Progress on Buying a House

This week we finalize that little "homebuying project" I mentioned before.  It's kinda crazy.  It's kinda driving me crazy.  Everything is going fine, although I still flinch to see an email from my real estate agent or mortgage broker.  We are scheduled to sign tomorrow, with closing officially occurring Thursday. 

We are half way packed, which means I haven't lost anything too important yet, but the cat is loving the constant change in scenery.  And by "loving" I mean walking in our house has become a scene of guerrilla war-fare at ankle height.  See how fun hiding spaces are?

We've given up non-essential activities for the week, which include cooking things that don't go in the microwave, but not our professional or service obligations.  (This is not exactly a hardship, since Mom and Dad have kept our fridge stocked with leftovers and helped pack up a head of heavy things.) Moving would be no sweat at all if we didn't have to go to work everyday. Moving would seem like no big deal if I weren't working from home for a couple days this week.  As it is, it feel like a complete distraction from my real job, and a constant reminder that WHAT THE HECK I AM BUYING A HOUSE.  It's super. I hope I really love this new house, because I don't ever want to go through this again.

What does my moving schedule look like?  Trying to get lots of stuff into boxes, but not the dishes I use for my morning oatmeal and tea.  I'm trying to pack up my bedroom, but not the clothes we should wear to work (or the gym. It's a big "if" that I'll see that place anytime soon, but I'm making an effort). We are disassembling furniture and collecting boxes in the garage, while leaving the home office in tact so I can work here Tuesday and Friday.  If all goes well, the last box will be taped up Friday, all the boxes will make the 1 mile hike on Saturday and Sunday we'll open them all (some of them) back up again.  And also come back to clean our old apartment.  Super fun. We've been talking a lot about where the furniture will go in the new house, and what we will need to get settled in there, but Zero consideration has (or will) be given to things like paint colors or future projects.  We are going to take this one, highly chaotic, step at a time.  The upshot of this is that the boxes that we pack last, and most haphazardly are basically earmarked as needed to be unpacked first in the new place.  How clever is that?

We've had lots of advance notice on this, so we've managed to fit in some other fun things in the meantime.  Symphony with Mom.  Dinner with the folks in Monroe. Lunch with Nana before she leaves for California (she'll see the house for the first time when she returns in two weeks).

Pretty much the cutest thing

Earlier this week, Jess and I were showing Tyler how much daddy and mommy loved each other by kissing in front of him. You can read endlessly about how children watch mom and dad for cues about how to act around other people, and about how they will often pattern their relationships off of the relationships they see you having with your spouse. We said “mommy and daddy love each other, see?” and then made all smoochy-mouth while Jess was holding him. Even at his young age, he was properly mortified. Which is also probably fair, but hopefully the message buries itself in his subconscious somewhere.

Later that night, after his usual late-evening grumpitude, we were putting him to bed and I asked if daddy could have a kiss. Tyler grabbed my cheeks with slightly-stinging gusto and planted me one right on the lips. We both gave him an 'aww' for that one. Then mommy asked if she could have a kiss.

Tyler grabbed us both by the back of our heads and pushed our lips together.

Runners-up for this award include:

-Saying “No thank you” when he doesn't want something.

-Throwing him up in the air (yes, we have pictures. Yes, you need to see them.)

-Splashing in puddles.

-We had some friends over today, they brought their baby. When Tyler woke up from his nap, the baby had gone down for his. When we explained how we needed to be quiet (ish) for the sleeping baby, he put his finger up to his lips and said “shh”

-N

Snow and Stew

I wish my coworkers all ate together in a lunch room regularly.  Yesterday would have been the perfect day to get the "What do you have for lunch question?"  "Oh, you know, African yam and peanut stew that my mom made for me because she loves me."  But that might have amde everyone else feel bad who DIDN'T have thier Mom pop in to do something nice for them. 

Yeah, my mom pops in now.  No big.

The folks are in town for 3 weeks.  There are rumors of furniture and so I am hoping to drop in soon.  But man, it has been a busy week.  More requests from the underwriters.  New editing contract.  Meeting with my peer mentoring (career) group.  Having a job. 

And it snowed last night.  Or coated everything in a heavy coat of sleet.  It's disgusting out, so I'm at my home office in my PJs, thank you very much.  Kinda wish I had some more African stew to eat while I am keeping cozy over here, but I'll get by.

Big Month

After a truly stellar break, that barely felt like I deserved it (take a week off after logging 7 weeks, sure, I really worked up a sweat), we are back to our normal lives again.  It was nice to be distracted from real life with a week of baby giggles and copious holiday food.  Not that my job is stressful, far from it.  But our real life is starting to feel complicated.  I told Matt the other day, I have three primary worries: 1) Moving out of our house.
2) Getting our Mortgage and closing
3) Paying my taxes (complicated this year by 3 jobs and a business license)
Any of these things is really no big deal, it's the all-at-the-same-time-ness of it that worries me a bit.  Moving isn't really a complex problem, just a big investment of time and energy.  The mortgage should go as planned, but I am told it is normal for delays of up to a week.  And a week delay would be complete chaos for us.  That feels a little like a time bomb that may or may not go off- and it seems related to complicated financial thingies I don't really understand that well.

And then there are taxes.  As a small business owner coming up on  my first taxes season, I have NO idea what I am doing except that I certainly owe someone a LOT of money.  I sat down with a tax professional a couple months ago to reassure myself I was setting aside enough money (~35%), and confirmed who I would be paying (just the Feds and the state of WA).  Now it is that time to pay them.  Washington has been sending me friendly reminders that NOW would be a great time to pay my taxes.  Ha.  Now, when all my money is supposed to be carefully observed by underwriters.  Nice.

After some deliberation, I beleive only my WA taxes are due Jan 31. Actually, that sentence makes the whole experience sound fairly composed.  After several sleepless nights, much internet research a a couple of closets cleaned on nervous energy, I've figured out how to pay my federal taxes, and realized I need to wait for ALL my W2s to come in.  But, WA keeps reminding me that I need to pay THEM by Jan 31.  Ack! 

I compiled my gross earnings (which I had started for the mortgage, so that was less horrifying than I predicted), and continued to research online.  The Department of Revenue (DOR) has an overly friendly series of videos about "How do I pay my taxes?" and "When are my taxes due?" that were both informative and infuriating.  The DOR has forms that can help you do all kinds of things, like calculate the taxes rates and even a percent.  But then they use some very cryptic categories to describe the types of businesses that get taxes at each rate.  With the help of a piece of pie, I decided my business (editing) counts a service.  Not retail, or publishing which are different tax rate.  Ok, 1.8% tax of my gross income- I owe somebody like $500. The pieces are starting to come together.

I go to file online, since the DOR has calculators they trust, and I am hoping I can use my current paypal balance to pay off the state without messing up my credit report.  I checked all the tax credits I could select, but I am not doing "High Tech" or "Utilities" work, and I don't want to get on anyone's Audit List by getting creative. I'm just providing business services and trying to be a good citizen. So, click, click, click, and taxes filed.  The confirmation pages says "no taxes are due at this time...." and I save this.

And then I think, if they aren't due now, when are they do?  And where do I send this cash? So I looked a little more closely at that confirmation page. Wait, some of those numbers are positive... and the total number is zero?  What?  It is supposed to be $500.  And then I notice "0720 Service & Other SBC" Credit negating the total I thought I owed.  Wha....?  I've got a cold sweat, now.  Did I hit something wrong?  I am just trying to do the right thing here! 

I found a description of the 0720 credit that maxes out at less money then I have saved.  I'm hyperventilating and trying to guess who I have to call to "unfile" my taxes so I don't look like a total cheater.  I can convince myself that I probably won't go to court over this error, but I might end up spending a lot on legal help over this stupid mistake.  Should I just write a check and send it in? They don't penalize you for over-paying.

After a little MORE digging, I finally found the correct form (which looks almost exactly like the other TWO incorrect forms, except the header is for "Annual Filing"), I find that this tax credit gets applied to the first ~$50,000 you make.  And uh... I'm well under that bar.  It's nice to remind oneself that these problems aren't really that huge in the scheme of things. 

Anyway, I'm feeling like a good citizen who has some seriously cluttered closets to attend to.

A Really Warm Christmas

Greetings from the days after Christmas! I'm writing to you from that wonderful time between Christmas and New Year when our office is still closed and we are mandated to stay at home and RELAX. Which is okay by me. We have just dropped off the last of our Holiday visitors off at the airport and the house has mostly contracted to its previous size.

I had a really great time.

The best part was being a host. I don't know if Dad was all swelling with pride for me, but I was pretty chuffed for myself. I own a house that can contain my entire family, and can construct and serve enough food to feed our whole Preecs Army, which I did on several occasions. Pizza Night, Krub, and the wonderful pseudo-thanksgiving of Christmas Eve were all fantastic hits, and we managed to balance that out on the other end with a couple of solid days of eating nothing but leftovers, allowing our fridge to mostly return to its normal state. We still have a little turkey left over, if anyone wants some.

Christmas itself was a hoot, especially now that Tyler is old enough to actually participate, mostly. He opened presents and got really excited when he got cool new things. The top three, clearly, are the Big Spider-man Tent, the Elmo Counting Toy, and the packing peanuts that came with his new G-Diapers. We may have to go buy those in bulk for next year. There was a lot of squealing and stomping with delight.

I also came off pretty well, especially as Jessie wrapped all my new, fancy Paint Brushes individually. And I got a really cool backpack. I'm excited to take that one out on the road. Jess got a laptop and Kelsey got a Surface. Sandlin and Matt got a ticket from Seattle to Austin, which, since it covers several thousand miles, clearly wins the 'biggest present' award. GW also came by with Kelsey and got a really cool rubber band gun. He was a very gracious guest, totally up for everything. Very hipster, too, so I think his favorite present may just have been 'Austin'. :)

Tyler's cute new thing is 'head bonks'. I am hopefully teaching him to bonk gently, or at least he has figured it out for himself, but it's a really cute thing for him to do. He has also started using 'Thank You' mostly appropriately.

The cats, too, would like to extend their thanks to everyone for coming by and giving them so much nice attention. They really appreciate it.

And, finally, a little story. I was out yesterday taking down the Xmas lights in front of the house when a couple of dogs that I recognized as having been walked by the house before came trotting down the street, owners nowhere to be seen. I managed to call one of them over, pick him up, and then store him in our backyard. The other one, larger, was clearly just too excited to be kept still, and so he trotted off down the street. I followed him, hoping to corral him toward my backyard, when from a couple of streets over I heard someone calling dogs. I gave Jessie a call to let her know what the deal was. She had just woken up from a nap and her brain hadn't quite completed its startup sequence.

“Hey, Jess.”

“Yeah?”

“There's a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“What?”

“There is a Dog in our backyard. Don't let him out.”

“Don't let who out, Tyler? Why is there a dog in our backyard?”

“I saw some escaped dogs going down the street, I managed to get one in our backyard, and I'm trying to heard the other one. Don't let the dog out of the backyard.”

“Oooh...hey, Tyler, look. A Doggy!”

Luckily, the owners made their way closer to me, and I signaled to them when they came around a corner. Then the dog heard familiar voices and ran back to the owners. I asked if they were missing another dog, and they were, lucky me. I brought them to my house and returned the final dog to his rightful place. Evidently their backyard was small-dog proof. But not quite big-dog proof. Time to get a new fence.

-N

So... we bought a house

Funny story, actually.  Remember how a couple months ago I mentioned Matt and I were warming up to the idea of home ownership?  Turns out, it is pretty easy to just take the plunge.  Some friends here had been talking about it, so we had been comparing notes as we were both shopping for mortgages.  That really got the momentum started.  Then we thought, well, the easiest way to learn about the next step is to talk to an agent.  You know, learn a little more about the community, get a feel for what our price range would get us.  We just wanted to more the conversation forward. We ended up working with Mom and Dad's agent, because she was great with them and really knows the area well.  And we've known her since college.

This was the end of October.  The summer peak was well past, and there is certainly some evidence that the Seattle housing market is regaining strength.  There weren't many homes in the locations and price range we were looking at, and those that were there tended to move quickly.  We warmed up pretty quickly to the idea that we weren't going to have a lot of time to think about the choice to make an offer.  "Sleeping on it" was just not in the cards.  That's fine.  We weren't in a rush to buy a place, so if we missed a few good ideas, that's ok.  It might even give us a chance to learn about the next steps in the whole process before we really get beholden to a home.

On maybe our second weekend looking at homes, we saw a place that seemed like it could work.  I mean, we have no idea what we are doing, but this place seemed like the right size and it's near our current place, so the location didn't feel like a gamble.  Why not roll the dice and put in an offer?  It'll give us a chance to learn what that is like, right?  That would be good, right, since we are going to have to do this a whole bunch of time. There were three offers on this house, so we pretty much wouldn't have to go through with this. WRONG.  Offer accepted.  Oh.  Now we get to learn about all the other stuff you do when you are buying a house.  Like call your mortgage guy in a panic to explain you'd like to close in 6 weeks that have 12 holidays in between. And second guess why you've been living in this neighborhood in the first place. Or suddenly learn everything about home interiors when you go for an inspection.

And this is when it started getting messy (as if blithely putting an offer in on a house your first week at a new job doesn't seem dicey enough).  The inspection... wasn't that good.  It wasn't terrible mind, but the home wasn't worth what we had offered to pay for it.  And the seller didn't feel that this was something they needed to help us with- they did have other offers.  While I was battling with this uncomfortable decision (Keep the house and be up to our eyebrows in debt and home repairs?  Will we ever find anything better? Maybe this is just what buying a home is like), Matt was being strategic.  He identified a nearby home that seemed similar, but less likely to have the issues of the first home (which needs new roof, water heater and furnace).  He and the agent went to look at it, and, even though it cost more, they both felt like the price was justified because it was in better condition.  By this time, Matt knew how to look for the service record on a water heater, right?

So, with a week to make up our mind on the first home, I was convinced to go look at the new place.  It is... in the same cul-de-sac as the first one.  That felt a little weird.  And it is really huge- and I wanted a tiny house (low foot-print, utilities, maintenance etc).  But... it was really nice.  And affordable.  And had the location benefits of the first place.  (We can walk to Trader Joe's!) Sure, that seems good and all, but the first house looked nice too, when we went there.  An inspection will probably reveal $20,000 of imminant repairs.  Our agent- who I must trust implicitly- said there is only one was to know for sure.

We took a deep breath and put an offer in on the second house.

My heart aches when I think there were a couple days when we were talking out of both sides of our mouths about owing some three quarters of a MILLION DOLLARS in Totem Lake real estate.  I trusted out agent to find a way where we wouldn't end up paying anyone all that money.  The second offer was accepted. We had an inspection performed immediately.  And the results were... fine.  Really.  The house needs CO monitors.  And the fan in the bathroom is janky.  We had been told about the age of the water heater, and that was negotiated in.  There was nothing in this house was could even come close to $20,000 in repairs.  Matt rejected the negotiations on the first house at the inspection- even if we opted not to take the second house, it confirmed the hypothesis that not all houses are expensive disasters in progress.

We decided to move ahead. We are buying house #2- the bigger house, the nicer house, the house with the good roof.  Yeah, that's gonna be our house. Our closing date is currently January 24.  This is a much longer time frame, as well, which is giving us time to think about being home owners.  What are we gonna do with all those rooms?  And space?  And the hot tub.  Will we ever do anything but sit in the hot tub?

From the Internet

This doesn't count as a full update- but my Google alert just notified me that my STEMinest profile just posted.  Probably nothing you didn't already know about me there- but we can all boggle at the idea that future scientists have people like ME to look up to.  Hm.