We're All Fine Here, Thanks. How Are You? - The FanFic Social Thread

All this hubbub never gets old, does it?

 

Nope. Particularly when your family is spread across three states and two parts of one state. Half-BroNar and his family are going up to Rhode Island, BroNar is going to Gettysburg to his in-laws, Mama Nar is down in Florida, and Papa Nar is going to Mechanicsburg.

At least the Mechanicsburg gathering will be small.

 

That sounds awesome! Can I come to YOUR Thanksgiving? And I've decided on leggings and a loose shirt for this year

And yikes! That doesn't sound like fun

Chyntuck two Thanksgivings can be good! My best friend's family has a couple chefs, and their big meal is at lunch. Though by the time I got to my parents' for an early dinner, I super wasn't hungry So I just ate turkey and a ton of mashed potatoes and some pie

I'm not huge on opera, but that sounds cool! And so much fun to realize your dreams

Does anyone like Gilmore Girls? I always love the episode where they eat four Thanksgiving dinners My role models!

 

I'm only having one Thanksgiving until Half-BroNar comes back and holds the second. My pants will be fine, considering that I generally don't gorge myself.

 

Heh, Mom and I don't even do holidays, since it's just the two of us. Tamales are something she makes when it gets cold enough because it turns the apartment into a total sauna (you have to have several huge pots boiling simultaneously to steam them, and each batch takes 2 hours). Although she did use turkey legs for some of the meat, she also used ground turkey, refried beans with and without cream cheese, and some cranberry dessert ones! Dessert tamales traditionally have golden raisins, but tart dried cranberries are nice too. (Maybe someday we could experiment with fig and goat cheese tamales...)

 

I was going to buy a house near the local college but it looks like we are going to pass on it. We thought it was a manufactured home. The owner said it was a stickbuilt modular home. We made an offer contingent on it being modular and not a manufactured home (doublewide). We paid for an inspector who said it is definitely a doublewide. We countered with a much lower price. They are positive it is a modular and are trying to convince us it is modular. They did a title search and there is no registered deed and if it is a manufactured home they need to get a replacement title and actually affix it to the foundation (which it isn't). They are all mad that we got an inspector and put contingencies in our offer, but right now they don't have a clear title to transfer, so forget it.

I looked at a condo across the street from the college today. I may put in an offer for that. Resale will be much better than an manufactured home. I plan on having my sons live in the condo when they go to college. It is cheaper to buy a home than it is to rent or pay dorm costs. Rents are $1500-2000 a month in the area. So we will see how this goes. Currently I live five miles outside the county. Out of county tuition is twice as much as in county. That is another reason to buy a home in the county. Right now it is a two year school but they are getting four year programs such as the Merchant Marine Academy, the flight school, Nursing school and some other degrees. Most of these four year degrees are done in conjunction with other colleges.

My husband said, "When we were kids our parents expected us to pay for our own college." I countered, "When I was a kid tuition at the four year college was $600 a semester for in-state tuition. My brother worked part time at the Base Exchange and paid his way through college. The state college here is $14,000 a semester and that is not counting room and board. Most kids graduate with at least $30K in loan debt and some have up to $200K in loans. How is a kid going to make that much money doing a part time job?"

I have a friend that is a school teacher. Her husband is also a school teacher. They had a house they were paying for. When the loans came due they had to sell the house because they couldn't afford to own a home or even rent. They moved in with her mother. These people did not go to Harvard and got a huge debt. They went to the State College. This is crazy. I'm glad I stopped at two kids. My Catholic husband once said, "I want six or seven kids." What was he thinking?

 

It's kind of hard to post a recipe for them as they're largely eyeballed/by-the-seat-of-the-pants but I could post a vague attempt, lol. At least to mention all the ingredients. And they're not MY recipes, they're Mom's, which came from her mom, and so on...

I WILL NEVER EVER MAKE THESE MYSELF BECAUSE THEY ARE EPIC MEAL TIME, LOLZZZZZ.

 

It figures that once my laundry was done, it started to rain. So, I braved the rain and got my laundry and brought it back in the rain.

 

Oh gracious... The honey we buy is raw honey indeed: I just found part of a bee in it.

Also, bees are chewy—that's how I happened to find it.

 

Good morning!

Well, everyone is back on track and, even better, is talking about FOOD

I'll take your word for it, but if you ever dance with a lampshade on your head make sure to post a picture

Never, ever! In the Chyntuck clan we already had our first summit to decide who is hosting Christmas lunch -- which is kind of absurd when you think of it, since we all live in the same building and we're all going on holiday together in the same country house, but we just can't resist

Heeeeeeelp!

No worries about the recipes, I won't be doing much cooking in the coming weeks anyway You sound like you could use a long weekend though, between that conference you went to, the work-cum-university-reunion thing in Milwaukee, your job uncertainties and the Findsboy's classmates, you had a rather eventful life this past couple of months, don't you think?

Coming from """socialist""" Europe (note the multiple quotation marks, but we still have free higher education in many countries on this side of the pond) this thing with student loans always baffled me. How can people be expected to start out in adult life like that, with a load of debt before they're even able to apply for a job to refund it? Free public universities come with their own set of problems, but at least we share the burden as a society instead of dumping it on individuals. I don't want to imagine what Greek society would be like without them. The bubble around rich people would be made of 3-metre-thick concrete

Please do that! I'm planning to buy the ingredients on my trip to France and maybe try to find a proper Tex-Mex restaurant there. We have a couple of restaurants in Greece, but none of those I went to served tamales and they put feta cheese in the burritos, so I suspect they're not very authentic

It's good to have you back Do we get even more magnificent Trak art now?

Have a nice day!

EDIT

Yikes! But it's supposed to be good protein, you know...

 

So I was and saw the Swedish children Christmas movie Tjuvarnas jul – Trollkarlens dotter (The Thieves' Christmas - the Wizard's daughter) in the weekend, I think it may be Sweden’s first steampunk movie

 

They are mad you got an inspector? That's standard procedure when buying a house, I've never heard of anyone buying a place without an inspection... in fact I think most property insurance requires it. And having contingencies is nothing new either I think they are mad because they were trying to pull one over on you and you didn't let them.

Owning a condo is a great idea so long as that's where your kids want to go. And is that in a city, or a suburb of a major city? That's some steep rent if it's not (though I guess it depends on the size of the place. The place my roommates and I rent is in a suburb of Boston is $2,700 for a 4 bed, 2 bath.

The tuition cost in the US is completely out of control and seems to only be getting worse. Luckily for me my parents started saving for their kids to go to college when my sister -who is significantly older than me- was born, so I had no debt out of college. (I want to go back, but I'm all on my own for that. ) I know that makes me crazy lucky, but I wish we would adopt a more Europen system.
My roomate is from Finland and I think didn't have to pay (or payed very little) to get all the way through her PhD. Since she was been living in the US she has gone back to school to get another Masters and was astounded at the cost.

 

May be of interest

 

*Shakes fist at student debt*

So, BroNar won't be going to his in-laws this Thanksgiving, but I'm pretty certain that his in-laws will be coming to his place. Either way, I'm trying to avoid them this year.

 

Went to the gym today!

It's a Planet Fitness, and a really nice one at that. Got a really good workout and enjoyed the "hydromassage" and some body rejuvenating thing that's like a stand-up tanning booth but with non-UV lighting plus fans and a vibrating floor. Weird, but cool, and the massage thing was damn good.

 

They are frustrated at what the inspector found. There are four heirs and they thought they were going to get their money. The paperwork says it is modular and that makes financing easy. We didn't want the bank to order a $500 appraisal (that I would pay for) and have the guy say, "Hey, this is a doublewide!" Then I would be out even more money. But now I muddied the waters for them legally and ethically. Knowing a certified inspector said the home is not modular and in his report had photos supporting it...can they still legally list it as modular? I looked at the listing and the Realtor now has the construction listed as OTHER. So, now they probably have to legally disclose this discrepancy.

It would have came to light for any other person looking for financing because any appraiser would have seen the steel frame and axil skirts under the house. They need to find a buyer with cash and they don't care about the difficulty of resale.

I just made their life that much more difficult. They are not happy about that.

As for tuition. I am positive tuition rates have risen because of the ease of getting student loans. If loans were near impossible to get I guarantee the tuition would go down. An 18 year old college kid without a job can get a 100K loan for his education. If that is possible then there isn't a reason not to charge outlandish tuition rates.

I think the tuition rates/ student loans are a little like medical procedures and insurance. I saw an advertisement the other day for lasik surgery. A local doctor had a sale where he will fix your sight for $600 per eye! And this is a legitimate doctor, not some guy with a laser pointer in a Tijuana alley. Lasik surgery is probably the cheapest surgery you can get because most insurance companies will not cover it. Because people have to pay for it themselves the prices are reasonable. The same goes for a lot of cosmetic surgery. Braces were reasonable for my son and the doctor took payment in monthly installments. I bet if Lasik suddenly was covered by insurance the price of the procedure would skyrocket.

I don't want my kids burdened with debt, but I will tell you what...they are not going to be partying on my dime. They better get good grades or I will take their college money and spend it on me. It is hunting season...that means The Thunder Down Under is in the local casino! They come every year to keep the wives company while their husbands are out hunting. I can take that money and make Magic Mike 2...written by Jedi_lover and key scenes handled by ginchy.

 

From the outside the college loans system in the US looks pretty frightening. Here in Australia university isn't free, but you can "defer" your payments by what is essentially a government loan. Once you've finished your degree and start earning over a certain threshold, the money starts coming out of your paycheck as additional tax. I've just finished paying off my debt which is a relief!

The trouble is that our system seems to be moving closer to the US system than away from it, with deregulation of fees which means that essentially the schools can charge whatever they want, and people don't think about the debt they'll have later. It's kind of depressing.

 

The historic newsreel depicting the tragic events of the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition of 1930-31. This newsreel, once believed lost, is restored and made available by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

Calling TrakNar

 

Say, thedarkbeckons: How go your phoneless days? And how are your jaw and your tooth and your concussion? Are you mending well?

 

It rained all weekend and melted all the snow. This morning I woke up to a freaking winter wonderland. It looked like I was in Narnia. I was happy when the plow guy came and cleaned off my LONG driveway.

 

We got the rain, but no fresh snow down here.

 

I got Mabel puppy pajamas. She's now wearing pink pajamas with dogs on them. She purred when I put it on her, so I guess she likes it. We'll see when she decides to pee on the couch in retaliation.