I decided that since I got a sewing machine as a wedding gift, I should at least use it for something. So, I had this bright idea to make Christmas stockings (since we didn't have any). Yeah...I had no clue what the hell I was doing. I just drove to the fabric store and found a pattern for a stocking and a pattern for penguin decorations. I had never read the back of a pattern in my life so I had no clue how much fabric I needed. I bought probably 4 or 5 times what I actually needed. I have actually sewn things before, but that was in home economics and I got a kit that had the pattern printed on the back of the fabric. So...this was an adventure.

The living room looked like the fabric store had exploded for a few days. I figured out how to cut out the materials. I do have to say the directions were pretty cryptic on some parts. There was one part where I had to guess and I just hoped it was what I was supposed to do.

I have also learned to love fusible web. I hadn't ever heard of it before I worked on this, but it is one of the most glorious things ever invented for fabric crafts. Basically, you can turn any fabric into iron-on fabric. You just cut it out and stick it between two fabrics and heat them with an iron for a few seconds. And the material is still pliable after you iron it down to something. That's how I attached most the penguin parts:

I think the stockings turned out ok. Not bad for a first attempt at a sewing project. I would hope that my aunt & grandmas would be proud (they were always the sewers in the family).

Last, but not least, I admired the mess I'd made before I had to clean it all up.

John and I received a gift off our Heath Ceramics registry yesterday. We opened up the box and were greeted with some of the coolest packaging I've ever seen. John and I both came to the conclusion that they look like little critters in a box.

Finally, some condo pictures! These were taken before we moved in. Hopefully someday, after all the wedding stuff is over and we get a chance to actually organize stuff, I'll take more pictures. Right now there are still boxes in every room.

We live downtown. Close enough for John to walk to work and right now it takes me about 10 minutes to get to work from when I get in the car to when I pull into the parking lot. However, I expect that time to go down after the construction is over.

Here's the entrance to our building:

Layout of our place:

A few shots of the main room:

Super awesome kitchen:

One of the bathrooms (they both look about the same):

Laundry room:

And of course the bar that's on the first floor of the building. How convenient!

The pictures really don't do the place justice. I wish I was better with a camera, but oh well. The place is awesome. You'll either have to take my word for it or come visit :-).

John and I found a great condo downtown that we fell in love with. But before we could move in, we needed to get married. After the ongoing real estate problems we didn't want to attempt planning a formal wedding during the whole mess as well. We decided to go down to the courthouse to get married before closing on the condo. Then we'd have more time to focus on the wedding after we closed and moved.

We invited only a couple close friends and immediate family. One of my friends from work (thanks GeeMan!) came down and took some candid photos. The lighting in the courthouse was terrible so I think they turned out pretty well given that. I'm sure we'll have plenty more from the second wedding.

I'd only been to a courthouse wedding once before so I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do. Plus, when I showed, up most of the family was already there. There was a doorbell I was supposed to ring saying we were there. I tried ringing it when I got there, but they told me to go away till everyone who was supposed to be involved arrived. So, we were all standing around in the main lobby waiting.

The moms were worried because John is often late to things. We were discussing whether or not to call him.

Everyone thought it would be best to call, so I did. I love these two pictures. I didn't think about it at the time, but it looks like I'm flipping off the camera because I'm trying to hold on to my flowers and the ring box and talk on the phone. I think I'm leaving a message in the bottom one. But either way it's a funny look on my face.

John did arrive on time. He was even early by a few minutes. His mom pinned on the boutonniere because I have no idea how to do those things. He looked so nice!

Our friends signed and stood up for us as witnesses. The ceremony was very short, but really nice.

When John was trying to put my ring on my finger he sort of hit a snag because it got stuck a little at my knuckle. He was really concerned about hurting me so I had to lean forward a little and tell him to keep trying. We'll see if that happens at the second wedding.

As quickly as it started, it was over. I think some people might have been out in the lobby waiting longer than they were in the courtroom for the ceremony. It's definitely taken the pressure off for the upcoming wedding though.

Thanks to our friends who were witnesses! We love you guys!

Oh, and we couldn't pass up making an animated .gif out of the phone call. I think we've had more laughs out of this than any of the other pictures.

Part of the wedding "package" we purchased included either an "Engagement Session" or a "Post Wedding Session". We opted for the engagement session (even though we were already married). I absolutely love our photographer. Anyone getting married should consider Sarah Pfeiffer. Below are some of my favorites from the photo session. Sarah came up to Omaha (she's based in Lincoln) and took pictures by our condo downtown.

I still have pictures from the wedding in April I plan on posting. At least on the blag we can pretend we did things in the "normal" order.

Over the course of the whole buying/selling process, I had been checking with the banker. I called him about once a week to make sure everything was okay, that he had all the information he needed, etc. I was assured that everything was just fine, there were no problems, etc. We had even managed to lock in a rate of 4.625% on our 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Two days before we were supposed to close on the new condo John and I went out to the CBS Home office and signed all the paperwork for the sale of his condo. An hour after we finished doing that, I got a phone call from our banker, Charlie, who said: "I have bad news. But don't panic, I think I can fix it." After all the stuff we'd been through so far, how bad could it be? Yeah, bad assumption. Apparently the underwriter screwed up and we should have never been told that we were approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage because Freddie Mac had a requirement that 51% or more of the units in the condo building had to be sold before they would be willing to back a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Oh, but the even better news was that we were going to get an Adjustable Rate Mortgage at a lower rate (4.37%) for the first 7 years, convertible to a 30-year fixed-rate (for free) when the building is 50% sold but at current market rates. Yes, you read that right. We wanted a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, but Freddie Mac said that was too risky so they offered us an ARM. And we were supposed to take all the risk as to what the rates were going to be at closing the second time, even though we had locked in a really good rate. I am so glad that we've learned what got us into this financial disaster! Obviously we told Charlie that we weren't willing to just take the ARM. We told him to figure something else out. After many calls back and forth trying to impress upon him that we really weren't interested in the ARM, he finally called us back at 7pm that night and said that he had put in for an exception with Freddie Mac and he had cleared it all the way through his boss's boss. So we had to wait.

In the meantime, John and I were feeling just a little stressed out. John had to be out of his place by Sunday at midnight, I had given notice on my apartment and had to be out by the end of the month. We hadn't even put John's place on the market until we had confirmation that we were approved for a loan. We had worked with an attorney who looked over the initial offer papers and condo documents for the condo. We really didn't want to resort to a law suit, but we felt like we should at least contact them and find out what sort of legal standing we had. Obviously we hadn't signed the final paperwork, but we had signed the good faith estimate which stated we'd been approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. We didn't know if that was enough to have a case or not (if we can't get things worked out). First thing in the morning, I called the attorney, Andrew, to see what he thought about the situation. I was expecting that he'd say it was something to the effect of bait and switch. Instead, he said that if we had to go to court, we would definitely win, but it would take at least six months to get there which didn't solve our current situation. He used the term "detrimental reliance". He said that because we made our decisions based on the information the bank gave us, we definitely had a good case. So, we had that as or absolute worst situation back-up plan. Our only option was to wait for Charlie to call back and see what he had to say.

We had the walk-through at noon for the new condo. I have to say it was really depressing walking through the place we had fallen in love with not knowing whether we'd have a loan at closing or not. We were in the car headed to get food and John asked me "So, if Freddie Mac comes back and says no, what's Charlie's backup plan?" I told him I thought Charlie was under the impression he could talk us into taking an ARM. Right as I finished saying that, my phone rang. It was Charlie who said that Freddie Mac said no. So, I asked him what his backup plan was and he said "The only thing I'm authorized to offer you is the ARM, convertible at current market rates when the building hits 50% sold." At this point, John was pretty angry. I gave him the phone and he walked Charlie through the fact that he didn't have a house anymore and the ARM was not acceptable because there was no reason why we should be required to take the risk since he's admitting the bank screwed up. John had previously suggested that the bank promise that we would be converted to a fixed rate mortgage within the seven years and regardless of what interest rates were at that point, they would buy points on the loan to get us back down to the rate we were promised. Charlie tried to explain that they just "don't do that". I still have yet to understand why they can't do that. They're a bank. It's not an illegal process. Anyway, Charlie ended up getting flustered enough that he told John that we could call his boss and talk to him if we weren't satisfied. At this point, after we got off the phone, we started going through all the names I could think of that were high up in the bank. That was when John realized that his parents knew the president of the bank. They apparently went to the same church.

John called Charlie's boss and left a message. We decided to give him a half hour to call back. Well, he didn't call back. So, we started calling every person I could think of who we knew would have the power to fix the problem. We were passed around to every secretary in the building. Unfortunately for us, the bank president was out doing charity work that afternoon. I managed to track down the name and phone number of the head of the lending area. We tried calling him but his secretary was very adamant that we leave him alone. Finally, I got so fed up at being passed around to all the secretaries that , I talked to my boss who gave me permission to leave early (bless his heart). I went down to the bank building and politely asked the secretary if I could see the head of the loan department (Mike). At this point, John had spoken with Charlie's boss who was apparently under the impression that we had a loan and everything was fine. It was already 3pm by the time he'd heard back from Charlie's boss and I wanted some answers. The secretary told me she didn't know how long it would be. I responded by saying that I was willing to wait as long as necessary. She hesitantly responded by telling me I could have a seat in the waiting area. I sat down next to another secretary's desk where I could see Mike's office. She was on the phone. After she got off the phone, she asked if I needed anything. I thanked her and politely told her that I had already been helped and I was waiting to see Mike. She then proceeded to call someone upstairs. Her end of the conversation went like this: "Oh, I know. Charlie's been down here all day. Apparently someone complained." "Ooh, that's bad!" "Well, he's been freaking out." I had to keep from laughing because I was sitting right there.

Shortly after eavesdropping on the secretary's conversation, Mike came out of his office to greet me. He had apparently been on the phone with Charlie's boss so he knew a little about what had been going on. But, he asked me to walk him through the situation. So, I told him about how we'd found this great condo, locked in a good rate, been approved for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, put John's place on the market, received and accepted an offer in a little over a week for John's place and then we got the news about the loan. He stopped me when I got to that part and said "I'm going to promise you, right now, that we will fix this. You will close tomorrow as scheduled with the loan terms you were promised. I'm really sorry this has happened. This isn't the way we like to run our business." (Hallelujah! Finally, someone who has the power to fix this!) He said he'd call at the end of the day and give me further information about the loan.

We did get the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage we were promised and we closed as scheduled. But I don't want to do that again for a VERY long time! I think John and I crammed enough stress into the buying and selling process as possible (none of which were things caused by us). I do have to commend Charlie. He showed up on time to the closing and, much to our surprise, it really wasn't awkward. We really didn't want to throw him under the bus, but he wasn't willing to make any concessions. I think he was only offering us what Freddie Mac said he could, rather than talking to the people at his bank to see what the local bank could do. But, thank God that's all over!

To everyone who is considering buying and/or selling a residence, I wish you the best of luck and I hope it is a smoother process than ours was!

Hopefully I'll have pictures of the condo up soon. I have ones I took from when we toured the place. I'll need to take some with our stuff in it at some point.

As a homeowner, one of the most important things you must have in order to sell your home is a clean title. The title says who the property belongs to and if there are any liens against you (i.e. if you didn't make payments on your car and you used your house as collateral, or you didn't make your house payments, or in reference to a condo, you didn't pay your condo association fees). If your title isn't clean, you cannot sell your property without someone else taking their cut first. That being said, one of the steps in the selling process involves a title company doing a title search to make sure your title is clean before the sale can proceed. When they did the title search for the title on John's condo, we didn't exactly get good news which was a bit of a shock. John had made all of his condo association payments on time, every month, in full. He had not received any notifications that he was late on anything or owed anyone any money. So when the title company called our agent to inform him that the title came up with liens on it, we were a little upset.

They called on a Friday to tell us this and that they were looking into where the liens came from. That following Monday, John and I went down to the county clerk's office to get our marriage license since we were planning to get married on Friday (April 10th). Directly across the hall from the County Clerk's office was the Register of Deeds. John thought it would be a good idea to stop in and see if they could shed any light on the situation. John explained the situation to the woman at the front desk saying that he had owned the property for several years, and based on the information he has, the liens have to be old because he wasn't aware of any missed payments and hadn't been notified about them. She said she would have no problem looking up the information. All she needed was an address. John gave her the address and she asked if it was a condo building and he said "Yes, it's the Twin Towers building." Her immediate response was "Oh my god! That place is so messed up!" At this point I'm thinking "Please just let us get this thing sold so we can be rid of it!" They brought up the information on the liens. One of them was from 2003 and one of them was from 2005. John bought the place in 2007 which should have been impossible without the liens being released. They totaled to around $4,300 (which we really didn't want to fork over given that we were getting married, had just bought rings and were buying a condo). We were given a long speech about how this should never happen and John needs to go after his title company because it's illegal to sell a place if there are liens on the property. The woman was nice enough to give us a print out of their information so we took that with us.

I scanned the document we were given and sent it on to Steve who relayed it to the title company working on the sale. I waited until Wednesday to call Steve and see if there was any news. We were set to close on the 17th and it was the 8th so we didn't have a lot of business days left. We knew at this point that the liens had been place on the property by the condo association, but no one in the association had any record of them. No one had any record of any money being owed for John's unit. But no one was willing to release the liens. John called around and spoke with the property management company and the current president of the board for the condo association but because they had no record they wouldn't release the liens on his property (yeah, that sure makes a whole lot of sense). He was told that the only person who would know about them was the former president of the board but she had fallen and broken her hip and was in the hospital. What are the odds?

By the time Wednesday (April 8th), I wanted an update. I called Steve but all he could tell us was that the title company was "working on it." He had good news though - the buyer was willing to pay the liens if we couldn't get it straightened out because he really wanted to close the following Friday. Unfortunately , that didn't exactly make us feel any better because that would mean paying the condo association money that they had no record we owed. We didn't want to pay an extra $4,000 to sell the place. That just wasn't going to happen. Plus, we didn't want to be in the situation where we owed the buyer money after everything was all said and done. I got a little upset at this point and I called John to see what he though we should do. He was pretty angry as well and stressed out due to work stuff so he finally just said "I don't care what you do, just let me know what happens."

I tried calling the bank but I figured they wouldn't be willing to help me since John and I weren't married and I wasn't part of the original mortgage agreement. I was right to some extent, but I got lucky because they said that I could call their title company and talk to them since the title information was public knowledge. I called First National's title company and they told me that they didn't have any information on the sale because they didn't handle the title transition. I looked up the title company's information and tried calling all three phone numbers listed. I got messages saying that all the numbers had been disconnected (this can't be good). So, I called the title company back and told them I tried calling the title company in the mortgage documents and all their numbers had been disconnected . The lady I talked to was nice enough to find out who had taken over the files for the title company. I was told I should call First American Title.

I called First American Title and was transferred to someone named Ellen who told me that the title company who handled the sale of John's condo, LTS Title Services, had their insurance license revoked by the Nebraska Department of Insurance in April of 2008 (you have got to be f*#@&^g kidding me). She then proceeded to tell me that they probably had John's file somewhere, but she would have to go down to look through their files to find it. Because it wasn't a transaction they actually handled, they don't have the records in their electronic record keeping (great, just great). Ellen said she would call me back. In the meantime, I called my friend Mary who suggested that I contact the department of insurance to find out why the company's license was revoked. It might shed some light on things.

I called the department of insurance who were actually very helpful and told me that all complaints filed against the title company would be on their web site. Originally when I went on their site to look for the complaints, I found the last one which was what put them out of business and that was enough to freak me out. I have since gone back and found multiple complaints, all of which the company was found liable for before they finally had their license revoked by the department of insurance. The original complaint I found basically said that they were taking money on behalf of other companies and not passing the money on to the companies to which the money was owed. So, they were embezzling to the tune of over $50,000. Awesome. The other complaints I found (charging twice for services and issuing illegal coupons) pretty much followed suit with the whole "stealing money" thing. I was pretty freaked out after I read that and I was convinced that they had taken John's money for title insurance, but never actually given him any. Which, if that was the case, we were completely screwed to the tune of $4,000.

After totally freaking myself out by reading the complaints against the title company online, Ellen called back to tell me she wasn't able to find John's file and without the "Commitment to Insure" number which would have been provided along with all the underwriting information from the title company, they probably wouldn't have any luck finding it. In addition, she also said that the rest of their Nebraska files had been shipped to Independence , Missouri. At this point I was pretty upset and started crying on the phone explaining that we were supposed to get married in two days and we were supposed to close on John's place and our new place the following Friday and we really don't have an extra $4,000 lying around without going into our savings which we needed in case of emergency and John had looked through all of his files and he had everything except this commitment to insure and we would look again that evening, but he was sure he didn't have it and we just don't know what we're going to do. I felt bad for her because I really didn't mean to upset her. She sounded sort of flustered and said she'd see what she could do. We looked for the title insurance paperwork that night but of course couldn't find it. John had everything except that. He had all the good faith estimates, the warranty deed, the closing papers, a copy of all the checks, everything. I described what the paperwork should look like based on what Ellen had told me and he was certain he never received it. We were sure that we were totally screwed.

The next morning as I was getting dressed to go to work, Ellen called me. She apologized for calling so early but I figured she must have news so I was excited. She asked me which liens we were being told were still outstanding. I was really glad we had stopped at the register of deeds because I pulled up the document in my sent e-mail and read the information about the liens to her. She then told me that one of her colleagues in Missouri had found John's entire file and sent it to her. In the file, there was a letter from the condo association specifying three liens that were on the property in 2007 before John bought the place. The letter stated that the owed amounts had been paid in full and the liens would be released. Two of them were the liens that John was told he owed. I was really excited and Ellen (my new best friend) e-mailed me a copy of the letter which I forwarded to John. Right after I got off the phone, I called John (and woke him up) and said "Tell me I'm your best friend!" He was still pretty groggy and given that I called his work phone thought that I was from work and there was a problem. He woke up a little more and I told him my news. He sent the letter to the management company and Steve, our agent, and we finally had the assurance that the liens would be released and the sale could proceed. Thank the Lord!

So, moral of the story for everyone - make sure you get a commitment to insure when you close on a place because without it, you're screwed unless you find someone like Ellen. Also, I hate title companies (with the exception of First American Title). No one seemed to have any clue what was going on and I was a little cranky about having to track down all this information on my own. I still want to know what the hell the title company handling the sale in April was doing because I found out more information in one afternoon than they found over the course of three days. What a bunch of lazy wankers!

As the buyer of a home, you get a certain amount of time to inspect the home and decide whether or not you still want to buy it. If you find problems you can either ask the seller to bring down the price, ask the seller to fix the problems or take the place as is at the previously agreed upon price. John and I were aware of this going into the sale of his property because we had gone through the process on the condo we wanted to purchase. We made sure the place was nice and clean so the home inspector could come over and take a look at everything. We were told that things went pretty well. They were a little concerned about the air conditioner, but nothing that should hold up the process (or so we thought). For reference, the building is pretty old. The way all the heating and air conditioning works is that there is a central pipe that runs the height of the building and in the winter, the boiler heats the water and in the summer, cold water runs through the pipe. Then there is a heat exchanger and a fan that blows air over the pipe to get circulate it through the places in the building.

The buyer is required to sign an addendum stating the results of the home inspection and their intended action (whether they're requesting fixes, accepting as is or calling off the sale). John and I were expecting to get that within a day or two of the home inspection. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed. Even though we got the news that the buyer was planning to sign the paperwork saying they accepted the place as is, it never came. We waited a few days and then heard back from them saying they wanted the air conditioner checked out. They didn't send over any signed documentation (as they were required to do) requesting this. But I called the HVAC company that the condo association usually used to service any air conditioners in the building. The guy came out, charged John $60 and said "Everything is fine. I don't know what they think is wrong with it." John was a little upset because at this point, we had already passed the specified seven days in the contract for inspections. I scanned the sheet the HVAC guy had given him and sent it to our agent who in turn passed it to the buyer's agent.

They called our agent and said "Yeah, we'll send over the signed addendum saying we accept the place as is first thing in the morning." The next morning rolls around and they call and say "Well, we want to come back over and look at the air conditioner again." So Steve, our agent, took them back over to the property and opened up the air conditioner so they could look at it. While they were inspecting the air conditioner, they decided that the water shut-off valve looked rusty so they tried to request that we get someone out to change the valve. John was a little pissed at this point because we're already over a week past the seven days they were allotted for inspections and we've just paid $60 for someone to come out and look at it and we have signed paperwork saying everything is in working order and there's nothing wrong with the air conditioner. Plus, the valve that they wanted replaced was connected to the pipe with water running to the rest of the building. John's place was on the fourth floor and there were at least five floors above him. So they would have to shut off the water for at least all the floors above him. On top of that, according to the condo association declaration and documents, the air conditioner, being part of the inner workings of the building, was the responsibility of the condo association, not the condo owner. So, John, as pissed off as he was, posed the question to the management company asking if they would replace the valve on behalf of the condo association. They just laughed given that we'd just had someone out to look at the air conditioner and the thing was fine. So we sent back and e-mail explaining all of this to the buyer and telling them that they could take it up with the condo association if they wanted.

They said that they'd send over the signed addendum saying they'd accept the place as is. But that was just a ploy I guess because I they calld our agent back in the morning saying that they wanted to look at all the other units on sale in the building and take a look in their air conditioners. So, Steve met them back at the condo building and walked them through all the units on sale at the time and they looked at all the air conditioners. I'm assuming they all looked about the same as John's because they said they'd send over the paperwork saying they accept the place as is. Finally, the next day, they sent over the signed addendum saying they accept the place as is and did not require any work done on the place.

John's only response after that painful three-week-long experience "Seriously! Does he want a hug too?!" We had just wasted an extra two weeks that wasn't really needed. We didn't have much time to work on packing John's place before we needed to get everything out of there.