Starbucks Secrets

I heart Starbucks.

I only go there about once a week (twice if it's been a long and tiring week), and indulge in caffeinated goodness.

I go to the one on Powell close to 39th--it has a drive through and a walk up area. That's it.

I recently discovered the secret to getting your coffee quick: go to the walk-up barista. But only if the drive-through line is out into the street--if the drive-through line is short, driving through will usually be quick and painless.

I absolutely revel in the experience as I walk away from the walk-up area to my car as the vehicle (who would have been in front of me had I gone the drive-through route) is just getting to order their coffee.

AND-

I just discovered today the greatest invention of Starbucks!!

The plug.

Too often have I scrambled in the drive through to unwrap my straw (yes, I drink coffee through a straw. It's better for my teeth and I have a hard time drinking hot liquids without a straw) before I take off so that my coffee doesn't splash all over my precious brand new car when I hit a bump. It's either that or drive like a nearly-blind elderly person who refuses to have the keys yanked from her hand.

But now I can just grab my straw and go because they have implemented the plug for your coffee cup.

It's just a little green plastic thingie that looks like a custom-to-Starbucks coffee stirrer. But it fits right in the drink hole (hehe--drink hole sounds funny), so there is no splashy and a happy Holly with a clean GTI.

Sorry- I am easily amused and entertained.

Having a Fit for Wii Fit.

After being one step away from becoming a tantrum-throwing, whiny 25-year-old, it took me every bit of energy I had this morning NOT to go down to Freddy's to buy Wii Fit.

I was originally planning on going down right when they opened at 7am, buying Wii Fit, and still be on time to work. I had that plan for weeks.

I even checked with one of our Planners to see how many had been delivered to my local store. Nerdy, I know, but one of the many perks for working at the Main Office.

But now we have bought a house, and have an inspection tomorrow. We dropped off our earnest money to the morons at the title company (a ranty blog for another time), and spent more money on moving stuff.

So Wii Fit is definitely not in our budget.

At all.

But then, the moron that I am, pick up the free DVD about Wii Fit at my trip to Freddy's last night.

And then, the even bigger moron that I am, I watched the free DVD about Wii Fit once I got home.

Wii. Fit. Looks. So. AWESOME!

From balance to strength training to yoga to snowboarding, Wii Fit is just what I need to get active and shed those 10 pounds so I can get back down to my TV weight and feel confident sending headshots to local agencies.

When I say "TV weight," I mean the weight I was when I was doing commercials and crappy educational videos.

But I was getting paid for those, biotch!

Anyway, let's just say that fitness and me don't really like one another. I'm more of an active girl. I loathe going to the gym and working out. I despise working out on the elliptical machine at home. I would much rather be challenging my body on a hike, riding my bike, playing golf, playing tennis--actually doing something.

But I don't really have anyone to go do those things. Plus, golf is an expensive sport. Especially after being able to practice on the driving range and play 18 holes for free like I did while I was on the team in high school. After that, I have a really hard time paying for golf now (just like I have a hard time paying for birth control now when I got it for free from Planned Parenthood in Pullman. Damn them!).

And Wii Fit is closer to that active challenge I so desperately need.

But will it turn into another Dance Dance Revolution? This could be why I didn't save up for the game...

You see, I tried the whole at-home "non-workout" workout. It started with Dance Dance Revolution for the XBox. Call me a huge nerd, but I have two dance pads (NERD!). I will say, however, it works up a huge sweat.

My excuse for not using that game lately? I don't like exercising in front of others (except Rob-he's seen me in a worse state than hot, sweaty, and feeling gross). With my younger brother living with us, he's been the perfect excuse for me not to bust out the DDR pads (unless I'm drunk and subject everyone around me to make a drunken ass out of themselves with ungraceful stomping).

Now that Rob and I will have the new house to ourselves, I'm afraid I will just come up with another excuse not to exercise.

I'm craving it. But I can't seem to put down the french fries for life and make that lifestyle change that I would love to make.

Rob calls me the 400-pound fat man trapped in a little woman's body (which I think is hilarious). I'm not huge. I just need to lose about 10 pounds and tone up. For life.

And that is why I was pining for Wii Fit so badly. Plus I have been going through major shopping withdrawals (to the point that I am completely out of my Bath and Body Works lotion and have subject myself to regular soap because I haven't bought my Kiehl's shave lotion (the ONLY stuff that doesn't irritate my skin) to shave. I have unsubscribed from the gazillion e-mails I receive from Nordstrom, lucy, Williams-Sonoma so as not to even tempt my shopaholic tendencies, because working in the Apparel department at the Main Office is tempting enough.

I had all these fantasies for the Wii Fit-- I was going to set up a blog and publicly track my progress using Wii Fit, become an Internet celebrity, and earn a spokesperson deal with Nintendo (they would call me the "hot Jared," like the Subway guy). They would call me the Hot Wii Fit girl, and they would whisk me off to Japan, where I could go nuts buying Hello Kitty items (who became the official tourism ambassador for Japan!!).

The only problem is that I'm not looking to lose a ton of weight--I just want to fit into my Geisha butt jeans (they're these adorable jeans with a Geisha embroidered on one of the bum pockets).

But getting a house of our own is waaay more important than a video game right now. I must keep telling myself that. Plus I don't even want to imagine how putting it on my credit card (currently with a $0 balance, thank you very much) could completely fuck up getting a house. All for $80. Not worth it to me.

So when we actually are finally able to buy it, it will be worth every bit of waiting.

Even if I look like a junkie without her heroin for the time being.

Everything happens for a reason. Believe it.

You know how I said that I hoped that we would find an end to our home search that night?

We totally did.

To recap: We had looked at a total of 21 homes (about average), Rob was getting frustrated, and was accusing me of becoming more picky (which, I don't know if that's possible. I'm pretty fucking picky).

We were slated to look at seven homes after work that night. It was a perfect day- the nicest day so far this year, and the temperature lingered around 80-85 degrees.

We get to the first house and look around. Nope. We know that the house is a "no" quickly. I guess we're pretty fast at looking at homes- we know what we want.

This house had no charm whatsoever. But I liked the street it was on... but onto the next house.

We get there, and have to make sure the owner's two cats don't bolt out the door when our Realtor opened the door. 

We get in... and breathe.

This is a nice house, we thought.

It had just about everything we want.

We looked around at everything. We knew.

This was it.

There were five more houses to see, but we didn't need to see them.

This was it.

So instead of going into the "everything's on fire" frenzy like last time, we decided to be rational. If this was the right house for us, everything will work out. Smoothly. Well, not smoothly, but everything will just fall into place.

Like our wedding--I only planned it in 53 days, and everything simply fell into place. Plus, had I had the typical one year of wedding planning, I would have been a jailbird Bride with blood on my hands....both our families are crazy. 

Anyway, we call our awesome lender gal, who talks us through some financials, and she said she would send us a Good Faith Estimate from the bank with this purchase price.

The house is listed $5000 more than our supposed maximum price. I was a little worried, considering we only have enough cash for our 3% down. We would need the seller to pay all of our closing costs. 

We also asked our Realtor to send us some comps within the neighborhood to see if the house is priced correctly.

And then we go to bed. I had good, homebuying dreams (most of my dreams lately have been really fucked up, so it was refreshing to have good dreams).

The next day was crazy. I was busy at work, Rob was busy at work, and we still had things to obtain before making an offer. 

We got the Good Faith Estimate from our lender gal, and my jaw drops.

This is actually feasible.

I can't believe it.

This may actually work.

Instead of putting 3% down and having the seller pay our closing costs, our lender gal is using a program that works with the FHA loan called AmeriDream- it's where the seller can actually contribute money to help out the buyer get the house. Our lender gal basically called it "legal money laundering."

Fine with us. That way we can actually pay our own closing costs, but the seller would pay our 3% down. Weird, I know. But we may actually not need all of the money we have saved. That would be awesome.

I left work early to pick up Rob and headed to our Realtor's office to sign the offer.

We ended up offering $3000 more than the listing price (according to the comps, this house was very well-priced), so that way the seller will still make a decent sale of the place (the last thing we wanted to do was to completely low-ball the offer, piss off the seller entirely and lose the house).

We sign the paperwork, head home (Friday was up to 100 degrees!), and play with Marley.

At 8:30 that night, our Realtor called.

THEY ACCEPTED! Wooooo!

But they had two addendums:

1- to get them a pre-approval letter within three business days (duh. The only reason we didn't get them one when making the offer was because we switched lender contacts, and our gal wasn't sure if she needed to run our credit again (I hope not), so she had to check with the underwriters).

2-That we will pay our own closing costs, reserves, etc.

Done and done.

Our lender gal actually got the pre-approval letter to our Realtor yesterday. She is so awesome.

So now we have to schedule an inspection, and go through closing. Our closing date is June 20, which happens to be the first day of Summer.

How appropriate.

So now we're basking in the joy of the deal, and going through our shit at the townhouse. We're getting rid of a ton of shit and having a yard sale at Rob's parents' house.

I already went to Freddys and picked out paint samples.

Now THIS is how all of this should feel. I think the whole botched condo deal was a good thing because we knew how it should NOT be, how it should NOT feel.

This is so right.

21 and Counting...

So far we have viewed 21 houses. One condo was perfect, we put in an offer, it was accepted, and then the lender totally sucked.

We went back to square one. And we're still there.

Rob is getting frustrated, and I (apparently) am becoming more picky.

It's frustrating- and it looks like the Portland market is becoming a hot one. We'll see a listing, tell our Realtor, and by the time she gets back to us, it's Pending.

Lame.

This is such a huge commitment. We will be living in this place for three to five years.

Since we've never lived in a place for more than two years, this is huge. And that is why I am being picky.

We saw two houses last weekend that were very, very close. Rob really liked one, and I liked them, but not enough to put in an offer on either house.

The main reasons: LOCATION.

And I know it's a total cliche, but it really is: "Location, location, location."

I want to be able to come home during my lunch break to see Marley and not have it take up my entire lunch hour.

I want to be able to feel safe, at all hours, walking Marley by myself.

I want a close proximity to downtown, close to freeways, and the shops we frequent.

See why this is so hard?

So now we're going out tonight and I just need to remember that once we find a house that is right for us, we'll know.

No talking ourselves into anything. We should know it when we see it.

I just hope it happens relatively soon.

Like tonight.

No Country for Old Men, Narrow-Minded Moviegoers, and Shaggy-Haired Emo Movie Store Employees

So we finally watched "No Country for Old Men."

Yeah, I know it's been out for a while.

You know the last movies Rob and I saw in the theater?

"Be Kind, Rewind" and "I Am Legend."

So not only has it been an eternity since we went to the movie theater, but it has also been an eternity since we rented movies.

Typically we visit our local Hollywood Video for our fix as we are poor and don't want yet another monthly bill to have the luxury that is Netflix (but I assure you, we will get it back someday).

Most times we rent movies on a Friday because we're pathetic and don't have the energy to go out drinking on a Friday night (this reserves the drunken debauchery for Saturday night- then you can spend Sunday hungover and be fine on Monday instead of ruining your weekend).

This time we went on a Saturday night.

BIG mistake.

Not only was it packed to the gills with screaming children and their parents attempting to shut them up with a substitute babysitter called "The Water Horse," there were some of Gresham's trashiest.

Lovely.

We fight through the masses and realize it's been a long time since we have seen any new movies- before we reached the "M" section of the New Release wall, I already had four movies in hand.

Anyway, we go to check out, and the shaggy-haired emo kid rings us up and had the most ridiculous sales pitch ever.

He looks at the movies, then looks at us and says, "Okay, what you need to do right now is go get two sodas, two popcorns, and a candy, and you will actually save money and get free disc protection."

That was my shortened version of his sales schpeil. It went on for a few minutes, and as he was blabbering, I realized why we waited so long in line, and why the poor sods behind us were also subject to a long wait:

This guy was a moron.

His sales pitch would have failed miserably in the first place because:

a) I'm trying my damndest not to drink any soda (although I am still horribly addicted to caffeine),

b) I'm trying my damndest not to eat any crap (I normally grab a bag of those oh-so delicious Sour Patch Kids- Fruits, and I had refrained during this trip),

c) and we weren't looking to buy any more shit. We just wanted to rent our movies, including running the "risk" that one of the discs is scratched. That makes me wonder, what if Hollywood Video employees intentionally scratch their DVDs in an attempt to sell more of the disc protection?

Another reason to go back to Netflix.

I just wanted to smack the shaggy-haired emo kid after his pitch, which made me feel totally old.

We get home and choose "No Country for Old Men" first.

By the way, our dog (a black pomeranian puppy named Marley) hates horses...on TV. There was a scene with Tommy Lee Jones on a horse, and Marley just went apeshit- we had to eventually put him in his crate with a blanket over it so that we could make a two-hour movie actually under three hours.

Once the movie was over, I had to watch a few episodes of "Futurama" before going to bed because I would have had the most fucked-up dreams regarding pressurized air and pageboy haircuts.

Seriously- Javier Bardem would NOT have been as creepy (okay, he would have still scared the fuck outta me) without that weird pageboy haircut.

Before I had seen the movie, I noticed a lot of blogs and bulletin posts on MySpace and heard a lot of bitching at work about the ending. I'll post my take.

****WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. Haven't seen the movie? End here*******

I think people were so pissed off is because generally we like closure. And many people hate things that have no "endings."

I'm sure people wondered:

-What Carla Jean called what side on the coin toss
- If Anton (Javier Bardem) killed Carla Jean at her house or not
-What happened to Anton after the car accident
-If Ed (Tommy Lee Jones) was a target for Anton

I didn't wonder.

But there were questions raised during the movie, too, like did Anton come back and kill the gas station attendant, or was that scene in the movie just to reveal the odd conversational nature of Anton (and other factors)?

That's probably why people also got pissed off at the series finale of "The Sopranos."

That's also why so many fucking sequels make more and more money each year.

Yuck.

Sometimes (and as a writer, I can relate to this) you simply don't know how to end a piece. Endings are funny- sometimes they leave more of an impression than the majority of the piece.

So sometimes you just end it. Monty Python was famous for this- they thought punchlines would cheapen some of their sketches. And punchlines would have.

If any of the other movies we rented are good or interesting, I just may be compelled to post about them here.

Or not.

Brick Wall.

We have to withdraw our offer.

The bank called Rob on Friday to say they will not finance us for this condo.

At all. 

And the way our lender guy explained it just made me confused and very pissed off.

"He's lucky he didn't call me to tell me that," I said to Rob on the phone, "He would have gotten an earful from me."

I. Was. Pissed.

I didn't understand. We had gotten so far- and for the bank to flat-out say they cannot fund this particular condo?

We called another lender, one who was recommended by our Realtor. He sounded nice, but after some basic calculations, we discovered in order to lend with him (and to any other lender other than Rob's bank), we would have to cough up an extra $4000.

FUCK.

We, nor anyone in our family, have that kind of money. Even if they did, I want to do this on my own. We already owe good 'ol Sallie Mae tons of money; the last thing I want is to be in debt with a family member.

It gets worse. Even if we were to miraculously find an extra four grand, the mortgage payments would not be financially feasible.

We had to cancel our inspection.

We called our Realtor to tell her we needed to withdraw our offer.

This blows.

We decided to call another person in the bank's mortgage department, and Rob had a contact from when he worked in 24-hour banking who was at a branch.

And their mortgage person is awesome! She explained why the bank (and many large banks) will not fund this type of project.

Since the units were originally constructed in the 50's, they have now been converted to condos. Most banks will not fund converted condos unless they have been zoned as condos for three years.

She mentioned she used to work for one of those capital companies who "flip" condos, and it turns out within about a year, many condo owners would run into multiple problems, ones that would not show up in the best inspections (you can't even open up a wall in an inspection).

Once she explained it that way, I wasn't nearly as pissed off.

She then mentioned other reasons why the bank would not fund certain condos.

Afterward, I thought, "Why the fuck didn't the other guy tell us that before we started even looking?!"

I'll tell you why.

He seems to be a nice guy, but we were never on his front burner the whole time we knew him. We gave him the green light to get pre-approved, and he sat on it for a week and a half. 

You know why we know that? We asked someone else how long it takes for people to get credit and income approved, and they said within 24 hours. 

He would have sat on it even longer had we not called him and told him we found a condo we liked and needed that pre-approval letter NOW. 

He sure acted fast once we told him that. It makes me wonder how long he would have sat on it had we not found a property. 

It's supposed to happen like this: Get pre-qualified with lenders, compare loans, get pre-approved with a lender, then shop for homes.

This is how it went with us: prequalification, compare loans, realize Rob's bank is the only way to go (no other lenders can beat his discount), give the lender the green light to get us pre-approved, wait, wait some more, get tired of lending, start looking at houses, find a place, have to put a fire under our lender's ass to even squeak a pre-approval letter out of him.

Needless to say, our Realtor hates him, and we're going with another person at the bank.

So we're going to take a week or two to cool off (and to give our Realtor a break from us- this whole ordeal has made us look very high-maintenance), and then back to the drawing board.

Although this time, thanks to our new lender gal, we'll actually know what the bank will and will not finance.

Fucking Clusterfuck.

Those who know me know that I curse like a sailor (who curses).

FUCK.

Rob just called me to say that the bank (the one he works for) cannot fund this loan because of the way the condo was coded. Immediately I think about construction and city coding, but it doesn't make sense because many condos within the complex (there are eight total) have funded with Oregon Bond, who tend to be picky.

Whatever.

What matters now is, now what do we need to do?

Our lender referred us to someone we don't know, who is in meetings all day, and will be coming in tomorrow to work on our file.

Our Realtor called us last night to give us the contact information for a lender that she knew and trusted, and who had saved three loans that fell through with Rob's bank just this week.

Awesome. But Rob and I are stubborn and loyal, so we decided to stick with the lender guy from Rob's bank.

Now we know.

And now I am just waiting on our Realtor to give us a call back (and her phone went straight to voicemail!)...

FUCK.

Again, this could work out. Or it could mean we're not meant to buy this place.

Sometimes certain things stress me out more than others. Rob is pretty stressed out, but I am channeling that stress, that anger, those nerves.

I just hope I'm channeling them correctly.

Speed Bump

The Seller accepted!!

BUT...

We were trying to finance through an FHA loan, and our lender guy (who also works in the same company as Rob) had to check to see if the condo was an FHA-approved condo.

It's not.

So he's checking with another lending program, the Oregon Bond. Our debt-to-income levels are a bit too high for the Oregon Bond.

BUT...

Our lender guy is meeting with people with the Oregon Bond to see if they'll make an exception. 

I'm not counting our chickens before they hatch. But we did book our home inspector (just in case-- the sales agreement only gave us seven business days), but made sure that we could cancel with him in case our deal fell through.

Again, back to hurry up and wait.

If this condo is meant for us, everything will work out. If it's not meant for us, we'll go back to the drawing board...

Again, wish us luck.

Speed Bumps-- Or Brick Walls?

Why is it that when you're stressed out about one element in your life, it snowballs and makes everything else in your life stressful?

Homebuying is stressful. It's very "hurry-up and wait." One minute you're running around frantically, questioning everything you're signing, wanting to read all of what you're signing, but you don't have the luxury of time to do that, so you sign away...

Only to realize you forgot something. And then that waiting period ignites into flames of frenzy, and once you've done your part, you're back to waiting again.

Did I ever mention I am one of the most impatient people on Earth? And when I am waiting for something, I am like a speed-addicted fire ant having withdrawals.

Our wonderful Realtor got back to us last night, and so we took off for her office to sign an offer. She had to print out the gazillion pages, so we took Marley for a walk.

The sales agreement we signed was mandated by the condo association (which is named "Bedrock Court," which makes the theme song to The Flintstones pop up in my head), and the agreement appeared to be written by a lawyer green from law school with not enough knowledge of the real estate industry. It had certain fields missing like the line to write the name and amount of the loan (you would think the Seller would think this was important), and a line for the timeline we want to give the Seller for a response for an Accept, Counter, or Rejection.

But we signed away, flew through the HOAs, signed some more, and went home. I zombied out playing video games. Rob fell asleep on the couch.

And after a horrific nightmare last night (I have really, really fucked up dreams), I woke up unsure if we mentioned in the offer that we were requesting the seller pay $5000 of our closing costs.

I e-mailed our Realtor to mention that little voice in my head, and she replied back with a "Yikes!" I replied back with a, "Crap...what do we do now?"

She called me a little later, and mentioned that we need to sign an addendum mentioning the Seller paying a portion to the closing costs, and fax it back to her ASAP.

So we did, and now...we wait. The Seller could accept, counter, or reject our offer.

Hurry Up.

Wait.

Hurry Up.

Wait.