bekeeblog

this time of year, i wake up with the sunrise and all the birds chirping outside; at least until we put the window a/c's in and i can't hear a thing.

so, i'm walking into work this morning behind an unfamiliar woman (so i presume she thinks the same of me) and she buzzed herself in and strategically pulled the door shut behind her so i'd have to buzz myself in.

now, i understand the need for our security system... proprietary information is just that, but wtf would i be doing in the parking lot at 6:50am with my purse, coffee, and nalgene if not going to work?

Posted by bekee at 6:55 AM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

so... we're preapproved; locked in at 6.75%. i signed my name and today's date ten times this morning. my credit score is pretty awesome. kurt's was one point above the eligible number for the PMI program we're approved for (yea, we had to do PMI cuz there's no way we'd be able to come up with 20% down). and the sellers agreed to our offer with them paying up to $2,000 in closings costs, which should get us owing somewhere between $600-800. not too shabby. of course, that doesn't include the homeowners insurance which won't be esgrow'd until after our first payment (in september). these next few months are gunna be frugal.

we put in the offer last friday and our inspection is this friday at 2; our realtor wasn't kidding when he said things move fast after we decide to buy.

the first two appliances we need to buy when we get there are a lawnmower and a dehumidifier. i want a reel mower, but kurt says he won't mow if we have one of those.

omg. we're almost homeowners.

Posted by bekee at 2:35 PM | permalink | licks (2) | tracks (0)

we go to the warner dog park frequently. actually, jones has been there almost every single day since kurt got a car.

today, it was just we two (me 'n jones), and he found a boxer mix named olive to play with. well, olive's owners discovered they'd lost their car keys and we proceeded to walk around in the grass staring at our feet. i really wanted to find them cuz i'm usually good at spotting items in the grass; no such luck.

they had to walk home... i woulda offered a ride, but i didn't see how three people and two dogs would work in my car.

Posted by bekee at 1:01 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

the 3rd annual memorial weekend celebration was a smash hit. the crowd was a little smaller than last year, but it worked out well. lots of good food was had, and the 1/4 barrel was successfully emptied (kinda early, in my opinion). glad everyone could make it... since it very well might have been our last at this address.

Posted by bekee at 12:58 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

they countered with some minor changes... one of which is moving the closing date to july 13th (we had asked for late june due to per diem taxes) because it's occupied by a renter whose lease is not up til july 1. the other change is they want preapproved financing within 25 days of their acceptance as opposed to 30. i have no idea why those 5 days would make a difference, but to someone they do.

so, ben's coming over tomorrow to talk about this and write the offer again... and then we'll be homeowners. kurt and i are both nervously excited; and a little sad that we'll be moving out of the hood. but i have found quite a few positives, one of which is the great big yard and the garden possibilities. and the dishwasher. :)

one of the things i think helped us decide was that it's lived in, and that made it a lot easier for me to picture our stuff in place of what was there. most of the other houses we've seen were vacant (save for one aside from ivy st.).

weird.

Posted by bekee at 12:54 PM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

so...

this might be our new house

we're writing an offer in about a half hour.

i should also tell you that ben anton has been of immeasurable help in the efforts to find a place that suits us.

Posted by bekee at 12:43 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

if you're reading this, thank a teacher. if you're reading this in english, thank a soldier.

i saw this next to a support bush bumper sticker and can't figure out what it's trying to mean. the first sentence offers advice as to who was responsible for your ability to read it; presumably, a teacher made you literate. but the second sentence implies that the fact that it's in english means you should thank another individual. can anyone help clarify this for me?

Posted by bekee at 7:55 AM | permalink | licks (2) | tracks (0)

i saw in monday's paper (sorry, wisco journal's site seems to be having problems right now) that they want to increase the fee for renewing wisconsin state driver's licenses to "cover the full cost of complying with a federal anti-terrorism law".

there's also an unrelated desire to raise vehicle registration fees because "wisconsinites are driving less". wtf? with gas at $3.40-$3.50 in madison, of course people ought to be driving less.

and know what i just noticed this am? state vehicles don't have to display registration stickers. i wonder how much money could be generated if they had to pay annual fees to drive a car around all day.

Posted by bekee at 8:00 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

so, i've given up on the dream house on fair oaks. and i just keep telling myself that it woulda been too loud and too unprivate for the $ they were asking. we're finally getting officially preapproved tomorrow (from a bank lender) and will at least have that out of the way in case another gem comes up (that's a direct quote from our realtor).

after that, we're looking at two places on friday... one of which is super cute, but over by oscar meyer... the other one is off fair oaks farther down by milwaukee st. which ain't so bad; it's just hard to fathom that i won't have a decent coffee shop, grocery store, bar, or hardware store within walking distance. those are certainly pluses in the willy st hood. certainly.

Posted by bekee at 7:55 PM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

and it just dawned on me why, this morning.

picture being 3.5 years old in december, 1980. i remember walking into gimbal's department store (it's now macy's) and it was snowing a little; i presume we were doing last-minute shopping, it was crowded.

then, my mom was paged over the loudspeaker. "would mary gibson please come to the..." i can't remember if it was the information desk or what, but we ended up in the manager's office. it was all brown and 70's, in great need of an update.

mr. manager had to tell my mom that her husband had passed away. i remember sitting on the orangebrown couch wondering why mom was crying, using up all of mr. manager's kleenex, and really wanting to go home. mom's good friend, paula, was back at our house... she was the one who got the call and had to find us at gimbal's.

i think that's why i don't care for the hilldale mall.

Posted by bekee at 7:53 AM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

we've only looked at two houses... but i think i found one that i might be getting unreasonably excited about. we're viewing it on monday after work. hopefully, right before that, we're meeting with a banker to start the preapproval process.

i'll keep you posted.

edit: the house already has two offers... we're conceding.

Posted by bekee at 10:26 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

after spending about 5 hours on the computer, my back is killing me but the tower is all back up and running. i have to say that i'm sure glad i bought a laptop cuz without it, this would have been a million times harder.

now i have to get the network back up and running.

Posted by bekee at 11:53 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

i'm attempting to reinstall windows again on my tower. it's not cooperating very well right now. i shoulda waited until tomorrow when i'll have the gumption to spend more than 4 hours on it. :/

tinker's doing well. he's eating and taking his medicine regularly... though, one ice cube's worth seems to be just a little too much for him to eat; resulting in a special tasty treat for jones twice a day.

Posted by bekee at 3:44 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

Violent Acres ｻ Archives ｻ Real Estate Pet Peeves

she's a hoot!

but, she doesn't seem to know that ferrets are all de-scented at the time of neutering or spaying.

they still retain their own special odor; and when multiplied by 6, they most certainly do violate any 'no pets' clause.

Posted by bekee at 3:23 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

despite having a very nice mother's day with both kurt's mom and mine, i'm in an awfully sour mood today. i didn't tell you guys that my tower took a crap on saturday. i may have lost the hard drive with all my music on it. not to mention i'm gunna have to reformat and reinstall windows.

i'll tell you, i'm about to throw the effing thing out the window.

Posted by bekee at 8:50 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

tinker had a seizure this morning. god that was scary. so off to healthy pet vet we went... they gave him a hardcore shot of some crazy steroid and he was immediately alert. he also gave them a gift of tar-poop, indicating stomach ulcers; probably caused by the stress of everything going on.

so i'm making a mush out of his food and we'll be starting a new routine. sucralfate 20 minutes before eating; then a mush cube warmed up and if he doesn't eat that, then force feed with syringe. luckily, ferretone is not out of the diet cuz that's his favorite treat.

so... 7am and 7pm, he gets prednisolone; and until the pancreatic tumors get bigger, this will be the norm. :/

the woman at the vet has a ton of ferrets herself, four of which are insulinoma and she has been maintaining their health for three years. omg.

what a mess.

Posted by bekee at 1:31 PM | permalink

is unreasonably upset with me right now.

so, you know how when you turn left or right onto a multiple-lane road you're supposed to stay in the lane closest to you and then signal if you intend to change lanes? well, this lady missed that day in driver's ed. and got very upset with me for following the rules. she got so upset, in fact, that she sped up to get in front of me, and then proceeded to slow down and merge into my lane (rather, into my car)! so, i changed lanes to go around her as she was having a difficult time understanding the difference between the brake pedal and the gas pedal. as i passed, i saw that she was on her cell phone and pointing out the window at me. surprisingly, she wasn't using a well-known finger, she was simply pointing.

this is the best part, so i get over again into my first-choice lane, and come to a stop light where she gets into the right-turn lane and doesn't turn. so she gets honked at by the person behind her cuz she's too busy calling her husband to tell him what a terrible time she's having breaking basic driving rules!

so, lady, if you happen to read this: stop taking everything so personally, and try not to run people off the road just cuz you feel wronged.

p.s., i hope she called the cops and that they told her to eff off because she was wasting their time.

p.p.s., my boss was in the car with me so he'll vouch for my responsible driving.

Posted by bekee at 12:53 PM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)

this is after playing hardcore for 30 minutes. he didn't eat anything when we got home, but he did go directly into the cage to poo and then drink a bunch of water.

we'll need to go to our regular vet soon to get a blood glucose checkup. i'm just glad to have him home.

Posted by bekee at 3:23 PM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

probably more-so for tinkerbell. when i dropped him off 24 hours ago, his blood sugar count was 35. mean is 110. at 4pm, it had gone up slightly and the dr was pleased so they started to wean him off the glucose. by 9pm it had dropped to 17. he stayed overnight with the diagnosis of insulinoma. basically, the result of an adrenalectomy is a reduced hormone which is no longer present to mask the hypoglycemia. so, long story short, he gets daily prednizone until he doesn't want to any more.

the bill ain't nothing to sneeze at either.

Posted by bekee at 7:54 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

so tinker isn't eating and he's super dehydrated and at the emergency vet with an iv in his leg.

he peed on me when they took his temperature (guess where from?).

i'm in the wrong business. i won't even tell you how much this is going to cost.

Posted by bekee at 9:12 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

there was this towel in the middle of the road by the jewelry place at allen and university and it was laying perpendicular to the striped line and as i narrowly missed it during a lane change, i hoped it was just a towel that was wrapped up around itself. :/

Posted by bekee at 8:05 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

found this peanut butter mixer via cool tools. most families, by now, have realized the yuckiness that is in their jiffy chunky peanut butter and have opted for the natural kind, whether it's freshly made at the co-op, or in a jar with (get this) peanuts and oil. if you choose the latter, you'll like this gadget. except when you want to drain the oil off for the health of your dog.

Posted by bekee at 8:01 AM | permalink

wow.

okay, so it wasn't super, but it was still a really touching movie. i forgot, until the end credits, that the actor who played christopher is will smith's real-life son. this chris gardner guy was pretty resilient, if much of the story was truly depicted. go see it, unless you're dead inside.

Posted by bekee at 7:58 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

okay, this weekend, i promise to start reading alice's adventures in wonderland. it's been hard to create audible content now that kurt doesn't work on saturdays. i don't have the opportunity to sit down and read a book, let alone edit the audio afterwards.

Posted by bekee at 10:11 AM | permalink | licks (0) | tracks (0)

what an amazing experience. without seeming cheesy, it really was. i even had to get over my anxiety about presenting to a room full of vp's and directors. i was nervous and could feel my heart beating in my throat, but i got over it cuz i had to.

the entire experience was so worth it. and even if it becomes some weird buzzword in the company, i understand its worth and appreciate the necessity when used well.

and kelli, you'd be perfect as a facilitator. :)

Posted by bekee at 7:58 PM | permalink | licks (1) | tracks (0)