The latest news is that we’re moving to Texas – the Corpus Christi area of [...]]]> We’re rarely updating our family website… it seems, for now, facebook has replaced it.  We are, however, continuing to post photos on Flickr, which is link to our family site.  So click the flickr link to see our latest photos.

The latest news is that we’re moving to Texas – the Corpus Christi area of South Texas, on the Gulf.  I accepted a position at Texas A&M-Kingsville heading up their sport management major.  Thus, our five years in Buffalo will come to an end this summer.  We have greatly enjoyed our time here and the friendships made.  In many ways, we hate to leave. We’ll always be connected to this place though, our first house was bought here in Buffalo.  Two of our children were born in Buffalo, lots of milestones in our family here.

But this move will bring us closer to family.  We haven’t had that in Buffalo.  And at some point, one just arrives at a place where s/he is missing family and longs to be near them again.  There’s just no price tag that can be placed on being close to family.  I wandered around the country for years, expanding his education and experience, and just enjoying the journey.  It was great.  I love the places I have been, the experiences, the people, but I’m ready to come home.   Be home.  Have my family close.  Really ready.  And it looks like now is the time.

So we’ll move to Texas this summer, probably toward the end of it – August-ish.  And we’ll start a new leg of our journey, a new chapter in our book, etc.  We’re excited about it, even as we’re sad to leave the old leg, the old chapter, behind.

On my list of things not quite up to holiday worthiness – moving a week before Christmas.  Yep, [...]]]> Christmas is just days away and the kids have been counting it down. We’ve squeezed in some fun holiday time over the last few weeks – from sledding to making rock candy, baking and decorating gingerbread houses.

On my list of things not quite up to holiday worthiness – moving a week before Christmas.  Yep, we moved out of our Orchard Park townhouse this last Thursday and out to a duplex in Elma.  We’ve got acres upon acres behind house out here and are enjoying the country setting.

And in truth, I must admit that the move wasn’t unanticipated. I mean, we had to give 30 days notice to the OP property management group.  We knew we were moving this month.  We just didn’t expect it all to come together right before Christmas.

We were reminded this week though, after about day 3 of the move… just how much a move costs.  Not only is it the monetary cost of a new deposit (while the old one is still being held by the other landlark), but another month’s rent, the Uhaul truck, miscellaneous little things to purchase (some curtain rods and blinds, etc.) –but there’s also the physical and mental cost.  Whew, were we spent!  I mean, our feet ached.  Our bodies hurt.  Once again we were reminded of muscles we didn’t know existed… and of course we had nice 23- and 19-degree days to load and unload in.

But then again, if we didn’t do this, what stories would we have.  Everyone uses that ol’ uphill both ways in the snow line… but c’mon… get original.  Hey honey, lets see if we can move a week before Christmas and still put up a tree, and have Santa find the new place.  If the kids were older, they’d have been sweating it.  But at 4 and 3 (the 16-month old doesn’t yet have opinions on this topic, or so I’m told), our kids blindly believe, quite simply, that Santa will find them.

Now isn’t that an amazing thing?  Yep, the little buggers teach me about faith all the time.  We’re moving, and packing, and stressed and tired, and are my kids saying, “oh woe is us, will Santa find us?”  Heck no.  They’re saying, “5 more days til Christmas” and holding up as many fingers to prove it.  Exhausted or not, you’re darn right I’ll be wrapping presents and Santa will be finding this place.  Disappoint you guys?  No way. At least, not yet (as I’m sure the older they get until about 22, the more I’ll disappoint, but then, I know from 23 on, they’ll cycle back down, until by about 35, they’ll begin to see me as wise as I always knew I was!  That’s how it happened for me.  My dad and mom are wise – I couldn’t see it then, but I know it now!).

So we’re in… mostly.  We still have to clean the old place and pack the odds and ends… or throw them in the dumpster… because, I know, I know, but… it’s just too much work to donate it.  I mean, gone are the days when the dudes come to your house and pick up the stuff you want to give them. Seriously, I miss those days.  Because I’d be calling them now to say, take it all. If it’s still there, we don’t need it.

Christmas – my brother-in-law just surprised us by sending us to Best Buy to pick up a Christmas gift he’d bought us.  Turns out it’s a 42 inch plasma.  My eyes got big like softballs, then filled with tears… while Melodia was like, “Oh, it’s a tv.”

“Oh, it’s a tv?”  I love my wife.  And she will enjoy all her Wii games on her new tv, despite the nuances that “oh, it’s a tv” seems to miss.  Of course, she knows, I’ve been wanting one for 2 years but just couldn’t justify it.  Oh, and to be fair, she really was excited.  I shouldn’t throw her under the bus like that.

What we had was a 37″ box.  Yep, I must be among the last 20% of all Americans with the “old” style box tv that hadn’t yet converted to the “flat” world.  But my 37″ worked. If it’s not broken…

But here’s the rub, we’ve moved about 4 times in the last couple of years… and my 37-incher? She must weigh in at 75lbs.  The thing is huge and tough to lift, but I count it as one of my last remaining manly tests.  I mean, as long as I can still lift this lug and carry it out to the truck myself, whatever belly I’ve grown and weight I’ve gained, I’m still ok.  Nevertheless, oh how I’ve longed a flat, lighter, much easier to fit through doorways tv.

Tonight, I practically carried the 42-incher into the house with one hand.  Then promptly dragged the 37-incher across the floor toward the door, rugs curling up underneath its weight.

Anyone need a free tv?  I’d keep it, but why?  We only want one in the house, and we’re less tv addicts than the greater population. Our movie collection, though, is ridiculously huge, and our netflix subscription eternal.  So we’ll make good use out of this plasma.  But we’ve no need to keep lugging the elephant around.

I suggested to Melodia, let’s give it to the church for the kids programs…. she said, “Honey, the church bought all new flatscreens for all the kids rooms (there’s like 9 rooms!) last year.”  Yes, even the church was ahead of me on this one!  I mean, if you can’t give your junk to the church, who can you give it to?

And Christmas…  and Christmas is around the corner.  Tonight, we drove home with the kids singing carols in the car.  What great fun!  Our new place is just 5 minutes from a store we’ve been wanting to stroll through for months now… The Marilla Country Store.  This is an old-time country store with all the wonders of such a place. In fact, M and I were bummed we hadn’t been in sooner.

They have a spice pantry that’s awesome and cheaper than the grocery store. We picked up some premaid bags of dip spice, and chowder powder to give a try.  We cooked up shrimp chowder tonight with one of their spice arrangements… yummo.

If you’re out this way, and haven’t been, it’s worth the visit.  This summer, in Floyd, VA, we popped into an old-time country store just like The Marilla Country Store. It was wonderful; and here we’ve got a great one in our backyard.  It’s funny how little we know what’s around us.  I was amazed at two (somewhat competing concepts): 1) that The Marilla Country Store is still in business in the era of mega-marts and 2) that anyone would even choose to pad the mega-marts bottom line when little off-the-grid places like this exist.

Now I know, it’s usually a money thing.  The hole-in-the-walls are expensive so why not cheapo-mega-mart-x?  But in this case, The Marilla Country Store was better on many of the things we wanted to buy (spices, candy, etc.) than the chain store.  Cheaper and better?  Got to love that.

I think that about catches everyone up on our musings of late.  Next up? Probably a trip to the Pittsburgh IKEA for a little shopping fun… you know, the stuff Santa didn’t bring.

At any rate, Christmas is just about 2 days away as I type this. Wonderful.  Merry Christmas to you all!

This Thanksgiving I was thankful for much:

But Thanksgiving’s tomorrow, and today I’m getting my first moments of a break.  Now, really, come [...]]]> Whew!  I just finished working a 16-day straight stretch on campus at Medaille.  Two weekends of my students’ running events plus an open-house, basketball games and hockey to be webstreamed… it’s all just made for a very busy time.

But Thanksgiving’s tomorrow, and today I’m getting my first moments of a break.  Now, really, come Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I’ve got a lot of work to do catching up on grading and so forth, but don’t tell Melodia.

Since we moved to Buffalo, we’ve spent every Thanksgiving with our friends Adam and Danelle Padd.  I don’t know quite how that became our tradition.  An invite that first year, led to a second, and so forth, I suppose.  This year, for a change, rather than going to their place, they’re coming to ours.  Melodia and I have the Wii ready to go, as well as some board games, and both of the girls have been prepping some stuff – the turkey and apple pie on our end, and pecan pie on the Padd’s.

Our Thanksgivings really have been a blessing. Getting to spend time with friends, and these friends in particular has always been wonderful.

It’s interesting to look at our friendships and assess them.  Our friendship with Danelle and Adam is one in which we have very few expectations of each other.  What I mean is… when we’re setting something up, trying to work out a plan, etc… if it comes together, great. If it doesn’t, no worries.  It’s the type of friendship that isn’t highly demanding, and yet, it’s always ready for use.  On a moment’s notice, we’ll go to their place and spend the night, or they’ll come to ours.  And the hosting party never makes it out to be an inconvenience.

Recently, we had one of those situations where we were without power and decided to see if we could impose on some friends who still had power.  A few of our friends were busy or had plans that didn’t really allow the powerless Wilson’s to impose on.  As we sat in the dark of our silent house talking about it, we were thankful for our friendship with the Padd’s.  Immediately, we looked at each other and said, if we’d called the Padd’s, they’d have said, “come on over.”  In fact, even if they weren’t home, they’d have said, “use the house.”

Now, Adam and Danelle live 1.5 hours south of us, so it is not always convenient.  But it sure is helpful to have that type of friendship that allows for so much grace without the expectation of return or a counting of who’s done what and when.  Certainly, the Padd’s are way beyond us in hosting visits.  They live in the country, and our eagerness to spend some time in the country is often greater than theirs to spend time in the city… though the pool at our last apartment tempted them a few times.

We enjoy the opportunities to host them, and tomorrow will be nice that way.  I guess, I’m just thinking about friendships, and realizing that some are hard to replace.  It’s hard to quantify exactly what makes ours with the Padd’s fun.  We’ll go months without seeing each other, but we’ve often spent several weekends in a row together.  We’ll plan in advance, and we’ll plan last minute. Sometimes, we just go to their place and hang out, other times to help with some work, like making Venison meatballs! Yummo.

Maybe what I’m trying to place my finger on is that it’s nice to have friends who don’t ever give you the feeling that you’re imposing, and who are very inclusive in their approach to life.  After all, isn’t that the way it should be?  Aren’t we all supposed to be opening our arms and waving others to come on in?  I think so.

Tomorrow, the Padd’s will, once again, come on in – and I’m looking forward to it. Happy Thanksgiving to you, wherever you are, and to your friends, whose inclusion of you make life more wonderful.

It’s one of those photos that you’re looking at, looking… then… it hits you.  Aha!  What in the world?!

Well, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo of the kids in [...]]]> Recently, a friend sent me a link to this website that had funny family photos on it.  One in particular was really silly.

It’s one of those photos that you’re looking at, looking… then… it hits you.  Aha!  What in the world?!

Well, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo of the kids in the backseat of Jeep after we loaded up to head home from church. In looking at it, I was reminded of that other photo.  It turned out to be one of those, “wait for it… aha!” kind of photos – thanks to one of my kids.

I haven’t posted this photo on that other site I mentioned previously.  But I thought I’d post it hear for kicks.  It’s currently the background photo on my phone because 1) it has all the kids and 2) it’s so silly.  Enjoy!

It’s been good to have her here. Unfortunately, I’ve been sick for what feels like the whole [...]]]> Lala’s been in town the past two weeks. That’s Melodia’s mother, Maria. The kids have called her Lala since they were little. Abuela (grandmother in Spanish) became La became Lala. And Grandpa Torres became Lalo.

It’s been good to have her here. Unfortunately, I’ve been sick for what feels like the whole time. Sick now, too, and in need of bed. But I keep looking at the website wishing I blogged more. Then by the time I think to do it, I just jot down the surface stuff of life. But, I figure that’s better than nothing.

We’re down to the last 3 days of Lala’s visit, which is a bummer. We all love having her around. But I know her own hubby needs her back, too. Still, her presence reminds me of how challenging it is to live in a place without family.

I’ve been reminded all week that I haven’t seen my own parents in person in two years. How did that happen? Where did the time go? I mean, that’s just crazy. And they haven’t seen Izzabelle in person yet, either. And she’s past 1. Seems it’s always cheaper to go to Tampa than out to Vegas (and drive down to Kingman, Az), cheaper to see the Torres side than the Wilson side. But I have to figure out a way to see them soon. The kids need to see them. It’s just been too long.

And we’ve just finished concluding that we cannot go anywhere for the Holidays. The budget’s a little tight and we need to stay put, resist the temptation to spend. I keep hoping my parents will find the time to come our direction, because their two tickets are cheaper than our four tickets to head out there.

But nothing’s easy. Mom’s working full-time these days, and it’s harder for them to cut out than it used to be. So here we are, two years later. But with Lala in town, I’ve been feeling it, and missing mom and dad. And I’m missing them for my kids, too. Wil can still remember sitting on dad’s backhoe last time he was out to Arizona. He brings that up whenever we talk about Grandpa and Grandma Wilson. But I need him to have some fresher memories. So I’ve got to work this one out.

At any rate, I’m just reminded tonight of how important family is, but not just our own immediate wife and kids, but our moms and dads. I continue to believe that one can never truly appreciate their own parents until they have kids of their own. I’m constantly amazed, when holding one of my little ones, to think that the way I feel, is the way my mom and dad felt about me. That they were where I am. Fascinating to me.

And I can appreciate all the more what it took, and what it still takes (when they get older and move on). I can’t imagine Wil, McKinley, and Izzabelle being older, going to college, getting married, having kids… I can’t imagine Melodia and I in a quiet house, the kids all moved on. It just seems so far. And yet I’m reminded all the time by those around me… time flies, it’ll be gone before you know it, enjoy it while you have it.

So tonight, I held McKinley just a little bit longer when I hugged her before bed. I looked into her big green eyes as she said, “I love you, Papi,” and I wished it all wouldn’t go by so fast. Wished that time would slow. That my little girl would stay little, small enough for me to scoop up and hold tight. And I didn’t want to think about those days when she wouldn’t be that small anymore.

We’re still homeless, for a few days yet.  [...]]]> Wow, just looked at our blog and realized that we last posted on August 5.  Whew! We seem to do little here and rely more on Facebook status updates.  Of course, with those, we only get a few lines.  Here on the blog, we can cover much more.

We’re still homeless, for a few days yet.  Here’s the saga of what happened.  We’d been under contract to buy a home (as shown in the previous posts) since July 10.  We’d been waiting to close on it, and our seller had dragged their feet a bit.  The seller had been trying to close on a short sale (I don’t think they realized that short sales aren’t going anywhere right now).  They’d made an offer in May on this short sale, and were trying to stay in their home as long as possible before moving out.

On three different occasions, we asked them about doing a rent-back so that we could get into the house while we waited to close.  Our apartment gave us the boot on July 31.  They have a policy about leases and keep every tenant on 12-month leases instead of going month-to-month.  So they wouldn’t let us stay for August, etc.  Now, there are several ironies in the story as I tell it.  Here’s one: our old apartment still sits vacant.  So while we’ve been homeless, bouncing from house to house with friends, the apartment that we would have gladly stayed in until we closed is empty, with no one paying rent.  That’s enough to make a person very bitter.  Seriously, you’d rather have no rent than a tenant stay an extra couple of months off lease?  Sometimes, I think that there are many people who don’t know how to run businesses.

So we had to be out of our apartment July 31 and knew we wouldn’t close until mid-August.  As a result, we’d asked the seller for the rent-back.  But they wanted to stay in their place.  And as we had to get certain things done (like a test on the well/septic), they took their time scheduling everything so as to drag out the close (all the while hoping to close on their short sale).

On Thursday, August 20th, I received a call from my lawyer saying he’d received a fax from the mortgage company that looked like our mortgage fell through.  Now, I’d been on the phone with my contact, the previous Friday, Monday and Wednesday and had heard nothing.  So I called the mortgage company. I was told that it fell through last Friday, with one of those, “didn’t anyone here call you?”  “Uh, no.”

So I drove to the mortgage company to get them face to face.  As it happened, the V.P. came out to chat with me.  When she realized why I was there, she ushered me into a conference room.  (I later understood that she fully expected me to blow my top and start yelling).

In the conference room, I learned this:  the company (which is a broker) had only one lender who did mobile/modular homes.  Apparently, it is really tough to get financing on these types of homes right now.  Very few companies are doing it, and many who were, have quit.  Ironic, because, as you drive through the country out here, there’s a good number of mobiles on acres of land.  And lots of them on the market.  So it turns out, owning a mobile/modular right now is not good, if you wish to sell it.

At any rate, the lender they had brokered our loan to, that was giving us 5.0% at 15 years, quietly closed their doors the previous Friday.  They just up and shut their doors.  The V.P. said that she thinks Bank of America is negotiating to take them over now.  But that meant that our loan was dead, because it hadn’t been issued.  And it meant that our mortgage broker had no way of servicing any customers purchasing mobile/modulars.  And they knew about this a week ago (I was sitting there on Thursday, and they’d known since Friday).  And the woman liaisoning between me and the underwriters, didn’t have a clue this happened, because she had updated me Friday/Mon/Wed on issues.  Talk about left-hand, right-hand confusion.

So as I sat calmly with the V.P., listening to all this and asking questions, she stopped me and said, “you’re so calm.  Thank you for not yelling at me.”  I laughed.  I guess she’d expected a different response.  I told her, “you know, that won’t help.  I think  you all did several things wrong here, and really demonstrated poor customer service, but yelling at you won’t resolve anything, except to maybe send you home in a bad mood, too.  Let’s just have one of us go home in a bad mood today.”

I mean, really, I guess it might have been fun to be pissed and scream, and don’t get me wrong, the broker has been so inefficient at times, it’s ridiculous.  But really, I was over being angry and further along in the stages of grief. Lol.

I did fill her in on some processes that bugged me, and I told her that if I ran a business like her office is run, we’d be out of business. In my day job, I teach the business of management at the college level.  We spend a good deal of time on efficiency and on customer service.

Let me give you a classic example from this process, of which there are a few.  One of the requirements the underwriters wanted fulfilled was a structural engineer’s certification of the foundation.  Now, when I applied, I asked the person I was working with what other items I might need to do, so I could get them started, or collect the paperwork, do inspections, etc. to be ready to close quickly.  He said, “oh, we’ll just see what the underwriter comes back with; everything looks good so far.”  Yeah, ok.

So when the underwriter came back with their 16 different requirements (some were forms to sign, others papers to collect and turn in, and a couple were inspections), one was for a structural engineer to do 2 things: 1) certify that the foundation met all HUD requirements for mobile/modulars and 2) verify the basement floor was above the 100-year flood plain.  We paid an inspector to come do this, and he submitted his report to the company.

Now each phase in this process (i.e., submitted stuff) takes about 2-3 days for the underwriter to review and respond.  So a few days later, the underwriter says, 3) we need the business card from the engineer.  So we did that. Another 2-3 days later, 4) we need a copy of his engineers certification.  Another 2-3 days later, ok, we’re all set.

Listen, first, I sat with the loan officer in the beginning, and he gave me no idea of what we could do to hurry the process.  When I asked him about this requirement from the underwriter, he said, “oh yes, the structural engineer certification of the foundation is standard on mobile/modulars.”  I said, “oh, so when I asked you what else I could do, and this is standard, why didn’t you tell me so we could have it done.  In the end, this process took longer than it should have; and I gave this example to the V.P. as I sat with her.  Why didn’t the underwriter say, “we need these 4 things”?  To come back after we’ve done the 2 they said we needed, and spend a week on minutia because they didn’t just say, “we need these four things” upfront was ridiculous.

Seriously, as I sat there, I thought 2 things:  1) how do any of these people have jobs, and 2) these people having these jobs is exactly why the industry crumbled.  Seriously, if you’re this inefficient on the loan end, imagine all the other mistakes/errors that occur in the other departments (banking/financial/investing, etc.).

Bottom line here though, the property we wanted to buy was basically unmortgageable at this point.  The V.P. made calls to several other institutions to see if they are loaning for mobiles/modulars and got us two banks we could talk to –which would require us to start the whole application/loan process from square one.  That coupled with some other factors made us decide to not pursue this further.  And thus, by the next afternoon, Friday, Aug. 21, we knew we were no longer under contract, not closing in 4-5 days as we’d expected, and still homeless.

So the weekend became a desperate rental search, because this journey has been hard enough for one month.  We can’t live out of a suitcase, house-hopping for another month with 3 kids 4 and under, even if we went immediately under contract on a new property (which we’ve yet to find and we’ve seen 12 houses in the last 5 days!).

But back to this property, here’s the great irony.  Had the sellers hurried OR had the mortgage company been more efficient, we would have had our closing prior to the lender going out of business (our original close was scheduled between the 10-15th of August).  So now, this poor seller, has no sold home, probably greatly blames us for taking their house off the market for 40 days, and had they just not dragged their feet, or given us the rent-back, we’d have either closed before the lender dissolved or we’d have had the wherewithall to keep pursuing other options (because if we’d have been in the house, we’d have done everything to stay in the house).  In the end, we walk away from the sale on a property that is apparently extremely hard to mortgage, and we look like the bad guys. Our only hope is that the seller learned something. If they knew what we now know, they’d probably take just about any offer that came in on the property, and they’d move out and do a rent-back asap!

Where does all this leave us?  We found a townhouse that will let us rent month to month.  That was a journey in itself.  Everyone here wants a 12-month lease.  And New York has a law that we didn’t know about that is now killing us.  Most of the apartments around us (like 90%) are 2 bedroom.  We have three kids.  The law in NY on apartments is 2 persons per bedroom max.  So as a family of 5, no one will rent us a 2 bedroom apartment.  So we must either get a 3 bedroom, a townhouse, or go with a private renter.

That made for a stressful 4.5 days of apartment/townhouse searching.  Rent for 2 bedrooms apts. here runs $650-800… townhouses and 3 bedrooms run $1000-1500.  So we’re being penalized for not being the traditional two-kid family.  Great. Yep, chalk the extra $300-500/month up to the cost of having the kid.  We were so mad as we called around and got told no on the family of 5 in a two bedroom. Our kids all sleep in the same room, they’re toddlers.  What a crazy little roadblock for a family with more than 2 kids. Annoying.

But when the world seems to conspire against you, it goes all out.

We’re now staying with another set of friends until the townhouse is ready (they’re trying to have it done by Sep. 1 – painting, carpet, etc.)  And we’re house hunting all over again.  Our new rent is $400 over what it once was, and $200 over what our mortgage would have been (taxes and insurance escrowed).  Plus, we’re out about $700 in inspections and lawyer fees, etc. for all the paperwork done on the home that just fell through.  The V.P. said they’d refund our appraisal fee though because of the inconvenience, etc.  One $300-$350 bright spot in all this.  But still, we’ve lost and our losing some money on the whole process.

Oh, and did I mention that we sold our previous home 15 months ago, so O’Bama’s little plan to help Americans like us completely missed.  We don’t get $8k off any home we purchase because we have owned in the last 36 months. Ridiculous. In fact, we missed out on the $12k in government money we could have had.  Before cash for clunkers, we donated our clunker to a high school’s automotive program and bought a new vehicle.  Yeah, lost $4k there.  And you know, we have debts, too. (student loans).  We could have used a break somewhere.

My rant for the year will be how all of the politician plans to stimulate the economy, etc. have completely missed this middle class family who is continuing to “stimulate” the economy in spite of it.  Thanks. But seriously, when’s our handout coming?!

That’s the story on what’s happened to us.  No home purchase.  Now back to looking. On the plus side, if we find something in the month, we’re already half completed in the underwriting process with our mortgage company (and yes we may stay with them despite it all) because all of our credit history, paperwork, documents, etc. are in their hands. Only the house needs to be appraised, inspected, approved by them.  Of course, finding a house right now, isn’t as easy as it sounds. We don’t want just anything.  If we’re going to miss out on $12k this year, and lose $1k or more on the failed purchase plus rent, darn it all, we want the dream!  We don’t want to settle for the “next best house.”

Lord, guide us and help us as we move forward!