The Story of Brandi

We have turned in everything to the mortgage broker - finally! She could use a list to give prospective loanees. Every time we went back, she had new things she'd forgotten to tell us she needed. It was getting to be a pain.

We had the inspection done last Friday. There was nothing major wrong with the house. Most of the things can be fixed for less than $5. We're going to plan to do a bunch of them the first weekend after we get our stuff moved.

The appraisal is holding things up right now. We have the house appraised. It came it at $3,000 more than we paid, so we get some instant equity. The problem is the ceiling tile in the basement den. The original owners of the house finished part of the basement years (probably decades) ago. When they did, they used those ceiling tiles that we popular for a while. There's a grid, and then the tiles slip into place. The last row wasn't wide enough for a whole tile. For some reason (laziness), they didn't cut the remaining tiles and put them up. Instead they just left the tiles in the basement workshop. The current owners never took care of it either (along with some other really basic things to fix). Anyway, to approve the house, the appraiser said they have to fix the tiles. Brian told our realtor that he would go over and help if needed so that we can speed things up. I'm hoping they get it done in the next day or so since we're waiting on that for the application.

Donna came back with the contract. They wanted more earnest money and a higher buying price. We negotiated over the phone to split the difference, and now everything's set! We're signing the final contract at 4:30 today, and they're signing it later tonight. Then we just have to get everything to our mortgage broker tomorrow, and she takes it from there. I'm so excited - our first house!

We made an offer on the house we want today! We wrote up the contract with our broker last night, and she took the offer to the sellers this morning. They're coming back with a counter offer. Donna's going to pick it up from them at 1:00.

We had a meeting with Donna tonight. We went over the basics of the mortgage contract and how everything proceeds from here. Because the owners of the house we're considering starting painting the sunroom, we're going to see the house again before we make an offer. Of course, Brian wants to check out the basement again so that he can begin planning the layout.

I think we have a good starting price based on the house's last appraisal and that we're in a good position to negotiate. Donna said that we can do the contract tomorrow night and then give them 24 hours from Thursday morning to make some kind of decision - either accept the contract as is or try to negotiate parts of it. Then we're hoping to have some kind of decision by Friday night. Then we'd start the loan closing process - scary!

I started working on writing again today. I applied for about 12 freelance gigs, and I'm looking into doing some writing for some people I haven't written for in a while. Once we make a decision on a house or get to that point in the process, we're going to have to set out a budget for buying furniture, decorations, and the basement renovation. That's going to determine in large part how much I'm working over the next few months. I anticipate needing to take a few weeks off when this baby's born since I'll have a 2-year-old and a newborn, so I need to make as much money as I can between now and January.

I had my first ultrasound today. Here's one of the pictures I got.

The baby's 2.5 mm long right now. The sonogram put the due date at February 2, but they're keeping it at Jan. 25.

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In other weird news, the people who own the house we're thinking about buying called our realtor today to say that after watching something on HGTV, they decided to paint over the panelling in the sunroom. It was wood, but it's now painted white. I'm not sure how it looks, and I'm not sure that we'll go see it before we buy. I figure if we don't like it, we can add changing it to our list once we move in.

Irene, the mortgage broker, is supposed to call tomorrow with more news. We'll then be past this stage and ready to write up a contract. We're supposed to meet with Donna tomorrow night to do that. Whew. This is a long, bureaucratic process.

Well, we got a credit opinion on the mortgage this morning. We're going through an underwriter (don't know if I said this in my last post) because of our credit problems in the past. All of that stuff from Athens & the first few months of Cincinnati is on our credit history. We will have better luck with an underwriter because we can offer an explanation and actually have a person looking it over. So, step 1 is the credit opinion. That came back with a "no problem" for financing when the underwriter gave everything a look.

Now, our mortgage broker has sent in our application for the official pre-approval. (It's sort of backward since we've already been looking.) She's asking for approval for a lot more than we want. She said that shouldn't be a problem, and it will really give us an idea of the max amount of house we can afford. That's fine, but we're not paying that much for a mortgage every month, so we're not concerned that we'll get what's in our price range.

I have to take her a profit/loss statement for my writing, but that's it. We should know something in a couple of days.

Donna, our realtor, is calling the people who own the house we want today. They have some form to fill out. She said that she can make it clear we're ready to make an offer without making one so that they know. As soon as we get the okay from the broker and get an estimate of closing costs, we can make the official offer.

We've looked at a number of houses already. We have one that I was ready to make an offer on, but we're waiting until after this weekend. Basically, we think the asking price is really low on the house because we've looked at several other houses in the neighborhood. I wanted to make an offer yesterday because it has everything we need and is much larger than we thought we could afford. But...it's a for sale by owner, which means we can't use a realtor. We already have a realtor, so she called to set up some arrangement where she's representing us but on a scaled-down version. I don't understand the specifics beyond that it means she's involved now.

So, today we went to look at the house again. Our realtor kept asking us if we were sure. I was, but then Brian started hedging a little. He thinks I'm too impulsive, but I think he's too cautious. I'm afraid the house is going to be gone if we wait. So over dinner, I asked him if we kept looking, what would we be looking for? If we think this house is The One (and we do), then why wait?

We went through some listings Donna gave us, and we're going to look at 5 more houses this weekend. We agreed that if we still like this house the best, then we'll go ahead and make an offer on this one this weekend.

Of course, we don't have the financing yet, so that's an entirely different can of worms. We've filled out everything and provided everything, so we're waiting on the decision. That should come sometime next week.

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In other major news in our lives, I'm now 13 weeks pregnant. I'm having an ultrasound next Monday, so we'll get to see the first picture of the baby. l don't think I'm gaining any weight yet, though I can tell that my weight's shifted. I switched doctors, so I just saw the new doctor this week. We'll be having the baby at Baptist Hospital in Lexington. He threw in another kink and said that since Jayden was transverse, he needs the hospital dictation from the c-section. He said that they may have had to make a lateral cut, so a VBAC may not be an option at all. I sent for the records, so we'll see.

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I'm going back to copywriting. Well, it's a little different, but basically I'm going back to it from my fiction. We've decided that with buying a house and needing some stuff for the baby, we're going to need a good bit of extra money. We decided that it would be better for me to pursue local clients - mainly web design firms - for writing. I can make more per hour, and I have more control over the projects I'm taking.

Well, I don't really feel pregnant yet. I'm only about 8 weeks. Of course, I don't have anything definitive from any doctor about the baby's due date yet. I went to a doctor in Louisville, but I didn't like her much. She seemed very spacey, much like Dr. Cirasole was, and that didn't turn out so well in labor and delivery. I decided to trust my instinct and go elsewhere. I'd love to see a midwife, but there just aren't that many around here, at least not in the offices that our insurance covers. I have an appointment next Tuesday, so we'll see how that goes.

I don't think Jayden will be old enough to understand the concept of having a brother or sister until the baby gets here. Even then, I don't know that he'll get it besides that there's a new person here and that he has to share us with someone else. That's going to be a real shocker because Jayden's spoiled. I can admit that. We spoil him.

We are thinking about staying in Frankfort longer than we'd planned. Brian said the other night that when it comes down to it, he really likes his job. The pay is very good for his experience level, and he's not sure that he'll get that somewhere else. Plus, the thought of moving again next year tires both of us out. When we started thinking about it, we had a lot of concerns about how we would find a house, a job, and all that from here. We looked into it, and it was going to be complicated, mainly because we really need to use an underwriter to get a mortgage. Anyway, I won't bore you with the details, but we just decided that it would be a tough thing to do right now.

Instead, we're looking at houses here. If we're going to be here 4 or 5 years, I'd rather buy a house than continue to rent. For starters, we're throwing away money on rent every month. That was okay before because we never knew where we were going to stay, but now that we know it seems to make more sense to buy a place and start to build some equity. Plus, I'm ready to be able to do whatever we want with where we live. I want to be able to paint or put a nail in the wall or whatever without having to ask anyone's permission.

It's like where we're living now. We've put up shelving and a couple of other things. Of course, our landlord doesn't mind because it makes the house better, and it doesn't cost him anything. I'd just like for the money we spend on a place to go to help us and not someone else.

We have an appointment tomorrow (Saturday) to look at a house. I'm excited, but we haven't even started the loan process yet. I don't know how long that takes. This house is big, but it says that it needs TLC. I guess it depends on how much TLC. If we have to fix major things before we move in (which the law requires here), then it's not for us. If the bathrooms are gross, then I'll probably pass. Other than that, we're up for doing work in the house because otherwise, we'll have to get a place that's much smaller. We will see tomorrow.

We went on the Sonoma diet Saturday. So far, I've lost 3 pounds. My goal is to lose 33, so there's a lot to go. The food on the diet is very tasty. The biggest thing for me is not drinking soft drinks. I had one last night because I was getting a headache. It went away, so I guess that's what it was from. I think it's easier for me to give up caffeine this way, so I guess it all works out. Plus we have to drink plenty of water, so there's not a lot of room left to drink soft drinks or anything else.

I'm frustrated with my work. I've been doing work for one company since last April. The last few months, they've been weird. One month, I had to send them an email and remind them to pay me. They acted like they forgot. How do you forget to pay people? Anyway, last month, I noticed that several of their sites - the ones I write for - had "page not found" errors. I only wrote some of what I can write for them because I wasn't sure if they were still in business. I tried to email them, but I didn't get any response back. So then this month I worked on the articles. When I went to turn them in yesterday, most of the sites are closed. I'm so frustrated because that's a lot of money and time down the drain. I can't really use those articles anywhere else.

Brian wants me to just give them up altogether. I know I should. It's just hard to decide to do that. I have a book I've been working on some, and I think maybe I should just focus on that. If I can get it done, then maybe I can start selling it. Who knows?