Almost forgot I had this thing

Wow. I should pay more attention to this.

Short catch-up message: I'm working as a contractor for USTRANSCOM and I am not having fun with it. Not liking the uncertainty of contracting these days. I'm still living in St Louis. I am still astounded that I am a homeowner. still not sure it was a good idea. Wondering if I am going to survive raising two kids to adulthood at this point. Health-wise I am doing just fine, though I could probably stand to lose some weight, but hey, who couldn't these days? :-)

General status

Just wanted to make sure someone was still reading this! :-)

Life is still an adventure, though my health is doing well overall. I missed work today because the kids got me sick over the weekend. Looks like it is a short term thing and I should be back at work tomorrow.

Bought a new car to deal with having to cart around a bunch of kids.

Trying to reign in the spending in general right now. Not sure how I managed to spend as much money as I have over the last year, bu there you have it.

Where have I been for the last month?

Wow. Missed an entire month of posting.

Here's a quick recap:

Finally settled the whole mortgage mess. I have a mortgage that I will be paying next month.

Got most of the holiday crap taken care of.

Cooked Thanksgiving dinner and got good comments all around from the diners.

Changed employers without changing jobs and got a nice raise while doing so.

Went to way too many children's school functions. More to come! :-)

Contemplated running away! :-)

Almost to the big 4-0

Ah yes, another year older. Got some gray in the mustache/beard to go along with it too. I can't wait until next year when I can go buy a motorcycle! :-)

Fatherhood is sneaking up on me...

I find myself enjoying the kid's preparation for Halloween way too much. I wanna go back to being the somewhat young curmudgeon I was...

Why me?

OK, so I still have not heard back from the Mortgage guy. Why is this so hard?

More fun for me.

Just great. I have another cold. Hopefully, this one will not turn into pneumonia like the last one...

At least that is sorted out

It looks like my mortgage is going to a different bank. My interest rate fell a bit, but my PMI went up. In the end it is a wash. Apparently this is all going to be sorted out by the end of the week. Hopefully it will work this time. The nice thing is that I apparently get another couple of months without paying a mortgage. I should be able to save up a bit of cash and go into this much better off that I expected.

Mortgage issues

Should I be concerned that I have no idea who currently holds my mortgage? As of right now, the mortgage broker I used has paid the money and is waiting for the bank to stop asking for silly things to get the money from them. I'm not sure why the bank keeps asking for more stuff, but seeing as how I was supposed to be making my first payment sometime in October, the fact that I am not sure who owns this thing and I have not received any information regarding who I am supposed to pay is making me a little nervous. Here's hoping I don't suddenly find myself with no mortgage and owing a truckload of money real fast or something like that...

Dread Maintenance

I went and got my hair cleaned up yesterday. I really liked the place. The people were nice, the work was good and they even threw in a free shave. While it wasn't cheap, it was not as expensive as the place I went to in MPLS. Nothing to complain about there! They'll be getting more of my money in the future.

Housewarming

Had the housewarming yesterday and it went well. The downside is that I now have a mountain of food left over. I really need to learn moderation when buying food one of these days. :-)

More housing crap

Not that this is a surprise to anyone, but Banks suck. The bank that was supposed to underwrite my mortgage keeps coming back and asking for more information, including classically stupid things like "Was the money you paid in your account before you gave the real estate agent that cashier's check?" given that I can not get a cashier's check from the bank without the money being in my freaking account, I would love to know why they are asking this question.

On the plus side, if they keep this crap up, the mortgage broker says they will simply take our loan to another bank and given that interest rates have dropped since we closed, we might get a better rate.

More fun with weight loss

Just to let you all know, I have issues with getting skinnier. I had to go and not only get a smaller pants size, I had to also get extra holes punched into my belt in order to be able to still wear my old pants (which look like tents on me now... I had no idea I was carrying around so much extra me. And the weird part is that I have only lost about 22-25 lbs. Kind of scary.

On the plus side, it means that I can get into t-shirts I have not been able to wear for years! :-)

Center of attention

It may just be my overinflated sense of self but I would swear that everyone in the house, including the cat, seems to want to be around me all of a sudden. I come home and suddenly people are yelling for my attention. Not horrible, but definitely something I would like to go away some days.

While I am happy to help them with whatever they want, I would also like to be able to come home and just be a bit of a vegetable once in a while. I have been on high alert for a month or more with house related stuff and I would like a chance to relax for a bit.

You know, maybe do something like unpack MY stuff now?

Finally!

The old house is empty and clean. We have repaired the minor damage that we caused, including the door J kicked in out of frustration last summer. That one was kind of fun and made me realize that I actually do know something about construction, though I am still learning. I should have fixed it long before now, but what do you want from me, I'm occasionally very lazy! :-)

Mom adventures

Finally told my Mom over the weekend that I had bought a house. She seemed happy about that but then gave me yet another lecture about how I should "make it legal" with J. This is a conversation we have had several times with no real change on either side. I guess it's just going to be one of those things.

New home stuff

I think we are getting settled into the new house. I keep finding things I need to do around the house, but it is getting closer and closer to being home. We have finally gotten everything out of the old house (except the grill. Tomorrow, I swear) and are finally getting this place set up in some semblance of comfortable and organized. My man-cave is still a colossal mess, but it is getting better. I just need some more shelving and some wiring done to get myself all set up.

I will also need a stand for my TV. That is going to be interesting...

I have a new address

Well, we've moved. As might be expected there is much cleaning up left to do at both houses, but we are pretty much moved. we sleep in the new house and all of my books and computers are there, so it counts as home for me.

If I have not sent you an email telling you the new address, let me know.

Nerdity!

The last week or so has been good for my Nerd self. I went to a birthday party over the weekend for a friend of J's and it turns out that it was a house full of Nerds! I spent plenty of time talking about various movies, books and related things. Just about the only thing we didn't get into was D&D. Oh well, it can't be all perfect!

I also discovered that one of my co-workers is a comics nerd as well. It's a good thing to be able to stand around and chat about comics with someone again.

It ain't quite Nerdvana, but it's getting better.

The final countdown!

Tomorrow is the walk through for the house. Can you tell I'm a bit nervous that I am getting this close to the final commitment. Wow, major life choices are scary! :-)