Vision

Last night another purchase to the home supply list was a snow shovel. Green Bay had at least one inch of snow and I didn’t have a shovel. Thankfully my new neighbors plowed the sidewalk.

After work I went to the store and bought a shovel and pet-friendly salt. I shoveled my driveway and walkway around eight-thirty at night.

Tonight I went to the gym to run off stress. I didn’t think I would be able to get the more than three miles I ran. It was definitely a good idea. This was the first gym visit since turning thirty-five on Monday. Now home, I’m thinking about what I need to do to dog-proof my house. Also today, my younger brother proposed to his girlfriend in Puerto Rico where they met working during the rebuilding effort.

In eighth grade history class, I wrote “hell raiser” on my notebook against the warnings of my teacher. I argued with the student teachers who were in classes full of snotty teenagers as the teachers left the room to do things not dealing with..snotty teenagers. I had attitude. In eighth grade study hall I would get in trouble for talking. Nowadays, none of this is usual behavior. I can’t pinpoint the reason behind the extrovert-introvert shift.

In Middle School, cold lunch and hot lunch were separated into gym versus cafeteria. The gym people sat on the floor, the cafeteria people sat at tables like civilized beings. I sat in the cafeteria with kids not necessarily my friends with my cold lunch. There I was introduced to goth clothes and Marilyn Manson. It was a splitting of friends and interests. I began to explore the fluidity of gender identity. I painted my nails with white-out and colored them with marker, scraping it all off with a scissors in the last class of the day.

I think maybe my parents thought that the death of my grandfather affected me more than it actually did. They had me sit in on some grief group for a few days in the office. I cried when I found out he died but what kid wouldn’t cry when their mother was inconsolable?

I failed 8th grade. My best friend from elementary school became popular and I became more of a sidekick. I had to get my parents not to hold me back. I took a two week class before high school began as a transition into high school. One of the boys I went with who wiped his pizza hands on his pants died in a car accident years later in a snowstorm after going to a ballroom dance. I went to one of those funerals, wrote a note to the family that their child would be the catalyst for breaking free from this introversion. It wasnt the case. A few years after that, I worked up the courage to ballroom dance for three years.

In middle school Spanish class we had to record ourselves speaking Spanish. This may not have been the beginning but it’s burnt itself in my memory.

I did well my first year of high school. Although I was in a remedial math class. I remained friends with the less popular kids that were in band class or homeroom. Really though, I had become a bump on a log. I was Darlene from Roseanne, never leaving the couch, watching Darlene lay on the couch. I went home and hibernated in front of the television watching Golden Girls reruns. Women in the last years of their lives had more life, adventure, and excitement than I did as a teenager. I have wasted so much time, maybe that’s why I don’t want to waste anymore trying to fit in with others even in making the smallest sacrifices between things I think are a waste of my time.

Conversations that never happened seem to be a flood in my brain. I’ve recognized so many after-the-fact moments where I would have said something that would have been bad timing.

My silence has always been supported by my own justifications of what the effects would have been had I said something stupid or in bad taste. Like bullets I can’t take back when shot at the wrong people or the right people at the wrong time. This is a different story with my writing. I am unapologetic in what I write. I do not detract my honest words when written down on some form of written medium.

To look around in a room, I wasn’t gifted with cookie cutter symmetry even though I spent so much effort trying to blend into the crowd. It’s such a pity to want to be the same as a child and different as an adult. So much energy wasted. The bullets you can’t put back. But maybe that’s a good thing. To be aimed and cocked and serious without warning.

Another anniversary of birth comes and I become older in the concept of time. I am now 35 and seemingly the most stable in as many aspects of my life as I have been in the past. I bought a home to become a part of a community. I want to become a mover and a shaker in the surrounding area.

Today, after showing my appreciation to my coworkers through birthday cakes, one was made for me. I was also ceremoniously “cake smashed” as is tradition at my workplace. Red frosting doesn’t go well with a white dress shirt. All of the clients were asked to tell me one thing they thought I should do for my birthday. Most responses were going to the movies or eating out somewhere. Staff suggestions were also pretty typical.

I’m sitting on the kitchen floor…again. I’ve been in this space before, back in my apartment probably close to one year ago. Back then was when I realized that my desires for my life meant that I didn’t get to sit down and rest. I still have those feelings on this thirty year old linoleum floor that is now mine. I don’t have time to rest or play games. For the most part, I know exactly what I want my life to look like, I just need to lay it all out and add the verb, add the action!

-Relentless Advance

This morning, bright and early, I raked leaves in the backyard. It was a lot of work. My plan is to mow them and bag them.

Today I met my future dog! He is a retired show dog and he is six years old. He is so calm and I never heard him bark for the whole time I was with him. I met the breeder at a Petsmart in Fond du Lac. I even got to hold him. His name is Rebel.

After I was done with the dog visit and questions, I went in to Petsmart to buy a kennel/crate. Then I went to the Fond du Lac lighthouse and attempted some unique angles. After my photos, I went to an outlet store to buy some scents for winter (my version of winter fires). Then I went to JC Penney and looked for clearance dress clothes. Macy’s had some rhinestone loafers that I almost bought purely for my birthday tomorrow. I couldn’t justify $90.00 loafers. The mall closed while I was shopping.

I wrapped the day up with laundry and ice cream.

I woke up early today so I could assist my parents in stacking at least two cords of firewood for the winter. My parents love their winter fires. After stacking wood, I went to Menards to buy specific lamp shades and look at closet construction materials for my spare bedroom. I then went to Home Depot to buy some window coverings. I was waiting for a worker to help trim some shades but I gave up and went with a temporary DIY in the bathroom.

At Home Depot, I bought sample bottles of two gray paints. The first gray was “gray frost” and the second one was “stargazer”. I thought “gray frost” was going to be perfect for the living room but it’s perfect for the bedroom, as it seems to have a blue tint to it. It looks like “stargazer” is going to work for the living room.

As soon as I returned home, I started raking leaves in the front yard. It was already dark out so I felt a bit like the weird neighbors from the movie, “The Burbs.” Raking in the dark was peaceful though. Then I decided to eat pancakes and ice cream while watching, “We Are Marshall.” Tomorrow I’m supposed to go see a lady about a dog!

Today I went to see two homes for sale. The first one looked good on the outside but became a bit of a nightmare as we discovered that the basement entrance was in the garage. Then there was so much water seeping into the basement from the exterior that we couldn’t really be optimistic.

The second house I didn’t think had a basement but it did. The second house was amazing and needed no work except for minor modern cosmetics. The home was truly move-in ready and at a great price. I decided to put in an offer right away. They were having an open house the next afternoon. The selling agent will probably wait until after the open house to present offers to the seller. I think I went in as high as I comfortably could in order to be competitive in this current seller’s market. I went through the offer paperwork over the phone and signed electronically. The nice thing is my parents saw the house with me. Previously scheduled to view another house that I intended to make an offer on, my parents decided to tag along on my other showings.

Crossing my fingers that I can get an accepted offer without it becoming a bidding war. We shall see! Meanwhile, I’m in nostalgia mode with my current apartment that I’ve lived in for three years. Experiencing the sunrise every morning and having an open concept and high ceiling living area. I might have more furniture than I can fit in the potential house. My apartment is roughly the same square footage but with less walls.

With two home showings, the reality of needing to make a buying decision hit me. With the insanity of how quickly a home goes on the market and how quickly offers are put on the table, it feels daunting to try and make quick decisions about a massive financial investment.

I saw two homes that were within $5K in price. The lower priced home needs some serious TLC and replacement of all windows and patio door. The sellers left the home trashed for viewing. For the most part, you can see the potential through the mess but then you think about how much effort they put into the upkeep of the structure itself. Aside from window replacements and the sloped inward patio, it could be a nice little fixer upper. The way the market is going, it could easily sell for much more when the right cleaning care is provided.

The second home is move-in ready and I quite liked the layout. The bedrooms are a bit small and the windows in the bedrooms throw my need for symmetry berserk but it’s a nice home. If I could expand the space of the kitchen without losing room for a dinner table, I would probably move forward with an offer. The kitchen is so small that it’s a bit of an afterthought. Putting additional cabinets and a countertop on the opposite wall and moving the stove over there as well would make things look better. But then you lose any room for a table. Unless you did a peek-a-boo in the living room wall that connects the two rooms and tried to make a breakfast bar.

I’m going to think about the second home and speak to my dad about it. I’m wondering if the cast iron to PVC transition for the toilet is eroded and needs replacing. I’m fine with putting carpet tiles down over the potential 9×9 asbestos basement linoleum.

I guess I have some thinking to do on such a major life decision.

Like many people who saw what happened with the housing crash in 2008, I was waiting to buy my first home. The problem with being a planner is that at a certain point you have to act. As someone who has been successful following Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps, I paid off all of my debts, built up my savings, and worked on getting to a 20%  down payment. The problem with the 20% down payment is that it really slows down the process, all to avoid private mortgage insurance (PMI). Something that people around me know, is that I like to research everything. I started watching videos and reading articles about home ownership, mortgages, rental properties, etc. I started to see that maybe 20% down did not need to be my priority. Using a conventional loan and being smart about what I can afford, maybe I only need to put down 12% or 15% for a home.

Aside from paying off my student loans while working third shift for four years, I was able to prove my abilities of tackling debt when I was first hired for my current professional job. I needed a vehicle and I let my dad talk me into buying a vehicle that was half my starting salary. My new apartment and the rest of my expenses could be paid using one paycheck. So I was able to save almost half of my salary each month. My vehicle was a six year loan that I wanted to pay off in three years (the length of the warranty). I ended up paying off my car loan in eighteen months! I remember walking into the bank that day and asking the teller to transfer a significant amount of money from my savings to eliminate my loan.

In June 2019, I scheduled my first sit down with a credit union loan officer. We began to go over some of the numbers. I was told that my finances and my mortgage amount were both practical. The catch was that I needed to decide when to pull the trigger. In that first meeting, I was still stuck on the 20% idea. With the July 4th holiday coming, I decided to wait until after the holiday before making any forward movement. After the holiday, so many things were pulling me towards starting the mortgage approval process.

In the middle of July 2019, I signed paperwork to be approved for a mortgage. Currently I am waiting for the underwriter to approve the loan. At first, the bank told me the underwriter would take about two days. I then spoke with a coworker who said that it took one month to get approval. For me, it has been one week and I am stir crazy waiting to let my realtor loose with the approved loan amount. I’ve stopped looking at home listings because I don’t want to see a great home go away due to not having the ability to make a realistic offer.

“Buying My First Home” is Part 1 of a series