Waiting for Bank of America and not making mortage payments

Still no word from Bank of America. I'm just not going to hold my breath anymore. I was before because I was still making my payments, but there is no turning back now. I've already spent a big portion of what would have been our mortgage payment this month. I bought the family new glasses. This week I'm getting some shit lasered off my face. Next week I'm getting an exhaust leak and an oil leak fixed on my truck. The week after that I'm buying the family passports, and after that we're all getting our yearly cleaning/checkup at the dentist.These are all the things we've been putting off because we couldn't afford to get it done.

I think I deserve all of the above things. We aren't getting any attention from B of A by paying our mortgage, so in order to get our modification I'm not making payments anymore. I don't mind wrecking my credit.

If you're just joining me, and judging me, please note that I would still be able to afford my house if not for the banks wrecking the construction industry. The horrible lending practices of the banks ruined 2 of my businesses, so I'm trying to get a little relief in the form of a modification.

I was feeling bad for deciding not to pay the mortgage, but then I got over it. It's my money and I decide where it needs to go most. If I can get a 6 month repreive on my mortgage payments and catch up on everything we've been falling behind on the past few months, then I'm going to take advantage of it. If the modification comes back good maybe we'll stay, or maybe we'll move. Only time will tell.

It's hard to not make plans. It's hard to not know what we are going to do, but we're going to ride it out and see what happens. Either way we will be okay. We still have great income, just not enough for this big freakin house.

With the extra money I'll be able to put some of it back into my rug business which has been sitting in the background getting ignored for lack of funds. This could very well work out as a good thing if it gets everything up and running smoothly again.

Time will tell. I'm trying to be patient this time.

Spring Breakin' It

I'm not going to rant and rave about Bank of America this week. I'm on spring break. We're watching movies. I'm reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm spending money.

I'm going to have a kick ass weekend. I'm going to see a waterfall in Sedona. I'm going to a four year old's birthday party at the gymnastic center and if I'm really lucky my dear husband will bring home a bucket of chicken tonight.

Good Livin!

Personal Advice on Home Loan Modifications

Okay this is some crazy shit.

First of all Jowanna Hill is on vacation all this week. I still did not get a phone call or e-mail from her at all last week.

Secondly.. I got a letter in the mail on Friday saying that we are not elegible for the loan modification. Pretty much the same crap I was told 2 weeks ago by some lame customer service rep that freaked me out.

I called Luis this morning and was told yes Jowanna is out of town and yes I'll have to wait until she gets back. there is nothing that can be done. I started freakin out about how this process is working and he just told me to try and be patient and to ignore the letter I got in the mail last week. He's a great guy and an amazing customer service rep.. Do ya hear that B of A? That man deserves a raise. He has the patience of a saint.

So then later this morning I called one of my friends to see what was up with one of her rental houses and she proceeded to tell me her long drawn out story with B of A.

Brace yourself.......it took her 10 months to get a loan mod with B of A and she still doesn't have her final docs. She also told me she didn't pay her mortgage for 10 months waiting for the loan mod.

I feel like such an idiot for writing those huge checks the last few months. My kids had a less than stellar Christmas so B of A could get their money. We haven't vacationed in almost a year because of B of A.

Needless to say I will not be sending in a payment this month and I wish someone had been able to tell me this stuff a long time ago, but I guess I just wasn't asking the right people for advice. I'll give you a piece right now.... Don't listen to B of A when they tell you to keep making payments. my friend told me she didn't get any attention from them until she stopped paying.

So we sit and wait... some more. Only this month we are going to have money. I already went out and bought the kids their spring time shoes to replace the old ugly winter ones. We went down to the zoo for the day on Saturday and spend an extra $100 (that's the extent of our spring break festivities), I scheduled an appointment to get those ugly skin tags removed from my face, an appointment for me and my son to go get new glasses, I spent over $50 at the grocery store this week ($125 to be exact), and I might even schedule dentist appointments for us all since we are 6 months overdue on our teeth cleanings. That's the kind of stuff we have been giving up to pay our mortgage payment, but no more. I'm going to take back control until they decide to give us a new payment.

Suck that Bank of America!

FUSD Budget Override Hell YES!!!!!!

I know I'm a snob when it comes to education. I went to one of the best highschools in the entire country and got a free, although priceless, education at the above school. University Highschool in Urbana, Illinois. It is a laboratory highschool on the campus of the University of Illinois and across the street from one of the greatest engineering campus' in the world. All kinds of crazy insane shit was invented right across the street from where I was learning Calculus.

It is a school where kids learn the basics of Literature, Math, biology, chemistry, history, debate, and two years of language is required. When I was there they even offered Latin and Russian besides the usual fare of German and French.

I love this school more than any place else in my life where I spent parts of my childhood. We were treated with respect. We were gifted children and we were given freedoms that most highschoolers only dream of. We could sign ourselves out for the day if we were feeling ill and take the public bus system home. We didn't need to wait for a parent to come and get us. If you were advanced enough you could take classes on the University Campus. We even had a student lounge filled with ratty old couches and beat up stereos that was ours for whatever we wanted to do with it. Mostly it was filled with kids studying for a last minute exam during their free periods. That's right I said free periods. When I was a senior I had 3 free periods on some days. Of course I was a good girl, but that didn't keep me from sneaking out during those long days to my boyfriends house to make out for hours on end. But I loved that I had the freedom to do it. I love that I was trusted enough as a young adult to be given the chance to prove myself as the responsible adult I was going to become.

Money and funding is not what made this school great. It was the students, the university, the faculty, and the parents who made it great. Teachers are still here from when I was in school 17 years ago and they had been there years before I got there. They don't stay for the money. They stay because they know that what they do makes a difference. They know that they are providing one of the best highschool educations in the  US. I am so proud to be an alumni.

But where are you going with all this Emily? Well I'll tell you.......

Tax payers voted this week in Flagstaff to approve a budget override for the FUSD schools and I am estatic. There is nothing more priceless than  a good education. Yes it costs money. Money that even old people and people with no kids have to pay to fund the schools. But for some kids the one stable thing in their lives is their school. Shutting down schools, eliminating art and music classees, rezoning entire districts, sharing books, and having kids sit on the floor during lessons is not ever an answer to a budget crisis.

To all the ugly old childless people waving signs on the grass in front of City Hall I say shame on you. Do you even know what it is like in schools today? Do you know that you are not hurting the teachers, the state budget cutters, or the politicians. You are hurting the kids and only the kids by trying to cut the school budgets.

Sure there are things that money could be saved on. Yes they could have more efficient building maintenance programs. Yes teachers could work for a little less money. Yes we could stop buying library books. But in the long run saving money won't help anyone. It's only money and education is priceless.

I had evidence of this this morning when I was talking to a mom with three young children who told me she hadn't read a book since highschool until the Twilight books came out. I tried to laugh it off. Some people are readers and some are not, but still, really? She had never wanted to learn anything new since she graduated from highschool and reading books was no longer mandatory. She had never been curious on a subject and wanted to learn more. She had never wanted to pre-read some of the books that her 10 year old was reading in school.

Her high school? Why of course I asked. She went to a huge 4000 plus student body highschool in Phoenix. I'm sure she never even had an option of getting a good education. She took the public option and it has failed her in more than one way in her adult life.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have parents who care about our educations. She obviously was not one of the lucky few.

I know I have options for my children besides public education, but I shouldn't need them. Public education should be just as good if not better for the amount of money that is spent.

My graduating class size was 32. Did it make a difference. Hell yes. I am one of the smartest people I know.

See I told you I was a snob.

Jowanna Hill Where Are You?

Yes I put her name in the title of this post. Maybe she will Google her name someday and my little blog will pop up and she'll read it and see what it is like to be on the other end of her unanswered phone calls.

It's been four days since I got little Miss Jowanna's phone number. I've left 3 messages and sent her e-mails and I have yet to hear back from her at all. All I would need is a one line e-mail saying, 'I'm working on it', some kind of acknowledgement of her being my negotiator.. something to satiate me, but no I've got nothing.
I even e-mailed my old friend Luis and told him to go on over to Jowanna's desk and see if she's dead, on vacation or in the hospital with rabies or some other debilitating disease that would keep her from returning phone calls.

It is driving me mad.

Then I decided to call our 2nd mortage company and see if they would be able to do a modification for us as well...... that's another 3 month process.... and they have to have the numbers from the first mortgage modification. The CitiMortage guy even suggested that I 'keep calling Bank of America and push them to finish up thier modification' I laughed out loud at that one.

This isn't what I want to spend my days doing .This isn't how I want to spend my life, worrying over whether or not my family will have to move this summer. I don't want to have to troll Craigslist everyday looking for an affordable rental that will hold my family of five and our five cats. I want to know what the hell is going on. Bank of America is holding our entire lives in their hands and they don't give a rat's ass. Jowanna Hill doesn't seem to give a rat's ass either. This is our life. We have to make plans and know how to move on with our lives if we lose this house.

Winter Lament

So we have had over 130" of total snow this winter season. Officially more than anywhere else in the United States this year, and it blows.

It is March 9th. School started late this morning and then I had to pick the kids up early from school since the bus would not be coming thru my neighborhood during the blowing snow. It has been like this since November and I am so over it.

There is over 5 feet of snow on our upstairs deck that we have yet to shovel off and it keeps getting higher and higher, so high that it is starting to block the views out of the windows.

My dear husband has been trying to deliver packages all day and will be exhausted but will still have to try and snow blow his way into our 200' long driveway when he gets home.....in the dark.

It's too much. This will go down in our history as the worst winter we've ever experienced and it even beats that horrible winter in Vermont with no garage, no friends, and no heat.

It's cold. We're tired. I want to wear sandles. Little Mia wanted to wear a sundress so badly this morning that we made it work with tights and layers over and under her dress with sparkly sandles over her socks.

I'm ready to implode. I want to beg the sunshine to come here and just melt everything and flood the place. As long as it's sunny and 65 I don't care how deep the water is. My toes need to breath. I need an excuse to shave my legs.

It's just too much. So much that I don't think I want to spend another winter here and suffer through another winter on a mountain.

Loan Modification Update #1,734,565

My love affair with Luis is over.

First of all he let me down today. When I talked to him last he said I would have an answer by today. When he called me just now he said the only thing that was accomplished was that a negotiator had been assigned. He told me Monday it would only take 2-4 days to get it finished up. It took 2-4 days to get the negotiator. He also told me that now that I have been given a negotiator he is out of the picture. Now I am supposed to just only contact her.....Jowanna (otherwise pronounced Joanna. I'll try not to hold her parents' horrible spelling against her) instead of calling Luis.

Lies Lies Lies. I'm sure he had the best of intentions, but everything I am told seems to take weeks longer than it is supposed to.

So now I sit and wait for Jowanna to call me. I have her direct e-mail and phone number and since Luis conveniently called at 4:30 pm Pacific time and Jowanna is on the east coast I cannot call her until Monday. Another week of waiting and wondering. Every week I think, "this is going to be the week", and every week I am disappointed.

Oh and my shitty attitude yesterday....... the stomach flu, a 24 hour bug, food poisoning, I don't know what to call it, but I am almost ready to eat solid food tonight for dinner after 2 days of Gatorade and Saltines.

Until Monday. Now I'll keep my fingers crossed that we get a loan mod by our April 1 payment after having started this process the first week of December. RIDICULOUS!!

Frosty Therapy

Still no word from Luis and my negotiator yet. I should hear something today or tomorrow.

I was feeling so good last week and this week seems like a let down comparitively. Maybe because it's crappy out today with the wind blowing and a snow threatening sky, or maybe becuase I ate too many Lucky Charms this morning, or maybe becuase I completely ruined my good leather purse this morning by inadvertantly putting a water bottle in it without the lid screwed on tightly. I don't know, but I'm not feeling it today.

I'm tired of my good weeks and horrible weeks. I would like just some good even uneventfullness with maybe a good vacation in my future to look forward to. These violent ups and downs and stress related to the house are taking their toll on me.

I had to dye my hair again yesterday becuase all of a sudden there were gray hairs everywhere. I used to look so young for my age and now I think I'm acutally starting to look like I'm going to be 35 in a few months. My eyes are starting to get those tiny wrinkly lines under them and I'm so washed out I have to color in my eyebrows every morning or else I look like I have no eyebrows.

I've never been a high maintenance girl, but as I get older it's really starting to take longer to get ready in the morning.

Maybe what I need to do to perk myself up today is to go out and buy a new purse. Nothing makes a gal feel better than shopping right?

Fuck it. I'll just roll with the crappy day and see where it takes me. Right now I think it's going to take me to Wendy's for a Frosty and a little cheap retail therapy at Kohl's to look for a new purse.

Dave Navarro Eye Candy

I'm not usually a big fan of PETA, but this is making me drool.


I love me some Dave Navarro, mostly because this is what my husband would look like if he had hair and tats. He does have the nipple piercings and the rock hard body though, so I'm not missing too much with Dave.

I just thougth I would share a naked rockstar with you guys.

ENJOY!

The Home Loan Negotiator

Luis and I had a nice long chat yesterday afternoon. We went over my new and revised household financial worksheet, tweaked a few things so that we were not quite so negative. We went from -$1460 per month to -$1000 a month. (We cut my littelest one's preschool for next year)Luis thought this would help us so that the bank didnt' have to give quite so much on their end.

Apparently the banks are required to take the monthly mortgage payments down to 33% of your income and still leave you with an extra $200 a month. For us this would mean that with taxes and insurance our mortgage payment would have to go down to about $2200/ month, of which B of A would only get about $1800. That is a $2,000 a month reduction from what they are currently getting from us. Luis was unsure if the -$1400 would fly with them, but felt much better about our $1000 deficit.

He submitted our revised info and told me that he would get the file assigned to a negotiator yesterday afternoon. Once is has been assigned a negotiator it should only take about 2-4 business days to get a reply. What that reply is I'm not sure. I don't know if that means we get the breakdown on Friday, or we just get to go over all the info again with the negotiator. I have no idea and Luis wasn't super clear when explaining it to me.

I'm am really starting to understand this process more and more. Not a damn thing will happen until you are assigned someone like Luis and you are assigned a negotiator. Everythign else was just a stall to get to this point.

Another interesting thing that I discussed with Luis is that the bank could come back and say that they will take the payment down and require us to stop paying one of our credit cards. Let's say that my minimum credit card payment is $500 a month. In order for me to qualify for the MHA program I'm about $300 off in one of my categorys as far as income and expenses. B of A could come back and say..... look we can make it fit but you have to cut $300. How about you stop paying your Visa bill and then it will all be peachy?

Seems a little strange to me, but we'll see how it works out.

We're waiting again, hopefully only until Friday.