So, if your spouse said to you while grabbing the clean sheets from the dryer: I’m going to go upstairs and put these on the beds. — Would you assume he/she actually made the beds? Or just threw the sheets in a crumpled mess on the beds?
|-|
(I still love you, babe.)
The packers will be here Monday, June 27. The movers will be here Tuesday, June 28.
The carpet cleaners will be here Tuesday evening. We hope to do the checkout with the landlords (so we can see exactly what they see and be here to fight anything they might come up with—we don’t trust them to do it without us) Tuesday night as well.
If all goes well, our two-car caravan will leave sometime on Wednesday the 29th after we get the U-Haul packed. (We are still waiting to see what my mom’s schedule is, as she wants to come down to North Carolina to help watch Owen while our stuff is delivered, we unpack, and paint some rooms in the house. She’ll get there one way or another, we’re just waiting on final details. So, we MAY leave on Thursday the 30th.)
Whenever we leave, we’ll end up in Jacksonville the following day. I would love to do the drive in one day, but it’s just not going to happen. It was a 14-hour day when I did it by myself, stopping for quick bathroom breaks and take-out food—stuff not possible traveling with a U-Haul, a toddler, a dog, and two cats. Unfortunately, that also means we get to deal with a toddler, a dog, and two cats in a hotel room.
WISH US LUCK!
A huge thumbs up to the place that fixed my car post-accident. We had decided to get the hood repainted at our own cost (since it really needed it and they were painting the front end anyway) for an estimated $150. When Tom went to pick up the car, he was told it was done minus one fog light light bulb (they had ordered a pair, and one came with the bulb and one didn’t) and they had driven all over town looking for it, and apparently no one in the state had one! They apologized profusely and said since they felt really really bad (they had already had the car an extra two days due to another ordering/shipping error that wasn’t their fault), they ate the cost of painting the hood!! WOOHOO!!
After dealing with Costco Concierge and HP over the third major issue in nine months, they are giving me a brand new laptop! They are sending us a list of what models are available (saying they will not downgrade but only upgrade the specs) and if there is nothing we like they will build to suit (but will take 3-6 weeks). I can totally live with that. So kudos to them for actually doing the right thing with this dud of a laptop. YAY! (A bonus rave to this rave is that Tom took over the dealings, as stuff like this just makes me insane. Besides, I paid my penance dealing with the first two wonky laptops and the two repairs to this laptop.)
This one is comparatively minor, but a rave nonetheless. After almost three years of five bulging junk drawers (2 large, 1 medium, and 2 small) and at least two solid weeks of procrastinating cleaning them out…I did it today! Here’s proof (only one drawer, but you get the idea):
Of course, now I have two buckets of stuff to put away elsewhere, but a lot got tossed and put away already…and I feel much less stressed about the movers not having to pack and move five drawers of crap.
The moving company that’s been assigned to us? Ugh.
Tom went in to set up the move a few weeks ago, and came home with packing dates of June 20-21, a loading date of June 22, and delivery on July 6. The packing and loading dates corresponded with when my mom could come down to help, but I was surprised that the delivery date was so far out (we normally get our stuff a few days later)—so I was under the impression that’s when they could first do it. (Come to find out later, Tom has a function at his job that he can’t miss…on the 28th!…which he never told me about…which is why he scheduled delivery for when he did. I wasn’t happy about having to live at the house with no stuff for a week, but whatever, we’d make it work.)
Fast forward a week or so, when I get a call from the moving company out of the blue. This surprised me because Tom was the one dealing with it all. So I had to deal with her questions about the house, which was fine. And then talked to her about dates, because she mentioned that they could deliver earlier than July 6. (At this point, I still didn’t know about Tom’s function on the 28th.) So we had a conversation about possibly changing dates to whatever we needed to TO AVOID WAREHOUSING because we wanted to avoid that at all costs (warehousing means they come load the truck, unload the truck at a warehouse while we get where we’re going, then they RE-load the truck and deliver it). That just leads to more opportunity for loss and damage, so I told her we’d schedule something so we didn’t have to do that. She said she had to check the driver’s schedule and said she’d get back with us the next day. Two days later and nothing. Then Tom forgot to call until this afternoon.
Now, keep in mind no one has talked to us since that lady called me a week ago when dates were still up in the air…so Tom called and about had a heart attack when they said our delivery was scheduled for 6/23. HUH? What? JUNE 23? We never authorized that!! And apparently they didn’t think it was necessary to let us know?!?
We told them in no uncertain terms that June 23 was NOT possible since Tom would still be working…though we could alter our dates somewhat. Come to find out, they assigned us that delivery date because their driver has a pickup IN Jacksonville on the 24th. Sorry, not our problem. We discussed potential dates and they said they’d have to get back to us.
Ugh. We have never had this many issues with scheduling a move…EVER.
If we get what we want, we will have packing on June 23-24, loading on June 27, and delivery on July 1. My mom won’t likely be able to be here to assist (dang jury duty!), but it’s not as critical as I thought it would be since Tom will be able to be here for everything (unlike all past times when I had to do most of it by myself).
But I just don’t have a good feeling about this. I have a pit in my stomach thinking I will end up having to drive to NC in a rush (to meet our stuff), by myself, with Owen and the animals, while Tom stays behind to finish up at work and check out of the rental.
Please keep your fingers crossed for us on this one.
Total damage/repair estimate: $2154—about half in parts and half in labor. We get to pay the $500 deductible plus a few extra bucks for the upgraded rental car we chose and about $100-$150 to repaint the hood while they’re painting the other stuff (the only place that had some paint chips/rust spots, so we figured we might as well get it taken care of at the same time). I should have my car back Wednesday.
>:XX
Coming home from the zoo, pulling out into traffic, a GMC truck/trailer hauling asphalt changed lanes (merged) and smashed into our right front bumper tearing it off.
Everyone was fine, though my back was sore almost immediately.
But my poor car. This was her first accident ever at almost 10 years old…and with one fell swoop she lost her $10k resale value. It was drivable to get home, but not again until it gets fixed.
And the topper? Our fault. Failure to yield, since we were the ones at the stop sign. The cop said he didn’t want to write Tom the ticket but he had to. It was just a matter of bad timing—the guy merged over right after Tom looked and saw that it was clear.
We were at the bottom arrow at a U-turn/turn-around stop sign needing to turn directly onto the 696 on-ramp.
There are three lanes of traffic at that point, and the guy that hit us was NOT in the closest merging lane—but moved over at the last minute, after we had started to pull out (he said his blinker was on). I saw the truck go by, heard the screeching of the brakes, and just as I thought HOLY SHIT HE JUST MISSED US—his huge work trailer (filled with asphalt) slammed into the front right bumper and tore the whole thing off. Luckily it was just the bumper and it doesn’t seem to be anything more internal.
And what actually hit us (and had no damage, of course):
>:XX
The guys in the truck were really nice and were only worried about Owen, who was just fine and didn’t even realize anything had happened (though when he saw the front of the car, he said “broken”). And he did notice the police car there. 🙂 The cop was going to let him come sit in the car, but he got a call right as we were headed over so we didn’t get to do that. 🙁
Our landlords have lost their ever-loving minds. They came over for a showing, except the people were early, so I showed them around and answered questions—something I totally didn’t have to do, but I wanted to make everything sound great and get this place rented. Fine, right?
Well, we get done with the tour and the landlords are in the driveway, saying they’ve been waiting there. Whatever. They were maybe there for five minutes. They gave me a half stink-eye for not waiting for them. Whatever, don’t care, my part is done. They said they’d be back in to talk to me about the disposal. WHY? It’s broken? Ugh. (We had called to let them know it was broken and that Tom had attempted to fix it to no avail.) So they come in and check the disposal and it actually just needed to be reset, which Tom had looked for but didn’t find so thought maybe it didn’t have one. So that was fixed, they made a joke about “That will be $75!” and all was good.
Then they brought up the A/C. We said this morning when it was cool in the house, the air coming out of the vent was room temperature, or 74. The wife couldn’t wrap her head around it, because 74 was cooler than the current air temp [because the unit was off]. I said I’d turned the air off because it didn’t do anything to run and run and run. She said, “But if you turn it on the 74 will feel cool.” Yes, maybe for a minute. I told her we had it on all day recently and it was still 82 in the house, which implies it’s not working. I said maybe it just needs a refresher of freon every year since it’s an older unit. She says “But we just had someone out.” Yes, LAST YEAR. Yes, I know you don’t want to spend any money, but seriously. They ended up saying they will send someone. *And all this was AFTER we already called them about it TWO WEEKS AGO, and they gave us a song and dance that the A/C company said [something to the effect of] “Let’s wait until it gets warmer to check it out.” HUH? :??: Normally you’d be glad to check it out before everyone and their brother is calling during the first heat wave of the summer. ANYWAY.
Then.
THEN.
Then they wanted to give us some “feedback” on the house showings. Um, why? We don’t care. So basically, they want us to clean out the house. 🙄 :)) :crazy: Yeah, they said people are saying they can’t really see what the house looks like with all our stuff. Yes, that would be because WE’RE STILL LIVING HERE. They said they know we just had the garage sale, etc., but if we could make it look better… Um, just what the hell are we supposed to do? I said “If we move that [pointing at some random item], it just has to go somewhere else, which doesn’t really help.” We said we tried to get rid of some stuff but the garage sale was a bust. And then? They suggested an estate sale. Seriously. I felt my blood pressure rising and I was become less and less calm…ready to fight almost. I’m sorry, but there’s just not much we can do. And other than not enjoying people traipsing through our house twice a day, we don’t care if this place gets rented or not. Really. I know they’re concerned…but at this point, it’s not our problem and if they weren’t such douchebags about other stuff (like the A/C issue), maybe we would care more.
Then they said people didn’t like that the fireplace was covered. Tom said we could uncover that. But then they said something else kinda bitchy and I kinda snapped a bit and said something to the effect of “Well, we’ve been telling people it was for toddler-proofing and haven’t mentioned ONCE that that’s where all the cold air comes in in the winter.” They didn’t have a response to that.
And then they complained about the lawn, saying we need to take care of the weeds. Lord. They’ve never once cared until now, of course, because they’re trying to rent it. And honestly, yes, we are responsible for lawn care, but we never thought about weeds and at this point, we’re really not caring much about taking care of the damn weeds. So I need to pull the lease and see what exactly it says regarding lawn care. Again, if they weren’t such asshats about this other stuff, we’d be more than willing to be amenable about things like this.
So, overall, they just made their lives worse. We are NOT moving furniture around, we are NOT going to make it look like no one lives here, and we are NOT putting everything away. And from now on I am going to be brutally honest when they ask me what the landlords are like and how it is to live in the house. And I’m contemplating not being available a time or two when they need to show the house (since we’ve been EXTREMELY generous in not requiring 24-hour notice for showings).
I really don’t want to leave Michigan (or even this neighborhood) but I cannot wait to be rid of these landlords.
Today we officially had our last ever garage sale. Seriously.
The neighborhood we live in has a “community garage sale” every year. We figured it out the second year we were here, and our neighbor let us know which weekend it was, so we could be prepared for the third year—which worked out perfectly date-wise since we are moving in a month.
Now, from past experience, I hate garage sales. Yeah, I like the money, but they’re a lot of work and I hate haggling. Our stuff isn’t CRAP (like tchotchkes from the 70s or broken stuff)—a lot of the stuff was new (still in boxes or plastic), next to new, or in really good condition. So I priced it fairly—with some of the things marked a bit higher that I would be willing to haggle on. But long story short, we hadn’t had a garage sale in almost five years, so I was kinda ready…or at least had a positive attitude.
So we busted ass and cleaned out a ton of stuff—finally making the decision to just GET RID OF STUFF (some of which has been making the move with us since we got married). I had even posted on Craigslist that our community was having a garage sale, and listed what would be at ours. We had an entire driveway full by the time all was said and done, and we fully expected to make about $500-600 (thinking about past garage sales and how much stuff we had and what we made at those).
Ha.
HA HA.
>:XX
First of all, the “sale” was technically Friday and Saturday—which we didn’t realize until Thursday night when talking to our neighbor again. A garage sale on Friday? REALLY? :??: I had never experienced that in my entire life of having garage sales…so needless to say we totally weren’t ready. :down: But we figured that Saturday would be the big day anyway so weren’t really worried about it.
Second, the community association was supposed to advertise the sale with signs out front a week prior—except that the day before, there were no signs (they finally went up late Thursday night). :down:
Third, I saw NO listing for the garage sale on Craigslist—so I put one on there advertising OUR moving sale. I mean, in this day and age, you post on Craigslist, and it’s free and easy, so there’s NO reason to NOT advertise there. Stupid community association. :down: I also put up my OWN garage sale sign.
So Saturday morning rolls around and we’re up at 6 getting everything set up in the driveway (well, we were up at 4:30 but didn’t start working until 6). I had such visions of it being a gangbuster sale that I was bringing out anything that I thought might sell. The more stuff we got rid of, the better, right? And more money, right?
Well, in our Craigslist moving sale post, I said that although the community sale technically started at 8, we’d be out getting set up at 7, so early birds were welcome at 7:30. Well, someone showed up at 7:15 which was fine, but they didn’t take anything. Okay, no biggie, it was still early. But then no one else came until like 7:45. Really? Where were all the people beating down our doors at 6am or lining up on the street…or doing drive-bys the night before like we had in North Carolina?
Then people just started driving by. One car after another. Huh? We had about eight cars slow down and look—but not stop. Now, I fully realize that some might be looking for one particular item that could be seen from the road…but EVERYONE?? REALLY?? What are they expecting to find?
At the end of two hours, we had a whopping FOUR customers, two of which were neighbors…and we had made $68 ($60 of which was a fish tank). And had maybe 15 drive-bys.
BIG >:XX DEAL.
Then we’d get one person. Fifteen minutes later another. Then a drive-by. At the busiest time, I think we had three people there. Ugh. And of course 95% of them wanted to haggle. Now, I can handle haggling on stuff that’s $5 or $10, but seriously, if I’ve marked it $1, it’s $1. Don’t ask if I’ll take 50¢. And then pick out nickels and pennies when I agree. Seriously. (One lady had 49¢ and Tom just stood there with his hand out, waiting. I mean really, people.) Alternatively, if I have something marked $25, don’t offer me $10. I kept reminding myself that the point was to get rid of stuff, but honestly I would rather donate things for free than take $5 for a $20 item. My blood pressure certainly spiked through the roof at least a handful of times due to hagglers.
So come 4pm we started cleaning up—and it really didn’t even look like we sold anything. Every table was still out and full (when normally about two hours in, we’re consolidating stuff and getting rid of tables). The free thing we had sitting out didn’t even get taken!
So, in the end, we made about $300 for about 18-20 hours of work (prep, sale, clean up) which just sooooo doesn’t seem worth it. I mean, it’s better than working that long for nothing…but had we sold another $200 worth I’d be more amenable to having another garage sale sometime during my lifetime. To put it in better perspective how much work it was and how few people we had and how little stuff we actually sold…almost TWO-THIRDS (!!!) of our take came from just three big ticket items (a $100 table saw that Tom sold to a co-worker before the sale even started, a $60 fish tank we sold at 8am to a neighbor, and $30 for a new-in-box Lego set [that was actually worth $90, but I digress]).
The whole thing was just bad and frustrating—I have never experienced such a lackluster garage sale EVER. I don’t know whether it was due to the lack of advertising, people just not being into garage sales, or what… but what it did was certify that I will never again have a garage sale and I will just donate stuff.
Speaking of which—the Vietnam Veterans of America will be here Tuesday to pick up three bags of clothes and shoes, and about six huge boxes of stuff. :up:
It’s official. Our rental house has been put back on the market. We knew it would happen eventually, but it still sucks. We never really keep a super clean and organized house, but it needs to be somewhat presentable for showings.
That said, we had the first two showings today. The first lady didn’t seem that interested (she flew through the house in about five minutes) so she either knew exactly what she was looking for or she hated it.
After she left, I decided to look up the listing and guess what? The property is listed as being fenced. Um, no. WE put up TEMPORARY fencing because YOUR CHEAP ASS didn’t want to split the cost of a real fence. So now we have to tell every interested person that the fence isn’t included, but we’ll make them a deal on it if they want to keep it.
Oh, and the second showing? As per the deal, we were notified by the agent…but were really surprised when the landlords showed up with the people. Yeah, THAT would have been nice to know. Not really because we would have done anything differently…it would have just been a nice heads up. I just hate having the owners walking through the house. Yes, they own it, but it still feels like an invasion of privacy. Ugh.
I just opened the insurance statement from my ER visit for my cut finger. Once again, I am amazed at what the hospital bills and what little (comparatively) insurance pays and the hospital accepts.
They billed $805.07 and insurance paid $201.61. My responsibility is $25 (which I haven’t been billed for yet).
Yep, this is why people without insurance don’t go to the ER.
http://tweetstats.com/graphs/dailyblather
I love colorful graphs. And seeing interesting stats like these.
So there’s a toddler slide we want and it’s cheaper there than Amazon, plus I have a gift certificate, plus there’s a current B1G1 sale on toys of that brand.
Except NO local stores have it in stock so I try to buy online, where—bonus—shipping is free over $100 (up to $20 credit). Okay, fine.
So, they’re not on any rewards sites (like ebates) which is a bummer, but still nothing to kill the deal.
So, even though the B1G1 is limited to “products up to $50” you’d think if I bought something for $90, I could get the $50 (or less) item free, right? No.
Okay, so I think I’ll just buy the two items—totaling $110—to get the free shipping. Except somehow shipping is $42, which I assume is due to the large slide, except the slide page shows NO info regarding “additional shipping costs” that I can see—and in fact even has the “ships free with $100” logo on it. So free shipping really still costs me $20. Um, NO.
Screw it. This is why I buy from Amazon and pay a bit of a premium.
Over the past week or so, we’ve noticed that my car isn’t riding as smoothly as it usually does. There’s a little shimmy and shake business going on that actually made me a little nervous, like it might be on the verge of falling apart (because we’ve recently been joking about getting a minivan, except that I love love LOVE LOOOOOOOOVE my Highlander and never want to give it up, so we figured the irony would be that we’d now be forced to buy a new car).
So we took it in to our awesome local mechanic, crossed our fingers, and hoped the bill wouldn’t be enough to cause us to actually consider trading it in and buying a new car. We figured even if it cost $2,000, that would still only be about four new car payments.
THE BAD NEWS? The passenger front brake caliper is hung up—he said that’s a really bad thing and it’s what’s causing all the issues (and he can even see some blue spots, which I assume is a very bad thing). Though they’re usually replaced in pairs, he said we could just replace the one side as there’s enough room to machine the other side down, but it would be the bare minimum. To replace the full set—both pads, calipers, bleeding the brakes, and then balancing the tires—the whole shebang is $869.34.
😮
THE GOOD NEWS? That’s really only like 1.5 new car payments, so overall not too bad in the grand scheme of things. And if it makes my baby run for a few more years, I’m all about that.
Each of our names had a ton of results, but these were the best:
Politically incorrect but funny…
So our NC house is vacant and has been vacant since late December. Since we are now moving back, we don’t have time for even 6-month tenants, so, it will be vacant until we get there…but the vacancy means our normal insurance is being canceled.
My current insurance agent is great, but she can really do no more for me. She did tell me that our mortgage company would write a vacant policy to protect their investment. So I called.
Ugh.
I told the operator that I needed an insurance policy for a vacant property. She transferred me to the insurance department, whereupon the guy basically laughed at me when I told him what I needed, saying they don’t write policies for vacant houses. Oooo-kay. He said she just gave me to the wrong department and tells me I need a “Lender Provided Policy” (or something like that).
So I call again, get the same operator who doesn’t seem to remember me calling five minute before (even with my somewhat memorable name), and tell her what I need. She transfers me to Chris, who I tell what I need, and he apparently can’t help me (so why did I get transferred to him?) so transfers me to Janine, a manager in the Hazard Insurance Department…who after hearing what I need, says she can’t write me a policy and I need to talk to the insurance select department. :??:
I asked her if that was the same as the general insurance division and yes, it was (the phone numbers matched). She seemed surprised that I’d already talked to them and they couldn’t help me. Then she told me I really should be contacting the Fair Plan [something or other] in my state because they were the ones that should be able to help me. She then told me about her personal experience with vacant policies…because she couldn’t write one herself….and that it would likely be about $400/mo with the annual payment due up front.
WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
“So, let me get this clear? I called to get a vacant insurance policy from Wells Fargo, they transferred me to the insurance department who laughed at me, I called back and was transferred twice to you, someone who cannot write a policy for me?”
Bingo.
So I called my agent back just to see if she had any other advice, and to ask about the Fair Plan thing. She said THAT is who is canceling me. Lovely. She said that Wells Fargo would surely get off their ass when they got the insurance cancellation notice.
Great.
So now we’re in a mad rush to find a friend or someone who will go move in to the house rent-free for three months, just to avoid this crap.
Regardless, I am ready to pull my >:XX hair out over this stupid house.
So I get all of my credit card statements via email, and when I do, I pay them. Simple, right? Happens every month like clockwork and I always pay every bill on time.
Well, apparently, if American Express mails you a hard copy—like they do for the month you get your Costco rebate check—they SKIP sending you the email. Why on earth they can’t continue to send an email that month is beyond me.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? >:-(
Yeah, I got charged a $15 late fee and I’m sure there will be interest. Ugh. And yeah, I’m so used to receiving emailed statements that it DID NOT EVEN OCCUR TO ME that the mailed statement was a real statement. A sign of the digital times, I guess?
That said, I paid the full balance (plus some extra) immediately, then emailed them and complained about their process. To their credit, they did waive the fee, but I still think it’s asinine they can’t send an email when they also send a hard copy. I mean, how hard can it be? Why WOULDN’T you send one?
The short story?
We no longer have renters. :##
The long story?
Our property manager emailed us saying that they didn’t go for the five-month lease…which I assumed meant they signed the six-month lease. Except Tom had texted me to say the renters had walked out. Huh? WALKED OUT? What?
I was livid—how could someone screw up something so simple as “The owners were wondering if you’d sign a five month lease? No? Okay, here, sign the one for six months.” But at the time, I didn’t know I didn’t have the whole story. Very unfortunate, because I spent a good hour or two being so upset and stressed that I couldn’t breathe and wanted to vomit.
Come to find out, it was probably for the best. When Tom finally had time to tell me the whole story, he said that our PM had asked them if they’d sign the lesser lease, explaining that we were moving back and that would work better for us. They apparently freaked out a bit because (are you ready for this?) they were planning on extending (renewing) their lease at the end of the six months! WHAT?!? Yeah, exactly.
So the slimy sneaky rat bastards had low-balled us because they likely knew we were desperate (and/or they were cheap) and planned on hopefully sneaking a full year (or more) lease by us, eventually hoping that we’d agree to the same rent because we wouldn’t want to deal with the hassle of kicking them out and finding new tenants. And their plan was suddenly foiled because we were actually coming back to the house! So they beat feet to another rental house where the PM there called our PM to ask why they didn’t take our house. So hopefully they get screwed out of that house, too—or at least can’t pull the same scam.
So we decided to just pull the house from the rental market and suck up the 3.5 months rent until we move back there. Yes, it’s a crap load of money, but what can we do? No one is going to sign a 3.5 or 4 month lease. We don’t want to sign a 6-month lease because then we’d have to find somewhere else to live for a short time (or have Tom live on base alone and us come down later, while still paying rent in Michigan). We could hope for a year lease, but then we’d still have to find somewhere to rent—which seems silly since we have a house there. Ugh. We did leave the house on the sale market, just in case…but we’re not holding out hope.
In the meantime, we have to worry about our homeowner’s insurance…because we lose our current insurance on March 15 if we don’t have tenants. The house is officially (and legally) considered VACANT and those policies are quite expensive—and not generally written by our current insurance company. Of course, right? I have been told that there is a difference between VACANT and UNOCCUPIED (which would be like a vacation home) and we are hoping that maybe we can zip down with a Uhaul and dump some furniture in the house and promise to have neighbors check on it weekly until we get there. If that won’t fly, we will likely have to contact Wells Fargo and they will give us a temporary insurance policy to protect their asset.
So, we’ll be flat broke in a few months…but at least we’ll have our own house back. Not that I’m completely thrilled about that (layout wise it’s not the house I wanted to have kids in) but we do have our great neighbors and great friends.
And maybe somewhere along the line we’ll catch a break.
Ugh. Unbelievable.
So we’ve really been thinking we’ll be sent to California, because we’ve already spent five years in NC and it was HIGHLY unlikely we’d be sent back there. Also, Tom really needs to work for “the wing” (vs. the ground, as he has done already) which also means California. So we’ve been waiting on the word since December.
In the meantime, we have been trying to rent or sell our NC house. Desperately trying. We joked that the minute we rented or sold it, we’d find out we were moving back there. Ha ha. Right. Funny.
Yesterday we find out we have renters for six months.
Today we find out we’re going back to NC, effective July 31.
REALLY?
It’s not really a horrible terrible no-good situation because we couldn’t afford to keep it empty for the four months (until Tom has to be there) but it’s just the type of luck we have. We are hoping since they only wanted a six-month lease that a five-month lease will sound even better. Then, Tom would go live as a bachelor for a month (likely on base) and Owen and I would come down when the house was empty. Unless, of course, we sell it in the meantime.
It’s just so…sucky.
Ugh.
Just, ugh.
I’m trying to concentrate on the positives: we will be moving back to a place we have good friends, good neighbors (well, unless we sell the house), are already familiar with the area, and that isn’t a mandatory plane flight from home.
But, still. When are we going to catch a break?
About three weeks ago I bought a ceramic flat iron when Amazon was offering it for a great deal. I didn’t really need it—nor did I need to spend the $50 on it—but I did, thinking I could likely resell it (or worst case, actually use it when mine dies since it’s a better one). I listed it on Amazon for $149.99 (it supposedly retails for $249)—and it sold within a few hours!! After Amazon fees and the original cost, I made $80. I knew I should have bought a handful of them! :up:
I had a baby/toddler toy that is kinda big that I wanted to get rid of. Owen still liked it and played with it, but we’re trying to downsize (and he has enough other toys). Checking Amazon, they are apparently no longer available (though a newer, different model is) but there were two sellers: one for $100 and one for $300 (88|) so I figured What the hell? and listed mine at $99.99, fully expecting it to just sit there. I also listed it on Craigslist for much less since I wouldn’t have to worry about shipping—because Amazon doesn’t give you a fair price for shipping costs. But, I figured, even with the fees and S/H, I’d still make a fair amount.
So imagine my surprise when it sells…a day later! 88| YAY! But then I had to pack and ship this huge 14x18x18 thing! It has its own box but needed a shipping box, which of course we didn’t have, so I had to cobble together two boxes (which ended up to be 18x18x24) and use about a roll of tape. Fortunately, shipping only ended up to be like $5 more (instead of the $15 more I was thinking) and the tape was free (leftover from our military move)…so long story short, I paid $30 for it at Target a year ago and will have made, after fees and charges, $50! :up:
Who says I’m not working and making money? :b
We got our Escrow Analysis for the next year…and hmmm, I see that they’re scheduled to pay our Hazard Insurance in January 2012…which makes me think that they paid it THIS year, too. Which is funny because I sent in a payment [to our insurance company, not the mortgage company] for the same thing in December. I did this because [for some reason I can’t quite remember] when we first started renting our house, I had to pay the insurance myself—it couldn’t come out of escrow. And I guess I just assumed that it would continue that way and no one told me otherwise (i.e. I was billed for it from my insurance company).
So I called Wells Fargo and all they could tell me was they paid it in January 2011. Then I call my insurance company and after some back and forth…they tell me I am getting a refund because I overpaid!
So I should be getting $1168 back this week. Our bank account will be VERY happy.
Well, we’re back with USAA for auto and home insurance.
When we moved to Michigan, our auto rates skyrocketed—so we switched to a local company that was cheaper, then took the home (well, renters) with us to get a multi-policy discount.
However, over the past two years, the cheap insurance has increased by about $600/year so I thought I’d check out USAA again…and long story short, we’re paying about the same but getting better coverage. And the same with the renters policy.
And the CSR was just awesome. And now everything is in the same spot. :up:
I’m all about customer service during an ebay auction, but really? You want ME to tell you the differences between MY item and some random one on QVC?! :??:
I am comparing your butler tote to the one that is being advertized on QVC. Granted, yours is larger, but it is also more expensive to ship. I have never seen the “Nelle” organizer tote. I am considering bidding on this. What is the difference? I prefer zip top as opposed to a magnetic clasp.
I did check QVC, and there were three bags, so I was apparently ALSO supposed to be a mindreader. My response:
I’m not sure what bag you were looking at at QVC (they have three Butler Bags currently). Mine does have a magnetic closure, but it works quite well. Unfortunately, it is more expensive for me to ship a purse since I’m not a huge corporation that gets a discount on shipping. Since the auction has ended, let me know if you are interested, and I will list it again. Thank you for looking at my auction!
What do you bet I don’t hear anything back?
Since Tom had the day off, we took Owen to the community center pool. At first he didn’t really want anything to do with it—not even when we gave him a ball. But after about 30 minutes he started loving it, and we ended up staying for almost two hours. Here he is shooting hoops with Tom’s help…
My mom has a group of friends that meet every Wednesday night for dinner. Tonight’s happened to be at the Ramada Inn where one out-of-town couple was staying, so we were invited to come early and use the pool. Of course, we knew Owen would LOVE it—and since we don’t typically pack swimsuits and swim diapers for a winter trip to Grayling, it was off to Kmart.
Needless to say, Owen LOVED the kiddie pool. He stayed and played for over TWO hours, and I know he would have stayed longer except it was time to eat (which, as an aside, he didn’t care about at all since we were right next to a ping pong table and he was obsessed with watching the ball and trying to catch it).
He was so excited to be able to see things from a new view!
