Sometimes Bad News Can Be Good News

As Hurricane Dennis approached us Friday night, I got an email from our mortgage holders.

Our application for the refi is, for now, turned down.

I'll say it's on hold for 2 months instead, since they kindly asked us to come back then. Our credit scores are too low. They actually went down after we applied.

That's because just after we applied, Walter's employer decided to lay off everyone in his division.

Which was a couple weeks after he went back to active duty, after 15 months off on Worker's Comp, getting shoulder surgery.

But, true to form, he was only off for one week before getting hired by a larger company with a higher rate per mile pay, and he's getting more dispatch miles, too.

So I think we'll be able to improve those scores fairly quickly.

In the meantime...I keep wondering why I don't feel terrible about this.

It's probably because we weren't really ready. The house still needs a lot of work, and I can't keep rehabbing at the pace I've been. It's killing me.

Now, suddenly, this burden of time pressure is off my shoulders. I'm almost at a loss.

Almost.

I still need to do a lot of work, of course. It's just that now, I can do it at my own pace. Enjoyably. Much less painfully.

I do still feel a sense of shock. Not such a big one, but it's there.

And one thing hurts bad: thinking of those three people we owe, that I want so much to pay back tomorrow, and can only repay with the refi: my mother, my father, and our friend and former employee H.

That one hurts.

Now, since I can't change it just yet, I'll have to chase it back into its box. Compartmentalize.

And do everything I possibly can - as fast as I can - to build up funds to get those scores back up.

Send me good thoughts, folks.

Please.