pyoor_excuse | Another bad decision

I increasingly feel like every decision we've made regarding housing and property in the US is bad. Our land is a fucking disaster area that's sucked up half our money and is like some albatross around our neck that we can't sell. Thanks Thurston for that shit.

Our house is turning into a complete pigging nightmare. Our contractor actually seems like a good choice, at last, but he's small fry in a pool of bigger fish, I suspect. Why? Because our possible truss delivery date has gone from the mid-end of November to January.

I've called an additional 7 truss companies (on top of the 3 local ones he called) - and as we move further away, the cost for shipping gets insane, but so far the only place that could actually get them to us quicker is in Texas and would add $4500 on for shipping.

But the problem of the trusses means that:
- Ideally we should be doing windows after trusses, which means trying to do windows in January.
- We miss the deadline for a bunch of rebates that expire in December, meaning we're possibly losing an additional few thousand dollars because we won't have heating, or electrics installed and working by the end of the year.
- We're stuck paying mortgage on a house we can't live in.

So this is all fucking depressing.

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Wow, there is a lot of pain there. You have my sympathies. It seems, though, like you're generally making progress, even if it's slow, circuitous, etc., and like there is an other side on which you will land.

Thanks...

Yeah, yesterday was a pretty crappy day at work and I've still not quite got over some feedback I got* a while ago. Add to that the spiraling shititude of what should be a simple project spiraling into an unaffordable mess and I'm feeling pretty low.**

* which lacked specificity making it impossible for me to know what I was / doing wrong or whether I've managed to fix it.

** I don't doubt that I'm also missing the make-believe England that has so utterly disappeared from reality that I can't even find it in myself to believe any part of it really existed.

This sort of thing is such a nexus of our lives, values, and work. Like, what could be more essential than house stuff, than where you live, and your ability to have agency within and some measure of control over your environment? It's easy for it to be incredibly discouraging.

Yesterday I made about 30 phone calls trying to get some basic paperwork for our car that no other car would (1) need; nor (2) have a hard time getting. The most helpful person (not to say the most kind) was someone who just straight up offered to forge it for us, at a hefty price. (Not necessary; worst case our auto body guy can get a reproduction for a tenth of the cost.) I'm trying and failing to wrangle a contractor for the things the buyers want done to our house. All the houses we liked are now sold or under contract, so I'm worried I won't be able to find a place to buy after we sell. I can't be home (whatever "home" is) for the next four nights, even though I really want to be.

All of the other miseries in my life are amplifying those and getting projected onto those. I'm working 14 hour days so I feel like I have some control over outcomes in my life. I'm dropping things that matter on the house by getting more fixated on stuff about the car.

We spiral when these kinds of things are at stake.

You're badass and are cutting your way through all of these very hard things, and you will make it wherever you are going.

It is astonishing how unsteady a few simple things can make you feel. I keep trying to remind myself that I have a good job, in a place I mostly like*, with good friends around me. Our (rented) house is warm, and we have a place that one day will hopefully be a decent place to live.

I should really stop whinging. But both Kathryn and I were talking yesterday, and it's just that we both feel weary. It's been over a year of fighting and it really feels like we've made very little progress except to fritter away the money from my dad** on houses we can't live in and land we can't build on.

That said, today I'm off to the city to plead our case about the windows (and correct a mistake on my elevations, I missed a small window off the side).

Hopefully you've managed to make some progress on the car. It's always insane when bureaucracy seems to get in the way of something that instinctively makes sense - if that's what it is. I've been reading through Elspeth Beard's travels round the world, and her frustration at her experiences in India of being redirected to the wrong person to get stamps on documents that don't exist or aren't appropriate feels terribly familiar...

* before the whole vague feedback thing I was a hell of a lot happier.
** which puts a whole different level of guilt on things.

Edited 2017-10-30 15:23 (UTC)

*hugs*

Non-specific critique is *horrible*. It throws you off and sends you looking at the negative without giving you anything to work on. I'm sorry.

Yeah. I thought about politely bringing it up with the doctors, trying to find out something more specific, but I've not quite managed to find the enthusiasm to do that. Instead, I just feel vaguely resentful and question every decision.

If you're going to complain about someone, you should have something specific to complain about.

*sigh*

That's the thing. When you get criticized in that particular way, it removes all your motivation to actually address it. It's a morale killer. :(

The thing is I do actually want to address it, because I'm quite proud of being good at my job. I got offered a senior position in the ER in the UK after less than a year working in that speciality. It's one of the few things I actually have a fairly reliable sense that I can do.

So this is not good for my confidence.

*hugs* I understand that. You're marvelously competent at a wide range of things -- good person to have around during the collapse of civilization -- but imposter syndrome is a bastard.

Don't know if it helps, but the person delivering unhelpful vague critique might be bad at hard conversations and have thought that vagueness was protective. And most people react pretty well to an honest "I've heard someone is having some sort of issue with me, and I'd really like to know what so that I can work on fixing it."

Of course, some other people are assholes, so *shrug emoji*

Still, to find some positivity, today we are seeing our contractor again and we're getting a quote for insulating the place.

Huzzah!

And? Are things moving forward at all?

Uuuh. Maybe.

We're waiting on an actual final (rather than ballpark) figure from our contractor.

Insulation wise we can afford spray in the walls, but sadly not in the roof. Which is kinda depressing, but better than not being able to afford it at all.

However, the roof date has now slipped to January, and we've just found out that Jeld-Wen windows are probably as crap as we thought they might be, so we're trying to find a not-more-expensive alternative that still meets our spec (not vinyl, casement, specific sizes, appropriate E value).

Another bad decision

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