genealogy, health & fitness, house

Mel!

My old buddy Mel came into town today! I got her e-mail last night, saying that she’d be in BG for an audition, and suggesting that we could do lunch. Absolutely! I ended up taking a half hour longer for lunch than I should have, but it was worth it. I really hope she gets in, and for more selfish reasons than I might like to admit. I miss having girlfriends to hang out with. And Melody in particular, especially when she’s Happy Mel and not Chronically Tired Mel.

In other news, my left shoulder has had a nagging piercing pang for the past two days. It’s not a muscular soreness; it feels like more of a nerve thing, or possibly a muscle tightness or twitching or a joint a little out of place or something. At any rate, it hurts just enough to annoy. (Maybe I should take some Tylenol… nahh.)

And on the house front (as opposed to homefront?), John gave me the final news on the closing today. The amount of money we need to bring to closing is… nada. Not a damn thing. Our driver’s licenses and our smiling faces. Hell, we’re most likely going to get money. Here, have a house and a check. Huh?? But I’m not complaining.

I’ve also been OD-ing on my genealogy of late. It’s amazing what you can piece together from just census records and other easier-to-obtain documents. For instance, check out this brief narrative on my great-great-great grandfather:

On 14 Jan 1869, Samuel’s father James consented to the marriage to Mary Lunette Shupert, due to the fact that his son was under 21. At this point, Mary Lou was already three months pregnant with James. Bill Cook’s genealogy indicates that this marriage took place in Ellerton, Jefferson Township, Montgomery County.

By the summer of 1870, Samuel and Mary had established a home in Jackson Township. Their son James was almost a year old, and Samuel was supporting his new family by working as a farm laborer.

In the 1880 U.S. Census, Samuel’s last name was spelled “SHARITZ” and his occupation was listed as ‘laborer.’ Samuel and Mary were both age 30. Their first five children had been born and were living at home — the oldest, James, was 11, and the youngest, Harvey, was one year old.

In the 1900 U.S. Census, Samuel’s last name was spelled “SHARRITS” and his occupation was listed as ‘farmer.’ He named his birthplace and the birthplace of his parents as Indiana. All the children were still living at home — except Samantha, who had died four years prior at the age of 13. The oldest child, James, was 30. The youngest, Mellie, was twelve.

Also in residence in 1900 was Oscar RIDENOUR, Samuel’s grandson and Ona’s son. Ona had died in 1898.

By 1920, all of the children had moved out. Samuel was still farming at age 69, and his wife Mary, also 69, was still living with him. She would continue to live with him for another five years, until she died of heart disease in the summer of 1925.

Samuel was 80 years old and living alone in Poasttown in the Spring of 1930. He owned his $4000 home, had no radio, and did not work.

In 1938, Samuel developed a nagging case of pneumonia that was destined to persist for years. Samuel died three years later, in 1941, of heart disease and pneumonia. His oldest surviving son, Charles, was the informant on the death certificate, and was apparently caring for Samuel in his later years. The death certificate gives the birthplace of Samuel and both of Samuel’s parents as Miamisburg. Samuel Oliver is buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Poasttown.

And that’s just the stuff I wrote down, not even all of the records of his kids being born and marrying off and dying and all that. Something about the narrative just strikes me as… poignant, I guess, even though it’s not really much to read if you aren’t related to Samuel.

This is harshing my bouncy mood, yo. But I’m still pretty happy. Ever since seeing Mel today, I’ve been unusually smiley. I don’t mind. I like it. Mel is such a character. *shaking head*

I hope her audition went well…

food 3 Comments

You Might Think I’m Crazy…

I’ve just discovered the most wonderfully unexpected treat.

You know the pickled ginger that comes sliced in a jar? The stuff that’s been sitting in our fridge for months now because we can no longer eat maki, but we don’t want to pitch a full jar of expensive sushi ginger? Yeah, that’s the stuff.

Take a slice out of the jar and suck on it.

It’s the greatest thing… first, it’s all sweet and delicious—that would be from the 3 grams of sugar per ounce of ginger. OK, so I’m a (slightly) bad monkey. Anyway, after you get used to the sweetness, the pickling finishes dissolving or melting away and you’re left with the hot spice of the ginger to chew on. It’s like two treats in one!

…See, I told you that you’d think I was crazy.

house

Home Closing Shenanigans

I just got up from a three-hour nap in the recliner, so I’m a little disoriented… but I had to share with you today’s homebuying insanity.

Keep in mind: from the beginning, John from NOIC—our lender—has been stressing upon us that we’ll need to bring some money to Closing, even though our loan is technically zero percent down. He said we’d need a few hundred at the least, to cover pre-paid interest and lender’s fees. See, we weaseled the seller into pitching in 3% of the home’s price toward closing costs, but that doesn’t necessarily cover everything. We have to foot the bill for whatever that 3% doesn’t pay for.

So, what’s this “pre-paid interest” crap, you might ask (as we did at first)? I’m still not sure I’ve got it completely straight as to why, but when we buy the house, we have to pre-pay the interest on the mortgage from that day of the month through to the end of the month. For this reason, closing at the end of the month is good; closing at the beginning of the month is bad, as far as the amount of money we’d need to bring to closing. Therefore, had we closed on February 27th like we’d hoped, we would only owe two days’ worth of pre-paid interest.

Closing on March 1st, however, makes for a whole new ballgame. The difference? About $500.

We didn’t realize how much of a difference that would be until John called today. See, while John had been telling us one story, Rebecca the Realtor had been giving us an entirely different story: telling us that, if anything, we should get money back at Closing. We were all for that, obviously. So when John called today to give us a ballpark figure of what we’d need to bring to Closing depending on which day it would be held—$500-600 vs. $1100—I got kinda nervous. And I really, really hoped we’d manage to close on Thursday or Friday instead of Monday.

But no, first their lawyer couldn’t make it, then our lawyer couldn’t make it, then they couldn’t reach our lawyer to reschedule for sooner… and all the while I’m having kittens because I don’t know if we’re going to have to pull a grand out of our asses on short notice. Finally, it’s agreed by all parties that the closing will be on Monday, March 1st—and, boy, was John apologetic about it. Hey, though, whatcha gonna do? *defeatist shrug*

This was my entire morning and part of my afternoon at work today: fretting, freaking, and generally getting my nose out of joint. Aaron was wonderful and tried to calm me down until we knew for sure that, yes, we need to come up with $1000+ in the course of three days. Then he started to stress out, too. 🙂 Ironically, that was when I kind of calmed down a little; knowing that it had to be done and figuring it out was less stressful to me than not knowing if it would have to be done and just generally worrying about it. At least, once we knew for sure what was going on, I could sit down and actually apply myself to the problem.

So, we came up with a few ideas. Plan A: Take money out of my 401(k). I’ve got enough in there to cover the closing costs, and I haven’t been contributing for very long, so it’s not like I’d lose much ground, retirement-wise. Plan B: Scrape together money from Friday’s paychecks, which would cover closing costs, and pay rent and some bills late. It’s our last full month’s rent, so what are the Smiths going to do—kick us out? 😉 Plan C: Yelling for help, a.k.a. The Dad Loan. Although we’d vastly prefer to be self-sufficient, we know that Aaron’s dad would be more than willing to float us a loan if ever we need it.

I looked into Plan A. (Didn’t get much actual work done today at work, you know?) Turns out that a 401(k) Loan takes two to three weeks to process, so that’s right out. Aaron did the math on Plan B, and saw that we’d actually have enough to cover closing costs, though we wouldn’t really be able to eat for a week. 😉 So, we opted against pursuing Plan C and decided to just force ourselves to make it through on what we’ve got.

At this point, there was a karmic kind of turn of events, under the category of “doing for those who do for themselves”—Aaron found that our income tax return is due to be direct-deposited on Friday. OMG. That took a load off. It’ll still only cover half of what we’re required to pay, but that still takes the pressure off… and lets us eat for the next week or two.

What a draining day. What a roller-coaster.

On the good side, though, it turns out that the seller has a place to live and is moving out right now. We might get possession sooner than 30 days, which would mean moving at our convenience, and not having to extend our lease.

Also on the good side is the fact that I get free Cashier’s Checks, since I work for the bank. So, either Saturday morning or Monday morning, we head out to the bank and get a Cashier’s Check for the amount the Title Agency will disclose on Friday. Monday morning at 11am, we’ll meet at the house for a final walkthrough, then go to the closing at 1pm (hopefully with some lunch in between?). —Oh, yeah, I took Monday off of work, too. Yay for personal time. I’m also planning to take a personal day to finish packing and start moving, whenever that ends up being.

Unfortunately, my little nap this evening took the place of the cleaning and reorganizing I had been going to do in the bedroom, in preparation for packing. Gah. I hate it when I sleep away my time at home. It feels like such a waste.

Anyway, on a lighter note, check out my completed eBay auctions—in particular, the Super 8 stag films. Holy shit. Not bad for a bizarre five-dollar garage sale find.

randomness 3 Comments

Class-Action Settlements Rock.

Hey, guys? Remember several months ago when I told you all about the class-action lawsuit about CD prices? …Good, because I’m too lazy to go look for the entry on my site. Anyway, you’ll never guess what I got in the mail today.

A check. For $13.86. In payment for the settlement.

Word.

Let’s go buy a CD.

ruminations 2 Comments

Am I evil?

Is it wrong to be amused and emboldened by the misfortune of others?

Now, some people have problems in their lives, and I just genuinely feel bad for them. Like Beth needing to give up her ferrets, and her employer’s impending business collapse. But there are others whom I will not name, both online and off, whose plight makes me feel smug on some level.

There are those who think their life is good, and don’t realize how truly fucked up it really is. And there are those who had quite a chip on their shoulder after college, and thought they were the proverbial shit, who now live back at home penniless and jobless (or close to it). And part of me feels horrible for my attitude toward these people who probably once thought or currently think they are a better person than me. More successful, more worthy, more talented, more driven, et cetera.

It’s not that I need to put other people down to make myself feel good. I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I actually don’t mind my job, and am starting to like it. This despite the fact that it’s not what I’d originally wanted to do, nor is it what I have my degree in. I enjoy steady hours, a definite annual raise of about 4% (coming up in March!), opportunities to post for different and better jobs within the company, semi-annual incentive (bonus) checks, and having my own little cubicle that I can decorate as I please. 🙂

I’m also quite happy with my personal life. Aaron and I are still kickin’ it after about nine months of wedded bliss, and are hoping to close on our house this Friday. So, we’ll move in at the end of next month (anyone who wants to help is more than welcome—maybe we’ll buy you dinner or something). We’re contemplating starting a family once we get settled in, starting with a cat and moving to something a little more substantial (like a small human being) in a couple of years.

And in between that are my hobbies and avocations. Once it gets warmer out, I intend to go photographing more often, since it seems that nature is one of my favorite subjects. I’m reading a lot more these days, and as soon as I get Dreamweaver on my damn Mac, I’ll be webpaging more, too. (Not that I can’t hard-code, mind you, but I’m quite spoiled by wysiwyg editors that actually do what I want them to.) I also have an apartment-full of plants that will fill out our new home nicely, and I’m still enjoying making my soy candles on occasion.

So, long story short, I’m happy. I think all this gratuitous me-ness goes under the category of “Count Your Blessings.”

So why do I feel so smug at the downfall of others? It seems evil to me… but I can’t change the way I feel.