Batting .500

Which is not the worst stat in the world, I know. But frustrating all the same, when things were really looking good.

The Good: The play went very well last night. The kids were cuter than the dickens, of course, and this crew is a particularly strong group of singers. There's always a few things I would change (more time to work on blocking, for one), but I'm more than pleased with what we staged last night, and the kids were ecstatic...so there you go.

The Not-So-Good-But-Will-Go-Away: After an entire winter with no colds whatsoever, I managed to get the latest upper respiratory infection that's going around. At least it's not pneumonia, which I've had twice and don't care to repeat the experience. And I'll have a nice quiet weekend to recover, because...

The Really Crappy and There's Nothing I Can Do About It: Not only did I not close on my house today, it is questionable that I will end up with this house at all. The mortgage company decided last Friday that it wanted a second appraisal, because the house is a flip and it's being sold in less than six months of original purchase. Now, they've KNOWN about this all along, but didn't bother to alert anyone to this necessity until a week before closing, rendering the closing impossible. I could deal with that; delays happen with regularity, I'm told. But this appraisal came in well under both the seller's appraisal (which I thought was a little high, but that's me), and my appraisal (which I thought was quite fair). Therefore, they will not finance the mortgage for which I've already been approved. And seeing as the seller has proven himself to be less than generous (he refused to replace a $250 screen door, for pete's sake), I don't see him dropping the price of the house to a point where they will finance it.

Needless to say, I am bitterly disappointed, and frustrated, and very unhappy about the rooms full of boxes that I've been living around for the past several weeks. We are trying a few other options (trying to get the underwriters to move up, trying to get the seller to move down, I have a little more that I can put down now, possibly a different lender) but I have to admit I don't have a good feeling about this. If this isn't to be the house for me, then it isn't. I just wish it was something I had a modicum of control over...or at least there was a person I could call at the mortgage company and yell at. I never have liked feeling so helpless.