Hello Mr. Zebra, can I have your sweater cuz it's cold cold cold in my hole hole hole...

Today we're supposed to get our final mortgage approval (for the smaller mortgage, the one we had to reapply for). The other side was playing hardball yesterday and threatening to back out, and my stomach was tied in horrible knots all day just as you'd expect, but they did give us an extension through Monday and it looks like we're going to make it just fine. ( And we locked in some fairly low rates, I think. )

Also, I joined Bally's last night, much as I'm sure it will count against me in whatever final judgement there may be. ( ... )

Did I mention we lost our apartment nibble? Back to square one on that. But I also keep forgetting, in all this stress, to say that HLM is taking on a 3- to 4-month full-time contract job, so he'll be earning money for the first time in our married life! Yayyyyyy! That means I can at least feel less guilty about the extra expenses he'll be incurring if no nibble bites soon.

So, basically, my nerves are fraying at a perceptible rate, not to mention the cold is freezing me a little more each day... and I feel somewhat offended that these things seem to accumulate in my head and body instead of just going away. In short, I think I'll be well served tonight by a nice evening of pool and decompression in a warm room, and a short skirt, and friends. Happy birthday andycomment! Tomorrow I'll be productive. Tonight I can't wait for the party. :)

Bored? Here's something to read

A very good, quite thoughtful article on the child / childfree choice, focused largely on perceptions and on the war over workplace/tax benefits that are perceived as going only to parents or to nonparents. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't mention the environmental issues at all.

Whew... well, mostly whew

Got the loan letters, finally. Faxed them to the lawyer. All should be well, except one gooberish little detail about the appraiser finishing his report, which at least isn't mine to do. But, I happened to be browsing my friendsfriends page and got a little dose of guilt to go along with my relief. Sigh. I could say about a million things about that post, especially the stuff in the comments about mortgage amounts (and there's some irony in the fact that I had read that article about bankruptcy already, from a link on a childfree list)... but I won't. I feel bad for the writer of that post. I also worked awfully hard to get from "gee, I wish I lived in a real trailer like Sarah does, so I could have people over without being embarrassed" to being one of those people with the low-interest mortgage, so I hate to take a guilt trip over that. Could anyone have done the same, or is cultural conditioning just too strong in the direction of various choices that keep people on the edge of poverty forever... or are the wrong things being rewarded & punished in the first place? What's wrong? I just don't know, and maybe now's not the time to try to figure out the cure to the social ills of the nation. I feel like a limp noodle. Limp, limp, limp noodle. Damn, "limp" is a weird word, isn't it.