Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for June 2010

No Sleep ‘Till Blue House

by

You know when you get something new and all you want to do it touch it and be close to it and love it?

That thing is our new house. It has its share of faults to find and fixes to make, but it’s ours, it’s blue, and it doesn’t share any walls with anyone.

I can safely say I’ve never been quite this excited by any new CDs or sheet music books.

However, we cannot touch, be close to, love and – most importantly – live in our blue house quite yet because there are still several rooms of packing in our old house standing between us and that beautiful, fulfilling moment.

It’s like Christmas. We know the gift has been bought for us. We know it’s hidden around here somewhere. We just have to get through some awful, boring time between us and the gift. The gift we bought for ourselves.

Okay, that wasn’t a great metaphor. I’m working on hour twenty-two on a 16-ounce coffee and a slice of pizza here. Cut me some slack.

We had two dalliances with the house earlier today, but we won’t be actual residents of said house for another 14 hours. Fourteen hours of packing, AKA the longest 14 hours of my life until one of us either gets pregnant or passes a gallstone.

Did I mention I shattered part of a molar on Monday night? And that I’m probably not going to sleep until our bed is located inside of our new house – again, something to the effect of 14 hours from now?

Lest you hear any further complaining from me, E’s mother just shared that when she bought her first home she was 9.5 months pregnant with E, and E’s dad inexplicably decided to bring their settlement costs with him in cash.

No amount of wrestling with change machines and broken molars and packing for 24 hours straight can top that.

Freak out! Le freak, c’est chic.

by

It’s my first post as a home-owner!

The events leading up to our settlement at eleven this morning were unexpected and rather ridiculous.

Actually, I’ve discovered that any adventure I am allowed to take charge of that involves both cars and big-ticket-purchases becomes ridiculous, regardless of the relative simplicity of its intended result.

Honestly, I don’t know how I do it. I choose to believe it’s the fault of my inner OCD Godzilla. What for most people would be a simple point-to-point drive with a check in hand he transforms into a travelling circus of oddities to satisfy all of his many obsessive requirements. I have no choice but to comply so that he remains sated, lest he begin to devour portions of my soul and gall bladder.

I feel the need to document the whole madcap venture while it’s still fresh and ridiculous-seeming – and while E can confirm that it is the god’s honest truth and I have not exaggerated a single word even a little.

[Read more…] about Freak out! Le freak, c’est chic.

HOMEOWNERS

by

I felt that it was important to document our faces as homeowners prior to having to spend any money on the house, a process that will begin in less than 24hrs ;)

T-Minus 210 Minutes

by

We are buying a house in three and a half hours.

I joked on Twitter that I would treat my time off from work for the move as time to pretend I was employed as a full-time blogger. That plan might have worked, except I am presently employed as a full-time home-packer, -mover, and -buyer, which leaves precious little time for blogging.

I develop a certain metaphorical or actual amount of frothing at the mouth when someone tries to add an unknown to the critical path of a project I am managing. (The critical path is the longest path of required tasks to reach the completion of a project.)

My co-workers know this metaphorical or actual frothing look well. It’s not a bad thing – it’s my show of aggression towards something unknown that could delay my goal. A rogue task has slipped into my territory, and I have to scare it off unless it’s bigger than me (i.e., essential to the project).

Let’s just say that the house-buying process is all froth, all the time. I am like my own fucking cappuccino machine.

I know that our Realtor and mortgage lender are both project managing very effectively. I adore them. When this is all over I’ll probably write an effervescently effusive post recommending them to the internet at large.

That said, I just can’t help myself. I still need to know the timing down the the minute, and the dollars down to the cent. When one of those minutes or cents change, I get frothy.

And, if you’ve ever bought or sold a house or witnessed same, you know that variance of a couple minutes and cents isn’t entirely uncommon – especially on the day of settlement.

We are three and a half hours away from being home owners, and I have reached latte macchiato levels of froth.