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For Better or Worse!"Life is hard. After all, it kills you" Katherine Hepburn
May 06 Time to put my big girl pants on......I promised I would be by to catch up with all of you, this week, and so far, that hasn't happened. I'm not gonna say the "b" word, but I've been dealing with a full plate. And it just seems to keep getting fuller. I had my annual review last week. Went pretty well. Could have gone better. I got a raise, although I asked for a bigger one. My boss listened to my reasons and said he would see what he could do. In the meantime, he wanted me to take on more work. Hmmm.....ok. I was trying to make the point that I already carry a full load - although I feel like I'm paid for 3/4 of a load. So....
Then I've been dealing with two deals in real estate. The first, the buyer was scheduled to close, only to find out from the lender - 2 days before closing - that the roof would have to be replaced before closing. The lender had previously told us we could close and hold the repair money in escrow until the roof was completed. So....seller wasn't happy, buyer wasn't happy and neither was I. It is the last time I will use this particular lender. Everything had to be postponed and a huge favor had to be called into the roofer to get the job moved up. The second couple drove me to drink.......more! I have shown them a home that is listed at $339,000. I have been back to this house, with them, no less than 496 1/2 times - before they've even made an offer. I understand. $339,000 is a chunk of change and takes careful consideration. But how many times exactly to we need to measure the living room? Hmmm? I promise if it was 14 x 16 the last time we were here, it's gonna be the same size this time. Really. Anyway....."Can we go back?" they keep asking. And in my best real estate voice I say, slightly high pitched, "Of course we can." I did a market analysis for them and told them the house was worth $315,000. They stroll into my office last Monday (4/28) to make their offer. How much, you ask? $275,000. No, I didn't punch them. I wrote it up and then convinced them, that since I was their agent, they could tell me what their top dollar was and I couldn't tell the seller. I owe them strict confidentiality. And I keep that with all of my clients. Even the ones I want to choke sometimes! Their top dollar? $295,000. Jiminy Christmas people! I get them to at least increase their offer to $285,000. I present it to the listing broker - totally red-faced and apologizing. When the seller was presented with the offer, he wanted to tell them to go f...... anyway, he was a little peeved, to say the least. The listing broker got him to at least counter back at his bottom dollar. Do you see the work us "overpaid real estate agents" do to get people who want to buy and people who want to sell to work together?? He comes back at $314,000. Them? They come back at $295,000. I take that to the sellers agent - again apologizing. She comes back and tells me her seller isn't budging 1 cent off of his last counteroffer. And I don't blame him. But I can't make my buyer realized that. And really, the value is in their eyes. They're the buyer. I can tell you what it's market worth is. I can't tell you what value you see in it. That has to come from you. So.....maybe this isn't the house for you. Let's move on. They think he doesn't want to play the game? What game? There's no real estate game people. Really. There isn't. The seller lists their house at a price. You look at the house. Hopefully you employ a competent agent that can make sure you don't overpay for the house. Then you make your offer based on what you feel. If you can't come to a meeting of the minds - move on.
In the other meantime, we (as in me - because my boss wants me to step up to the plate) are looking at writing an insurance policy for a huge construction company (Really Big Concrete). Their premium is about $650,000 a year. This translates into about $65,000 more in income for our agency if we write it. (It also translates into my boss being able to pay me what I asked for if we can write it) We are a small insurance agency. We're an independant agency. So, we're not an Allstate, or a State Farm. Instead, we write for several companies. But they have to appoint us to be able to write for them. Being a small agency, it's hard to get large insurance companies to appoint us to write for them. Insurance companies typically want you to place a large volume of business with them within the first year of being appointed with them. Have I lost you yet? Well, grab another glass of wine. Pretty soon this will be as clear as mud. Hang with me here. Because I'm going to tie this whole blog entry into a not-so-neat package - and then maybe you will be able to see why I haven't been by to play catch up with you all.....This construction company (Really Big Concrete) we are going to write the coverage for, is being bought out by a construction company (Superhumungous Concrete) that we currently insure. And have insured since 1958. The construction company (Really Big Concrete) that is being bought out, it insured through a carrier (Giant Mountain Insurance company) that we have wanted to become appointed with for years. The buyout is occurring on 6/1. We have to have the new insurance in place by that date. So....I'm working like a madwoman to get the applications completed to get a quote through one of our carriers for this $650,000 account. BIG, BIG account to us. Did I stress how big it is?
Monday comes. The roof is complete for the first buyer I told you about. We were scheduled to close on Tuesday at 2:30. The seller had also repaired the fence that had blown down in the last windstorm. Woo-hoo. Happy dance. Yippee! The game-playing buyers came by my office and wanted to make a counteroffer of $305,000. What part of $314,000 is his bottom dollar did they not understand? I smiled, sweetly, biting my tongue in half, and said I would present their counter to the sellers agent - knowing full well that there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell that this would fly. I am still working on the applications for the construction company. We don't have an appointment with the company that writes them, and it would take more than a month to get appointed with them. So....we have another insurance agency, in a bigger city, that does have an appointment with this company and we can send the piece of business to them and then split the commission. It's not $65,000, but 1/2 is better than nothing.
Go home Monday night exhausted. Really. I'm nervous about this construction account. I've never written anything of this size.in.my.life! Want to make sure I cover all of the bases.
Tuesday (today) I go to work. Tell my buyer to go by the house, before closing and make sure the fence repair was done to her satisfaction. Resume working on the applications for the construction company. Kicking this thing around in my head about how I wish we were appointed with this carrier (Big Mountain Insurance company) so we could keep the whole commission. I get a call from selling broker on the other deal I've been beating my head against the wall about and she says her seller is still firm on the $314,000. Imagine that! Call the buyers and relay the news. They say fine, they want to move on. They want to look at another house that's priced $350,000. ??????!!!!!! Effen, sonofa, effen, effen geezzz !!!!?????? Mind you, they've since told me they want to stay around $300,000. Well then people, we need to be looking at houses that are priced up to $310,000. Not houses that are priced $50,000 over what you're willing to pay! Right? Makes sense, right? But they still think there's a game out there to be played. Well, I don't feel like playing anymore. I tell them I'll "call them back" - later, much later...... Supposed to close at 2:30 on the other deal. Buyer calls at 2:10 and the gate that is supposedly fix, wouldn't open and fell when she pushed on it! Ask her how much it would take to compensate her for the gate. She doesn't know, but she will get back with me. She calls me 10 minutes later and says the neighbor said this house has a history of mold problems and the plumbing backs up! WTF??? WTH??? Shit! We're supposed to close in ten minutes. This ain't gonna fly. I said the seller's property disclosure statement does not say anything about this. Let me get with the selling agent. What do you want to do? She's headed to the title company to close. But she wants to be able to come back on the seller if any of this is true. I'm stuck. Really. I can't let her close, until we find out what's going on. Because once this thing closes, it's hers. If it does have plumbing problems, or mold - she's gonna sue me. And really, I don't want to be sued. I meet her at the title company and have her sign her papers and tell the closing agent not to record the deed until I tell her to. This deal may not go through. Take the buyer back to my office and find out the "neighbor" was the former tenant of this house. He tried to buy the house and couldn't qualify. He and the seller hate each others guts. But, I still can't dismiss what he said as just a disgruntled tenant. If I get drug into court a year from now, I have to be able to explain all of this - and I'm not sure how to do that. So.....we have the seller - put in writing - what happened with the tenant and state that what the tenant said wasn't true. As I'm typing up this disclosure form, the buyers that want to play games call me. They want to accept the $314,000. And want to talk - for awhile. I have a timeframe that I have to get this disclosure signed by or this buyer is going to have to pay more interest to close her loan tomorrow.
Fun, fun, fun. Then I think of an idea. Because I don't have enough on my plate and I'm a nutcase, basically. What if I go to this big insurance company (Giant Mountain Insurance)- that we are dying to write for - and explain to them that we have a construction company (Superhumungous Concrete) that we've written insurance for - for all of these years. This company is purchasing a company that Giant Mountain Insurance company currently writes coverage for. Since we have a strong relationship with Superhumungous Concrete that is buying the company I'm working on the applications for, they will purchase their insurance through whomever we recommend. Now if Giant Mountain Insurance company appoints us, we could recommend that the buyer of the company keep their coverage with Giant Mountain Insurance company. And everyone wins. GMIC keeps the $650,000 account. We get our full commission and we have more business we could place with them. Also, since the construction company that is buying the other company will have common ownership, we will have to combine the worker's compensation accounts. So, I could commit to writing at least an additional $300,000 with them. Make sense? It does in my head - at least. And when I passed it on to my boss, who is on vacation, it made sense to him as well. And that is what he was talking about when he said I needed to step up to the plate. So....tomorrow - I have to finish dealing with the real estate deal that went south today and convince a major insurance company to appoint us - oh yeah, and I need them to appoint us in less than 30 days.......So, I'm sick at my stomach. It's late. But I can't sleep.
Really, now I'm going to go by and play catch up with all of you. Then when I screw everything up tomorrow, I'll have something to blame it on! My blogging addiction and all of you!
I feel better. How 'bout you?
Say a prayer. Please. Say two.
To be continued......(to steal from Kat) (Geez Kat, I wish you were here. I could use your business sense woman!)
SNJ May 02 Where was I?Ok, where did I leave off? Ummm, oh yeah, desserts, prom, dealing with mothers and a pornographic looking cake for a 12 year old.........see what you've been missing? Where to start first? Well, I'd better start with prom, or Motherhen will kill me. She's been hounding me for photos. And well, like I said, I've been busy. The morning of prom, started out with all us "mothers" getting together to decorate the place for the dinner. I don't need to hash it all out here, but some mothers do not work and play well together. No one got in a fist fight. So, I'd say all-in-all, it went pretty well. After the decorating, I went home to
Pretty huh? Unfortunately, it wasn't very pallete pleasing (nice way of saying it tasted like shit.) So, I reworked the filling and made it again.
This one was the way-too sweet chocolate cake. Just didn't cut it. So.....I came up with these as the final product:
The chocolate shell was a little difficult to unmold, but it turned out pretty neat. I should have dusted the white chocolate mousse with a little cocoa powder, but......anyway. I replace the originally planned macadamia chocolate torte with this luscious chocolate raspberry cake. The tart raspberries balanced the sweet-sweet chocolate. I pureed some raspberries and tried to dress up the plate like the real chefs do. Unfortunately, since I'm not a chef, it just kinda puddled.
So, desserts were all made. Tux was picked out, paid for and arrived on time. Corsage was ordered. The kids got all gussied up and started to arrive. Look at the little buggars. Aren't they just gorgeous?
These girls were gorgeous!! Gorgeous, I tell you! Wally's girlfriend is the second, from the left, in the pink. What a beauty, eh? But my favorite dress? The third girl from the right. I mean if you saw pictures of me from 20 years ago, you would swear that was me. Ok, I wish I looked like that 20 years ago. I mean I loved this dress! And that hair and get a look at those brea....anyway.
The boys were pretty handsome too!
Wally is the one on the right. Aren't they so cool in their shades??
I thought Wally and his girlfriend looked great! I know I'm biased, but really, is it just me? Or is he just too damned handsome! And her? Look at that beautiful smile! And he's manly enough to wear pink, for his girlfriend, of course!
And then these kids made a toast - to their parents. Thanking them for putting this all together for them!! **Sniff**Sniff**, I love these kids!
And here's the boat ride:
This does not resemble a guitar, now does it? I almost cried. How the heck was I going to transform this cake that looked, well a little
Well, I decided to I think HE can read my mind and I am totally embarrassed, if he can. Beaver helped me too. He's a wanna be rocker. And guitar hero has finally paid off. He had lots of ideas (and no, I didn't tell him what I thought it looked like!). Ta-da!!!!
So the twelve year old was happy. And now, we all lived happily ever after! I'll be by sometime this week to visit everyone's blog and play catch up. More later, April 22 Yeah, I'm so busy, whatever.......I really, really am this time. I'm not faking it or whining, just for the sake of whining. I'm really, really busy and stressing! On the slate for this week: 2 baseball games - I actually like baseball this year. I haven't had to keep score and I get to actually watch Beaver play. He's out of his batting slump and has made several outs in center field! He pitched last night. They put him on the mound when we were down. They didn't score anymore runs on us and we actually came back! BUT - the game starts at 6:30 and last night it didn't end until 9. By the time I got home and had supper re-warmed, it didn't leave much time to work on the desserts for this week. 1 guitar cake for nephew's birthday - While I'm trying to get stuff ready for prom, my niece leaves me a message that she needs a really big favor. Could I make the cake for my nephews birthday? Sure, when? For this weekend. The weekend of prom. When I'm trying to get stuff ready and finalize desserts. I'll get it done though. I may be decorating it at the ballfield, but I'll get it done! So I don't have time to play with y'all this week. But photos and lots 'o stories next week! Oh, and the dance performance? I can't even begin to describe it. I am in total awe of my son! The girls were beautiful dancers, but the boys? They stole the show!!! More later, Chocolate-covered June April 18 Smiles everyone, smiles!
I remembered to buy a tape for the camcorder and was all set to record the performance on Saturday. I was very proud of myself for remembering to actually buy a tape and not be all "last-minute" scrambling around trying to find a tape, wondering which tape I can record over, like I usually am. I was prepared!! And get this, I even charged the battery. FULLY!!! And just as I was about to think that I really had a chance at being "the" dance mom, it was made pretty clear there ain't a chance that that's gonna happen. One of the moms asked me if I was going to the dress rehearsal. Wally had already made it perfectly clear that "none of the boys' moms go". (Apparently they're grouped - boy dance moms and girl dance moms) So, I told her no that I would be going to the Saturday performance. (I was also forwarned that the Saturday one was better than the Friday one. And it was the one to go to) I thought this mother would be pleased that I knew which performance to attend. But no, her face got this all confused look on it. "But when are you going to videotape him?" she asked me. "On Saturday." That's when her head about spun off her shoulders. Her whole voice changed.
Well, ok then. Calm down, sister. I'll tape him at the rehearsal. I was going to go ahead and tape him at the rehearsal and Wally found out. He said one of the teachers makes a DVD that's edited and looks really good. And then....he sells them to the parents. Wowza! Good idea. Because, quite frankly, my videotaping skills are a little shaky. Problem solved. Or, so I thought. I was talking to another mother. She asked me if I was going to tape the rehearsal. I told her I was buying the DVD. And I got a look from her. What now? She said, "Well that's fine. I guess. The DVD is nice. BUT..." Oh geez, don't say but. "But, they film the whole dance troop. So, you're not guaranteed a close-up of your son." Well what the hell kinda mother would I be if I didn't have a close-up. So I tromped my butt up there last night and videotaped him. Even took my tri-pod so it wouldn't look like I was riding a rollercoaster as I taped him. And in true so-not-June fashion, I taped all of the breaks in the show and not the show!!! Can you believe it? I was hitting pause and thinking I was recording. And hitting record when I thought I was pausing. I figured this out about half way through the thing!!! I'm surely not going to be in the dance mom club now. Thank goodness the girl he is dancing with has a mom with her shit together. She took still photos and emailed them to me. Doesn't he look so excited? Smile, son......... Your momma is!! (they look so good dancing. He's the one on the bottom,sitting down. His dance partner is sitting next to him and his girlfriend is the one over his left shoulder. Cute, huh?
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