What ita said.

You know what freaks me out? Trusting the mortgage holder to pay my insurance and taxes. It unnerves me to get bills that I am to ignore.

You should keep an eye on this. I know of cases where mortgage companies pay late then raise the withholding to cover the penalties. (Note this is profitable two ways - interest on withholding until they actual pay the taxes and such, plus a margin they are allowed which is a percent, not a fixed amount.)

God, how could you say no to a request like that from your son?

I know it is amazing and all, but so heart-breaking too. The little boy took his job so seriously. They have no faith that they will be placed with a good family and he really wanted to make sure before trying to help a friend out of an orphanage.

The family did say, that they hope their soon to be new son did not make a similar pact with another boy in the orphanage over the last year. I think the family has 2 other children already, so this will be 4.

Oh that's so heartbreaking msbelle! Because yeah, how do you say no to that??

Okay, so maybe the Calvin and Hobbes fic didn't make me cry, but the adoption story is making me tear up.

They both made me cry.

Aww. It's terrible for kids to have to be so world wise. But I'm glad for the family.

Trusting the mortgage holder to pay my insurance and taxes.

Oh! Would you like to hear how I massively screwed this up? Our regular property taxes were really low because they were estimated based on the land appraisal, before we built. We met the appraiser two years ago when he came round to look at the house (which he complimented us on, I was happy, the SO was all, "you don't want him to like the house, he's the taxman!") but he told us at the time that the rate wouldn't kick in until 2010.

Fast forward back to now. We've been keeping an eye on the appraisal with some concern, because our mortgage is high enough to where we couldn't take a huge increase in it to cover the taxes. But it came out, the taxes were obviously higher, but not crazy high. Relief!

But there wasn't enough in the escrow account to cover it, so we figured we were responsible for it. We figured it would only be a big hit like this once, and then they'd adjust our monthly mortgage amount over the course of the year so there was enough in the escrow account by the time it was due. We wracked our brains for a while, but finally raided the emergency fund to pay it.

Which we did. And then the mortgage company did too. They just increased our mortgage amount to pay for it in arrears.

So we a) seriously overpaid and b) depleted the emergency fund when we didn't have to at a time it would have really helped to have that for other stuff. Fortunately it was only half the year, so from the tax people's point of view it's fine, we just paid for the whole year at once, which was an option. But I have to call and talk to the mortgage people to make sure they don't pay again at the six month point.

Anyway. I could have avoided the whole thing by making a phone call, but me and phone fear. Stupid.

Liese, I'm in a very similar situation. Only now that I'm finally clearing a year on the souped-up escrow, my actual taxes seem to have risen enough that it may be going up even more. Fuckity.

Do they keep giving you Sounder? What's the thought process behind that?

The ones I can see from my chair are Marley and Me and Sight Hound (about a dog with bone cancer, for fuck's sake). Seriously, my chest is tightening up just looking at it. What are people thinking? I know for some people it might be cathartic, but you need to ask that questions before you start handing out the freaking dead dogs.

Don't you love it when someone comes back to work from vacation and is REALLY loud about it just so everyone knows they are back (early mind you, because they are oh so dedicated and/or important and/or bad time managers)? Isn't great when you didn't get a vacation? And when the rest of the office has been quiet, respecting the near emptiness with some peacefulness.

brenda, WTF? Regift those suckers or trade them or something.

msbelle, gloating is never pretty. Do you have headphones?