This blog has moved!
www.misadventuresofmarla.com is the new address.
I’ll be posting some awesome new crafts I’ve done, changing the look of the blog, and of course…I’ll be complaining about my cat shitting all over the floor! I knew you’d all be dying to know how that is still going! My titties are slowly reaching celebrity status…
The end of June is closing day on the house. So, we’ll see if moving day brings any fun posts or not.
Anyway, www.misadventuresofmarla.com
Well, I submitted a statement to the lender. I’ll I had to do was write it up and email it to her. I told everything like it was. I was Jeremy’s girlfriend, we live together, have joint accounts because it is convientient for expenses, and so on. She was supposed to send an email back to me saying she received it, reviewed it, and what she thought before sending it off. She said she wanted to do it that way in case she felt I needed to change something before handing it in. So, I sent it to her and she never responded. Jeremy called her yesterday to see what the deal was. She said she handed it in and as far as she knows it was fine! Funny, she made a big deal about explaining me AWAY, but said what I wrote was fine. This lady makes my head hurt! I guess she hasn’t heard anything back about the statement so she is assuming they think its fine. I don’t know why she was SO worried about me in the first place!
Jeremy asked her how everything else was going with the house and she said everything is fine. I guess all the paperwork and shit is finally done. All we have to do now is wait for whoever to approve everything and then we’re good.
The realtor contacted Jeremy yesterday and told him everything was fine as well. However, she will not be present at the closing. I thought that was weird. Our closing date has been set since beginning of April and now she has to go out of town… I don’t care really. It just would have been nice to have her there. We have no idea what we’re doing and we don’t understand what the lender is saying 99% of time. I guess the lender choose an attorney for us already. That is what our Realtor said. Thanks for asking who we’d like! Not that we would have any idea who to pick as an attorney but it would have been nice of them to ask us. They just figured they’d use their attorney since we did not have a person attorney of our own.
The realtor also said that the seller finished making those repairs. The foundation work costed him about $1,000 she said and then he fixed the plumbing and hot water heater. She said we could go back over to the house with her to see the finished product so we’ll probably do that this week.
I wish closing would get here. I want to move in already. We have two and half more weeks yet. Feels like forever but now that I think about it, we need get on the ball this week. We still have not called to switch our water, sewer, garbage, heat, or internet to the new house for closing day. I did the electric but that’s it. We need to fill out a change of address too. Oh, and call our bank, retirement plans, bills, and everything to change our address on the accounts. I still have to pack up some bookcase, odds and ends in the kitchen, and pack up our bedroom. Its not a lot. Mainly, I just have to pack our cloths, beddings, and bathroom stuff in our bedroom. The bookcases will only take a half hour if that. I already packed some of the kitchen up, its just stuff we need for while we’re still here, I’ll leave that until the last minute. Really, thats all. I can have all that done in a day. We have to reserve a Uhaul yet, too.
Tittie has taken up shitting again. He’ll go a few days using the litter and then a few days shitting in the dinning room. I think it might be a privacy issue. The litter pans are in the pantry so there is more “traffic” near the pantry because of the kitchen. The dinning room is more secluded for him. We moved one litter pan to one of the bathroom and keep the door partly shut. Sometimes he uses it, sometimes he uses the dinning room. There is still two other litter pans in the pantry but they are, I guess, just for tittie girl’s use.
I’m hoping at the new house this will stop because there is no dinning room. There is just a nice little “nook” behind the breakfast bar for the dinning table. Fortunately, there will no real “private” areas for him at all at the new house. There is two bedrooms, a small bathroom, a living room, kitchen/dinning area, laundry room, and an enclosed back porch. We will most likely put the litter pans in the laundry room but it is very small and some what open to the kitchen. So I don’t know what will happen since he likes privacy to use the litter. I was thinking of putting them on the enclosed back porch and just leaving the laundry room door open but that will not work. There is only a screen door on the back porch. The back door is through the laundry room. So at night while we are asleep we’ll have to lock the laundry door leading out to the porch. I suppose it could work if I just get into the habit of dragging the litter pans into the tiny laundry room before bed and then dragging them back to the porch when I wake up.
My cats are the most high maintenance cats I’ve ever had. I’ve had a lot of cats…
They won’t eat the same brand or flavor cat food, use the litter near one another, eat near one another, they can not share a water bowl, they rarely sleep near one another, they horde toys from one another…this is cute though so I’ll explain it a bit.
If you throw a little catnip mouse or something on the floor for one of them while the other isn’t around, they’ll just look and walk away. However, if the other one wanders into the room and goes within 2 feet of said toy, the one you threw it too will charge over, knock approaching kitty ass over tin cups, run to the toy and lay on it so that not an inch of the toy is showing. Tittie boy is main culprit for this hostile little battle of the sexes but little girl does her share of playing along too. They do the same thing with catnip. Usually, we have to pick tittie boy up and move him to a “special” sprinkle of catnip so little girl can have some while he is distracted. The second the catnip hits the floor, Tittie Boy’s will try to “pile it up” with his paws, and then his “fat little body” will lay on the pile to block the girl. Then he will actually take his paws and move them all around him like he is trying to make sure he gathered it all up to himself. If we let him goes, he’ll stay like that until she has lost interest in getting catnip and leaves. He wait a bit to make sure she is gone, then he gets up, sniffs it a second and throws himself on it. He is bad but its really cute.
Anyway, I guess all this is probably just a dominance thing. Since she is so much smaller than he is and is a female, I guess he just likes to act superior to her by not letting her eat, drink, sleep, or play near him half the time, and he will not go to the bathroom anywhere near where she does.
Its funny though, they used to get along great. They are brother and sister and have never been separated for even small amounts of time…Then all the sudden Tittie Boy decided he was better?
Oh well, we love the shit out of both of them, they are completely worth the “trouble”. Jeremy’s dad thinks we should get rid of Tittie Boy because of all this stuff. I think thats heartless. I guess when Jeremy and I have children we’ll have to watch carefully, because the second it shits on my floor I’m just going to open the front door and let it crawl away, right!?
Read an article yesterday about tampons…
Chemicals are used to bleach the cotton white. Why you ask? The same reason everything in a hospital is white. Studies show that the color white gives people a feeling of “clean”. So, tampons are bleached white to give the women a sense of sanitation.
I don’t know, when I see white I cringe. White does not make me think “clean”, it makes me think of dirt. White gets dirty so easily. I hate the color white.
That is so disturbing that they use chemicals on something women put directly into their bodies. There is no regard for our health anymore, is there? Sometimes I swear there is a group of people somewhere in the world whose jobs are just to sit in a room and think of anything a person may possibly come into contact with in their daily lives and then think up how to “subtly” contaminate those things. (In case any paranoid schizophrenics read that, I was kidding.)
Seriously though, everyday we hear about something else that was once considered safe is now found to be extremely bad for us. Like plastic is now known to cause cancer in people and development problems in children, yet it is everywhere. I read an article a little while ago about how toxic plastic baby bottles and their liners are for babies. That is horrible. Anybody hear about how they found out recently that frequent flyer’s are at a highly increased risk of cancer, especially if they are women. They found a significant increase in breast cancer among female flight attendants who fly over 100,000 total miles a year. They said the increased risk is due to less atmosphere to absorb radiation from the sun. It is impossible to lead a “healthy” lifestyle because everything we come into contact with has “side effects”. I know there is nothing to be done about cancer risk from flying but some of this other stuff….
There is no way to regulate everything but fuck, at least make an attempt to fix the things you can control. Don’t purposely make everything toxic. That is what bothers me the most. That shit like bleaching tampons with chemicals is intentional. Really, I could careless what color my tampon is. You really do not need to dump chemicals on it before I jam it into my body. Oh, thanks for the plastic wrapper too! That is just sickening that its allowed. The world really disgusts me. Of course, today there seems to be a “green” alternative to anything harmful but, you can’t afford the alternatives for the most part because they are double or triple the price. Like organic tampons. Besides, even some of the “green” alternatives have flaws. They are just “less” toxic for you. Organic tampons do not use harsh chemicals but they do use peroxide.
This is why I have alway been really into herbs. I love that you can just grow a bunch of different herbs, harvest, dry, and store them and then you can make your medicine, cleaning products, cosmetics and skin care, hair care/dye, season food, make tea, and on and on.
I would love to have a little property in the middle of nowhere with massive acres of herbs, vegetables, and fruits. I always wanted to have like my own little homestead with some friends. Not one of those cult or free love weird communes, just a “community” of my family and my friends’ families. Just a nice, peaceful place to live and, raise a family without all the bullshit and crime of living in a city. I’d love to be able to afford to buy about 10 acres of woodland, build a few self-sustaining homes for me and my friends, divide the land among the different families, and just live some what cut off from the world. A lot of hard work but it would be more satisfying and stress free. Sounds good to me. A few of me and Jeremy’s friends like the idea so who knows, maybe once we all save up some big bucks we’d be able to do that.
I tried my hand at some basic leather work.
I made a spiked bracelet from a piece of real leather.
I think it came out really good for my first leather project. Nothing fancy, just simple and easy.
Then I made cock rings out of animal friendly “leather”. Which does not look as nice as real leather. However, it is washable and more flexible than real leather so I figured it would be perfect for making them. I thought about selling them because they look really fun but I’d have to have a warning on them. Something along the lines of, “I’m not responsible for injuries to yourself or your partner from by reckless use. Use with care!”
I made this one first:
Then this is the second one: (the better one)
They came out awesome! I love the shit out of these. Again, not bad for my second and third project.
My Mohawk was growing out so fast the top was down to my shoulder and the underneath was about two or more inches long. So, I grabbed my razor blade and chopped it last night. It came out really good, I like it. Its sort of Robert Smith looking now.
These were taken right after it was cut. Maybe I’ll post a picture once I tease and spray the shit out it.
Its not as insane as his but its still fun.
Jeremy was scheduled to met with the lender again today to do more paperwork. I was asked to tag along and so I did.
The lender is so fucking crazy! Listen to this!
When we got there the lender drove us nuts during this little hour meeting. She wanted Jeremy to sign a bunch of BLANK documents that her co-worker “will just finish up with filling it out later.” He questioned her on all the papers and why they were blank and she had either no answer, “not sure, really.”, or she just VERY QUICKLY said “oh, that’s just a paper saying we need to check this or that, its silly, I know.” What the fuck answer is that. So, after a phone call not explaining much else he the “gist” of what each paper was for and signed them.
Then she told Jeremy that he wasn’t really “100%” approved like she thought. She was still waiting on approval from somebody else. WHAT??! She told him NUMEROUS times he was already approved. “Everything was set”, all he had to do was wait for closing day. The Realtor told him the same thing. Now, all the sudden everything needs to be approved by somebody else. She claimed that she only recently found out about that. Jeremy tried to get her to explain everything in more detail but she’d jump to another subject right away. She was in a rush to meet her husband for lunch and shit. It was complete bullshit.
I’m going to rewind to something a few weeks prior for a minute, in order to explain the phone call in the next paragraph.
The lender had told Jeremy that he could try to qualify for down payment assistance a few weeks ago. Jeremy would put down X amount of money and an organization would put up the rest as a grant. So, he agreed to try for it. Hey, extra down payment money and it doesn’t have to be paid back, hell yeah! So, he had gone and filled out the application and then she had called a week or so later and told him that he did qualify! How wonderful! He was going to be receiving $2500 in down payment assistance! AWESOME!
Yeah, well yesterday at our little meeting the lender was so “stumped” about some of those blank documents Jeremy questioned, that she called a fellow co-worker. The same worker who would be filling in the blanks later after they were signed. The women did not answer anything any better but she did let slip, (the lender immediately grabbed the phone and switched it off speaker phone), that Jeremy wasn’t qualified for down payment assistance yet. She hadn’t sent in the paperwork and would not be sending it in until all these other papers were signed (the blank one and some others). Jeremy and I had been quietly trying to discuss those documents when I heard the women on the phone say that. Jeremy was in the middle of saying something so I kept listening to him and watched the lender snatch up the phone and turn slightly in her chair to talk more quietly with the lady on the phone. I meant to bring it up when she was off the phone and Jeremy was done talking but she sidetracked me right way. (Jeremy will ask her later) The second she hung up the phone she starting rattling off that I “flagged” somebody. What? “How? What did I do?” Well, she was “worried” about our situation being questioned.
She told us that she hit a “snag” in the loan process. That supposedly we needed to “explain AWAY my existence in order to continue the financing process.” Since I was not applying with Jeremy for the loan. She claims that it was brought to her attention recently that any person who will be residing in the new house needs to be included in the loan paperwork. All my income for the last two years, tax returns and so on. They claim it “looks unusual that two unmarried people are living together but only one is listed as the applicant.”
I really do not see our situation as unusual. What “flagged” them was my name is listed on Jeremy’s bank account as an authorized user. So what?? Many non-married couples who have been living together for a few years grant access to each other’s bank accounts. How is this unusual? I find this to be very strange.
The lender told me that I need to submit a statement to her, for review and to go into the records, explaining why we are living together, have access to one another’s bank accounts, but I am not on the application. I told her that we had access to one another’s accounts simply because we live together as domestic partners and that it is convenient to have access to one another’s accounts for whoever gets around to paying the bills first and so we can use funds in the accounts without needing the other person present to access those funds. The lender shook her head and said, “Um, don’t say that in the statement. It looks bad.” What?! Its the truth . Why does it look bad? No answer from her other than, “Then your income will need to be considered, along with your other information for the loan process. You would not be liable for the loan but your income will still be considered.” WHY? Jeremy is the one buying the house! “We would still have to add your information if your going to be living there.” So, she told me to say I’m just a roommate. I’ll get to that part, in more detail, in a minute. So, Jeremy can’t have a girlfriend and buy a home in his name without said girlfriend being considered for buying the home?! That is stupid, it makes no sense! I’ve never heard of that!
So, I’m very confused by this point and I’m going over it in my head… I won’t be on the application, my income will not be considered for repayment of the loan, however, she still needs my information because I will be living there and she needs to take it into consideration for the loan. Strange.
Now, Jeremy was already told he qualified completely, on his own. No problem. We asked this and she agreed that he does qualify on his own but that she just found out he isn’t quite approved yet. OK….Still confused as to why I need to provide my information then. “Its just paperwork.” We need to address the situation of ME. So, if I’m his girlfriend then my information effects his ability to buy a home on his own? Yes. So, I will not be responsible for the loan, my income will not be considered for repayment of the loan? Yes. So, it will be solely Jeremy’s house? Yes. But you need my information “approved” before he can get his loan. Yes. This makes no sense!
I mean, I don’t mind providing my information. I have a decent credit score and stuff, but it just does not sound right. It sounds like bullshit. Why would “my existence in his household”, as she politely put it, have an impact on HIS loan when, my income will not be counted for repaying the loan and I would still be left off the deed. This makes no fucking sense! The wonderful thing is, she can’t give us a straight answer as to WHY we need to do this in order to finalize the loan agreement. Its just something they need. They can’t finalize HIS loan without my information, that will count towards his final approval for loan, but will not count for repaying the loan. Fucking bullshit! Does this make sense to anybody?!
(So, here is what she told us I should say in the statement.)
She thought she would “help us out” with the “situation” by covering her ears and giving us a suggestion. “You didn’t hear this from me but, I think the best way to handle this would be to say in your statement to our company that you and Jeremy are just roommates. Say that neither of you have any family in North Carolina so the two of you have gotten a limited liability access clause added to each other’s bank accounts for emergency purposes. That way if anything happened to either of you, the other could then access your funds and notify family members. Many people have agreements like that with very close friends so it does not seem unusual if thats your situation. You will also want to mention in the statement that you have no plans to live in the resident Jeremy is purchasing. Your just roommates and once Jeremy buys his home you will be moving out. That takes you out of the situation.”
That is truly what she told us to do! Um, hello THAT IS LOAN FRAUD! Fucking idiot. No fucking way would we do something like that! Its our ass if we would get caught. Plus, this is really funny, she has copies of the last few months of bank statements! Does she not think that somebody would notice WE USE EACH OTHER’S ACCOUNTS ALL THE TIME! There are numerous funds transfers listed on those statements from one account to the other! We use my account to pay the rent and sometimes for personal purchases and his to pay smaller bills and do household shopping. I really can not believe this women!
They were also trying to process the loan as Jeremy NOT being a first time home buyer! Fucking stupid people. Lenders are supposed to help you through “one the biggest and most satisfying purchases of you life”, and this lady botches everything! We ended up leaving her office so fucking confused as to what the hell was going on! When we upgrade to a better house we know who we will NOT be going through! Jeremy can’t wait to be done with these morons!
This isn’t the first time they screwed everything up, either. When Jeremy first started working with this lender, the Realtor referred us to her, she said that Jeremy qualified for X amount of loan. So, we started seeing homes in the price range. Then the Realtor said that the lender called her and told her that Jeremy could go X thousands higher. Ok. So we stayed around the original price range and the Realtor kept pushing to look at higher priced ones. So, we checked out a few higher priced homes. Then Jeremy spoke with the Realtor again and she said we could look at homes a little higher. Jeremy told her he wanted to stick with the original price range and she told him he would never find anything good in that range. We were looking too low. Then the Realtor kept picking out houses that did not meet what he was looking for, “Oh, but this house would be great for you two.” If we looked at a house in a lower range she tried to talk us out of it because, “it was too big for us”, “you don’t want anything you’ll have to put much work into”, “houses are an investment so you need to be thinking about what house will have the best resale value”, and so on. Quiet irritating. Plus, Jeremy felt like she was rushing him because she kept telling him that he needed to decide on a home soon before the interest rates climbed too high. We had found a really awesome place that was 2500 square feet, almost brand new, completely remodeled inside, and came on over an acre of land…”You’ll never get financing for that. Its a modular home. Modular homes can’t qualify for regular mortgage loans.” She even tried to get him to look at condos when Jeremy told her right off the bat, twice, that he wanted an actual house. “Are you sure you don’t want to buy a condo? I have some really nice condos available for a good price?” NO!
Poor Jeremy. Buying his first house has become a nightmare. A constant irritation.
Its our own fault though. We tried to read up about the steps to buying a house before he decided he wanted to do it and yet, we still make a lot of stupid choices. He should have chosen a different Realtor and lender but we didn’t realized in time that it would be such a fucking mess. Well, I guess on the bright side we have learned some valuable lessons about the home buying process for next time.
We scored at the Mega Thrift the other day.
Jeremy got a “brand new” pair of Core-Tex boots. (My favorite!) They were $5.00. I have a pair, lasted me for YEARS, but they are finally about to die.
I found a wonderful black “velvet” dress. $5.00.
Then I found an awesome black velvet shawl to go with it. I think the shawl is real velvet. That was $1.99.
Jeremy found some fun cloths too.
I’ll add pictures of everything else later tonight.
Haven’t mentioned the titties in a while.
Tittie Boy has been super awesome lately. No shit! He has finally been using the litter pans! How awesome. I hope he keeps it up. He has been doing kick ass at eating too. We feed him once a day. Usually, he would be out of food within an hour or two but lately, he has still had food in his bowl 12+ hours later. He is also been much more active. For a little while he would just sleep all day and night when he wasn’t shitting or gorging on food. Lately though he has having a blast beating the piss out of his sister and chasing her all over the house for long periods of time. No worries, she can hold her own, even though she is half his size. Actually, sometimes I have to pull HER off of HIM because she gets a little rough.
Anyway, they are both doing great! So, now I am wondering if maybe he just has a hell of a bad cold or stomach bug that is just taking him forever to beat. We are still going to have him checked out again though, just to be sure.
We also may have a new addition to our family soon!
There is this tiny little baby black cat that hangs out by our apartment building sometimes. It doesn’t appear to have a mother, if it does, I think she abandoned it for some reason. He is so cute though, he just loves to lay in the grass by our building and sun himself for hours a day. He is so tiny you could put him in a shirt pocket. He is like a clone of my baby tittie boy too. He would fit right in. We haven’t seen him in a few days though so I hope its okay. We talked about it and we just can’t let him stay homeless. So, next time I see him – He is mine! I’ll nab him and take him to the vet with the titties to get him all checked out. The titties will love it. Another black kitty to beat up on.
Not sure what to name him yet though. I’m sure he’ll just share the nickname Tittie though. We have Tittie Boy, Tittie Girl so, maybe Tittie Little since he is no bigger than the palm of your hand. As for an actual name, I don’t know. Maybe Barnabas. Tittie Girl’s real name is Angelique from Dark Shadows so Barnabas would be fitting.
For those of you who don’t know our awesome children, I’m just going to put up a few pictures so you can see how swell they are.
This is Tittie boy all crashed out.
This is Tittie Girl out on the Deck.
This is Tittie Girl asleep.
The picture above and below were taken while the kitties indulged in some catnip.
We figured we were cleaning the floors later that day anyway so, we “dumped” some catnip all over the floor and let them go wild. They had a lot of fun.
I fucking love this one! Killer Catnip Buzz!
This is Tittie Girl on Jer’s lap while he tries to knit.
And last, this is the Titties enjoying some down time.
Jeremy and I were talking tonight after he got home from work. We are wondering if and when layoffs will happen. As I have said, he works for an airline.
The airlines are having a really hard time turning any profits right now, as you all know. I’m sure you have all read or been affected by the new fees and charges being imposed on helpless travelers’ in an effort to keep the airlines a float. It just keeps getting more and more outrageous. Not that I disagree with the fees. I think they are horrid but necessary at the moment. I feel very bad for the poor travelers being caught up in all this bullshit. It is really a fucked up situation that our lovely economy just keeps sinking and all we seem able to do is sit and watch and possibly utter a slight grumble under our breath.
So far, no rumors have been heard about any layoffs planned. That is not a comfort though. Usually, there is no warning. It is just announced one day and you are dismissed. Well, if it is an involuntary layoff. Anyway, with the news of other airlines being forced to layoff thousands of employees and hand out early retirement to loads more, I’m sure its coming his way. Soon.
In a way, he is looking forward to it. He really needs a break from his job. So, we are thinking up some fun ways to start making some extra side cash, just in case.
My herb business was killed so that is not an option. For those of you who do not know, I used to have a website where I sold herbs, teas, spices, and other herbal supplies at wholesale prices. It was really great and I loved doing it but the rising cost of everything was too much for us. We had no choice but to close down. Maybe someday we will re-open it but I don’t see that happening for a while. I really hoped it would succeed because I had hopes of building a very large customer base and opening a local shop while continuing to offer the online shop. I guess maybe in the future.
Right now we are thinking about each creating our own website and hosting our blog on there instead of WordPress. This would give us the option of, GASP, adding ads! I know, we all hate ads. They are the great downfall to being online, right? This is what everybody seems to think. I really don’t mind them as long as they aren’t the weird slut ads. Ads are income. That is the important thing. If you can make a few dollars from doing something you already do, writing in a blog, why the fuck not?! I think in today’s economy everybody could use some extra cash and I really don’t feel like it is that terrible to “rent” out some space on the internet for said extra cash. I’m not talking about huge pop-ups or anything. Just some text ads and small banners or something along the sides of the blog. If you use Firefox, I do, you probably have Ad blocker Plus to hide those ads anyway. So, you visit the blog, read what you want, never actually see the ads, and bloggers still get some extra gas money. I really don’t think it is a bad idea.
I read many blogs that are covered in ads and I could care less. I figure they take the time to sit and write shit that I enjoy reading so why the hell shouldn’t they get some perks for it. I know they do it because they just like to share their thoughts, opinions, and what not but if they can make a buck doing just that, go for it! I wish them the best and hope they make enough to at least pay the costs of hosting. That is what Jer and I think, and that is what we will possibly do. I figure, if you really don’t want to see the ads, switch to Foxfire or stop visiting. I think sometimes people forget that running a website costs money. They enjoy the website but seem to think it is wrong for the operator to accept “help” with funding it. Plus, they are just selfish and don’t want to see ads. Thats a bit harsh but its true. If your going to lose all your “loyal” visitors because of some ads, they weren’t “loyal” anyway.
Personally, I really like the idea of ads on blogs. Especially if the ads pertain to the subject matter of the blog. If I’m reading a knitting blog and then I see an ad on the page for really cheap yarn, you can bet your ass I’m going to click that ad. I like the idea of being exposed to new online stores that pertain to my interests. Though I’m not sure what the fuck kind of ads will pertain to my blog. I have a nice medley of everything and not one set subject matter. Matches my personality though.
