What's been goin' on

I realized yesterday that the only blog I'd looked at since last week was Logan's, so I spent some time reading all of yours. I'm not commenting, so as to be able to spend a bit more time getting caught up on my own life, but...

-Karen - I wouldn't feel bad about Chris. He's obviously a healthy kid, and if he's getting distracted, then maybe that's his telling you he's read to stop, too.
-Katrin - congrats on the apartment expansion.
-Jen J - I can honestly say that you're the first zoology major I've ever met.
-Sarah W - I know you didn't blog about it, and I know I said something on FB, but I'm sorry about Buster.
-Justin & Holly - I, too, get annoyed about blog-stalkers. Though sometimes it is necessary to censor what we write about because we don't know who's reading, we never would've met Katrin had Karen decided to password protect.

I think that covers the blog posters of late...

Things here are nuts, in both good and bad ways. First, the bad:

-Jacked up taxes, part 1: our condo development got a meeting Wednesday night with the Palatine Township Assessor to discuss our screwed up property tax situation. Unfortunately, nothing was actually fixed because the person from the Cook County Assessor's office who specializes in condos was not there. The Palatine Township collected our 2009 appeal forms and promised to set up a meeting with our development because the assessment levels are screwed up in such a way that they've never seen before. For 2008's taxes, we have to file a Certificate of Error, but I'm not sure it'll do any good to file before we have said meeting, because the assessment levels will not have been corrected.

-Jacked up taxes, part 2: aside from the assessment levels being screwed up, we have this issue of the Special Service Area (SSA). The SSA was created so that the Village of Palatine could lend the developer money in order to make improvements to the property so that the conversion from apartments to condos could take place. At closing, I signed a piece of paper that said I agreed to pay $600 a year for 30 years to help pay back on the SSA. Well, somewhere along the line this all got screwed up, too. Most people in our development paid over $1,200 in 2009 (2008 tax year). It's not a separate item on our taxes, so now I'm worried that we didn't actually even pay into it in 2008. The developer and the Village are involved in some major finger-pointing on this one.

-Jacked up taxes, conclusion: my feeling is that things are so screwed up that I'm not sure they'll ever be fixed. If nothing is fixed within the next 6 months, I think that we'll have no choice but to foreclose. Sure, we could take out a loan to help cover the taxes for another couple of years until Trey has a more normal job and our income level goes back up. What I'm not willing to deal with is the long-term loss on the investment. I'd rather cut my losses now, rent for another decade, and deal with the credit score repercussions for a few years, then buy something when and if we find it.

Work has been insane this week, and will probably continue to be nuts until about mid-July, so I wasn't able to follow-up on Wednesday's meeting this week. I guess that'll have to wait until Monday. The good thing is, if I can get enough work done this afternoon, I may have enough time during the day Monday to actually make some phone calls.

Now, the good stuff:

-Agreement: Trey and I are in agreement on the foreclosure idea if it ends up coming to that. It actually makes the situation feel not nearly as bad knowing that we feel the same way about it. We met a bunch of other people in our development at Wednesday's meeting, and it also helped us feel better to know that there are plenty of other people getting screwed, too. :-)

-The weather: Wednesday and Thursday this week were beautiful - low 80s, even down by the lake. Thursday I was really stressed out and had female issues going on that ibuprofen was not helping, so I carved out an hour for lunch and went for a run along the Riverwalk and part of the lake between the river and Navy Pier. The Riverwalk is one of my favorite walks in the summer, but I think that run was one of the highlights of my week.

-Funny baby toys: I got Logan a little toy piano thing, planning to give it to him as part of his Easter "basket" tomorrow. Well, I'm glad that when I was bringing it in to the house, I managed to keep bumping the Demo button, because I discovered the thing plays melodies that are horribly out of tune. There's NO WAY we can give this to Logan. Some of the toy's tunes are so bad, they made me laugh so hard I was crying. For all of you musicians out there, imagine Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with a slightly raised 6th and 2nd, with a ostinato going on underneath that's about a 1/4 step away from the key the melody is in...like Charles Ives arranging nursery rhymes. It plays other tunes, too, some of which are worse, but you get the idea.

-Good music: Wicker Park Choral Singers had our spring concert last Saturday, which now ranks up there as one of my most memorable concerts/music moments ever. The music was all about the transitions from evening - twilight - nighttime - morning, but obviously there's plenty of symbolism in there, too. There were definitely some intense emotional group things going on for a while, something I think is truly amazing and that makes me respect all of the others in the group that much more (sorry that sentence was grammatically stupid, but you get the idea). Coming up next weekend and the following weekend is CCC's Grounded: Songs of Our Majestic Earth.

-Flower day: each year right around the first day of spring, our building's management group hands out daffodil buds to us as we're coming in to the building. By the end of the day they've usually started blooming, and by the end of the week they're smelling great. I love that week.

Ok, enough for now. I really do have to get back to work, and it would be nice to try and clean my house a little before going back to church - Easter week is always busy, and this year's no exception. Sacred Heart is actually just finishing up with a renovation project, and the installation of a brand new pipe organ, making things more nuts. The formerly 1 1/2-second delay that we didn't have to worry about at all during construction is now about a 3-second delay, making things challenging for the cantor. Luckily I was off the hook Thursday night and Friday, but I am cantoring both tonight and for one of my two masses tomorrow. But, when I'm done it'll be time for mimosas. :-)

I may be quiet again for the next couple of weeks, but I promise to keep reading your posts. Happy spring to everyone, and Happy Easter (or belated Passover) to anyone who celebrates!