flea

We want to paint several rooms of the house. Consumer Reports is now saying that Valspar (Lowe's house brand) is as good as Behr (Home Depot's house brand). But they don't rate low or no - VOC paints. Anyone used them? Are they any good, or as good? We are a high-use household. Sometimes people color on the walls, and Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is our friend. Environerds, are they really better for the environment?

I am currently thinking robin's egg blue for the upstairs bath, a related color, maybe with more green, for our bedroom, pale kingfisher blue for the dining room, a darker version of the same for the kitchen (which has white cabinets and can take it), and one wall lettuce green in Casper's room. (Note: mr. flea has not yet voiced his opinions.)

The wire request I overnighted needed to be notarized. Once you know that, the mysterious sentences do, in fact, imply this, but I did read them and did not understand that fact, despite being pretty smart. Ah, financial-speak.

So, we fill out the form again and take it to a bank tomorrow AM and sign it and FedEx it at the speediest rate, which means it probably gets to Vanguard on Monday before 12. Whoops, we are closing Monday at 9. Apparently we can go through the signing of everything at 9 and just not get the keys until the money actually deposits. When that may be is unclear, and we were planning to stay in the house Monday night, but oh well.

I am pretty deeply upset, though rationally it's not that big a deal. Casper is worried about me and giving me lots of hugs.

The plan is to leave from work tomorrow, drive down, hoping the kids sleep for the tail end of it, get a hotel room, get up in the morning and do the inspection at 9am, my interview at 1:30pm, and drive back to NC when that is done.

Thank god the kids are fairly patient in the car. On the last drive, only the last hour of so was touch-and-go, and this time the kids may be asleep for that part.

1. We can haz house! They accepted our counter to their counter. Next step: inspection!

2. I applied for a job at the UGA libraries yesterday; today they called and emailed me wanting to interview me. That's nice! Now we just have to work out how this will happen; they'd prefer in-person, but there's the whole lack of transporter. But we do have to go down for the house inspection. But I was hoping just mr. flea could go, because of the whole 340-mile drive part. So maybe phone interview?

I am about to go meet a former intern from my work who now works at UGA, for lunch and to talk about prospects. There's a job posted on the UGA web site that is a lot of what I do now (all the public service stuff, no financial admin, no collection management since it is in a "library" without a collection). It was posted last Friday and Intern tells me the supervisor is planning to start reviewing applications tomorrow since they are so short-staffed.

The kicker is, the job is posted at $26K, and I am currently paid $35K. When I started 6 years ago I made $28K, and that was 2 job levels below where I am now (the posted job is at the same level I am now - as high as you can go without an MLS.)

I guess I am applying, 'cause damn I could do that work, but if she's reviewing applications tomorrow she probably won't want to hire me, because I would not be able to start until August. But $26K. Damn. The cost of living is lower here, but not that much lower. I also sort of feel I ought to work, even though there is a logic to me taking time off to finish this degree is a reasonable time, and looking for a professional job in a year. I just (unlike, it seems, a good 75% of my blood relatives) that if I am able to work I ought to. It seems strange to be able to decide not to work (even for school) at this point in my life.

Relatedly, as we started looking at houses this AM, we looked at things outside our price range (defined as what we could put 20% down for. And we liked some of them. A new house with ugly (but paintable) doors and no yard, but gorgeous bathrooms and prime location, listed at $289 but room to come down. A beautiful gracious old house in livable shape now that with some well-planned renovations could be resold for $500K in a few years (huge beautiful lot, great location) but listed at $279K and while we could stretch to but it, we wouldn't be able to put much money into it soon... But if I worked...

Looking for a house is okay; we are still in the "figuring out what we want and what is available and what we can afford" phase. It's still sort of windowshopping; until we get down there it probably won't dawn on me that we have to actually BUY one of these houses.

But talking to mortgage brokers is stressful like whoa. I hate anything that implies that prices are negotiable - I am like the anti-haggler - and I still feel very at sea about the whole process. Lender #1 writes, "do you plan to pay taxes and fees with the payments" and all I want to do is write back "How the fuck should I know?"

ION, we are doing THREE full-day interviews for my search committee next week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. And one more at a time yet to be determined. The good news is, this means nice dinners out with the candidates. The bad news is, intense! And now that the names of people we are interviewing are released, another layer of stress, as one is an internal candidate and another is local and the spouse of a former employee (who left to have kids).

Book club is discussing Suite Francaise tonight; I LOVED it, and I really don't like much fiction. I regret that it's unfinished - there are only the barest notes of where she intended to go with it, and they were surprising to me given what exists - the story about the author and the circumstances surrounding its 60-year delayed publication are as much of a novel as the work itself.

Whoa, it's already one heckuva day, and looking like one heckuva week. In positive news, Dillo slept from 8pm to 5am last night. Turns out if I get 7 hours of sleep in a row I wake up fresh as a daisy and find the strength to do a month's worth of Quicken AND bake zucchini bread, all before 7am!

At work a search committee I am on is phone-screening, and it's a lot of time and also intense. And another search has 2 candidates coming in this week, so more time & intense.

mr. flea has formally turned down the job offer he had in Singapore, and will accept the one with the EPA in Athens, GA. He's really mourning the loss of the Singapore opportunity. He compared it to the time when he took off for unspecified points West in a panel van after college, and really wanted to get a dog, and went and got a dog at the pound, but realized he wouldn't be living in such a way that would be fair to the dog, so took the dog back. I hope that analogy makes sense. He knew what the right choice was, but he really really wanted to be in a position to make the other choice. His letter was good - expressed keen interest in continuing to be in touch and possibly finding a way to work together in the future.

I emailed two realtors we've been referred to last night at about 9pm, and heard from one at 7am and one just now; both say they will call today. I suppose it's endemic to the profession of realty that the people are incredibly perky, isn't it? I don't suppose Snarky Real Estate Inc. would be very successful. Sigh. Must gird loins. Don't know much about buying a house except that I have a lot to learn and it will be a lot of work.

Our landlady approached mr. flea while the kids were playing outside this weekend and very tentatively asked if we'd consider a raise in the rent. mr. flea replied that since we had recently had a reduction in child care expenses, this might be possible, and he'd discuss it with me. (Note he didn't mention he was no longer bringing in income...)

We've lived her for 4.5 years with no rent increase, and I think we were under market when we started - we pay $800 a month for a 3 bedroom, 1500 square foot house on a very nice street in a very nice neighborhood. The house could use a little work but is beautiful (except Casper described it this weekend as "crappy and old" and wants us to move to Chicago - I dunno about this kid, I tell you), and the only real downside is the fact that frat boys live next door. Since I hope to be out of this house by next June at the latest anyway, I am not against paying more in rent. (Then again, we know how my hopes for the future have been turning out the last few years.)

The problem is, how much? Is landlady really asking US to suggest a new amount? That hardly seems appropriate. It feels a bit like the whole stupid dance one does with negotiating salary at a job - nobody wants to suggest too much or too little but nobody is sure what the other is thinking. Really, the ball should be in her court, right? But rent is due on Thursday, so someone needs to talk to someone here.