New Home Anticipation

Today I finally felt excited. The closing of my new home is pending and today I met my realtor and some close friends at my future new home. They wanted to go over it with a fine tooth comb, even though it had a good inspection because these friends know they will probably be asked by me at some point to fix something. They are good friends, no, great friends. 

I measured the bathroom for a framed mirror and my walk in closet for new shelving and poles to hang my clothes, as the old system is a midge madge of wire shelving and not connected well. I measured for curtains in my son’s rooms, and started looking for overhead lights for the bedrooms. 

My friends are excited for me, and when I asked one of them too keep his eye open for a swing set for my youngest son, he said he had one for us.  I am looking forward to living closer to these friends as they always seemed much more like family. 

Afterwards my son and I decided to try out a local tavern for breakfast.  All the locals were there after church and were quite friendly. After breakfast we explored our future little home town and made note of all the things we want to see and do. Once the snow falls they have a big community sledding hill, we scoped out the back way to the grocery store and found the club house to the local golf course within walking distance, I can see the 5^th fairway from the front of my future home.  At least I think it’s the 5^th one anyway. We are so excited to have a family room downstairs where we can all hang out together, Jack will have nice carpeted floors to put his Lego’s together or push his tractors around.  I have paint samples picked out and pictures of rooms I want to decorate. 

Yes, it will be nice to finally have a place of our own.  Even if we will be moving a week before Christmas, none of us can wait.  The biggest decision was the first box to unpack.. That was easy, the Christmas tree of course.  We have a lot to be thankful for this year. 

Peace to you all.

Mary

Found One

Today I put an offer in on a house. I waited all day with baited breath and anticipation waiting for an answer. I met my realtor in the morning at the home to put the offer together. It was our second look at the house. It looked even better in the daylight. It has 3 bedrooms upstairs, mine with a walk in closet, a room for Jack and one for my office and downstairs a “non-conforming” bedroom with it’s own bathroom for Stew. Finished basement, new roof, new carpet, new furnace, and new sump pump. It has a double attached garage and a huge back yard for Jack to play and it is on a dead end street so it will be safe for him to bike on our block as well.  The walls were all painted back to eggshell white, now waiting like blank canvas for me to paint.  

The house is perfect for our little family, 1800 square feet, everything put together in a very practical way. I waited into the evening until my realtor finally called, a little fine tweaking to the deal, and they accepted the offer. All parties are happy with the agreement.  If all goes well, I will be closing on my home in several weeks. 

It’s finally starting to hit me. Finally, I am going to have my own home. The boys will have somewhere to call home and come home to and when they grow up; bring their wives and kids to visit. It will be mine and no one else’s. 

I hope all goes well at closing. I just need to have it inspected and appraised and the bank needs to do their paper part and we will be in our new home in no time. 

I am very excited and I am rarely boastful of myself. But I have to say, I am pretty proud of myself. I never thought I could do this. I never thought I would ever be able to own my own home. 

Peace to you all. 

Mary

Random but noteworthy

Today I heard one of the most beautiful sounds.  My 7 year old son reading in the next room, I know this doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to most. But my son Jack, well he struggles in school. Don’t get me wrong, he loves school and loves being involved in his classes and his favorite activities (gym and recess). 

But you see, Jack is a high energy child and top that off he has dyslexia and dysgraphia. He is not stupid by any means. In fact he has an elevated I.Q.  But reading and hand writing are is weakest links, and he needs special help, ironic that his mother is an avid reader and a part-time writer. 

I have seen him grab books or magazines with lots of pictures before; he thumbs through them and sometimes circles all the cool pictures in his magazines. For the most part, I read to him and we will sound out the smaller words together. But today is the first time I heard him grab a book, sit down and start to sound out words all on his own, without prompting.  God, it filled my heart, I was so proud of him. 

It’s funny, I was sitting in my office, reading my 9 page disclosure statement for the house I am going to be submitting an offer on and suddenly it didn’t seem that urgent, and put it aside until later tonight.  I think listening to my son read sounds pretty good.  Besides, Curious “the George” as he calls him, never gets old. 

Peace to you all. 

Mary

Real Estate Challenged

I have been looking for a home now for about a month. My financing is in place, of course being a single earner, I can only afford so much and I still don’t want to buy at the top end of what I qualify for.  But, I have to say this whole real estate search has been nothing but one disappointment after another. The market makes no sense, there is no basis to price houses. You could take 3 identical homes, in the same area, and all 3 could be priced completely different due to the owners financial situation or if the bank owns them.

The house that got me moving on my financing was perfect. It was a 3 bedroom cottage style home. It had 1940’s charm, it was completely updated, the upstairs a master suite. It would have had a place for a sitting area that would have been a great place to read and write. A master bath with a soaking tub.  A kitchen big enough for me to put a rolling island where Jack and I could make his special chocolate chip cookies, and Stew would have had his own space too… the garage. It could hold 4 cars and basically was two stories tall. No, it wasn’t a pole barn.. It was a garage. The yard was nice and manageably sized. It was also on the market for far less than I qualified for, and the taxes were also quite low.  Unfortunately, it came off the market on a Wednesday night and my financing got final approval on Thursday morning.

The next home was two doors down from that one. We had an appointment to look at it, but on the way there… it came off the market. sigh.  I looked at a few more, and the next house I really thought would work, was almost identical to the one I currently rent, it had a nice big yard,  with a swing set perfect for Jack in the back, with neighbor kids with the coolest tree house just behind the property. In front, across the street was a park with a softball field, jungle gym and even a small sledding hill, I would be able to see Jack from the front windows and the home had 5 bedrooms. It too was in my price range. I was ready to put in an offer. I was on my way to meet with the realtor to pen the offer, and one came in before ours. It being a bank owned property, the people who got to it first may have to wait a month just to get an answer. Double sigh…..

Finally, I looked at five more homes this past week. Found a small rambler that only had 2 bedrooms with room to expand in the basement. It was far less of a house than the others, but I really didn’t need all the room the others offered. This was a small 2 bedroom rambler, with one bathroom. It was decorated nicely but it needed another bedroom in the basement, it needed a dishwasher, a disposal. It only had a single car garage, which was attached to the home but no access door to the house. Things that I could work with, but the people selling it had it on the market for about 20K more than it should have been at starting price. We penned them an offer.  They counter offered taking only 3k off their listing price and asking for closing costs. To say the least even their realtor thought they were nuts.  But from the beginning I was a little worried that these people would not have a firm grasp on reality looking at their home.  They were newlyweds, with a young son, maybe 1 years old and had a plaque in their dinette that said “all because two people fell in love” and above their bed they had the peel and stick stencil that said “For Ever and Ever.”  Yeah, I was expecting to open their teeny tiny “master” bedroom closet and see his suit of armor hanging there.  I think they are a little disillusioned about real estate at this point.  So that house is out of the question, especially when I could possibly by a lot more house for about 25k less than their tiny starter home.  They will figure it out in about a month or so. I do feel bad for them though, they are just trying to sell their house, they are not in financial trouble or anything. They are just a couple of young kids who want the American dream and want a bigger home who are trying to sell a house they love in a really shitty market.

This morning I woke up back up at square one. I have my financing in place. Money to spend on a home in a town I really love.  Ready to move on from my current hometown, raise my youngest in a small town with a real urban feel and finally live in a home I own all by myself that no one can take from me as long as I make my payments on time. I am approved for a mortgage with a low fixed rate and will be spending about $3oo dollars a month less on a mortgage than I am currently paying in rent. But I am starting to believe I am never going to get there. It’s frustrating, there are so many great homes out there, some need a little work, but most of those just out of reach of what I am capable of, and without a significant other with mechanical ability, it is even more frustrating.

I remedied this frustration by waking up at 5 a.m. and not being able to get back to sleep. Did a little work, a little accounting mixed with a little writing.  Neither helped my current blue mood, the only thing really helping is my son Stews deer hunting updates, which I find comical that I am getting text messages from a deer stand.  Then I allowed my tough old self to have a good cry. This is usually when I pull myself up by my boot straps, tell myself to put on my big boy pants and forge on, steadfast and headstrong, as I always do, marching straight forward into the gale force winds of life.  I don’t think I want to do that today. Right now, I feel like I don’t want to talk about real estate, don’t want to look anymore, and I sure as hell don’t want to watch anymore house buying shows on HGTV today. I usually love them.  But not today.

Right now I need to go do a little grocery shopping, get the house cleaned and work on the laundry. I will go full on into the domesticity mode today, plug into my iPod, and pepper my day with house cleaning and tears.

Peace to you all.

Mary

Am I Ever Going To Be Better?

Well today it’s been exactly one week and two days since I have been sick. Don’t get me wrong, I finally feel better, but now I just feel like I have a severe head cold. You know where you sort of feel like you head is under water, and the slightest cough will bring up the most un-feminine of loogies.  Not exactly very lady like and embarrassing I might add. I am actually starting to believe I am never going to feel 100 % ever again. I know the fact that we have had nothing but a rain/snow mix for the past week doesn’t help and the gloominess of each day hasn’t helped much with my down trodden mood.

But I should feel happy, and better. Life is going pretty good. I have taken on a couple of freelance writing jobs, and my 8 to 5 has become even more stable with the fact that they laid another person off in accounting and I am basically now filling that role at my local plant. It’s nice being able to work at two locations and know that you are really depended on and needed.  To top that off, I just got my financing approved to buy a home and I will hopefully be closing on my new home before November 30^th to be eligible for the tax credit.

Yes indeed, life is good. Now if I would just feel better.  I wish I could find one great cold medicine to unclog everything from my neck up. Then I think I would be good.

Peace to you all.

Mary

Damn T-Shirt

What is it, that one simple object can evoke a memory so powerful it can send you reeling into a heart wrenching tailspin? Case in point, a t-shirt, not a fancy t-shirt or favorite t-shirt, just a plain ordinary gray t-shirt with one un-meaningful word scrawled across it that holds a power so strong that it can send me back to day one of a breakup.

Ladies, you know the t-shirt. The ex-boyfriend t-shirt, the shirt that was either given to you by your boyfriend or you snuck out of his drawer so you could wear it to bed to remember your sweetheart when he wasn’t there to lie next to you when you were sleeping.

I came across that shirt today. It was tucked away in the back on the bottom of all my other t-shirts and pajama tops. Hoping never to be reached again, the shirt that no matter how many times you seem to wash it always has his smell and memory buried deep within its threads. That shirt made its way to the top of the pile today.  

You see I have been sick. I have the flu. H1N1 a clear possibility, considering the high fever I have been fighting and the chills and then turnabout to the profuse sweating that follows. Too sick to be keeping up with any laundry, I have made it to the last of my over sized t-shirts, his t-shirt was my last resort, which I reached today.

I know I am feeling this blue and melancholy because I am clearly not feeling well and stressed that I may not make it back to work even early this next week, but I hate that a crummy old gray t-shirt can have this type of power over me. I wasn’t going to let it beat me. So after some consideration I slipped it on after my shower, tied my wet hair up and piled it back on the top of my head and crawled under my postage stamp quilt on my couch. As I lay there with my stack of movies, and cold medicine, I ever so often smell the collar of the shirt and think of him and wish he was here with me. Rubbing my cold feet and tucking my blanket up underneath them to keep them warm.  I thought about the wording on the shirt, “Affinity3” to the third power the 3 is placed. Like a math equation of some kind, so fitting coming from him. He was so smart and funny. I think about what it should say. “I had a great boyfriend, and all I have to show for it is this crummy t-shirt,” I guess this would be more appropriate.

Yep, I am still sick, still wallowing in my pity party, alone. My kids being kept at bay to save them from my illness. Can’t have Jack getting more sick after his episode this week and Stew, well he just doesn’t want to catch it and I don’t blame him.  I have made myself self quarantined and my neighbors are on alert, checking ever so often to make sure I don’t die a New York death. You know, the kind that no one finds you until the smell finally lingers into the hallway? Yep, optimistic isn’t it? 

I hope I feel better soon. I hate feeling weak not only physically but emotionally and spiritually too. I hate missing him like he was lost to me just yesterday and I want to get back to my regular life where it just doesn’t bother me, or I am just used to pretending it doesn’t. I just want to get back to my life where it feels like I haven’t lost control of my senses. I hate the flu, there really is no controlling it once you have it. It maps out its course and reduces you to a lump of raw nerves and emotions. With cough, fever, body aches and enough nasal and bronchial discharge to keep the market on tissues cornered.

Well, time to retire these ramblings and head to the grocery store for some more diet soda and a good gossip magazine. Hopefully there won’t be many people at the store on a Saturday night. I don’t want to make anyone else sick as I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, and I don’t want to scare anyone with my medusa like hair that I currently have going on. It is not pretty. As for make-up, forget about it.  

Hopefully I won’t send to many people into therapy.

Sick and Melancholy

I am sitting here on Thursday night watching another episode of project runway. It is the only show I currently follow as my friend Janet’s nephew is one of the designers. Shout out to Christopher! You made it again.

Tonight is a little different than most nights however, as the flu is running rampant through the office and it has been brought home. Jack was sick earlier in the week, off to the ER, with his asthma yet again. I got thrown up on, total exorcist head shot and I knew the moment the 7up was dripping off my hair, there was a probably a pretty good chance I too was now going to get sick.

I must be a psychic, because low and behold, I am sick. I am sick and I am home by myself. I hate by myself. Jack is with his dad, as his great grandma passed away and Stew is off to his dads to set up deer stands (its MEA school break) preparing for deer hunting season.

I hate being sick and on my own. No one to run me Kleenex, water or cough medicine. I am on my own. It is at times like these, thoughts of my old beau; slowly creep back into my memory. He was kind and attentive and always knew exactly what I needed before I would ask for it. I remember when he tended to me when I was not feeling well or had a headache, and he would pre-occupy the kids just to give me some time to rest. I remember his tender caring of me made me uncomfortable as I was never used to this type of treatment. His motives were honest and honorable and now when I am down and out with this agonizing cold I miss him terribly. I close my eyes and try to remember his voice, and laugh and it all is fading as every month passes between us. Tears fill my eyes and choking them back makes my head cold worse. Don’t blink, don’t blink, don’t blink, self imposed rules that if the salty optic water doesn’t hit my cheeks, I am not crying and I am still in control, still a strong person.

I hope this all passes with a good dose of Nyquil and a mix of other cold medicines, added to a good night’s sleep, but I have a feeling I will wake up tomorrow feeling even worse than I do now, physically and emotionally. I think I need a good conversation with a dear old friend. Someone to tell me I am just having a moment of weakness and as I feel better this too shall pass.

Examiner.com

Hello fellow bloggers and friends,

I have taken a side freelance writing job with Examiner.com.  I am their new “Single Mom’s” Examiner.  You can find me at:

www.examiner.com/x-25626-Minneapolis-Single-Moms-Examiner

Please check out my sight and if your interested, you can subscribe to email and keep updated on any new articles!

Thank you all for your support.

 

Mary Pulk

Blessed with Enough?

I am lucky really. I have good healthy kids, a roof over my head and steady work. Life is good. I have been blessed with enough. But sometimes I can’t help but look around myself and notice how friends, family and co-workers have more than me. Yes, some have more monetarily, but that is not what I am talking about here, nor does that bother me, as you see I am a minimalist by nature, less is more per say, but sometimes I envy their relationships and the bonds they have within their family dynamic. They have husbands, boyfriends, fiancés, Parents and siblings in which they have very close personal relationships. I laugh, and sometimes shake my head in censure while listening to their complaints about their significant others, parents or other family members.

You see they take them for granted. They have more than they need more than they could ever want, and yet most times are still not satisfied or even close to being content. They take for granted that all their needs are easily met in fluid routine. I watch as they complain about their significant others and how it’s taken them forever to take out the trash, fix the car, the furnace, or a leaky pipe and yet eventually all things are tended to in a dutiful manner, until the next project arises. All projects and chores are tended to on both sides, in an unacknowledged, underappreciated manner. I watch as they write checks and make purchases for co-pays, prescription, groceries and other staples without having to check if there is enough in their accounts, as there always seems to be, and yet complain about the time it took to wait for the prescriptions to be filled or in the grocery line. They never have to worry about being fed, clothed or homeless. They have their safety nets, their spouses, their parents, their favorite aunts or uncles to fall back on.  They think everyone is the same boat as them. But they are not.

Sometimes we get so tangled up in our daily lives we don’t notice that we are taking them for granted and we often forget that even our closest friends do not have these same luxuries. People we know and hold dear in our hearts sometimes seem to have enough, they are making due, and yet we forget, they don’t have the same safety net or support of family. Sometimes they just need a little advice or a shoulder to cry on, kind words to ease their anxieties and yet we are so tangled up in our own life’s their words fall on deaf ears.

These friends may not need any financial help, but sometimes they just need someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, a word of advice, or someone just to tell them it’s all going to be ok. Maybe we all could do a little more of that. Don’t you think?

Things that are currently troubling me.

Things that are currently troubling me.

Ok, so I am sitting here tonight, and I am thinking about the wonderful weekend I just had. I spent Friday night with two of my favorite people, my best friend, Alayne and my friend Robert.  I realized when I am with them; we never talk badly about the other people in our lives. We talk about how people are doing, and how we admire what they have done, how funny, smart, or well adjusted they are. We wish we could be more like most of them.  I love being with these people.

What bugs me are my close family friends, who constantly invite drama into their lives, complain constantly about their family members, their problems with alcohol, and so on, are great to them to their face and then talk poorly of them behind their back, and then keep them in their lives and greet them with a smile on their faces.  This troubles me, as I am their most recent target.  I just nod and smile, knowing that Karma will soon rear its ugly head and pay them back tri-fold. I guess I am an easy target for them, or it drives those nuts that I am content with what little I have and they are not happy no matter how much they spend, no matter what they do or where they go, they can’t find happiness, because you first need to accept yourself as you are, and then others just the way they are, then soon you will find solace.  Sorry, I am not going to let you get to me. You can bash me all you want. But every time the content of my character saves me.  Their character however grows ever more tarnished, like the blue green patina of oxidized copper.  Stop seeking drama, be happy with what you have, and you too will find contentment. But I doubt they will.  They need instability for a sense of normalcy. For the most part they are good people; they just have to stop seeking crazy. This troubles me very much.

You know what else troubles me?  An old boyfriend who pops into my life every several years, usually due to the demise of yet another relationship, and then calls me up, yet again wanting me to be a friend and always seeking more than friendship. I generally get put on the back burner to make sure his most current relationship is over. In his case, there is no relationship that is ever over. He is overlap man. He can’t be alone, EVER.  He can’t figure out why his life is shit.  It’s always shit.  This time around all I could do is listen to him complaining once again about all the shit in his life.  How he is constantly is a victim of circumstance, nothing ever his own fault or responsibility of course. No, no, not his fault again, but every damn woman he has been with, it’s ALL her fault.  All I can say to that is “What the fuck ever.”  Sorry, I am not one to swear, but grow up you fucking little bastard and take responsibility for all your immoral and unethical actions, grow a pair and deal with it.

You didn’t get to make a speech at your son’s wedding because you have NEVER been a Dad to him. You may be the father on the birth certificate, but guess what, it was his step-dad that was there for him through all this late night illnesses, all the wrestling practices, and matches that led him to state, it was his step-dad that was there when he felt his first heartbreak and had to have “the talk” with him as he grew into a man. If you didn’t like it, maybe you should have never cheated on your wife and kept your commitments to your family, or not moved out of his state, he should have been your priority, you didn’t make him one, another man took on YOUR responsibilities and therefore, he is the one that deserves thanks, not you.  Not hard to figure out Einstein.

I understand that you are feeling depressed about moving to Indiana and away from your daughter. I understand, you will miss getting to see her every weekend when you travel home, but this isn’t the first time YOU, yes YOU, chose your career over your children and it won’t be your last. Oh, and if you didn’t want to pay child support, then maybe you should have kept your dick in your pant and been faithful to this wife too, because when you cheat on your wife, you are not just cheating on her, you are cheating on your child too. Sorry pal, it’s not your ex’s fault you have to pay so much in child support, again, keep your shit at home, stay loyal to your family, keep your commitments, and be a real man for Christ’s sake. It’s not hard; many generations of real men have been doing it before you.  Oh, and when your daughter is old enough to date, and her boyfriend starts cheating on her, and she comes to you when her heart is aching and broken, you may want to share your theory with her, you know the one you told me about how men aren’t made to be monogamous, so she better just get used to it, because that is just how men are, remember?? Or maybe you can explain to her how the rest of the world see’s it. This is why relationships are hard, and you have to work at them and those who have an ounce of self control, and have an ounce of maturity can actually handle grown up MONOGOMOUS relationships.  Get a clue idiot.

As for your girlfriend in Arizona, I don’t believe for one single solitary minute that it is her or her family’s fault that you are in such financial ruins. I believe it is expensive to try to support two families. My guess would be that you were buying her kids love, just like you tried to buy mine with expensive gifts like Xbox’s,  games, toys, and IPods and doing it with money that should have been kept within your marital relationship, this is probably a more realistic reason of  why you are “suffering” such financial distress? My guess is that she and her family are probably a group of warm loving people, and she is just a woman who fell for a complete idiot like you. Personally, I think any woman can do better than a man who refers to his girlfriend as a “Mexican gypsy” only a couple days after breaking up with her. I think a man who talks about any ex like this is just an immature ass. Sorry, but a middle aged man that is that callous and mean after a breakup isn’t worth keeping around in the first place. Here’s a tip, there are other emotions besides anger. Try one out sometimes. Hurt, melancholy or a feeling loss will endear and connect you more to people because it is more human. But you have never had a heart, you never will, and at your age you will never change, not as long as you have someone to blame all your problems on, and then you never have to take responsibility for them yourself. You have perfected the “find a scapegoat, it wasn’t my fault” way of life. Where has it gotten you? Absolutely fucking nowhere, bravo for you, what has it gotten you?? Three ex-wives, a long long string of failed relationships with women, a son who can barely stand you and only time will the levels of distain that your daughter will have for you. You must be very proud of yourself.

Ok, totally shifting gears here.. Another thing that troubles me is the state of our healthcare system here in the U.S.  Right wing conservatives have people afraid that socialized healthcare in ANY form will mean death panels for those with pre-existing conditions.  Well what the hell are they talking about, we already have them. They are called HMO’s.  We live in the greatest country in the world and people cannot afford decent health care. It’s sad. I have so many friends who work for themselves or are trying to make it as small business owners and they are going without coverage at all because even catastrophic insurance premiums are too expensive, and they will never use it. We need reform here people; it’s getting out of control. Premiums even for good insurance are creeping even higher and what are we getting in return?  Less coverage, more out of pocket expense, higher cost prescriptions and deductibles we may never be able to pay.  Both my kids have double insurance. They are covered by me and their fathers. Can you believe I still have out of pocket expense? It’s crazy. Get people good coverage so they can afford to take better care of themselves and maintain their health. I know at least a dozen people who will only go to the doctor if it’s an emergency, because of their high deductibles and when it becomes an emergency, believe me, the insurance companies will pay even more.

Ok, one last troubling thing… I promise, and  then my I think I will have it all out. Ok, you all remember September 11^th, right?  I wonder if they do in Washington D.C. I mean they did have that whole incident at the Pentagon and all right? We remember right?  Ok…and yet, we let known terrorist, into our country?  Ok, let me rephrase that, we WELCOMED known terrorists into our country. Am I the only one who saw the crazy terrorists allowed into the U.N. this past week? Muammar Gaddafi is a crazy man., a crazy man in charge of a whole country with possible nuclear weapons, who was rambling on for over an hour and a half, throwing papers and acting the fool.   Then we have Mahmoud Amadinejad, who is a whole other type of crazy. He has nuclear weapons, and intends on using them.  He doesn’t believe there is one single solitary gay person in the country of Iran, and doesn’t believe the holocaust ever existed. What the fuck? But hey, you two, welcome to America!  And we are worried about the “horrible” illegal aliens sneaking into this country to work the jobs that us lazy ass American’s think are too below us, so they can support their families back home in Mexico? Sounds like the only thing they are guilty of is a strong work ethic, shame on them, it’s un-American.  So duh, you SHOULD be afraid they are going to steal our jobs. So, those of you who chose not to do your jobs, look alive, because someone far more competent and willing may be right around the corner to take it from you. You know who you are.

Whhhhheeewwwww.  That felt good. It was bottling up and feels so good to let it all out.