JC's New CC

So we recently came home from a weekend away and discovered that one of the front tires on my car was flat.  The car had over 100,000 miles on it and we knew the front tires needed to be replaced.  And we’d been debating whether or not it was time to sell it and move on. 

But how do you know when that point is?  I mean, you could probably drive it for another 100,000 miles – but how much are you going to spend in pieces and parts to fix it and keep it running?  And where is the point of diminishing returns?

For me, the biggest question is: Does your husband work at a car dealership?

Since the answer to that last question is “yes,” it was a no-brainer.  And, let me tell you, it was the easiest car deal I ever had to contend with.  I drove to Vince’s office, signed my name a couple times and they handed me the key. Wow.  This is how I want to get every new car from now on!

And, yeah, okay, so I also had to hand over my credit card and put some money down on the deal – but I didn’t have time to dwell on that part too much.

In contrast, when I bought the Mazda over eight years ago in the PVE (that would be the Pre-Vince Era), I spent literally weeks online researching cars and trying to find out exactly what I should pay for the car I wanted with the options and features I desired.  

When I finally steeled myself for the trip to the actual car dealership, I went in armed with a notebook filled with my research and, because I am so lousy at math, I even had a cheat sheet of incremental percentage points over what I (and Consumer Reports and Edmunds.com) perceived the car should cost.  I was so prepared I even had the VIN number of the car I was interested in.  To make the deal as simple as possible, I had no trade-in, my financing was in place and ready to go and I just kept saying “No!” whenever they suggested something new. 

Yeah, I’m sure those folks loved me.  Fortunately, they were nice enough not to boot me out of the office or throw the key and paperwork out after me. 

But that was then and this is now.

Now I’m driving a 2013 Volkswagen CC.  It’s white. It has a beige and black two-toned leather interior.  It has really cool headlights and taillights.  And, oh happy day, it even has a Navigation System.  So now – just because I can – I sometimes turn that sucker on and press “home” and it provides me with turn-by-turn directions even if I know exactly where I am and precisely how to get home. 

It’s weird because it’s the first car I’ve ever leased and it doesn’t feel like “my” car. Instead, I feel like I’m sort of borrowing it.  This is silly because even when I purchased a car, it still wasn’t “mine” for several years until I’d paid it off.

But it’s probably better that I think of it as borrowed since I’ll think twice before painting my fingernails while stopped at a traffic light lest I accidentally drop the open bottle on the carpeted floor.  Or I might just refrain from eating that marinara-covered meatball sandwich so as to not mar the lovely beige and black leather car seat when I inevitably drop a meatball.

While Vince is not currently in my line of vision, I am quite sure he is vigorously nodding his head in agreement.  If he had his way, I wouldn’t even carry a purse or library book or briefcase or lunch bag with me every day.  And any grocery bags would be double-bagged for additional spill protection for the ride home in the trunk. 

There are a couple negatives about driving my new car.  Like, for instance, I have to worry about other drivers dinging my car door.  I can park at the far end of the parking lot, but sure as I’m sittin’ here, I would go out to the back 40 and find a crappy beater parked so close to my shiny new car that I’d have to crawl into the passenger seat and climb over the gear shift in order to get in to get away from said beater.

Another negative thing about driving my new car is that I was told that I needed to use premium fuel.  Really?  Darn.  My monthly gas budget has just increased exponentially.  I far prefer driving a car that uses plain ol ‘regular unleaded.

And, finally, a third negative about driving this new car is that this one is only a 4 cylinder as opposed to my 6-cylinder Mazda.  Sure, it has some sort of rocket booster thing-a-ma-jig on it so that it will go from 0 to 60 in mere seconds.  Blah, blah.  But it’s that first push to get it moving into traffic that is scary.  There was no hesitation whatsoever with my Mazda and I could zip into a line of cars traveling at speeds way higher than the posted speed limit without garnering the ire of my fellow commuters. 

But I’m getting used to my new CC and now know when I can safely merge into traffic without hearing the blare of horns from pissed off drivers.  And car dings are a fact of life.  I will just hope that this one’s dings are few and far between. 

Plus, a 4-cylinder engine really does get better gas mileage than a 6-cylinder.  Makes that expensive gas a little less hard to take.

And I have a Navigation System! 

Road trip, anyone?!

One of THOSE Days

Today must be Friday the 13^th.  It isn’t?  Really?  ‘Cause it sure feels like it.

I woke up this morning in a relatively good mood.  I say “relatively” because no matter what time it is, I could always use another hour of sleep and I tend to wake up bleary-eyed and a teeny-tiny bit grumpy.  But it’s Friday – so I figured the day could only get better as it went along – right?

Oh, so not right.

I didn’t have to wash my hair, so that chopped a good 20 minutes off my morning routine and I showed up at the breakfast table early.  That rarely happens.  So Vince and I had a little extra time to chat and discuss our weekend plans and catch up on life.

Catching up on life is not necessarily a good thing when you’re also downing vitamins, munching on Raisin Bran and slurping coffee.  Time, you see, moves at warp speed when you think you have a few extra minutes.

Suddenly I realized I was five minutes late for my morning commute so I jumped up, grabbed my stuff and ran out the door. 

It wasn’t until I was nearly at the entrance to the freeway that I realized I left my cell phone at home.  This was surprising since (a) I never EVER leave home without it, and (b) I could’ve sworn I’d had the thing surgically attached to my body. 

Sure, I could have peeled off the road and done a u-ey and gone back home to retrieve the phone, but since I was already running behind schedule I decided to see if I could manage a whole day without my cell phone.

And, yes, smarty-pants, I did experience some dizziness, a touch of nausea and several heart palpitations at the thought of spending an ENTIRE day without my cell phone!

The first test came when I screeched to a stop behind a long line of stopped traffic as emergency vehicles and tow trucks raced along the berm to come to some motorists’ aid.  Turns out a truck had dropped a load of cement blocks on the freeway and a number of cars were unable to zig-zag around them.  There were half a dozen vehicles on the side of the road with smooshed tires. 

I’m guessing that those people were wondering if it was Friday the 13^th, too.

Realizing there was no way I was going to make it to work on time, I reached for – yep, you guessed it – my cell phone.  And it wasn’t there. So now I had no way of alerting the office that I’d be a few minutes late.

Okay, not the end of the world.  I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to be hours late or anything.

Remarkably, the mess on the freeway didn’t hinder traffic too much and I was soon on my way.  I say “remarkably” because usually a single set of brake lights tapped on by a cautious driver is enough to slow down the entire platoon of commuters so that it tacks on an additional ten minutes to the commute. 

(By the way, did’ja like that?  “Platoon of commuters”?  I just made it up.  Hey, if there can be a flock of seagulls or a pride of lions, I figure there can be a platoon of commuters.)

But I digress.  As usual.

Anyway, I finally reached the office without any other delays or mishaps.  And fortunately I was only a few minutes late, so I figured the day was looking up.

That would make me wrong again, Skippy.

Once I’d gotten settled, I did a quick check of our bank accounts – something I do on a routine basis.  Dealing with the banking in our household is not for the faint of heart.  I mean, I was a single woman for a long time and I haven’t been able to give up all control by using just one joint checking and savings account.  So we have individual accounts and we have joint accounts.  My mom thinks I’m nuts, but then she has been married for over 60 years and can barely remember being single. 

Anyway, imagine my, uh, consternation, when I saw a negative balance in my checking account of over $1,000!  This is not possible, I thought.  Only I added a couple additional words for, um, let’s say, color commentary.

Apparently, I paid off a credit card, which was issued from another bank. Only I paid it off twice. So now there was a big credit on our credit card, but not enough money in my checking account.  Aargh!

You might think this was no big deal, wouldn’t you?  All I had to do was transfer funds from one account into the other to cover the deficit.  Well, sure.  And I did this. But the funds were in another bank and it usually takes 24 hours to complete the online transfer.  By then, I would’ve been hit with a $37 NSF fee.

I can’t remember the last time I had insufficient funds in my account and I didn’t want today to be the day I broke that streak, so I spent the next half hour on the phone with both banks.  Neither wanted to be accommodating and suggested that the other bank do thus-and-such to fix the problem. 

This was not helpful.

Now, I could’ve just let the second payment to the credit card bounce back as unpaid due to insufficient funds.  Then the credit card balance would’ve been zero instead of a big credit.  Plus, I would no longer have insufficient funds in my checking account.  Problem solved, right? 

Oh no.  Because I just couldn’t stand the thought of being charged that stinkin’ fee.

By the way, I was conducting all this personal business on my work phone – something I am loathe to do.  But who forgot her cell phone this morning??  Yes.  Plus, with the whole freakin’ banking industry being modernized and all, the automated system did not recognize the phone I was calling from.  So I had to jump through even more hoops to prove I was who I said I was.

Right about then I swear I heard a snarky little voice whispering in my ear, “Not a good day to forget that cell phone, was it?”

Now I could’ve done a number of things at this point.  Take a cash advance on my credit card to cover the funds and deposit it into my checking account. Withdraw cash from the savings account in another bank and deposit it in the checking account.  Go home and hide under the covers until Friday the 13^th, er, 17^th was over.  I mean, there were a number of options available to me.

So what did I do?  Well, I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I got all teary-eyed.  I just don’t make these sorts of mistakes – and I’m the one who has her checking account balanced to the penny.  So how dorky was it to shed tears over a measly thirty-seven dollar charge?  Because, bottom line, that’s what we’re talkin’ about here.  It’s not like the banking police were going to come and arrest me.  (I hoped, anyway.)  

But after indulging in my momentary pity party, I trotted myself over to the bank and covered the difference.  Tomorrow, of course, the online transfer will kick in and I’ll have twice as much in there.  And, of course, there is still that big credit on the credit card. 

So right about now I’m trying to talk myself out of doing a little retail therapy to get that credit card balance back to “0.”  I could have myself a whole lot of fun. 

But given how this day has gone, I suspect that the following would occur: 1) My purse would develop some inexplicable hole and the credit card would fall out and some nefarious character would swipe it and have a LOT of fun with it, and 2) That same truck that lost its load of cement blocks this morning would somehow find me on the way to the mall (since he missed me the first time) and I’d have four flat tires and no cell phone with which to call a tow truck.

So I’ve decided that my best course of action would be: 3) go home and hide under the covers until Friday the 13^th, er, 17^th is over.

Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.  But first I’m going to find my cell phone.  This dizziness, nausea and heart palpitations need to go away.  And next time?  Well, next time I’ll make a U-turn and head back home for the phone because I’m banking (ha) on the fact that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t forgotten my cell phone. 

That's my story anyway.  

Have a good weekend.  

But don't forget your cell phone.  

I'm serious.

Things that Bug Me

Lately I’ve been noticing that things bother me more.  Guess I’m gettin’ old and cranky, huh?  Maybe.  But with the immediacy of social media, we see the same things over and over.  And over and over again.  Ad nauseam. 

With that said, I’ve come up with a list of things that bug me. 

#1. Saying, “With that said…” or the shortened version, “That said…” 

Whenever someone says or writes either of these, my teeth grinding goes into overdrive.  I can’t remember the first time I heard the expression, but it seemed innocuous at the time.  It’s a transition. It works.  But by the time I heard it for the millionth time, it got a little old.  It’s kind of like people peppering their speech with “you know…” or “like…” or “totally…”

And, yes, I, like, totally wrote the line, “With that said, I’m coming up with a list of things that bug me” with tongue firmly planted in cheek.  It, like, you know, helps to keep me from grinding my teeth. 

#2. And while we’re on the subject of overused expressions, how about the ever-popular, “Just sayin’.” 

Ack.  Thank you for letting me know you said something.  I wouldn’t have guessed otherwise.

#3. Women who pose for pictures with their elbows bent and their hand on their waist.  This pose is everywhere.  Just look at Facebook.  And when you get a group of women together, only the two on the ends are happy because they get to pose like this.  The middle ones are probably itching to put their hands on their waist, but elbowing the chick standing next to them would probably be considered a little rude. 

Personally, I blame Hollywood and the whole red carpet thing.  Hollywood poses are everywhere these days.  But two of the worst offenders are Kim Kardashian and Snooki.  Try to find a photo of either of these, um, ladies without their hands on their waists.  I’m guessing that by now they must have a Pavlovian reaction of snapping their hand on their waist whenever they see a camera.

#4.  Making the Duck Face.  Do women really think this look is sexy?  Oh, sure, I suppose some women are able to pull it off.  But most of the duck face pictures I’ve seen just look plain silly.  Especially when some joker Photoshops big fake lips or Daffy Duck lips over the lips the poser already has. 

Marilyn Duck Lips. 

However, I do think we’re seeing the pose a little less frequently lately – possibly because it has been ridiculed so much.  And, actually, it’s not a new fad.  After all, you can Google pouty lip poses by Hollywood icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Bridget Bardot.  But, like anything taken too far, it starts to look ridiculous.  Once Snooki started making the duck face, “sexy” left the building.

Whoa. Duck Face AND hand on waist. Score.

#5. Snooki.  There was a time when I didn’t know what a Snooki was.  And my life was still full and complete and, dare I say, happy.  Yet, I couldn’t possibly live in today’s society without knowing who she is.  And that bugs me.  Even worse, the fact that I’m writing about her bugs me.  All I can do now is wait for the day when people will once again ask, “What is a Snooki?”  And life will again be happy.  That. Is. All.

#6. Putting periods after every word for emphasis.  Okay, so I’m outing myself here.  I do this.  I just did it.  And while I haven’t quite gotten to the stage where it bugs me, I sense that moment on the imminent horizon. 

#7. Gas tanks.  Some are on the right side of the vehicle and some are on the left.  This bugs me.  Why?  Because I end up circling the gas station like a land shark trying to find an empty pump.  As soon as I spot one and circle around to it, someone with the gas tank on the opposite side of the car has snuck in there ahead of me. Grr. 

Hey, Auto Industry? Pick a side already and stick with it!

#8. Online shopping.  Well, actually, I’m ambivalent about this one.  I both love and hate it.  I get emails about things I never even dreamed I absolutely had to have – until I see the email or the online ad for it.  And then, of course, I realize I absolutely have to have it.  What’s worse is that they make it way too easy to order it online.  Just say no, huh?  Yeah, like that works for me…

#9. Being asked to take a survey.  Have you noticed that everyone wants you to take a survey lately?  You buy a single pack of gum at the neighborhood market and the clerk asks you to take a short survey about the service you received.  Survey requests are everywhere.  You only have to answer a few short questions online and you’ll be entered to win big prizes. Yeah, sure.  Does anyone really win these big prizes? I certainly never have.  Or if you went out to dinner, and you answer their “brief” survey, you’ll get a code you simply have to write on the receipt and you'll receive a free dessert or appetizer the next time you show up at that restaurant. 

This bugs me.  Why?  Because I can NEVER locate the receipt with the code the next time I go to that restaurant.  Or, if by some miracle I remember where I stashed it, I’ll discover that the code has expired.  Usually the day before.

Sigh. 

About the only time I truly wish to take one of these surveys is when I’ve gotten lousy service.  Inevitably, that’s the very time I’m not asked to take a survey. Could there possibly be a correlation?

#10. Making lists of things that bug me.  Why does this bug me?  Because the list could get really, really long.  I’d be zipping along and arrive at #287 without a thought of stopping. And that makes me feel really old and cranky.  Really.  I mean, I can just see it now.  I’m going to be that crazy old lady with the gray bun, shaking her cane and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her property.  I’ll complain about everything.  I’ll start every other sentence with, “When I was young…”  And, of course, everything will have been better back then.  Or harder.  Because if it was harder, then I must be better than these foolish young people who have it so easy.  And who don’t have anything better to do with their time than posting photos of themselves with their hands on their waist and making duck lips faces at the camera. 

Yikes.  At the rate I’m going, my status as the crazy old lady should occur sometime around the middle of next week.

Or maybe I’m already there.

O.M.G.

Just sayin’.

(Shoot me now.)

Pinterest Revisited

So I’ve been on Pinterest for a while now and I’ve gotta admit that I’m just a little bit addicted.  The inspirational quotes!  The cool party decorations!  The clever home organizational tips!

But sometimes the pins confuse me.  I mean, someone will take a photo of a normal person with normal hair and write, “Love the hair!”  What confuses me is that the person’s hair is nothing special.  There is no style to it that I can discern.  And the color is, like, brown.  So I speculate that the pinner has perhaps thinning hair and is dreaming about having a full head of hair again someday.  Or maybe the pinner has wildly curly hair falling to her waist and is thinking that the short, relatively plain straight brown hairdo would be SO much easier to work with.  I dunno.  We tend to want what we don’t have, don’t we?

Sometimes the pins annoy me.  Like when there are 25 consecutive pins about how to decorate one’s nails with polish so that each nail is a different color. Or so that each nail has a zig-zag design.  But Pinterest is nothing if not educational.  I mean, I’ve learned that ombré nails are apparently a big thing right now if I am to believe the multitudes of pins about them.

Ombre nails. Go for it!

I’m sure there are people who enjoy all those different nail looks, but to me those manicures look like an awful lot of effort for something that would last about two seconds after I started scrubbing the bathtub.   When I was looking at photos of all those fancy fingernails to include in this blog, I came across one photo that downright scared me.  Long, pointy nails with metal decorations glued to each one.  Clearly, this is a person who never scrubs a bathtub.  Actually, I’m not sure how she  does much of anything.  And I suspect that, um, even a simple potty break would pose certain challenges for any person sporting these nails. 

Another trend I’ve noticed on Pinterest lately is that people pin all sorts of photos of white rooms.  Everyone marvels over these white rooms.  They make comments like, “Would love to live here!”  And, “I want this room!” 

Now I will admit that the photos are sometimes pretty impressive.  I look at those rooms and think, “Wow, that’s awesome!  Of course, sometimes the room is overlooking, say, the Pacific Ocean – so it wouldn’t really matter if the room was decorated with a ratty white couch and a threadbare white rug.  But sometimes the white room is just a regular ol’ room in a regular ol’ house.  And practically everything in it is white.  White walls, white ceilings, white furnishings, white knickknacks.

An all-white baby's room. With a chandelier, yet. Right.

I can’t help but think that if I were to walk into one of these houses, I wouldn’t even be sitting there for five minutes before blurting out, “You know what this room needs?  A little color…”

Nope, I'm just never going to be one of those uber-decorator types who go for certain looks that most folks simply don't "get."

One of my favorite things on Pinterest is seeing all the creative ways people have figured out how to serve food. I read pin instructions like, “Carve out a gourd and spoon in veggie dip – makes a great container and looks good on your Thanksgiving table!”   Huh.  And here I just use a plain old bowl.  Who woulda  thought?? 

And did you know that you can make your own marshmallows?  I’ve not bothered to delve further into such pins because (a) I’m not a big fan of marshmallows, and (b) if I were ever to need marshmallows, I think I would simply run to Kroger and pick up a bag.  I cannot imagine putting time and effort into making homemade marshmallows. 

Individual seven-layer dip cups. Brilliant!

Nevertheless, if I were to one day lose my mind and decide to make homemade marshmallows, I know exactly where to look to find the “how to” instructions.

The other day I actually put one of the pins to the test.  I made individual cups filled with 7-layer dip for a little gathering we had.  And my father-in-law raved about them. He thought they were a marvelous idea.  So…see?  Pinterest has improved my life already. 

And who knows?  One of these days I might invite you over for a party and might even serve you veggie dip from a hollowed-out gourd.

YIKES!

Just don’t expect any homemade marshmallows.  And definitely don’t expect me to be sporting talon-like nails with sharp metal decorations affixed to them. 

Frankly, I prefer challenge-free potty breaks.  I don’t care what Pinterest says. 

The First Ever Jane’s Domain Trilogy. (Watch Your Back Star Wars!)

I hope I’m not sounding like a broken record here, but I thought I’d write one more blog about our house hunting/buying process. We’ll call it my trilogy, okay? 

Hey, it worked for Star Wars. 

Not that I’m comparing my little blog to Star Wars or anything.  I think Star Wars raked in a buck or two, while my little blog has raked in, well, nothin’.  Zip.  Zero. Bupkus.

Hmm. So, um, why am I writing this blog again??  Oh yeah, simply because I like to write.

Well, anyway, let’s see where I left off last time.  Ah yes – I was discussing proper footwear and the state of one’s pedicure when house hunting. 

So the other important thing I learned when house hunting is this: location, location, location.  

Never heard that one before, have you? 

Nah, I’m just kidding.  Everyone has heard that one.  Even newborns.  If they had the ability to speak seconds after their birth, those would be their first words.  (Kind of a scary thought for their moms, though, huh?)

But I digress. 

There were lots of steps in between removing my shoes at the entrance of a complete stranger’s home and guiltily peeking in their closets and cabinets to choosing a house and then finally moving into it.  Maybe I’ll write more about those steps at some point (which totally shoots my trilogy plan), but I’m going to go with the biggest lesson of all in the house buying process.  And that is:

HIRE. PROFESSIONAL. MOVERS.

Sorry for yelling, but it’s that important.  You need to hire professional movers even if it means you have to sit on your dirty carpet for two months after moving in because you have no extra money to buy that coveted leather sectional that would go perfectly in your brand new living room. 

I hired professional movers over 10 years ago when I moved into my townhouse and swore I would never personally carry boxes into a new abode again. 

So I stated this very opinion to my husband.  Rather emphatically, I might add.  He nodded.  He seemed to understand my viewpoint.  And then he proceeded to rent a truck from U-Haul.  He hired his football player son and his son’s football player friend to haul boxes from our old place, into the truck, out of the truck and into our new house.

Now, believe me, I’m not slamming their efforts in any way.  Those kids worked like machines most of the day and did an amazing job.  But it simply wasn’t enough.  Perhaps an additional strapping football player or two was needed for the job, but we were fresh out of available football players.  So it took several more car loads throughout the following week to get all our stuff from Point A to Point B. 

And we had a few casualties, of course.  A wine glass here and a decorative vase there.  Fortunately, no heirlooms were harmed during the moving process. 

But none of that was the major problem.

The major problem was that I had to haul boxes right along with my husband and the boys.  And that is precisely why I wanted to hire professional movers.  You are not required to lift a single box when you hire professional movers.  In fact, they frown upon such interference from an amateur such as myself.  And, frankly, I am more than happy to be an amateur in any heavy lifting situation.

Had we hired professional movers, I would have been cheerfully unwrapping the china while sweaty men with the couch strapped to their backs asked me precisely where I wanted it positioned in the living room.  And all I would’ve had to do was point. 

Instead, I was a hot, sweaty, stringy-haired mess.  By the end of the day, I was clutching my aching back with one hand and throwing boxes clearly marked “Upstairs Bedroom” into the entryway of the house with the other because I refused to make another trip upstairs.

And my aching back lasted for days.  Weeks, even.  Oh, who am I kidding?  My back is STILL aching.

Moreover, I had so many bruises on my arms and shins from carrying heavy boxes and, in my exhausted state, running into walls while I was carrying those heavy boxes, I looked as if I had gotten into a physical altercation with someone.  

If I had, it probably would have been my coworker who smirked at me and said, “All unpacked?!” the morning after we returned the U-Haul truck.  Fortunately for him I don’t resort to violence in such situations.  I just do the withering stare thing that is oh so painful for the recipient.  Not.

Alas, we didn’t have any time to unpack before we had to pack a weekender bag and head to Cape Cod to celebrate my parents’ 60^th wedding anniversary.  Originally, it seemed like an inconvenient time for a mini-vacation, but in the end it was good.  Good to spend time with family.   Good to have the chance to celebrate my folks' 60 years of wedded bliss.  And good to allow the healing process to begin on all those bruises.  (My almost 9-year-old niece, by the way, gleefully counted each and every bruise.  She probably would've played connect-the-bruises with a Sharpie if I'd let her.) 

And she drew today's blog illustration.  If you can't see it clearly, the heading reads: "Hint: Don't  look like this after moving." And I think - but I'm not positive - that her Aunt Jane caricature is missing her right foot. 

Hmm.  Perhaps I exaggerated the whole moving experience just a tiny bit?

No.  No, I didn't.  

So I repeat: HIRE. PROFESSIONAL. MOVERS.

  

More About Jane’s New Domain (And Vince’s, Too)

So I was writing about our new home.  And the agonizingly slow process that is begun when one decides to purchase a new home. 

What I’ve definitely learned is that I could never be one of those house flippers – you know, the people who buy a house, move in and make some improvements, and then sell it for a profit before moving on to the next house. 

I don’t care if the profit was utterly ginormous, I couldn’t do it.  Moving for the first time in ten years was painful enough and I couldn’t imagine moving willy-nilly in and out of houses like that without the aid of heavy-duty prescription tranquilizers.

I suppose those flipper people are wired differently than I am and probably don’t hang on to possessions like I do.  Take, for instance, my grandfather’s big chipped coffee cup.  It shows a cartoon drawing of a man in a hillbilly hat peering out of an outhouse while his wife yells out the window of their log cabin, “Paw, yer coffee’s ready!”

 

It’s embarrassing, really, to have a chipped coffee cup such as this.  And yet it’s the only thing of my grandfather’s that I possess – and, even though Grandpa died when I was nine, I can clearly remember him drinking his afternoon tea from this cup.  So I couldn’t possibly get rid of it.

Thus, we moved last month and Grandpa’s cup came with.  Never mind that I have no clue what box it is stashed in. Eventually, I’m sure, I’ll unearth it.

Getting that goofy coffee cup into our new place seemed like a herculean task, though.  I mean, besides the physical move.  For instance, there were times during the whole house hunting process that I just wasn’t sure we were ever going to find the right house or move into it. 

The pre-approval process alone was enough to give me pause.  Having complete strangers digging into my personal financial information was a little disconcerting.  And, of course, that was nothing compared to the final approval process! 

I kept hearing, “Too bad you didn’t buy a house five years ago – we would’ve given you a loan on your handshake!”  Ha ha.  Sadly, that is probably true.  I’m guessing all those handshakers who ended up foreclosing on their homes these past few years are the reason I had to jump through even more hoops.  

I knew it was going to be tough when I had to justify and explain a deposit of forty-seven dollars and fifty-three cents to my checking account.  Like I can remember every nickel that goes in and out of my account!  Well, okay, so I actually DO know every nickel that goes in and out of my account, but in this particular instance I had two deposits that totaled forty-seven dollars and fifty-three cents – so it was a little harder to unravel the mystery.

But once we were preapproved and we knew what our price range was, finding houses to look at was the next step.  We started out looking at homes from the northeast side of Columbus all the way to the northwest side.  Believe me, that covers a LOT of real estate! We knew we had to narrow down our search to a more targeted area when on any given day we had to slog through over 500 listings. 

Yeah, not real interested in that. 

Since we liked the suburb where we lived, we decided to stick close to home.  And when the pickings were slim, we’d add a surrounding suburb or two just so we could add a few more possibilities.

Eventually we started looking through actual houses instead of merely driving by them.  Since we had our realtor in tow and he had keys, we didn’t risk any Peeping Tom or Thomasina charges.  But I learned a few things from visiting all these houses:

Like, for instance, wear slip on shoes.  People trying to sell their houses leave signs requesting that visitors remove their footwear before traipsing through their home.  Apparently they don’t want people tracking dirt on their hardwood floors and on their carpeting.  Interestingly, half the houses we looked at already had dirty carpeting. And the dirtier the carpet the bigger the sign asking people to remove their shoes.  Huh. Does not compute…but whatever.

Oh, and by the way, if you wear socks with your slip on shoes, make sure they match and/or don’t have holes in the toe.  Your realtor won’t admit it, but he’ll judge. 

Conversely, if you’re barefoot under those slip-on shoes, make sure your pedicure isn’t from the last calendar year. I mean, ewwww.  Now that I’m thinking about it, this is a good rule to follow in general and not so much just for house hunting.

Of course, it’s more difficult to keep those tootsies in tip top shape when you’re spending every waking moment in front of the computer searching for the perfect home, and my feet rather resembled those of Cro-Magnon Man – with a bit of leftover chipped burgundy polish on the odd toenail or two. 

But I think we will go with the old adage here, “Do as I say, not as I do.” 

Our new kitchen. Big enough that more than one person can stand in it at one time!

Our new living room. LOTS of windows. So...lots of great light...but also lots of windows to clean. 

There were other things I learned about house hunting, but I spent so much time on proper footwear and foot maintenance that the other lessons will have to wait for another day.  Besides, I want to leave room for another picture or two of our new home.

To be continued…

Jane's NEW Domain

So I think life has settled down just a smidge and I may actually have time to write some blogs again. Wonder if anyone out there is still interested in reading them, though?

Oh well, even if there aren’t, I’ve missed writing, so I suppose I can attempt to entertain myself. Which means I’d better step it up since I’m a tough audience. “Okay, Jane – write something funny. Go!” 

(Aaaannnnd now I’m talkin’ to myself. Yeah, I’ve gotta admit, I’m scaring myself just a little bit.)

Okay, so the reason I haven’t written any blogs for the past several months is that for the past several months we’ve been house hunting. And house buying. And packing, moving and unpacking. And even more (grumble, grumble) unpacking. Yes, we have a lot of stuff. I mean, we have so much stuff, I’m not sure we’ll ever truly be unpacked.

Cripes, if I’d had any idea at the beginning of the process how much time would be involved in this little endeavor, I might have elected to stay crammed in our townhome and bagged the whole idea of moving. I could’ve just started pitching things in the middle of the night so Vince wouldn’t notice. On the other hand, it might have been tough to pretend that I hadn’t thrown out his leather recliner – the one I was always bumping into in our small living room, but the one that he relaxed in every evening.

So we opted to go house shopping. Only the process is a little different than, say, buying a new pair of shoes. I mean, when you go shoe shopping, you can look in the window or wander through the shoe department and see if there are any shoes that appeal to you. You can try them on. Walk around the aisles a bit and see if they are comfy. And you can even return them if you get them home and decide they really do pinch a little too much or they simply don’t match the outfit you bought them for.

Try doing that when house shopping. Oh sure, you can drive by a house that’s on the market to see if it’s located in a neighborhood you might like. And you can decide if the outside of the house looks appealing to you.

 But if you start peering in the windows to see if the interior layout fits your needs, well, let’s just say that getting arrested for being a Peeping Thomasina probably wouldn’t sit too well with your potential new neighbors.

Nor is it likely that the current owners will allow you to take the house for a test drive, as it were. Like if you could walk in, kick off your shoes and curl up on the couch in the sunroom with a frosty beverage to see if the evening light coming through the windows was pleasing or inadequate. Or if you could take a quick shower to see if the water pressure in the house was sufficient to meet your needs for the next thirty years or so.

But noooo. Instead, you have to take a leap of faith that your screening abilities are good enough to weed out the bad houses. Because the return policy is pretty harsh. I mean, like, there IS no return policy. You buy it, it’s yours.

That’s pretty daunting.

I don’t know about other people, but my first step was not to contact a real estate agent. I needed to do some pre-realtor research. I needed to see what was out there and at what price points to see if we should even be in the house-hunting market or if we needed to wait a little longer.

So I spent nearly every waking hour in front of the computer seeking houses for sale. I perused thousands of homes, most of which were accompanied by twenty-three photos. Each. So multiply “thousands” by “twenty-three” {carry the one…} and, wow, can you believe I looked at a gazillion photos?

Twenty-three photos, by the way, must be a magic number in the real estate industry. Perhaps someone scientifically determined that twenty photos are not enough for a potential buyer to determine if they actually want to see the property, but twenty-five photos would cause sensory overload such that the potential buyer would be put off and cause them to move on? I don’t know.

But I did appreciate the photos. And the pre-realtor research. Because when we finally met with our realtor, I felt a little more comfortable with the market and the process. Plus, (and I might sound a little smug here), I practically knew about new houses coming on the market before he did.

Oh, and a side note to realtors: You really don’t need to spend hours agonizing over the precise wording to entice potential buyers to visit your listing. They’re probably not going to read it. Or, if they do – and they’re anything like me – they’ll snort and mumble aloud, “’Relax in your tranquil retreat,’ my foot! I can see the neighbor’s jungle gym right outside the dining room window there and I KNOW that’s going to make me neither relaxed nor tranquil!”

Ah, but as a fellow wordsmith, I appreciated the effort. It can’t be easy to describe some of these properties to make them sound appealing. I’d have given up in a fit of giggles after writing, “Move-in ready!” when I know full well that few potential homeowners would be interested in keeping the do-it-yourself wall paneling in the living room. Or after writing “many upgrades” when all the owner did was slap a coat of ivory paint on the kitchen wall to cover up fifteen years of grubby fingerprints.

But anyway, I think I’ll write more about Jane’s New Domain tomorrow and I’ll post another picture or two of our beautiful new home. I’m kind of tired right now. And I have more boxes to unpack.

Grumble, grumble.