The street value of what I had in my house....damn.

DUDE. They said the normal procedure is to deliver the meds the day before. GOOD LORD.. That's a lot of...yeah.

Ugh Suzi, I feel ya on the house bug front. Starting last week, something started biting the kids, at least we think they are bites. We've scoured and cleaned their room (sleeping in one room these days) but only found one flea and one other bug. Hoping it's not a bed bug, but have no definitive ID yet. No flea dirt, no signs of bed bug stains. And the bites aren't fitting the bed bug pattern, or the flea pattern for that matter. They are getting under clothing, so now we are suspecting mites (which would also explain why we aren't finding any bugs or signs of bugs. But OY! Not happy. Taking down the tree today to at least clear out some space in case I need to start a massive cleaning.

The street value of what I had in my house....damn.

After Tim's mom died, the hospice nurse had to dump the liquid morphine down the kitchen sink with us to witness that she really did it, and I admit that my junkie heart was just a little sad about the waste of primo opiates.

We are trying to refinance and just got the appraisal back, which, given the collapsed local market, we've been very nervous about. Our house is worth more than we thought! We are still underwater, but if we accelerate the payments on our 50k second mortgage and pay it off in five or six years, our house should then be worth MORE than our primary mortgage and we'll actually have some equity.

They creep Pete out to no end, but I think they're kind of cute. Of course, I always want to do impromptue puppet shows with them.

I have definitely used them as puppets!

The street value of what I had in my house....damn.

Yeah, my MiL's house too. sigh. Sad memories.

That's good news, Scrappy. Good for you for pursuing all that.

Since I know virtually nothing about mortgages, I assumed (for some reason) you couldn't refinance if you were underwater. I guess this is not true?

Well, that fuckity, fuck, shit from yesterday. Add some extra explitives. We do have a minor infestation of bed bugs. There is a whole list of "to-do"s before pest control will spray. A large part of that list is washing things. Ummmm....gosh....I see a problem there. And I'm not going to ask my friends if I can bring possibly infested stuff into their house. I just DON'T WANNA deal.

Then the day of, I have to figure out what to do with the cats. Sure, I have cat boxes for each of them, but they aren't going to want to be boxed up and in the back of my car for the better part of a day.

At first I was descending into "I want my mommy, she will make it all better" but I wouldn't wish this mess on her. I just wish I had a plan. We are going to have to have a detailed family meeting tonight to come up with something. Maybe the kids will come up with some ideas cause I am all out. No spoons? I think I owe spoons to a spoon shark.

There are special federal programs that allow people who wouldn't otherwise qualify to refinance in the wake of the housing crisis. We weren't underwater, but our house appraised lower than we expected when we tried to refinance, and we wouldn't have been able to do it except for this federal program.

You have a msbelle, though, who can give you all kinds of advice and/or commiseration.