Well, it's been busy, all right. I see that I haven't blogged in some time. Does this mean the blog is going comatose again? Maybe. I'm not promising anything.
However, an update for those one or two readers out there who may be wondering--I'm realistic about my blog traffic--after stops and starts too numerous to mention, I am basically settled into my new home, with a little minor unpacking still to go. It is not the original home I picked out, as that one ended up with lots of inspection issues. The home I am in needed a new roof and some HVAC work, but the seller was willing to pay for most of it. I actually like this house better than the other one, too. The roof has been replaced, but the HVAC work is still in progress. It is supposed to be complete on Saturday. Luckily, it still cools well enough in the meantime, because last month was by far the hottest this city has ever seen. 30 of 31 days hit 100 degrees or higher. I thought I was living in Texas, not Phoenix. We are also in a terrible drought, which makes the fact that my new house has only front sprinkers mildly annoying. But rain may be in the forecast for this weekend, so we'll see.
Also, in case anyone is mourning my forlorn status alone in my new house, I'm seeing plenty of my kids. H has been a bit difficult to deal with, but I think we are slowly settling into a routine. I like that I get them every weekend, since that is most of the time I have off in any case. Also, despite my forlorn status, I have managed to go on a date and had a lot of fun. We will be seeing each other again soon.
Well, I've been asked to substitute teach the gospel doctrine class in my new ward on Sunday, so I really should get back to preparing my lesson. The regular teacher is very smart and well-prepared, and I haven't taught adults anything but legal compliance anytime recently. But at least I have spent enough time teaching over the years that I don't have to worry about being nervous. I just wish I knew more names of people in the new ward. I'm not great with names.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Busy week
It's very time consuming to get divorced while writing the documents yourself, selling a house, and buying two others. Also since my last post, H backed out of the new house, went back to her original choice, got an inspection and found out it was garbage, and now again wants to make an offer on the house I mentioned in my last post. There are a lot of houses here that have foundation problems from soil heave caused by the high clay content, which makes the soil expand and contract according to the moisture level. It's the only place I've ever been where when a drought comes, instead of telling you to water less, they tell you to water your trees more, and to water your foundation. It's funny to me, being from the West.
Anyway, my inspection on the new house is scheduled for Monday morning. I won't post pictures, as it seemed to jinx me last time.
I have also had a busy week finalizing the divorce papers. I had to make an extra trip to the courthouse and rewrite quite a bit of what I had done--not for substantive reasons, but for technicalities. That was always a problem I had when I did litigation. It can be fun to catch the other side on the rules, but it seems that so many cases turn not on the substantive merits of the case, but on procedural jots and tittles. Anyway, after much work, the papers now seem to be in order, so I just need to wait until the judge, who will be out for a bit at a judicial conference, can sign them. But I think I can pretty much stop writing about divorce papers and proceedings now.
Anyway, my inspection on the new house is scheduled for Monday morning. I won't post pictures, as it seemed to jinx me last time.
I have also had a busy week finalizing the divorce papers. I had to make an extra trip to the courthouse and rewrite quite a bit of what I had done--not for substantive reasons, but for technicalities. That was always a problem I had when I did litigation. It can be fun to catch the other side on the rules, but it seems that so many cases turn not on the substantive merits of the case, but on procedural jots and tittles. Anyway, after much work, the papers now seem to be in order, so I just need to wait until the judge, who will be out for a bit at a judicial conference, can sign them. But I think I can pretty much stop writing about divorce papers and proceedings now.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Dilemma solved (hopefully)
I think the Lord knows it's sometimes hard for me to make decisions. That is why, I seem to struggle with options for a long time, then have all but one foreclosed to me. It turns out that the newer home in the same ward is under contract to someone else. Meanwhile, H has likely decided to buy a different house that turns out to be in the other ward I was looking in. Problem solved, hopefully. We'll see what happens with contract negotiations and inspections, but I visited the house again this evening and felt like it would be a good place to be.
Meanwhile, it looks like our buyers might back out. It's unclear whether they can't perform or are just letting us bribe them out of the contract, but our other buyers are still eagerly waiting and hoping to buy the house, so even if we pay the first buyers 5k not to buy our house, we come out roughly 15k ahead and have a more solid buyer that is able to close. There are so many moving parts, it will be a miracle if I make it through the next month, but when I do, things should be much more stable. I'll be writing up a written offer on the new first choice tomorrow. It's also got 4 br and a gameroom, same square footage as the other, but a floorplan I like better, and manages to squeeze in a small office which could double as a guest room or nursery if needed.
It also has great landscaping, with a lush, verdant, private courtyard in front, and a patio and multilevel deck in back. I just wish I had my dad's magical green thumb to care for it. Truth be told, though, a good chunk of my dad's magical green thumb is called hard work. I don't think anyone outside the immediate family--and maybe not us either--has any idea how much time he spends on his yard. He hosted a wedding reception for a cousin last month. I hear it was wonderful, and I know she was very gracious and grateful. However, since most of us see his yard as always beautiful, she may not realize he generally spends hundreds of extra hours making sure everything is as perfect as possible each time he agrees to host one of these events. He's a good man. But maybe just a touch obsessive about his perfect gardens. :-)
Meanwhile, it looks like our buyers might back out. It's unclear whether they can't perform or are just letting us bribe them out of the contract, but our other buyers are still eagerly waiting and hoping to buy the house, so even if we pay the first buyers 5k not to buy our house, we come out roughly 15k ahead and have a more solid buyer that is able to close. There are so many moving parts, it will be a miracle if I make it through the next month, but when I do, things should be much more stable. I'll be writing up a written offer on the new first choice tomorrow. It's also got 4 br and a gameroom, same square footage as the other, but a floorplan I like better, and manages to squeeze in a small office which could double as a guest room or nursery if needed.
It also has great landscaping, with a lush, verdant, private courtyard in front, and a patio and multilevel deck in back. I just wish I had my dad's magical green thumb to care for it. Truth be told, though, a good chunk of my dad's magical green thumb is called hard work. I don't think anyone outside the immediate family--and maybe not us either--has any idea how much time he spends on his yard. He hosted a wedding reception for a cousin last month. I hear it was wonderful, and I know she was very gracious and grateful. However, since most of us see his yard as always beautiful, she may not realize he generally spends hundreds of extra hours making sure everything is as perfect as possible each time he agrees to host one of these events. He's a good man. But maybe just a touch obsessive about his perfect gardens. :-)
Saturday, July 23, 2011
More homes
I saw about 15 homes yesterday late afternoon and evening. It's been great to have the stake primary president showing me homes, because she understand my situation and also knows something about the different wards where I've been looking. I have narrowed it to two homes.
One is a new house that is zoned to a different high school but is in the same ward, which is good and bad, since there are very few kids the ages of my older two. The other is zoned to the same high school, which will be quite a bit more convenient for early morning seminary purposes when we cross that bridge, but is in a different ward. It has more character and I like it better, despite the fact it's not new. It's been well taken care of and is not a cookie-cutter home. It's actually in my Realtor's ward, which I understand has more kids the ages of my older ones. We may check it out tomorrow morning.
H, sadly, seems to be abruptly done with LDS church services. She's going to two different churches tomorrow, one an independent, megachurch she's visited a couple of times with a friend, and the other a "gay friendly" church she heard about from some lesbian acquaintances. I've been wrong plenty of times before and wish her no ill at all, but I just don't see how H looks back five years from now and thinks her life is better than it was, say, a year ago. OTOH, I think my life will improve immediately as soon as the divorce is final. Hmm, never thought I'd make that statement. :-/ But I'm confident I'll be okay; I am at heart an optimist in nearly every situation.
One is a new house that is zoned to a different high school but is in the same ward, which is good and bad, since there are very few kids the ages of my older two. The other is zoned to the same high school, which will be quite a bit more convenient for early morning seminary purposes when we cross that bridge, but is in a different ward. It has more character and I like it better, despite the fact it's not new. It's been well taken care of and is not a cookie-cutter home. It's actually in my Realtor's ward, which I understand has more kids the ages of my older ones. We may check it out tomorrow morning.
H, sadly, seems to be abruptly done with LDS church services. She's going to two different churches tomorrow, one an independent, megachurch she's visited a couple of times with a friend, and the other a "gay friendly" church she heard about from some lesbian acquaintances.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
$700 wasted and well spent
I got the inspection report back on my new house today. It looks like I may need to keep looking. The engineer identified numerous problems with the house that need correcting, several of which are pretty major. So, unless the seller wants to make significant repairs, and I'm guessing they don't, I'll need to keep looking. I'm back to square one a little bit. I'm looking at places in an adjacent community but still the same ward. They are quite a bit newer, lower maintenance, and much more energy efficient, but smaller and with higher taxes and HOA dues. I'm going to keep negotiating with the sellers of the other place, but looking at more houses tomorrow with my Realtor. She's been great and is also the stake Primary president, so she can also tell me about wards if I end up in a different one.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Deliberate practice and chess
My negotiations professor used to stress the importance of deliberate, reflective practice as a way of developing expertise. One of the examples he used was of chess grandmasters. It apparently takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve preeminence in chess. But, it can't be any type of practice; it has to be deliberate and reflective. That is why we had to keep a negotiations journal where we would reflect on our experience and make improvement plans.
That's why I found this article from one of my favorite blogs interesting:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/20/what-chess-tells-us-about-the-value-of-perception/.
I dabbled in chess back in the day and was my high school's chess club president. I won a few amateur tournaments in my ratings brackets, but my ELO rating never broke 1500, let alone approached the level of expert or master. I believe part of the reason is because I enjoyed playing chess as a game, was pretty successful against players in my own chess club, and was satisfied with that. I would sometimes try different openings, but I didn't record my games, seriously study chess strategy, or otherwise reflect on my performance. As a result, I plateaued relatively quickly and thereafter made but little progress.
Grandmasters, on the other hand, can recognize up to 10,000 common positions and know how to play them out, but if pieces are placed randomly on the board, they do no better at remembering the position of the pieces than non-players. It is the recognition of past patterns and knowing how they fit into the broader context that gives world-class expertise in chess and many other fields.
In other areas of my life where I have tried to apply deliberate, reflective practice, I have seen more rapid learning and less of a plateau effect.
Incidentally, I believe one reason personal journals in general can be a good idea is they can make life itself deliberate and reflective. If you keep a journal, or even if you are just thinking about your goals, ask yourself: What do you want? What are you doing to accomplish it? How is that working for you? If results are not as you'd like, what might you do differently to achieve what you most desire?
Yep, this is sort of a non-sequitur for this blog, but I'm nothing if not varied in my interests, plus I wanted to write about something more upbeat than my current struggles.
That's why I found this article from one of my favorite blogs interesting:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/20/what-chess-tells-us-about-the-value-of-perception/.
I dabbled in chess back in the day and was my high school's chess club president. I won a few amateur tournaments in my ratings brackets, but my ELO rating never broke 1500, let alone approached the level of expert or master. I believe part of the reason is because I enjoyed playing chess as a game, was pretty successful against players in my own chess club, and was satisfied with that. I would sometimes try different openings, but I didn't record my games, seriously study chess strategy, or otherwise reflect on my performance. As a result, I plateaued relatively quickly and thereafter made but little progress.
Grandmasters, on the other hand, can recognize up to 10,000 common positions and know how to play them out, but if pieces are placed randomly on the board, they do no better at remembering the position of the pieces than non-players. It is the recognition of past patterns and knowing how they fit into the broader context that gives world-class expertise in chess and many other fields.
In other areas of my life where I have tried to apply deliberate, reflective practice, I have seen more rapid learning and less of a plateau effect.
Incidentally, I believe one reason personal journals in general can be a good idea is they can make life itself deliberate and reflective. If you keep a journal, or even if you are just thinking about your goals, ask yourself: What do you want? What are you doing to accomplish it? How is that working for you? If results are not as you'd like, what might you do differently to achieve what you most desire?
Yep, this is sort of a non-sequitur for this blog, but I'm nothing if not varied in my interests, plus I wanted to write about something more upbeat than my current struggles.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Another offer? and more
Both our original and back up offers seem determined to close on the house if possible, but now a couple who could have had the house a few weeks ago say they want to make an offer. I suppose I should be hoping the original buyers back out, since the secoond buyers have a good offer and we might even get a bidding war. But, I confess to just being tired out from it.
Last night, H and I had some good friends over to help us mediate outstanding issues. It seemed unfruitful at first, but I think has led to a different approach for co-parenting that will work better and allow for lots of contact at the times that are most important to me. I expect we will have something court-ready in the next couple of days. Technically, since we are pro se parties, we are required to have a court-designated volunteer lawyer stamp the papers, which should be very straightforward, since we should finally be in agreement. Once that happens, it will be done except for the judge rubber-stamping it. If it's been reviewed and agreed by the parties, the judge will not change it absent fraud, etc., but there are only a few hours a month when the judge handles this type of matter, so while it will really be done, it will take another week or two for the decree to actually be entered. It's sad, yet liberating, after so much pain. I feel I've done my best to keep a level head through this process; I haven't been perfect, but I have no major regrets.
You are free to choose your actions, but you are not free to choose the consequences that flow out of those actions, a theme that appears over and over in the Book of Mormon.
Last night, H and I had some good friends over to help us mediate outstanding issues. It seemed unfruitful at first, but I think has led to a different approach for co-parenting that will work better and allow for lots of contact at the times that are most important to me. I expect we will have something court-ready in the next couple of days. Technically, since we are pro se parties, we are required to have a court-designated volunteer lawyer stamp the papers, which should be very straightforward, since we should finally be in agreement. Once that happens, it will be done except for the judge rubber-stamping it. If it's been reviewed and agreed by the parties, the judge will not change it absent fraud, etc., but there are only a few hours a month when the judge handles this type of matter, so while it will really be done, it will take another week or two for the decree to actually be entered. It's sad, yet liberating, after so much pain. I feel I've done my best to keep a level head through this process; I haven't been perfect, but I have no major regrets.
You are free to choose your actions, but you are not free to choose the consequences that flow out of those actions, a theme that appears over and over in the Book of Mormon.
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