Thursday, January 18, 2007

Change is Afoot

I am anxious. The good thing is my blog redesign is coming along and my new logo is nearly done. I love to just look at it. Makes me want to write! But you can't see it until it's done. Sorry.

The other not-so-good-but-I-can-live-with-it thing is yesterday I went in to pay the penultimate statement on a small business loan my partner and I have with a local social service agency. I told the director why I wasn't at the holiday party she threw last month. I had asked someone else to relay the message but apparently it didn't make it to her.

"You bought a house?! Oh my goodness! Are you happy?"

"Absolutely! We've been living with my mother-in-law for the last two years. I'm VERY happy! No slight to her but after I got out of college, the last thing I wanted to do was live with people anymore."

I explained how we weren't officially in the house yet. Still need to finish the painting and change the carpets and we get mattresses at the very least. "Do you have air mattresses maybe?"

"Not even that, though we should consider it."

She reminded me of how much I just want to be in already. I feel a little anxiety because we just aren't moving fast enough for me. Yet we can't go any faster than we are going because paint is not free and neither are carpets and mattresses. We still have to take this one paycheck at a time and with the first mortgage payment coming due, the priority now is for Mr. T to get whatever part of the money he has yet to get and get that payment off. Then we have to focus on a sewer bill that we walked into with an overdue balance because apparently Former Owner didn't pay her part last year and she must have known because the bills are based on the months to come, not the ones that passed. She would have gotten that baby last June or July. So I called our lawyer and he took care of it. Whew. Sometimes, you gotta love those lawyers!

Mr. T is the slow and deliberate sort. He takes his time making decisions, though not to the point of losing out - most times. I think he will always regret not making a bid on the first house we both liked almost instantly. It took months to find that one but he decided a month after we saw it that he wanted to put a bid on it. I would have - and should have - pressed the issue when we first saw it if he hadn't kept calling it a doll house, making me think he didn't REALLY want it. (Of course the house we bought, he still calls a doll house. He's right.) So we lost out on that one for good. Still, we got the better end of the stick.

But normally, he is slow to act and it pays off for him because he always finds great deals. This house was no exception. So I do try to gauge myself because I, as opposed to him, usually move faster than I ought. I've tamed that over the years and living with him has tamed it even more - to our benefit - but I haven't squashed that spirit because my impetuousness gets him moving on things while his caution moves us along safely. I'm trying to chill and focus on the things I can physically do to distract myself while he prepares the way. (Can you see the gladiators that just popped up in my head?) Gotta let a man be a man sometimes, you know? Yet I am dreaming of my treadmill. It's been inaccessible for two years and I miss it. At this point the upstairs of the house will be done being painted but there is still downstairs, which hopefully will go much faster since there are 3 rooms to paint compared to the 6 upstairs and way fewer doors to navigate around. Now that I think of it, I suppose the job is really 2/3 done. OK, I feel a little better now. Plus, before I left to drop off the Daughter and go to work, I heard him calling his buddy to get the house measured for carpet. No need to say another word. The man hears what I say without me having to say it and I do love that about him.

2 comments:

Theresa said...

we need pictures Monica! I can't wait to see how your house is coming along. I'm in CT right now.

Monica said...

I know! Ha! I haven't even been back to the house in about a week and I still need to get those darn rockets up on the wall. We're figuring out carpet now so I've got to get on it. But, as a friend of mine who lives on the street asked, I will be doing a before and after post when we're finally in there!