WIP's gallore

WIP's = works in progress
WIM's = works in mind
Well we are prepping to move. I don't have a closing date but I have a ton of stuff and not enough boxes. We've been going through everything, purging, packing, archiving etc.
I started cleaning out the master closet. To explain my odd closet its a walk in closet about 4ft in width and 5ft in depth. At the back of the closet on the left hand side theres another space about 2ft in width and 5ft in depth, and behind this there are doors to the old attic eve's, since our master bedroom suite is an attic covnversion. Well that 2ftx5ft space has long been a dumping ground to get things out of the way and then the eves are unreachable. I found WIP's I started years ago and forgot.
I have the body of a witch made for halloween, she needs her dress, hat, hair and facial features though. An afghan I needed to edge, another afghan almost finished. I put these back there after my ex moved out and I wanted to get rid of any signs of hi m nd rearrange MY room how I wanted it. I did so and put these away so they didn't get damaged and weren't in the way and then totally forgot about them
Now I have more WIP's to add to what I'm already working.
Currently I'm working on a NY Giants afghan, row count, a Redskins afghan, row count, a ripple/puff afhan in ecru cotton, and a knit poncho in ticker tape.
lol I need to start finishing a WIP before starting a WIM.
pics to come soon....

The Kitties

This is Laney the PITA simese we rescued. She looks pocessed in all her pictures.

and this is Fluff and Vicious. Can you tell which ones fluff? They were abandoned in a condemed building and rescued and now live with us to tease the dogs and be allowed where no canine can go (ie the sofa)

The Pooper

This is The Pooper that we lost last year. I really never thought I would love a piggy so much but he was so much fun and we miss him dealry.

My Valentine

This was part of my valentine gift. Mike is an avid photographer and was playing and created this black and white image and sent it to me so I thought I would share how sweet he is...and how spoiled I am :)
 

Some of the fur butts

This is our newest fur baby Bandit

This is my babies max (black and tan), and abby,( starwberry blondie) when they were 8 weeks old.

this is the psycho bunny Lola

Heres Max and Abby now, all grown up

New House

Now about the house we're buying.
Oh what a headache buying a home is. Now there's factors that have gone into every decision we have made about moving, one being we had no choice. But, there was a lot to consider.
As per my custody court order I have full custody of my children, but, I am legally obligated to keep them in their school districts.
The school districts in this city are very split up. Where we currently live there's about 20 blocks within the school district, all that are residentially zoned only, no rentals, can't rent by local laws, and generally the most expensive real estate in the city. So buying a home in this neighborhood was already going to be hard as I didn't want to add going to court once again on top of kids, school, work and moving. Homes do not go up for sale here foten and when they do they are over priced and usually out of my price range.
Size was a huge factor as well. With Mike, myself, three growing kids and 9 animals, yep 9, 3 dogs, 3 cats, 2 ferrets and a rabbit, we needed room to live.
Work was a huge consideration since Mike and I both telecommute so we need somewhere to hold computers and needed office equipment, not to mention bedrooms, bathrooms etc. We could have lived with 1 bathroom and the boys could have shared a room, no one would have been real happy though. So some was wants, some was needs.
Well we found the perfect, for us, home. It's larger than our home now at 2600 sq ft with a full unfinished basement that's 1200 sq ft. The first floor has a living room, formal dining room, kitchen, office/den, 2 bedrooms and a full bath. The second floor has 3 bedrooms and a full bath. There's also a front and back enclosed porch, single car garage on a corner lot. Best part, it was within our price range and a block from the kids school.
We made an offer, they countered, we countered back, finally a deal was reached. We went to the mortgage guy, finalized all our papers and sent in the appraiser. This is when drama had to happen again. We had a small ice storm in the area, nothing big, but, it did some damage. The home we're purchasing is part of an estate so it's vacant. The roof on the home had been patched about 10 years ago, we already knew it would need to be replaced. Well the ice storm damaged some of the home and then it rained causing internal water damage. We had already planned on removing the roof and replacing it and stripping the old wallpaper but the bank said NO WAY! Besides the roof, there's peeling paint, which is cosmetic and we can fix, some cracks in the stucco that need to be fixed, but all this together the house appraised $12,000 less than we offered and the bank would not finance it.
Well there was one option left. The city we live in isn't big in industry and the like. It was listed as one of the most economical towns to rais ea family in the US like #10 or something. The city was granted a HUGE government grant to rehabilitate the city. This is a program for any new home owner within the city limits. Since I haven't owned, technically, a home in over 3 years, I qualify as a new home owner and so does Mike. So we got on the waiting list.
The wait started and every month we had no idea if my mothers mortgage company was going to come throw us out before we could close on a house. Finally it happened. Jan 1st we received notice that we had 30 days to leave the premise's they were foreclosing. Problem was as of January 1st we were still #29 on the waiting list for the city program. We couldn't buy that home in the condition it's in, and we wouldn't be able to find another home in 30 days to purchase. There's no rentals in this district so we were forced with having to move out of the district and then petitioning the court and fighting for custody once again. My ex was already taking me to court for custody from last April and it ended in January, but, I had skirted all questions about where we would be living knowing if I couldn't supply an answer he would get custody. He's abusive and has been indicated by DSS but the courts actually really care less about that and are willing to hand him custody if I in any way violate the order, which moving out of the school district would be a violation. It just seemed hopeless.
I contacted the city office for the rehab program, the woman handling the waiting list asked who the bank was, our mortgage guy for financing a home etc. About a week later I got a call, Someone made calls to someone. I don't know fully what happened but my mothers mortgage company agreed not to foreclose in the winter months.
We got our letter of acceptance to the program last weekend and had a meeting with the city on Thursday. We are now awaiting a final inspection and another appraisal and we should have a closing date for the beginning of March, on the original 5 bedroom, 2 bath home in need of repairs.
The even better portion is what we found out at the meeting. Not only will the city pay most of the closing fees and the taxes into escrow, they will give us $20,000 for needed repairs, like the roof and stucco. On top of that, they have a led abatement program where they go in and test for led content in the air, paint, and pipes. Anything containing led is automatically replaced, above and beyond the $20,000 they give you for repairs. Since we happened to have our inspections and reports with us the city looked at it and told us to already expect, new windows through out, new entry doors, new porch floors and stairs, fashia boards, exposed support beams, pluming and fixtures, all due to led. A new roof, a new furnance, electrical work, new wiring and grounding, new outlets and some new fixtures, and if anythings left new appliances.
After I came too....
We're excited though. We love doing home repair and the like and enough will be left for us to do, but the major projects no one wants to do will be out of the way. We can concentrate on refinishing the original 1915 wood work still left, the hardwood floors, repairing the plaster and painting, restoring the fireplace, fencing in the yard and landscaping. But nothing left to be done is an absolute need, they're all wants, the needs will be met by the city program, so the bank is willing to finance the home for us. Now just to get together my fiance's huge family to help us move...we have way too much stuff!

Our House...

which will not be located in the middle of the street...
Actually we're buying a home on the end of a block so its a side lot bordering a n access street, so very quiet and somewhat secluded.
The home I currently live in is my mothers house.; it was my grandparents home and where my mother and uncles grew up. When my grandfather passed away, after my grandmother, the home was left to my mother. My mother then took out a home equity on the house, that had no mortgage on it anymore, for over the appraised value of the home. How do you do that? Well she agreed to a non-escrowed mortgage at 14.7% interest. A month after she refinanced the home, her then boyfriend, stole all her money and skipped town. She could no longer afford the payments and all the money she borrowed was just stolen so she could afford no updates either.
This situation would have been easily solved by her filling a police report, but, no she couldn't do that, she loved him (insert eye roll here). At this time I was moving down to this area after spending about 10 years in Northern NY and Canada. I agreed to move into the home and help her make the payments with the stipulation this meant I was purchasing the home. She agreed and I sent her money to make her first payments. Instead of making these payments, she used the money for other things. She had rekindled her romance with the ex-boyfriend and hid this from me and was paying his bills off. I had no idea this was going on though as I was in the process of moving here and not listed on her mortgage to find out.
It took 4 months for me to finally move in as I was in college, traveling, have three kids to move over 300 miles and the like. I couldn't just up and leave due to the situation, but, we finally moved in.
Right after we moved in I asked to sit down with her and go over the taxes, water bill, utilities and the like. She said she would get these items together and we would have a discussion. It was put off and put off. Now if I had a 9-5 job and evenings free I could have pursued this more, but, I don't. I was working 2 jobs, going to a new college just a really busy life and I didn't feel my own mother would lie to me. You would also think my now ex could have handled some of this, but being the lazy ass he is, he simply never did a thing.
I finally pushed the matter enough and insisted we sit down and discuss things when I was informed she needed to declare bankruptcy due to all these bills and how her boyfriend had stolen everything. Now I still did not know they were seeing one another again; he never came to the home, called or anything and she was home nights, only every other weekend or so she would "go out with the girls". Her boyfriend not only took off with over $125,000 in cash he also stole her car, a computer, furniture, jewelry and as I would find out later he had taken 3 cars, more money, more jewelry and collectively in the past, in all over a million dollars in property and cash, all this she hid.
As she was filling chapter 13 bankruptcy I was served a notice of forclosure by her bank. Seems all those months I gave her money to pay the mortgage she didn't pay them a cent and the real reason she was declaring bankruptcy was to hide this. Now I was stupid and should have known better. I just really never imagined my own parent would lie to me like this. I had used my entire savings helping her pay the over inflated mortgage, get the taxes caught up on the home and get the utilities turned back on. I started moving and fronted all the money for needed repairs to move my children in. I was out of cash completely. She declared bankruptcy and I agreed to make the payments directly to the bank, actually I insisted, I wouldn't give her another cent, but, I could not be placed on the deed to the house because she was in bankruptcy and the trustee would not allow it. I had to wait until the bankruptcy ended in order to own the home.
It's my families home, over 2000 sq ft with a yard alone that's 50x150 with a pool and 2 car garage. Its in the best neighborhood in town, it basically wasn't a home I was willing to just go oh well and give up on. Its a good piece of real estate in a neighborhood I would love to live in. So I decided to stay, protect the investment I had already made and wait until the bankruptcy was up. I also had split with my ex who was taking me to court monthly for custody and the fact that I lived in a good neighborhood kept my children here to an extent.
Well this past summer my mother needed to sell her apartment building. It was in disrepair, she couldn't afford the utilities not to mention she was 6 years in arrears on taxes. She just doesn't pay any bills and to make matters worse she had moved the exboyfriend in there, allowed him to live there rent free, then he moved his friends in other apartments and months went by with her not getting rent from anyone. So she came out of bankruptcy to sell the apartment building, made the worst deal in the world and walked away with nothing. But, then the bank came after the house. She had since moved out of the house and all her mail was going elsewhere so again I was left in the dark to most of what was going on. I was so busy with 3 children, all in counseling due to the split with their father, in court bi-weekly at this point, with someone new and getting him caught up to everything going on, working full time, full time in college, volunteering full time.
Well we found out the bank was foreclosing this past September when they served my daughter with foreclosure papers. Up until this point she was saying she was re-entering bankruptcy protection. When I confronted her she said she was declaring chapter 7, meaning they would seize the house. What did she care? She didn't live here anymore so she really didn't care that her grandchildren and I were going to be thrown out and didn't even inform us it was going on. I actually didn't know she left bankruptcy protection to sell the apartment building.
She finally wrote her mortgage company to allow me access to the records and to try and discuss the situation with them so I could buy the home out right. I did so but the bank is convinced I want to buy the home on a short sale, paying them what's owed but not all their fees, only to get my mother out of debt. This couldn't be further from the truth as I barley speak to the woman now, I just didn't want to be homeless at Christmas. I have offered the bank now twice whets due on the loan and they refuse to sell me the home. They want another $45,000 on top of what I have offered and that's out of my budget and I wouldn't be able to afford the monthly payments.
I was left with no choice but to buy a new home. It's all a long drawn out story and such that I don't want to type at the moment, but, I am now engaged to a wonderful man, Mike, my children are with me and happy and healthy. I still have unwanted drama from their father, my mother and such but things are straightening out, finally!

New Blog

I have blogged in the past and remain a member on many other blogs. But, I decided it was time to have a simple blog about life, things going on, my hobbies, interests, or just to blow off steam when I need to.