Mortgage Monday: Interesting Questions

No matter where, when, or at what price you purchase a house you will always have questions about your new home. Some are as simple as where things are located in the house while you still get used to your new surroundings. Other times you are curious as to the best routes and best places to shop around your new location. These are just a natural part of the process no matter who you are, where you live, or how much research you did before you bought your property. For some that remain local or knew the former owners they are quickly answered while for most of us it is just a process that takes time.

However, there are a few other questions that I find floating around in my mind that I have also asked a few people from time to time. They are actually more prevalent than I thought even for those who believe that they have the perfect home. It also proves that there is more to a home than the place or the structure. Here are the questions that most people admit to having had fun with in the past:

• Would you still chose to live in the same place where you currently live? If no, where would you look? Yes. We really enjoy the town, the privacy, and the space. 
• Would you build your house the same way that you bought it? No. There are certain things that we want to change and add. Nothing needs to be changed. All minor things that are easily adjusted. Also, there are some aspects of our home that, at the time of purchase, we didn’t realize we wanted.
• Would you live in the same place and/or buy the same house if you had unlimited funds at the time of purchase? Yes and no. Great value in our home but we might have made some modifications immediately after purchase.
• I guess the same thing applies to those that had their house built… would you build it the same way now that you have lived in it? N/A
• What would you change (what would you have changed at the time) if you had unlimited funds? N/A
• Change or rebuild? N/A

I am sure that many of you were thinking about your own responses as you read through the questions above. And for those with whom I have spoken that consider the place they live to be their home, there is nothing in their responses that have led then to regret their previous decision. The certainty waivers a bit when people consider the place they live to be their house. For me, this has actually been an interesting exercise that has proven our decision to be correct time and again… we found the perfect home for us even with its imperfections.

Sunday Search: Tree Changes

Today begins another regular series of posts that I hope to write each week, Sunday Search. For the most part, I will be writing about genealogy related subjects including recent additions to my family tree, interesting resources or programs, and discoveries that give greater depth to the lives of my ancestors. There is also the plan to write small biographies similar to those that I have done in the past most notably of my grandpop, great grandfather, and great, great, great grandfather.

While there are grand plans for this series, I start today very simply. Recently I had to make a couple of updates to my tree. One that I had been dreading for months and the other that I have been looking forward to since last summer. Two changes that clearly demonstrate the dichotomy of the basic information that we all compile as we trace our roots… birth and death.

Both of these additions of information are almost surreal after having spent so much time digging through centuries of family history and piles of ancestral records. It is a change in perception I would previously dig through pages and pages just trying to find out when someone died but now, having experienced that last moment, it was not something that brought me any enjoyment whatsoever and by doing so, I think back to all the other times that I had to record that information for other loved ones in my tree.

From one unique experience to another. There are names that I see over and over again on both sides of my family and by adding my son’s leaf, one of those names repeats itself for another generation. But the name we chose, especially the spelling, was a means to connect my tree and my wife’s tree. Our son’s name adds to that bond between our deeply rooted family histories.

While he certainly doesn’t comprehend any of this now, I look forward to the day when we can introduce our son to his entire family and the history that his name carries with it. Between the two trees, there is a complex history spanning much of the world. My family touches on many areas and different cultures and my wife’s family covers a completely different geography and part of world history.

Each leaf has a little more to add to the family history just as each piece of fall foliage adds to the autumnal landscape. All different trees offering a different variety of colors but working in unison to tell the same story. That is what our son has to look forward to and what I am looking forward to sharing with our son.

The Extras Are What Get You…

As you know, my days are full of work and other activities which translates to more work. With this schedule occupying most days of the week, sometimes the smallest addition can throw the entire calendar off kilter. What’s worse is when other things are put on my schedule that require me to either work from home or take the day off.

Lately, as you have read, much of this has been caused by issues in the apartment and the attempted wrangling of management and maintenance. While I am not the one that has had to actually fix the problem it has been a constant time suck over the past two and a half weeks with 5 minutes here and 20 minutes there. This of course is on top of the fact that it has put my wife and me in less than pleasant moods.

While it may seem like an odd time of year, taxes are also messing with the little time I have to relax as I have to submit local, state, and federal tax forms all stemming from the work that I do at the lodge. Keep in mind that the forms are not by choice but rather the quarterly schedule is required by each. Can’t wait until the end of the year when there is an additional stack of forms that needs to be filled out. Yay!

However, next week will be the biggest waste of time for the year as I must report for jury duty. Yes, I am most likely have to burn one of my vacation days driving to the court house in Norristown and sit in a room until they realize that they really don’t want me on a jury. This is after burning a little pocket of productive time filling out the questionnaire online this week.

Of course, the last gripe may be moot as I was honest in my responses on said questionnaire and unless their objective is to specifically waste my time and their own I should be dismissed rather quickly and that is if I have to show up at all. I really don’t want to burn a vacation day for this crap! But, for now, next week has a big steaming pile filling up my Thursday and all I can hope for is that the apartment will be done by then so that I am not returning to a three week cluster. One can only hope.