house

(Not Quite) House Hunting

Sometimes, being a girl sucks. I’ll just leave it at that, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Had a nice long meeting with John from NOIC on Saturday. He explained a lot of the finer points of mortgages and first-time home buying that we really hadn’t known. Quite helpful.

John pulled our true credit report this morning, and called me at work about some stuff on Aaron’s. Seems that the bills he paid off through Consumer Credit Counseling Services way back in 2001 are still showing up as outstanding judgements. WTF? So, today was spent calling credit places and attorneys (on Aaron’s part) and calling John for information (on my part). Much more calling was done by Aaron than by me, though.

So, we have to fax John our W2’s for the past two years, and proof that the judgements were settled, once Aaron gets that proof. Eventually. Once Sears and Great Lakes Higher Education get back to him with detailed info.

I should have known it couldn’t be that easy. Blah. If John strings us along like Dan the Mortgage Man, I’m going to be sincerely pissed. I don’t think he will, though, since he’s paid by commission. 🙂

I’m going to go curl up in the recliner now and spend some quality time with my cramps.

health & fitness, house, randomness

Murfle

I’m not entirely convinced that anybody gives a crap about what I do day-to-day. I jot down notes at work when I think of things to bring up on my blog later that evening, then sometimes I look at some of those notes and think, “Who gives a fuck?”

I think I’ll just attribute my cynicism to being tired and bored, and I’ll just move on.

Anyone into web comics has probably already discovered Something Positive. As for me, though, I’ve spent the past two evenings reading the S*P archives. About three years’ worth. I found myself wishing for a printed comic after a while — still do, actually, since I’m only caught up to July 2002, I think.

set choo-choo as your buddy icon! murr!My favorite character so far is Choo-Choo Bear, the 25-year-old kitty cat with “a bone disease that makes him extra huggable”—basically, he’s an elastic kitty. Many great gags ensue. So lovable, and so, so cute. So cute, in fact, that I made myself a new IM Buddy Icon out of him. Murfle!

Tomorrow’s the big day, when we head up to Sylvania to see if we can get a home loan. Last time we tried this with Sky Bank, Dan the Mortgage Man strung us along for a week before he told us that I hadn’t worked for Sky long enough. …Come to think of it, we tried to go to Sky for a car loan first, too, and got smacked down; but we got it the second time, when we did our financing through the Kia dealership. Maybe the second try will do it for us with a mortgage loan, too, this time with NOIC. We can only hope. As much as I’m not thrilled about moving again… *looks around at mess* I really have a hankerin’ for a house.

Worked out with my weights some more yesterday. Didn’t work my pecs… or didn’t mean to, anyway. Managed to make the rest of my upper arms, shoulders, and back mildly muscle-sore, while making my pecs oh-so-stiff. Oh, yeah, and there’s a muscle down the outside of my right arm, from around my elbow to the outside of my wrist, that makes typing quite the joy. I hope I didn’t mess with my whatever-I-have-wrong-with-my-wrists.

I’m bored. I need to pack up eBay stuff to send out tomorrow morning. And I have to take another crap.

health & fitness

Phone Fun

Not on time to work today. Ah, well. Took a 45-minute lunch to compensate.

A couple days ago, my boss came in while I was on the phone with
a particularly pissy bank manager. She just kept bitching about how much
there was to do, and how understaffed she was, and how long it took just
to open one account… and all I could do was sit there and take it. I mean,
what else can you say than "I understand completely" and similar
platitudes? Suck it up, lady; you’re not the only one with too much to do
and no time to do it!

Anyway, my boss caught me giving a couple inaccurate facts, and
stuck around until I was done on the phone to straighten me out. While he
was doing that, he made a point of telling me to stick up to these people.
"You’re not here to be a whipping post," he told me. I’m not sure
why, but that really kind of made an impression on me. People have told me
before that I need to be more assertive, aggressive, stand up for myself,
et cetera… but for some reason, hearing it from my all-too-passive boss
just really hit me a certain way. I do need to be more assertive.
And I’m here to help, not take their shit.

I did crack someone up on the phone today, though. I’ve decided
that explaining things in my normal Diana way will be the easiest and most
beneficial, instead of trying to sound all poofy and professional. So, as
I was explaining to an Area Operations Manager how to tell her employees
to clear items off of a report, I heard myself saying, "Now, here’s
the funky part…" She had to stop completely and repeat my phrase to
her subordinate. 🙂 I’m not sure if I gained or lost credibility through
being myself, but I think I brightened their moment, anyway.

I worked out with my weights yesterday, and I can tell which
places I worked more than others. My pecs feel stiff, like I just got back
from a drumcorps camp. Everything else ranges from not sore at all to only
mildly feeling worked. I think tonight I’m going to work the stuff that’s
not sore: shoulders, triceps, back. And crunches, too.

I’m confused about how I feel about my body right now. In a given
day, I can go from feeling frumpy to feeling fit. Sometimes I can feel the
fat settling about my neck and hips, and other times I can feel like my abs
are getting tighter and my waist is getting smaller. I did get another compliment
at work today, though, from my old boss’s boss — she was proud that I’d
kept my weight off during the holidays. I didn’t have time to tell her about
my two spoons’ worth of sweet potatoes, which is just as well.

Off to watch HGTV for a while…

the ongoing saga of my job

Go me.

Pretty good day today. Got to work on time for the first time
in a long time: 8:01am. (That’s instead of consistently being 8 to 10 minutes
late.) Brought one of my yummy Chocolate Covered Coffee Bean candles to make
my desk nice and smelly. Started feeling more comfortable talking to banking
centers over the phone about Patriot Act stuff. The bad part came in the
middle of the day, when I had to eat honey roasted peanuts out of the vending
machine because I didn’t bring a lunch. But, when I got home, I made myself
a burger with provolone cheese and sauteed some mushrooms and red pepper
to go with. I got all fancy on myself. *tee-hee*

Oh, here’s a gross story from one of the ladies who works in
the same room with me: She and some of her friends (keep in mind, they’re
in their fifties) went to Bourbon Street in New Orleans for a vacation…
and ended up in a strip club. Not a For-Ladies-Only male strip club—a
guys’ strip club with nasty, skanky ho’s. (I know, "ho" isn’t possessive,
but I had to put an apostrophe because "hos" looks retarded.) Anyway,
one of the guys she was with got his eyeglasses taken by the nasty ho, who
then proceeded to put them on and around all her nasty places. All the people
at the table were joking with him, telling him he’d better not put those
back on when she was done. But she came back and put them back on his face
for him… and he didn’t take them right back off like any sane individual
would, for later sanitization. No, he left them on.

And had a sty by the next morning.

Ewwww.

crafty

Kinda Bored

Lots of shit I should be doing. Don’t feel like doing any of
it. Definitely bored.

Yesterday, I concocted my best candle fragrance yet, I think:
Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans. At first, I thought I was making a Cafe Mocha
scent, but it turned out different than I had expected. Guess I need some
different fragrances for that one: maybe some Hot Cocoa, Caramel, and Cappuccino
scents together. As it is, though, my candles turned out pretty smellerific.
I like.

Oh, I know what I need to do. I need to figure out what bills
will get paid when, so I can keep from bouncing my dang checkbook. I’m going
to end up counting on the good graces of our landlords again to not cash
my check before the first of the month (I get paid on the 15th and the 30th).
And, since I work for the bank, if I bounce three checks, I self-terminate.
That’s right—I fire myself. Cute way to put it. Kind of a "you
know the rules, and if you break ’em, you pay the consequences" kind
of HR bullcrap vibe. Not that I disagree, though; working at a bank, you
should have control of your own finances.

Oh, yeah, and I need to print out my check stubs and bank statements
for Saturday’s appointment with Mortgage Man #2, John at NOIC.
Here’s hoping we can get a house by April 1st… otherwise, we’re either
staying here one more year or renting a house for a year or two. *crossing
fingers*

Off to take care of business…