Delusions of... Everything

My World

It has been freezing in the corner of my world called the Pacific Northwest.  Really, really freezing!  As I type this I'm sitting in the office at the computer wearing two shirts, a fleece coat and fingerless gloves.  Oh yeah, I'm wearing pants, socks and shoes too.  We've had a few days of this weather and will have a couple more. 

On Saturday morning I saw this out my window.

It's the roof of my car!

Everything was covered in a heavy frost.  I braved the cold to take a few pictures.

It's dried out and we aren't getting the frost anymore, but now my hair is standing on end and I get shocked every time I touch metal or another person.  My lips are chapped.  My hands are dry and scratchy.  But it's my hair giving me the most trouble, the static electricity is making it stick to everything, including my face.  I want it gone along with all the gray!  I'm sick of looking at myself.  I had plans to delusions of leaving work early yesterday to treat myself to a haircut and color.  But the office had other ideas!  I was swamped and couldn't sneak out.  It's probably for the best, I guess...

(blurry picture courtesy of Star Wars Son)

Since I've been growing it out to give it away I should probably do more planning for a haircut than a spur of the moment, I'm sick of my hair and cutting it all off impulse.  *Sigh*

What's going on in your corner of the world?!

You can see my Wordless Wednesday post here.

Monochrome Monday

The Green Man

He hangs outside under the covered patio.

I can see him when looking out the window.

He makes me very happy.

For more monochromes check out Aileni's Monochrome site.

The Recap

The Halloween party was a huge success, especially for the teens!  Unfortunately I started not feeling well Friday night and continue to not feel well today.  Here is a quick party recap post mostly in photos!

Dancing Daughter decided maybe she wasn't as terrified of the Scarecrow as she thought she was

The boys taking a break mid-set up.  They were transforming the family room into a haunted clown cave.

The stairway going down into the haunted clown cave.  (Sorry it's so dark)

This is what greeted you at the bottom.

The wolf had the funniest costume.  Can you guess what he is?

He's white trash!  Get it?

My chili was enjoyed by all.

The cat is glad Halloween is over!

Happy Halloween

The porch is decorated...

The spiders have made themselves at home...

And everywhere I go I feel like I'm being watched...

Yep, I'd say we are ready for Halloween!

Have a good one everyone!

The Appraisal

The appraisal came back with the value of our house down approximately 3.3% from the 2007 appraisal when we purchased the house.  This seems very fair to me.  Our neighborhood has gone down roughly 12% since 2007, as have most neighborhoods in the Seattle area.  Handy Man is not as satisfied.  I knew this would happen.  I knew he would work his ass off on the house for months and be disappointed, but I was really hoping to be wrong.

There is even more to be disappointed about.  The whole time we've been going through this process of refinancing our house both Handy Man and I were under the impression that we would be able to refinance a portion of our loan and restructure the remaining portion.  In fact this is not true.  All along we needed the house to appraise at 5% OVER what we purchased it for.  That was never made clear to us.  The financial officer kept throwing numbers around, but never one that high.  This is a huge disappointment, especially for Handy Man who was really counting on refinancing.

The financial officer is appealing the appraisal, for what purpose I'm not sure.  The value of the house is not going up 8% because of an appeal.  The days of over pricing houses to qualify for loans is over.  I also feel like the days of "waiting it out" are over too.  I don't anticipate housing prices to climb like they have in years past.

I'm letting Handy Man wallow in his sorrow for a couple days then we will talk about other options.  We do have another house we can sell, one we don't owe too much money on, one he wanted to use for retirement income.  One that I never wanted to keep in the first place.  One that we were supposed to sell all along.  One that will enable us to get out of the ARM loan we are in AND have money left for investing in retirement. 

Now I have to talk Handy Man into it... Wish me luck.

This and That Thursday

I really don't have much today...

The appraisal was completed on Monday.  Handy Man walked the guy around and answered all his questions about what we've done to the house and when the work was completed.  He took a lot of notes and pictures, but oddly enough didn't ever use a tape measure.  He mentioned he was having a really hard time finding comps.  I was really hoping we'd have some news by now, but nothing yet.

Star Wars Son is having a great time with Cinderella.  Yesterday when I picked him up from school he said, You are going to laugh really hard when I say this, but I really love musical theatre.  He was right, I laughed.  It's so unexpected.  He was dreading the whole thing at the beginning of the year and now he's having a blast.  Surprisingly he also said, I love the dancing part.  I almost drove off the road when he said that. I love it when my kids amaze me.

More Star Wars Son news... I can't remember if I posted that he broke up with his "out of town" girlfriend?  There was a little too much lying on her part going on so he called it quits.  Now he's working on another girlfriend who lives only two towns away, has her own car and two parents.  He's trying out a different kind of girl he told me... A stable one.

I'm looking for some book recommendations.  I just read a couple of really great books (The Kite Runner and Plainsong) and am having a challenge finding another one on par with those.  I just started The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, so far it hasn't grabbed me, but I usually give a book 100 pages before I quit.  I'd love to hear what you are reading or have loved reading.

Crazy Way the Mind Works

Since July the main focus of Handy Man has been getting the house repaired and spruced up for a chance at refinancing.  We have demolished, rebuilt, sanded, painted, polished, spit shined, weeded, planted, on and on and on.

Paperwork has been signed and submitted, credit has been checked, copies of all that's confidential regarding our income and worth has been turned in.  We have been pre-approved.  We now wait for the appraisal appointment to be made.

Yesterday morning Handy Man and I were working outside, he was mowing the lawn and I was sweeping the porch, walkway and stairs.  He stops mowing and says to me, I had a dream last night that the appraiser did a "drive-by" to determine the value of our house.

I shook my head, started laughing and said, That would be just our luck.

In a Funk

I just finished reading a great book called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.  It was required reading for Dancing Daughter by her Advisory teacher.  I try to read everything she reads, just because and I'm so glad I read this book.  It's a wonderful story of a freshman Indian who decides to go to high school off the "rez".  He's a likable dork who I found myself cheering for and crying with.  I highly recommend it!

I went to the thrift store over the weekend and bought 4 books for $6.00.  I'll be starting one of them tonight before bed, after I watch some Mad Men on dvd.  I'm on the last disc of season 2.  I really don't want it to end.

I'm still savoring the Pearl Jam concerts I went to last week.  I haven't even started writing about it yet, but I will.  I've been listening to their new album non-stop for two weeks and am not even close to being sick of it.  It's by far my favorite album since Yield came out in 1998!  I miss my friend Chrissy who came for the shows from Boston.  I don't know when I will see her or Pearl Jam again and it's really got me in a funk.

It's hard for me to describe the amazing weather we have had in Seattle all summer.  Tomorrow the rain and cool weather return.  I might actually wear socks tomorrow!  I haven't worn socks, except to work out in months.

After much back and forth in Handy Man's head, he's decided to go ahead with getting the house appraised for a refinance.  He filed pre-qualification paperwork last night, we should hear something by Wednesday.  Hopefully we will have an appraisal appointment early next week.  I'm ready to get this done and over with.  Even if the house doesn't appraise where we need it, at least we will know.

The Kitchen is Done!!

In this post about Handy Man I talk about how the kitchen project started.  If you want you can just look at the pictures so you can get an idea of where we started... I'll wait.

Below is the best picture of the "before" kitchen I could find.  This was before anything was done.  I know the lighting is terrible, but it is what it is!

Then Handy Man started on the refinishing of the cabinets, leaving my kitchen in a confused state of "where is...."  And left the whole house in a state of "when will I ever not be dusty again?"
Do you like the white formica countertop and backsplash?

It's hard to tell from these before shots, but this corner area is turning out to be my favorite part of the re-do!

 

Below is a shot after the cabinets, gas cooktop, range hood and door were installed, but before the granite.  The door goes to the downstairs.  The other door was solid, it's really nice to have the glass door to let light down the stairs.

 

Before the granite was installed the backsplash needed to be removed.

Remember when I posted about the backsplash choices we had?  I really liked the one on the right, Handy Man really liked the one on the left.  We ended up going with the one in the middle.  The house was built in 1947, so we were trying to keep some of updates in line with the time period.  We felt the middle tile would look the best for that.  We weren't disappointed!

 

The finished project!!!  Handy Man just installed the pulls this weekend.  I love they way they look too!

The corner "island" is so cool for many reasons.  I love having the cooktop over there.  I can converse with people while I'm using it.  It houses the garbage, food waste, recycle and cat food bin in pull outs!  I LOVE that! 

 

The lighting really doesn't do the granite or the backsplash justice.  It's so much prettier in real life.  I love having the microwave off the counter and all counter space is heavenly!

 

 

 

 

We put a new door leading out to the patio too.  I really love everything about my new kitchen.  I think the dust is over for a while too!  Hallelujah!

Welcome to My World

Got dust?!

Various parts of my kitchen have been in other parts of the house for weeks now.  New sink and faucet in the living room, small appliances on the dining room table.  Today we are without water and gas in the kitchen for who knows how long.

I'm at the point in the remodel where I'm so over it.  I'm over the sanding, the staining, the painting, and the installing.  The thing I'm over most is the cleaning with results that last for roughly five minutes

Please tell me it's going to be done soon!