Going Political

The July 4th weekend is near. I'm going political.
Rule number 1 all countries must allow women to have the same rights as men and boys. I don't want to hear about the religion crapola. Religion is used by evil people as an excuse for them to stay in power. All the muslim and arab countries would chillout if women had the same rights as men and boys. That should be America's focus. Equal rights for women would change the world. Whoever objects - is evil.

Interest Rates Going Up?

We got our new house contract yesterday. Our lawyer is looking it over. We know we have to close soon. We are planning on getting a bridge loan. We've already been pre-approved. But with Interest rates going up it isn't good for us trying to sell our apartment next month.

For the past week or so I've been trying to not use my SSN on my company medical insurance forms. Since the company I work for outsources HR, I've had a very hard time. First I contacted my HR contact, who told me to contact the HR outsourcing company (named "myhr"), who told me to contact the insurance company, who told me to contact my real HR. After many emails I received a voicemail message from my real HR saying that they can do it but that my paycheck may be delayed.

The best part is they asked me to keep this confidential. (I'm guessing it's because everyone will want to have a special insurance number in lieu of their SSN and there are 1000's of employees in the US alone.) I'm in a bargining mood. I'll keep it confidential as long as they agree to change their policy by the end of the year.

Perhaps I can get promoted for my confidentiality and negotiating skills - NOT.

This is starting to get fun.

Our Apartment is a Mess and our Child is Not Happy

The whole burb thing happened sort of suddenly. In fact, we had just ordered new cabinets and appliances for our kitchen. I wanted to cancel everything and pay cancellation fees, but Paulo didn't want to. So we have an accepted offer with a closing in August and can't put our apartment on the market until the end of July. Not a great time to sell.

This morning I plugged in the toaster oven to make fish sticks for our daughter's lunch. This wouldn't have been such a problem except that the light in her room had to be on for the toaster oven to work and she was still sleeping.

Needless to say she was not a happy camper when she woke up. For the first time she was hitting and pushing me away. She went on a 30min crying fit and didn't want to be touched. I'm not sure what happened. She was the model child until this morning.

When I brought her to school I asked if something happened yesterday. They said she had a great day and she must be going through an early, independant two's thing (she's almost 21 months.) We know she's intellectually advanced for her age. The following things have happened
-she got the hitting and pushing thing from one of the children at school. I would have asked that child to leave months ago.
-her regular teacher is on vacation
-the substitute teacher uses the TV
-the apartment is a mess

It's her last week at that school. Hopefully our beach house construction will be complete by Friday so we can get out of our messy apartment into our messy beach house.

Back to the Burbs

Even though we have an excepted offer, today we went to look at two new houses in the same price range without the major fixer-upper headache. Our conclusion is that our property is the right decision for us. It's going to be a little difficult for a few years while we renovate. We had to factor in the cost of renting an apartment for one year and potentially needing a bridge loan when negotiating the purchase price. I wouldn't budge on our offer. Paul was ready to cave. He feared I would change my mind about the burbs. However, we are agreeing to their closing date.

I can't tell you how the market is doing. My gut tells me it's weakening. I'm a little concerned about selling our NYC apartment for a better price than the house. We will probably put it on the market in July. Not the best time of year. We have a lot of cleaning up to do and moving boxes to storage. I can't believe we actually lived like this for 4 years. Paul owned this apartment and I moved in a few months before we were married.

Increase your tax base scheme. It's called Preschool!

It takes me between 20-30 minutes to walk Aliza to preschool. It's another 20 minutes for her to let me go to work. It's another 30 minutes to work. In a few weeks we are sending her to a preschool in New Jersey. Paul works in NJ. He will now be responsible for dropping her off and picking her up. The cost for pre-school in NY is about $500/week. The cost in NJ is $200/week.

It's funny. NJ realizes that if they fund preschool more parents could go back to work. More people in the workforce equals more money NJ makes from income taxes and the more they make on sales taxes. So I'm not sure why New York hasn't figured out this money making scheme.

I'm a little nervous about school in NJ. I'm not going to be monitoring her progress. Aliza is not your average child. At 10 months she could poo on the potty. At 16 months knew all the letters. I started her at preschool at 18 months. Now she sings songs, paints, dances - but only goes potty at home or when she's alone with me.

To The Burbs

It may actually happen. After living in New York City on the upper west side of manhattan for 20 years I may be moving to the suburbs. I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe it's because my husband has too much stuff. Maybe it's the annoying preschool system. Maybe it's because I need a change.

We have an excepted offer on a tiny fixer-upper. I’ll keep you posted.