens, and I get a call from the real estate agent informing me that the value of the house was assesed at $260k. Uh, that's weird - we fiercely negotiated down from a starting point of $339k. In fact, our first offer on the property was $269k, and we recognized that it was a total low-ball offer. So low-ball that the sellers made a point of asking their agent to relay to us how insulted they were at our offer. So after weeks of back and forth, settling on a price of $305k, knowing it was more than we wanted to spend but we loved the house, the agents call about the assesment spun me into a panic. Does this mean the bank will only lend us funds based on a maxiumum of $260k and we have to find bridge financing for the extra $45k? That was my first reaction, and I instantly thought - we're done, we're not buying that house, we can't find another $45k. I was lamenting my aggressiveness in having already ordered 5 lilac bushes for delivery in April. BUT NO! The assesment means that we get the house for $260k instead of $305k. I don't know all the details yet but I think the sellers options were 1) take the assesed value and be done with it 2) take the property off the market and wait for economy to come out of the shitter.

I have to admit that I feel a certain vindication now for our initial "insult" low-ball offer. I'm also really happy to save some downpayment money. We're going to put in the swank new kitchen that we thought we'd have to put on hold. That will be a story for tomorrow.

House Buying

Is it totally insane that we're about to close on a house exactly two months after being laid off? I think it is - but since I am the *most* risk averse person I know, I'm taking weird pleasure in this gigantic leap of faith.

The beautiful apartment we've had for two years (picture on home page) is slowly being emptied and boxed up and getting ready for a ride across the river to Union City, NJ.

Where's Union City? Fair question - I know from googling it that it's home to Prote'Ge', who made it three rounds on G to Gents.

I also know that it was formally called "West Hoboken" until sometime in the '50's when it became it's own city. I also know that they mayor is named Brian Stack, and I'm going to stalk him. I've written before about my plans to stalk Moby, right? I'm done with him, and I'm now moving on to city officials. Brian and I will be good friends soon, and when we start exchanging chili recipes, I'll be bragging about it here.

Here's the front door of our new place - exciting, right?

Ack! Has it really been this long?

I think I got a bit freaked out about the potentially public nature of blogs....how do people do it? Just write what they want and consequences be damned? I think I may be too soft in the backbone for that. If I had more imagination (or a store of good drugs nearby) I'd probably be able to 'let it go' a bit easier. Geez, even reading back the last few sentences makes me quesy. How narcisstic I am - as IF anyone reads this but me, and moreover, as if anyone really cares. People post videos of themselves lighting their farts on fire, I don't know why I'm worried about what I may reveal.

So what's best - a catch up on the last few months or straight into what I want to talk about?

Straight into it. Shit! I just realized that I'm typing in Times New Roman. I hate this font. One moment, let's see what my options are. You have no idea how lucky you are, I almost went with Verdana.

Ok, here's what I wanted to post about.....I need a life coach for my work life. My company offers the services of this "Employee Assistance Program" which I was hopeful about - until I went to the website and saw what a joke it was. Basically, a drop down menu of life situations (work, health, finance, home life) with further drop down menus for each. Allrighty, I thought, a pretty good start. So I make my selection (finance ->mortgages) and see a list of linked news articles....not exactly the help I was looking for. Oh well. I guess I'll turn to my best friend, Google, and see what she says. Maybe she can recommend a work/life coach.

I just read a great book

I just finished "Elling" by Ingvar Ambrjornsen. What a fantastic book. It's about a pair of roomates who have been released from a care facility and have to learn to navigate daily life. The book is set in modern day Norway, and I really feel like I learned a bit about the Norse pysche.

Very good funny read, I highly recommend it.