Saturday, February 9, 2008

Probably not worth reading... Just move along

I didn't even realize that I haven't blogged this week. I'm so sorry. One of the deadliest The number one deadly sin of successful blogging is maintaining a consistent schedule and I haven't done that. I'm sorry.

I've been in a rare mood lately. Yesterday I called it a rare foul and pissy mood, but I guess it really isn't rare if it happens every day. I know I could go to my th it, but given their pace, the foreclosure will probably happen first. What can we do? Nothing. Can't crap out a few months' worth of mortgage payments on what we make now with no assets to sell other than WAIT! A HOUSE! and our tax refund wouldn't even make a dent - besides our lovely IRS didn't have their rule changes in place yet so our return is still "pending" when it was e-filed two weeks ago and we should have had our money by now. UGH. The house has been on the market for one year as of March 1. But the market is terrible. Where our house is located, some 40% of home sales in November were short sales. Why buy a house at full price when you can effectively steal one? The job market is bad and is taking the real estate market with it. If I could un-do the entire Michigan experience, I probably would. Yes, I'm sure I would - even the MBA. I apologize to my husband nearly every day for getting us into this mess. The house will soon be gone, one way or another, and pretty much our entire financial future with it. Option 1: Foreclosure - financially devastating for who knows how long? Seven years? Ten? Plus it's a VA loan meaning we'd likely not ever be able to borrow from them again. Option 2: Short Sale: The VA makes it right with the lender, but we'll have to cover the VA's loss if we ever hope to borrow from them again. In a nutshell, from my perspective anyway, it is very unlikely that we'll be in a position to own a home again unless I make some very radical, unpleasant changes. To de-personalize it, I'm calling it "minimizing under-utilized earning capacity".

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how that will be done. The job market is very supply and demand driven as well and I find myself in a place where my skills are not as in demand as I'd hoped they would be. Why? Oh just because of where we live. Most people don't have post-secondary education so most jobs don't require them. Imagine, then, what having a post-post secondary education does for me here? What it did was reduce my wages by half. The most lucrative job offer I had was 20,000 less than I made at the horrible job I left in Michigan. The best offer, the job that I love so much with the greatest boss I've ever had, is $24K less. Don't you go to school to make more money? Not when you're me, evidently. I went to school to get another massive pile of loan debt. I apologize to my husband frequently for this too. I just feel so profoundly guilty and I don't know what to do. Because we're here, changing jobs doesn't even make sense. I won't make any more money so why bother? And did I mention my job is awesome? This semester I'm almost even feeling like I might be okay at it - no matter what last semester's SEI's say! I digress...

It always seems to me that things progress from bad to worse to completely shitty. Sometimes, of course, life throws me a bone - like the job that I actually like for a change - but mostly, I think that is to keep me from being completely batshit crazy. I am not 100% sure it is working. Because, the day after we get the first forclosure letter, because of DiscoverIndies (the website I had hoped to launch to promote independently owned hospitality businesses) I got an e-mail from a broker telling me that my dream is for sale. Running a business with exactly this configuration and location is something I would love to do the rest of my life. I'd keep it open year-round though. Most definitely. It even almost has a banya. Perfect. I did the business plan for it in Graduate School. If anyone can help me out with half a million... e-mail me.

Do you know what rock bottom is like? I could tell you but I doubt I'm there yet. I have, however, reached the milestone where buying powerball tickets is really my retirement plan. Go. Me.

Quickies:

Ramen noodles with diced tomatoes added are delicious. It is hard to improve on the perfection that is ramen, but make chicken ramen noodles, toss in some diced tomatos and add a dash of parmesan cheese. Perfectly delicious.

I am more than a little pissed that Edwards left the presidential race. The media made it a two-horse contest early and never really gave him a shot. Fuck the media.

Lost is back! Awesome.

The writers' strike may be over. I'm glad. I need more House (because all I do is watch TV these says)

Go find all the video from the Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien brawl that you can. I'd link you but I'm lazy. Two of the three will be on Comedy Central. The other on NBC. If you live under a rock or, God help you, don't like the Daily Show, et. al; the three hosts appeared on one another's shows Monday night and staged this big mock brawl. It was the funniest thing I've seen in awhile.

Crunchy's blog is still weak but Slutpeter's is worse. Get to Pete's from Crunchy's (Everybody's Favorite in my blogroll) and tell him so.

Oh and in case my blog has brought you down completely, Sarah Silverman is F*cking Matt Damon.

1 comments:

Tal said...

The Sarah Silverman video is epic. Made me laugh and laugh (and dream) for a good long while.

Sorry life sucks right now. Wish there was something I could do beyond be here to listen...