Signing The Contract

Met with R and the realtor today and signed the contract for the house. R was a little adversarial, and at one point I feel she was downright rude. She feels I shouldn’t have used an agent at all, but since I’ve never bought a home I wanted to have help. R wanted to finance the home for me for five years, and then have me seek new financing. Interest rates right now, though, are at an all-time low. If I refinanced in five years it could cost me thousands of dollars.

It’s nice to have R be so defensive for me, even if it is a little overpowering at times. All the “extra mothers” are one of the benefits of working at the college. I’m going to miss all the free advice when they retire.

R’s mothering also has an unexpected side benefit – my natural mother isn’t pestering me to death because I’m too busy phoning her to talk about R!

Anyway, we rolled Paul’s commission into the house’s final price, and I really feel it’s almost a done deal. I have to get my financing in order, and I have SEVEN DAYS to get the home inspected.

Very scary. I don’t think the home will pass inspection until we get it cleaned out more. Paul seems to feel it’s pretty easy, but there are rooms in the house I can’t even get into. How can an inspector possibly certify a room he can’t see?

Tonight I’m cleaning the closet that has the attic crawlspace. I couldn’t find it earlier because a large cabinet was square in front of it. Dad moved the cabinet and now I’m bagging clothing. It’s going pretty quickly (four bags so far) and would be faster except for the pocket-checking. I found $80 in one of her coats.

(later)

Up to about fifteen bags now. The closet’s main floor space is about halfway empty, another fifteen bags should do it. I’ve found American Express money, plus other smaller bills.

My latest thought is to hire students to help with the garage, but I’m not sure how R would feel about that.

Cleaning Begins

Not completely thrilled with the realtor, Paul. Realized he would normally split a commission with another agent, so the 3% is his standard fee.

Closing costs looking much better. At this point I think I’ll have to have about $9000 on hand at closing, and I can meet that easily. That will leave me with $7K to get through the summer, not counting whatever the school pays me. I feel much better about the entire process now.

After talking to Paul I went out and purchased boxes and tape to start moving out R. She’s agreed to my plan, so I’m slowly boxing her up. I started with a closet which is supposed to have a crawlspace to the attic, which is essential for the inspection. So far I haven’t seen the crawlspace, but I’ve had an adventure! Here is what I’ve found, stacked in just the top 6 inches of the closet:

• Several large wooden panels with beveled trim


• Lots of tile, like the tile in the bathrooms and kitchens.


• Two small delicate lamps


• Part of a ceiling light fixture


• Two tins shaped with houses containing small bottles of wine


• A bunch of Christmas lights tangled in something I can’t quite dislodge


• A LARGE tackle box with jewelry-making odds and ends


• A nice large blue-and-white Japanese-ish vase


• A roll of nice artisan papers, probably from PaperRoutes


• Wonderful wooden tray with Asian influences – I really want it!

And that’s just the interesting stuff. I also found a bunch of pure crap, like candles and shower caps and a bag of clothes pins. My current policy is to box the crap, and try to organize the remainder into some kind of order so we can group it somehow. Mom advises against this activity, as it will take longer to get everything boxed and out of the way. At this point I want to start a little slow, and enjoy R.’s life – one large unfinished masterpiece – stretched out in front of me.

Called a Realtor

Actually called a realtor today. I chose Century 21 because it’s up the block from me, so it will be as convenient as possible. Aren’t I discriminating, and didn’t I do my research? The realtor is willing to work for a 3% commission since I’m paying the commission and he doesn’t have to show me houses. The realtor recommended a finance company, which called me fifteen minutes later. He thinks he can get me about 5.8%, which is about what I’ve been quoted elsewhere.

My biggest concern at this point is money. With an FHA loan I only have to put 2.5% down, but I’ll still have closing costs plus the agent’s fee. It’s starting to look like this:

Down payment:            $3000

Other closing costs      $4000

Realtor                  $5000

------------------------------

                        $13000

I will have $13000 in the bank on May 1. Can we say trouble? Our closing date is currently May 26. By that time I should have

Wait a sec. School closes in early May, so I should get paid the second week in May. By closing I should have $16000 in the bank.

Thank goodness. That will leave me enough money for the foreseeable future.

(Later) I’ve been on the phone with my old supervisor discussing summer pay. She’s explained how to maximize my summer contract as much as possible. If I can get what she’s suggested to fly I should get more for summer than I thought, which will be enough to pay my bills. If I can hold out until September everything will be OK.

And I can always do eBay, or get a part-time job somewhere.

Plus I’m about to have a blow-out garage sale. I’m going to talk to R. tomorrow, and I’m going to volunteer to clean out her house. I’ll get everything ready for a garage sale, and the night before the garage sale she can haul off whatever she likes. In return for the house-cleaning service I can keep a portion of the proceeds of the sale. It sounds like a good deal, and I’m hoping she agrees. If she does I’m buying boxes on Thursday so I can get started on Sunday. (I have a party to go to on Saturday, so I can’t do much then.)

Mom also has a ton of stuff to contribute to the garage sale, from the grandmothers' homes. My paternal grandmother particular netted about thirty boxes. This garage sale will give us an opportunity to clean the house out. I wish we had more time, I’d like to clean out our garage as well.

I think we’ll arrange everything on tables by price. We’ll have a .25 cent table, a .50 cent table, a 1.00 table, a 3.00 table, a 5.00 table, and an over 5.00 table. This will make it very easy for Mom and R. to proof whatever I have done.

So now, when I should be playing finances I’m playing home decorating instead. My ideas for the house, which have been ALL over the place, are starting to come together. I want to work on my color schemes tonight, pinpointing the basic colors I want in each room. That will be the starting place. Who knows where I’ll go?

Easter Holiday

The sandwich was wonderful, and so was the frittata. Nice and eggy. I ate ¼ of it tonight, and plan to have a little for breakfast. This is Easter weekend, so I can r-e-s-t!! No school tomorrow or Saturday. Of course, by “rest” I mean

• Pick up B. tomorrow and drive to Mon’s to take pictures of children for Easter


• Finish tweaking new distance-ed site, update DB, and basically get everything ready.


• Work on style sheet switcher for PD2


• Work on designing a shopping cart for Interactive


• Develop Viewlets for Interactive

In reality I’ll be happy to get ½ of that done, but I’m going to try. If I can it will make the next few weeks MUCH easier.

Cooking

No chance of teaching in Florida – I’m going to be too busy at college this summer. Terrence isn’t teaching so I have to pick up his twice-weekly class plus my onlines. Drat! The only good news is that my lab assistant is going to work six hours a week as a grader, so some of the drudgery will be removed from my shoulders.

A little bored with egging. New project is to actually cook meals instead of calling Pizza Hut twice weekly. I’ve actually planned a menu, and purchased groceries. And a frying pan, measuring cups & spoons, and more. Had a great idea for measuring cups – make a single-person’s cup, which automatically decreases recipes by ½. For example, tonight’s recipe called for 2/3 cup milk. I forgot to cut it in half, and had to start all over. Wouldn’t it be great if someone made a measuring cup that was already cut in half? Let’s say a recipe called for ½ a cup of water. I would take my single-person’s cup and measure out ½ a cup, just as the recipe says, but the cup’s ½ line is really at the ¼ line! It would automatically cut all the measurements in half, without me having to do any of the math.

Anyway – Monday I slept late and didn’t get any breakfast, but I did eat the lunch I had planned. Then that evening I chickened out, and just warmed up a frozen pizza. After pizza I drank a bottle of Odwalla juice that claimed it had a few more days until the expiration date. Boy, was it wrong! I spent the rest of the evening hunched over the toilet bowl.

I ate a semi-sensible breakfast this morning, and then this evening I actually cooked. The recipe was for corn fritters served with tomato on top. They weren’t bad, but I can’t help but think they could have been better. The fritters were a nightmare. The recipe was designed to serve four people, and somehow (even with al the ½ ing) I ended up with six fritters. I ate it, but I was hungry later so I ate the rest of the pizza. I hope the juice was off, and not the pizza!

Tomorrow is one of my all-day teaching days, so dinner will be a simple avocado-tomato-and-bacon sandwich, with a salad. I won’t cook again until Thursday, when I make a frittata.