Tales of Mortgage Mommy

...and another day in court

2008-06-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Spent half of the day in the lovely Family Court. What a huge let down. I spent a year preparing for my case and the judge started by telling me that I had done an amazing job of presenting arguments which were very convincing and compelling. He even went on to say that I did a better job than most attorneys at providing evidence and making my arguments. Then, he lowered the boom... He said that even though he could clearly see that there was enough evidence in my arguments to agree that my ex was not telling the truth about his income, he was still going to grant his motion to reduce his payments. Great. I guess it does pay to lie.

So that is it for this round.... next round, Sept 30th. We'll see what happens then.

Just Another Day in Court

2008-05-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Court. I hate going to court. Nobody looks like they are having a good time there. I know I certainly don’t. My ex-husband, aka ‘the Ex’, and I have been at it on one particular issue for a year now.

We have had our hearing postponed 7 times as of today! 7 times! Now, we need to go back in two weeks because we didn’t request a ‘pre-read’. I guess our case is so hard to understand that the judge refuses to hear our sides until he has had plenty of time to read everything and it’s our job to remind the court to ask the judge to read the file. That’s how it works.

To request one of these things, you have to call the right number and get a hold of just the right clerk. They don’t make that easy either, you have to call only between the hours of 9:00am and noon exactly three days prior to the scheduled hearing. When you call they ask questions that do not make sense to me and they cannot tell me what they mean, either, so I just make it up as I go and hope that the judge will figure it out. The other option is to spend literally 10 hours in the law facilitator’s office to ask a question. Sometimes, when they are too busy, after waiting to ask my question for 10 hours, I’m told I will have to come back. Being too poor to pay for an attorney really sucks.

When I could afford it, I had great attorneys who took care of all this stuff. I had an attorney for my business on retainer, and then I had an attorney during my divorce. But nowadays, it’s just me on a wing and a prayer.

One cool thing happened on the way to court, early this morning. I was walking down the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building and there was this gardener trimming the edge of the grass. When he saw me passing him, he stopped his week-whacking so I didn’t get sprayed and, in Spanish, he asked me how I was today. I was a little stunned that he was speaking to me and I stumbled in my response that I was well, thank you (ahem, in Spanish, of course). He told me I looked very beautiful, also in Spanish, which I think sounds so much better. I beamed. I thanked him. That certainly doesn’t happen everyday and definitely picked me up. Very cool. Thanks, Downtown Guy With the Weed-whacker!

A New Beginning

2008-05-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

A New Home

I finally found a new home today. Six months of looking to get here. Six months of searching Craigslist for a house, like an addict jonesing for a fix. There are too few houses on the market with far too many displaced families looking to fill vacancies. The competition was unbelievable. With only days to spare, my search is over, and I signed my 12 month lease today on a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1700 square foot older home, in a very nice neighborhood. Does it have a pool, or air conditioning? Uh, no. But it does have a very sweet landlord who decided to take a chance on me. I didn’t know how much more rejection I could take.

He told me that in 24 years of owning and renting this house out, he had never seen this many people come through looking for a rental. Just yesterday, three separate people who looked at the house, also lost their homes in foreclosure.

Yes, I have to move because I lost my house in foreclosure. I still find it hard to believe. The bank who now owns my home gave me until the end of May before turning me out. I was almost to the point of placing all my things into storage and renting a small apartment in a less than desirable part of town. When I bought this house I thought I would be here until my kids graduated from high school, at least, but life has an interesting way of changing my plans.

My journey to a new home has been grueling, even ugly. I can’t remember how many days involved tears of despair. I heard it all, no foreclosure applicants, no children, no dogs. One landlord literally wanted two years worth of paystubs even if you no longer worked for that job (wha?... who keeps those?...). Another one said they didn’t count income from unemployment, child support, disability, or any kind of assistance program. Another wouldn’t take an application if I didn’t have a land based telephone number. But, mostly I was just simply told that they had thought about it and decided to rent to someone else. Despair, and rejection ensued.

I was so desperate that I even made a rental application kit which included:

Pictures of me and my family
A thorough list of my extensive commercial lease history since I’ve never rented residential properties before
My exhausting credit explanation letter
Character reference letters complete with photos of each person
A 'dog resume' detailing the training and accomplishments of my 10 yr old golden retriever,Cody
I actually asked for and included letters from my neighbors to say what a good neighbor I’ve been! ... how humiliating

I was ready to add letters from my college professors and my straight A transcripts. I couldn't help remembering the scene in Forest Gump where Forest's mom cared so much for his education that she slept with the school principal to keep Forest from being expelled. I might have resorted to this if I thought it would have helped!

In the past, if I wanted to rent a building or a property I just told the leasing agent what my terms were. When I purchased homes I always had the down payment and financing done on my terms, well in advance. No begging necessary. I’m not used to being denied what I ask for. This is a hard way to live. I hope I don’t have to live like this for too long.

I haven’t told my kids yet. They will be very sad to move and leave their schools and friends behind, but, it’s a new beginning.

Have Your People Call My People....

2008-05-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

Teresa was great. She would not only do the laundry, but she would cook, clean, take care of the kids, and take care of me. We would sit and have coffee every morning and chat about the drama in our lives. She knew every gruesome detail of my life and she cared. She always seems to know just what to do or say to take care of me. The fact that my Spanish was only understood by Teresa, and that she didn’t speak a lick of English didn’t matter, because we got along wonderfully, anyway. We garbled and gestured and laughed and cried the years away and that was how I lived.

I not only miss Teresa, but I miss all my people. There was Rafael, my maintenance and gardening guy who lived on the property in separate quarters, along with Teresa. Rafael was a wizard at not only fixing things, building things, and tending to the property needs, but he was an artist with the Christmas light extravaganza every year. Rafael could do anything! He constructed new buildings, made riding trails for the horses, played with the kids, drove the tractor and the ranch truck, and took to the property tasks with absolute finesse.

Then there was Christina, my personal trainer, who helped me set up a gym at my house with all manner of cool work out equipment. Christina would show up like a drill sergeant twice a week to order me around, work on me, weigh me, give me nutrition advice and gossip while I worked out (I couldn’t speak much since I was always out of breath.)

Amy, an accomplished horse and riding trainer, worked on my ranch. She trained and worked my beloved horses, Fancy Flirt, a jet black Tennessee Walker, and Miss Cinder, the most gentle and well trained quarter horse ever, and Blondie, our spunky palomino pony. She taught us how to ride, jump, show and how to get back on when we fell off, which happened quite a lot for me.

Jennifer, my nanny, would take care of so much, she even did my banking! She helped with homework, shopping, activities, especially during the summer. Jennifer helped me keep up with parties, the kid’s sports, competitions, and their social lives. Every day bustled with activity and my people helped me tremendously. So much so, that over time I became dependent on them to keep it all together. But, now all of these people work for me no longer. They and the horses are not part of my daily life anymore. So much has changed.

There’s no way for me to do all these things today because I’m consumed with doing what ever is necessary just to survive. I’ve fallen from the heights of my privileged life and it seems like a very long hard fall. I’m convinced I’ll never make it to the bottom, because I’m pretty sure it’s the fall that kills.

As if my life contracted leprosy, I now wake up each morning, opening one eye, then another and wonder what part of my life is going to fall off today. The end is near. There isn’t much left of what used to be my very nice life. I didn’t say happy life, but it was very nice, none the less. Things didn’t start out, for me, with security and wealth. Oh no, I definitely was born without that silver spoon, or much else. That came later and what a ride it has been!

Well, here goes...

2008-05-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

Tales of Mortgage Mommy

Laundry Crisis

“Mom, do you have any socks?” my 12 yr old daughter asks innocently. I grimace. I don’t want to answer. My eye drifts to the pile, the one that keeps getting bigger. The pile has grown so tall it has fallen over. Twice. And that’s just the pile in my room. There are others.

I’m 42 and have never done my own laundry, but, more on this later. So here I am, over the last 7 months, struggling to figure out how to do laundry and, at the same time, trying to teach my kids how to do theirs. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

I’ve committed every wardrobe offense known to man. I have turned socks inside out, pulled dirty clothes from the bottom of the pile and put them through the ‘smell test’, I’ve reached into the depths of my closets, pulled out and, yes, I daresay, gone out in public wearing clothes from the 80’s. I’ve worn clothes more than once, ok, more than twice, ok, more than, well, you get the picture. Not pretty. I have mixed whites with colors. Pinks ensued. I thought hot meant cleaner. Shrinkage ensued. I have a perpetual pile o’ socks and various clothing odds and ends that I’m not exactly sure what to do with, so I just keep adding to it with each new generation of washings. I’ve gone out with mismatched socks and not like two unmatched white ones, more like any two socks that didn’t have holes, ok, even the ones that do have holes. I’ve gone without socks. It seems that every flat surface of my house has some form of laundry on it. There are just too many sins to recount.

I really had no idea just how much work goes into something as ordinary as laundry. I’m ashamed to admit that I took it for granted. My clothes would just show up clean and pressed everyday in my closet and bureau, smelling of wonderful fresh spring flowers. But not anymore, I’m afraid. This is hard work, and I hate it. Teresa, oh, Teresa, how I took you for granted.

I miss her dearly. But, before you get all weird thinking I’m about to describe some ‘chick-on-chick’ action you should know that Teresa wasn’t my lover, she was my housekeeper. She was with me for 14 years, and Rosa, Teresa’s sister, was with me for four years before that. 7 months ago, she had to go away along with all of the other luxuries I enjoyed and, apparently, took for granted. I still keep in touch with Teresa and her family, but I no longer have the pleasure of looking forward to all of the wonderful things she did for me, like laundry.

...stay tuned for tomorrow's post...here's a preview: I not only miss Teresa, but I miss all my people. There was Rafael, my maintenance and gardening guy who lived on the property in separate quarters, along with Teresa. Rafael was a wizard at not only fixing things, building things, and tending to the property needs, but he was an artist with the Christmas light extravaganza...