diverting back to houseblog, this will be my final houseblog post for a while. why? today nate and i finally closed on our house – two weeks past the initial closing date. woo! finally we are homeowners again. I’m excited to not worry about keeping quiet, paint the walls, put in a garden, PARK IN A GARAGE. omg. winter’s coming, you know. it was nice today, but it’s right around the corner.
and speaking of around the corner, christmas is. but thanksgiving is still only 2 weeks away, and for some reason the coffee shops have decided to get rid of anything pumpkin. i don’t understand it? thanksgiving is as much about pumpkin as halloween is. hello?? pumpkin pie??? but no, they’ve converted to mint everything, and i already miss my pumpkin mocha. (they do still have pumpkin bread, though, which is a relief.)
caribou, if you read this, let’s keep pumpkin around til at least thanksgiving. i like mint as much as the next person, but come on! let’s not rush things! life is short enough as it is to not savor pumpkin as long as possible.
things are slowly but surely coming together. except my left pointer finger. i grabbed a scissors today by the blade and cut open my finger. AGAIN. that poor finger. it never gets a break.
put together another bookshelf today for my dvds, and nate bought three folding tobales and lined the entire office with desks. omg.
and tomorrow’s the actual closing on the house!
but really, i had a decent post planned for you tonight, but then the finger thing happened. stupid finger. >:( living room w/new movie shelf. hutch looks pretty good! my poor 20″ imac looks so tiny.
in other news, did you know there is actually an organized blog posting month? who knew?? http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-nablopomo.htm#slideshow
it’s true; buying a house is a money sink. you’d think since i’d already owned a house, i would be set. but each place is different. a brand new house lacks a lot of things. this one needed a washer and dryer, plus all the window treatments – curtain rods, blinds, etc. so not only is it a money sink, it’s a time and work sink. bleah.
and i’m sure you’re all sick and tired of reading about houseblog! let me tell you, i wish houseblog were over as well, because then i could move above and beyond houseblog. and it would mean the house would be set to go! (and clean.)
today i finally got the email i’ve been waiting for since halloween – the rural development loan was finally approved! that only took 3 weeks longer than it should have. closing is scheduled for this friday, and now my anxiety over having to pack up and find somewhere else to live can be kicked to the curb.
onward and upward!
today the cable guy came over and got the internet working! woo! what does this mean? this means i’m writing this post on my laptop! maybe tomorrow i’ll have my imac setup and i can actually use a decent keyboard. what a concept.
anyway, update on the house: we are still squatting. i got an email today from the loan officer and she said she is 100% certain that we will have approval by friday, so the closing is scheduled for 9 am on friday. i am STILL nervous about this, though, even though i’ve gotten multiple reassurances from my loan lady. i will be one sad sucker if i have to pack everything up.
also got a message from my landlord, and it sounds like he found a renter for december, which means some extra moola in my pocket for that month. pretty handy for christmas. or just more presents for me…haha! awesome stock photo with watermark through it!
i went through the crap left in the garage, and i have minimal boxes left to unpack, mostly books and dvds. i just need to set up my bookshelves, and those should be easy to unpack. then some stuff that needs to go in the basement for storage, break down the boxes, and hopefully my car can get in the garage by the time snow flies.
i feel like this kablpomo’s posts have been inundated by houseblog. boo. i need something substantial on here!
yesterday i went to my mom’s to use her internet to write a kablpomo. today i’m thumbin it on my phone. internet doesn’t show up til tuesday 🙁 i might have to go wardriving tomorrow with my laptop.
in other news, we get quite a few tv channels with our lame-o antenna! considering we’re out in the boonies, this is pretty impressive. maybe 5 pbs channels (that’s all that counts, really) and a few abc and sports channels. we’re pulling some wisconsin channels too!
still no word on the loan; veterans’ day the govt is probably closed, so i’m not expecting anything til tuesday at the earliest
boo 🙁
i took short video on my phone of the house. it’s still messy and stuff all over, but this’ll give a somewhat decent sense of how it looks!
http://youtu.be/7HrORw0U6bY
ps – i’m still beat. ugh. i slept for 9.5 hours straight last night, and i don’t think i moved once.
nate woke up at 6 am for some reason, and so i ended up getting up by 6:30 because the bedroom door was open and he always makes a ton of noise. so we were out unloading the truck by 7 am. it’s been a long day, to say the least.
i still have a ton of kitchen stuff to unpack, and i’m almost out of cupboard space, so hopefully i’ll be able to get my parents’ hutch tomorrow.
if i could get myself out of bed, i’d take a picture or two, but i think i’m down for the count. maybe tomorrow. instead, here is a pic of the pan cover holder i got for easy access.
i have been living around boxes for a month now. after packing for moving last weekend, this week i had to root through boxes to find clothes to wear to work. let’s just say the week-long delay has not been fun.
then, i got a call from my realtor today saying that they STILL hadn’t gotten the RD loan approval yet. my loan officer had sent in three RD loans at the same time and has gotten then other two back while nate’s and my loan is still waiting. unfortunately, RD offices aren’t accepting inquiry calls (of course), so she can’t call to figure out what’s going on.
this was seriously like deja vu all over again; last year we had the same problem trying to get into our apartment. what is wrong with my karma??
i had a truck lined up, my days off (again), and assumed everything was well because i hadn’t heard anything monday or tuesday. arrrgggh!!
after a convo with the loan lady, and given a date of NO LATER than three more days, she said, well, this is ridiculous. she contacted our realtor to see if we could get in tomorrow anyway, since the house is vacant. after waiting about 45 minutes, i got a call back from the realtor, telling us the builder said yes, we can move in as long as we assume responsibility if anything happens between tomorrow and when we actually close. (and transfer all utilities over to our name.)
so, we’re on for tomorrow again. ready to move! tonight i packed up some more stuff, and there’s still a ton of stuff that needs to be packed up. i have more stuff than i thought.
(ps – tomorrow i will be posting from my phone, unless i can get over to my mom’s house to use her internet. internet comes on tuesday – ugh, what a wait! #firstworldproblems
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[see – i closed my parenthesis!]
because my house life is a shambles right now, with boxes lining the walls and conquering the porch every day as i try to kick off my shoes, kablpomo seems a little hopeless to me. nanowrimo seems light years away, although i will attempt to do some writing on my devil’s syrup book this month, and i haven’t cracked a book in at least week.
at this point, because everything’s all over the place, it’s easier to come home from work, throw my stuff in the corner (because, really, does it make a difference since everything’s a mess anyway?), pet a cat, and plop on the couch to spend an hour deciding what to watch on netflix.
then spend an hour surfing reddit.
then spend an hour creeping people on facebook and twitter.
then spend an hour finding the best price on an obscure movie i watched 28 years ago.
then time to go to bed, and if i bring my phone, spend another hour on reddit.
what did i accomplish? well, i got my money’s worth of bandwidth from charter.
when did my brain make a switch from thinking reading and writing was fabulous to boring? why will i put down a book to pick up my phone to look at inane stuff that, ultimately, i don’t really care about? image by Audrey Westcott – http://www.studlife.com/author/audreywestcott/
way back in the year 2000, the american psychological association was already studying the effects of internet addiction. this was back when modems, chat rooms, and waiting until after you got home from work to check your personal emails were still a thing. if they were studying it THEN, when every person didn’t have a personal internet machine in his or her pocket, i can only image the effects now.
looking at some more recent coverage, there are some places that actually have internet withdrawal programs.
Bradford Regional Medical Center, has become the first in the U.S. to treat severe Internet addiction through a 10-day inpatient program. Patients admitted to the voluntary behavorial health treatment center must first undergo a “digital detox” that prohibits Internet use for at least 72 hours, followed by therapy sessions and educational seminars to “help them get their Internet compulsion under control.” “Like any other addiction, we look at whether it has jeopardized their career, whether they lie about their usage, or whether it inteferes with relationships,” Young explained. Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was first coined as a joke by Dr. Ivan Goldberg in 1995.
well har har, dr. ivan. who’s laughing now? not me, that’s for sure. the internet hasn’t jeopardized my career (quite the opposite!), i don’t lie about my usage, and the only relationship MY usage has interfered with is my self relationship (nate’s usage is another story 😉 ).
like all addictive substances, go through withdrawal and then stay away from it. willpower! willpower! but how on earth does a person stay away from the internet this day in age, especially when my job relies on it? it certainly doesn’t help that i’ve probably got a brain that tends toward addiction.
until that day comes, i’ll use that useless, addiction-crazy willpower of mine and attempt to corral my personal usage – attempt being the keyword. i’m not giving up the internet, but i can try to put it in its place. i win, internet. i win.
so the government is open, which means my home loan, personal, and business loan can now be processed! woo! i’m just hoping they aren’t so backlogged that we need to push the closing date back. i guess we’ll just play it by ear.
this round of home buying seems to be a little more labor-intensive on my part. it makes me realize that my previous realtor was a really good realtor for buying a house. she paid for the home inspection (which we didn’t have this time around because it was a new house), she called all the utilities and had them connect us (which my current realtor made sure to point out that i had to do this), and she touched base with me all the time (seems like my realtor is MIA sometimes, especially worrisome during this shutdown fiasco).
on top of that, because my insurance agent is still up in st cloud, i have to do some legwork for them as well. i have to go out and take pictures of the house to send in with the insurance application. might be time to switch to someone down here, especially since my original insurance dude quit 🙁
as it is now, in two weeks nate and i will be closing on our house. hope that continues to be the plan! my future downtown
