Monday, August 31, 2009

"What IS a note?"

This is what I got from the bank teller after asking for one.

ME: "You see, we are buying a house and our loan officer is asking for the note on our car loan."

[imagine bank teller's long blank stare here]

HER: "um, I guess I don't understand what you are asking for."

ME: "I'm assuming they just want a look at our debt. Maybe if you could just print off something that shows what we owe on the car??"

HER: "Let me call someone". [dialing "someone"] "yeah, this is blah blah blah....note....blah blah blah. HAHA...yeah I didn't know either, that's why I'm calling....blah blah blah....She wants to talk to you"

[hands the phone to me]

ME: "yes?"

PISSY PHONE LADY: "I have no idea what you are talking about....blah blah blah".

[enter MY long blank stare here]

ME: "I am repeating word for word what our loan officer is asking of us. If you work at a bank and don't know what a "note" is, how the heck do you expect ME, a mere middle man in all this, to know what it is I'm asking for??????"

[more useless conversation here about how stupid I am and how I could possibly have the nerve to come to a bank as ask someone to copy off SOMETHING that shows I owe money for a car, and if we should call the president to find out if he can help us define this NOTE]

3 bank people and 10 minutes later...

GIRL #3: "um yeah, we'll have to call you back on this".

[I'm pausing here, quite in disbelief and almost laughing]

ME: "ooooooooooook."

[20 minutes later...]

Hubby calls me, they have the "note" ready for me to pick up at the bank. COOL, I was hoping to go back there! Maybe we could open a bottle of champagne and celebrate cracking the code on the elusive NOTE.

So I go pick it up, all sealed away in a pretty little envelope with our name spelled incorrectly. And I drop it off at Microsoft where Andreas can fax it over to our loan officer and tell her that she better drop the word "note" from her vocabulary altogether.

ME: "Let's open it and see what a note looks like."

We're thinking it looks like the red and white promissory notes in the LIFE game. Come to find out it's just a copy of the paper we signed at the dealership.....and I have one of those in my car. DOH!!!!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

First days of school

Hanna and Eden are LOVING their new school. They were pretty nervous the first day (especially Eden) but when I picked them up that first afternoon the first words out of Eden's mouth were "that was AWESOME!"...so the jitters went away quickly.

Eden brought home an award for being super good in class the first day. The teacher spelled her name really funnily: Skjerseth which is supposed to be Sivertson. WHA? It was good for a few laughs.

I'm not super crazy about driving them to school and picking them up. 25th Street is under some construction and that means it's down to 1 lane per side. That area is busy during school pick up and drop off the way it is, and the lack of a couple lanes makes it even more crazy. Another week and a half and they can walk to school...YAH!

Not sure how much longer I'll be driving Andreas to and from work. Unfortunately he has to take his ND driving test (written and behind the wheel) to get his license back. What....did he somehow forget how to drive over the past year? Dumb. Whatever. And of course his green card is packed away with our sea shipment that will get here who knows when. And he can't take the test without it. GAAAHH. He was told he could drive temporarily on his Norwegian license for 6 months or something like that but if you know Andreas, you'll know how particular he is when it comes to that type of stuff. He would prefer to just wait to drive until it's absolutely as legal as it can get. Now that I'm every one's personal chauffeur on top of chef and maid, I'm thinking of asking for weekends off ;)

Of course there are some people who still like to think that stay at home mom's don't "work". Oh we work alright, we just don't get paid! [step on soapbox] I read that out of the top 10 jobs that have you overworked, homemaker was number 3. (nurse and teacher were numbers 1 and 2) And I personally know 2 former teachers who gave up their jobs to stay at home with their children. That to me is just as commendable as being the provider. In the end we're all just doing what we can for our kids, that's what it's all about. [step off soapbox]

I forgot to mention that Emma is FINALLY potty trained. It happened about a month or so ago. She is dry over night and has very few "asskidents". There have been a couple times that she has stripped down to her birthday suit, gone out on the balcony and peed. Thank GOD there is no one on the deck below when she's done this...haha. Other than that and an extreme fear of auto-flushing public toilets, she's good. And in the case of the auto-flushers we've come up with a solution...mom has to sit on the very back of toilet with Emma in front. Goofy, but it works most of the time. Maybe we should invent a two-seater toilet?

Enough babble, now look at my beautiful children!!



Friday, August 28, 2009

Who has the new feature-length Futurama movie "into the wild green yonder"????

WE DO!!!!

Who da geeks??

WE ARE!!!

And just to prove it, I shall go to the new Microsoft company store and purchase the coolest sweatshirt I will ever find. A simple black zip up hoodie with one word across the front: GEEK.

Monday, August 24, 2009

New house and stuff

After searching Fargo for the "perfect" house that fits our needs we have finally found it! We are all SO EXCITED to be in our own space again. We close on September 9th (assuming the appraiser can squeeze us in by then - they are quite busy lately).

Today we are meeting the inspector there and I am going armed with my camera so I can shoot some of the inside for you. I'm looking forward to seeing it again - planning where our furniture will go and which rooms need to be painted and such.

Tomorrow we are getting our air shipment from Denmark after having to deal with customs for weeks. Man, I never realized what a stink they would make over a few foreign bought DVDs. It's not like we bought 500 of them! Anyway, apparently our sea shipment has arrived in Minneapolis and is awaiting clearance from customs also. Hopefully we'll have furniture to fill our house by Christmas.

We went to the airsho on Saturday. Had SO MUCH FUN, I wanted to go again on Sunday. Luckily we were able to see a little from our balcony. (and we got to watch them practice last Friday) I am totally just amazed at the skill of those pilots. I get goose bumps all over when I watch them. I could watch them every day for the rest of my life and never tire of it. Maybe I should have been a pilot. There's still time I guess :-)


Friday, August 21, 2009

swing and a miss

Andreas took himself out of the running for "husband of the year" award today.

Call me sensitive but I think this is an attempt at a compliment gone bad....VERY BAD.

Ready for it. K, here it is...

Andreas: "Your legs are looking unusually thin today"

Me: "Um......thanks?"

OK.....two things here. You'll notice the word "unusually" in that sentence. Which leads me to believe that USUALLY, in my husbands eyes, my legs are the opposite of thin. Gigantic, fat, blubbery....the list could go on forever. And second, what the HELL was he thinking?

Perhaps he likes celibacy.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Hey Fargo, hot enough for ya?

Sheesh, we've all been whining about not having a summer....well now we have one!

You know it's hot when....

...the birds in the park come in "original recipe" or "extra crispy" www.joke-archives.com
...you spill McDonald's coffee on your lap to cool off (Fry - FUTURAMA)
...your kids won't go out to play even when bribed with a new iPod
...you go to the beach in a bikini and don't care who sees
...you start dipping into the kids' college fund for air conditioning bills

You know you're insane when....

...you are outside jogging in this heat!!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Total Chaos

I've been neglecting my blog since moving back to the US and I feel HORRIBLE. No, not really cuz I doubt anyone reads it anyway.

It has been such a whirlwind adventure the last year. Once we are in a house I will have lived in 6 different apartments/houses in the span of a little over a year. (5 for Andreas) C-R-A-Z-Y!! I am super excited to get in my own space with my own things again.

Right now we are living in a furnished apartment in Osgood just a street away from our old house while we find a house. I have seen TONS of houses in the past two months. Hopefully the search is soon over. Andreas is back to work in the fabulous new Microsoft building in Fargo. I have yet to see the inside but I hear it is KILLER. Now I am spending the days pacing.....

We are still waiting for our air shipment. It is taking quite a while to clear customs. There was some issue where we ended up having to list EVERYTHING in the boxes, what we paid for it all, what we bought here and abroad....kinda hard when you have other people pack for you. Plus I wasn't there during the packing process so I was of NO help trying to remember what was in there. So, we still have very few personal belongings. And our sea shipment is scheduled to arrive at the end of August (and who knows how long it will take THAT to clear customs).

Needless to say I am antsy to have a normal flow to life again. We all long to be settled and in a routine again. Hopefully we will have a new address to share with you soon.