Two Thoughts

Before I must finish my coffee, get dressed and get to packing.

1) Granny's post today on why she voted the way she did is an important read. Her reasons for voting they way she did are nearly exactly why I will be voting they way I will here in the near future.

2) We've been on a frenzied pace since we closed on the house. Del has been at the house every day fixing something up and still going to work. He gets up in the morning and heads over to the house until about 3, comes home, showers and goes to work until midnight and then sometimes goes back to the house. Last night he was there until about 2 A.M. I got up with him for my nightly snack and he told me that in one of the drawers he cleaned out he found the paperwork the bank filed for eviction of the last "owners." He said it was very sad and gut-wrenching to read, considering that this was their home and now...

The bank that owned the loan was Countrywide. Interesting indeed. Apparently this lady (no husband and several kids) had an ARM and was paying $2900 a month for her mortgage. When her ARM adjusted her payment went up from $2900 to $3700. Del said he found Section 8 paperwork and documents trying to get child support from...someone. To top it all off, she had $31,000 in unpaid taxes for two previous years. He said that from what he could tell, they were in the house as late as May of this year.

Very sad. It's interesting to be in the middle of this. I sort of feel bad for having their house. On the other hand Del and I avoided an ARM like the plague because we knew it was a horrible idea; it wasn't that hard to be just a little bit savvy about that (thank you God). She was alone though, with her kids. Scared, angry and probably a bit desperate.

I have so many thoughts about these people running about in my head. Like, why didn't they take care of the house better? The stove has obviously not been cleaned in a very long time and it's a flat top stove so it's not hard to clean. There are holes in the walls, sticky, icky stuff on the beautiful bamboo flooring and carpeting indescribably filthy. I don't get it.

Anyway, it's interesting to see the results of all the questionable lending in real life vs. hearing about it in the news.

Now, I have to go to work. My grandma is coming over to take care of me today. We have almost no food in the house so we don't have to move it and she's bringing lunch and dinner and will help pack up the kitchen. She's a real go-getter at 82. Maybe her two weeks in Maui shed some years. :)