39 / Another Rejected Offer / Nearby Wildfires / Dental Plan Complete
Another birthday is here and this one is the last of my thirties. Next year, I will be forty, which I think is traditionally the "Over the Hill" birthday celebrated when ones life is now on the downstroke heading towards retirement and oblivion. I hardly feel forty let alone thirty-nine let alone thirty. I remember when my mother turned forty and her sisters threw her an Over-the-Hill party. Maybe I was too young to remember it precisely but looking back on it, I wonder how such a party must feel. Forty seems like the kind of age where you should have already accomplished everything you were going to do with your life and now you should be coasting to retirement getting easier by the day. Nicole is six years younger than me and likewise can't believe forty is upon us. But I've got another year to fret about it. As for this year, it was a very quiet birthday for both of us as Nicole's birthday lands conveniently just days from mine. Typical well-wishing and the like but nothing too memorable. Which is how I like it, I guess. Because if I dwell on it too long, it becomes something to dwell on.
Earlier in September, our house-hunting caught a break and a home was listed for a fantastic price in a great neighborhood in our target city. The stars aligned and we all felt like this could be it. We toured the property and ultimately put in an offer way above asking price. We wrestled with what to offer for several hours but had to think fast as the homeowner was only giving everyone a couple days to submit offers. Turns out our offer was outbid by $10,000 which hurts as we already broke the bank offering way above asking. It hurt a lot. I mean it really hurt. We have been looking for a house now for eleven whole months and the Coronavirus pandemic plus the economy have led to a record-low inventory for homes in the market today. We're shopping at the worst possible time in history and it's killing us. Normally, we'd have no trouble finding a house but it just seems to be getting worse and worse and it's incredibly stressful. I'm sure we'll turn out okay and we'll be into a house and this'll all be just a blip but it still hurts putting our lives on hold languishing in this damn apartment. I hope it won't take much longer.
2020 has really been a bizarre year. A freak wind pattern fueled three separate wildfires in the nearby Cascade mountain range and pushed their smoke westward into the Portland area. For two whole weeks during September, the sky was blotted orange with dense haze. We had the worst air quality in the world for days at a time. Everything smelt of campfire day and night. It was dark and dismal and the sun was missing the whole time. I think not seeing the sun or blue skies was worse than the Coronavirus self-isolation. They even halted general maintenance and garbage pickup throughout our apartment complex so this place became a sty. To make things worse, the county I lived in put everyone on notice for evacuation. For a period of time, Nicole and I had the added stress of having to contemplate an emergency escape plan. What would we take with us? Do we take both cars? Will our apartment be okay? We couldn't believe it was happening. Thankfully, rainstorms came and the skies returned to normal and just like that the evacuations were lifted and everything went back to normal. At least for us anyways as lots of people in the mountains lost everything and for a while it was pretty scary out here. So hard to believe that happened.
In more positive news, I'm pleased to say that after eight years of dental work, I've finally completed the total restoration plan laid out by my dentist in mid-2012. I had spent my twenties being bad to my teeth and when I got health insurance again as I began my thirties, I finally knuckled down and got serious about fixing my teeth. I had decay everywhere, a crossbite, failing fillings from my childhood, and chips everywhere. My dentist laid out a three-phase approach: Immediate restorative work followed immediately by getting braces leading to three-and-a-half years in braces leading to years of slow painful work getting crowns on many of my teeth. I decided to go slow because I was fatigued from all those unexpected years in braces and apparently it's taken me five whole years to finish the job. There's no more work left for my teeth and for the first time since I was a kid, I can say that my teeth are currently perfect. Nicole and I mused upon what kind of money I've spent all together throughout the last eight years on this and we figure it's somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 out-of-pocket and perhaps double when insurance is factored in. Pretty remarkable but worth every penny now that I have permanently solved the problems. Now to spend the rest of my life taking care of them!
Earlier in September, our house-hunting caught a break and a home was listed for a fantastic price in a great neighborhood in our target city. The stars aligned and we all felt like this could be it. We toured the property and ultimately put in an offer way above asking price. We wrestled with what to offer for several hours but had to think fast as the homeowner was only giving everyone a couple days to submit offers. Turns out our offer was outbid by $10,000 which hurts as we already broke the bank offering way above asking. It hurt a lot. I mean it really hurt. We have been looking for a house now for eleven whole months and the Coronavirus pandemic plus the economy have led to a record-low inventory for homes in the market today. We're shopping at the worst possible time in history and it's killing us. Normally, we'd have no trouble finding a house but it just seems to be getting worse and worse and it's incredibly stressful. I'm sure we'll turn out okay and we'll be into a house and this'll all be just a blip but it still hurts putting our lives on hold languishing in this damn apartment. I hope it won't take much longer.
2020 has really been a bizarre year. A freak wind pattern fueled three separate wildfires in the nearby Cascade mountain range and pushed their smoke westward into the Portland area. For two whole weeks during September, the sky was blotted orange with dense haze. We had the worst air quality in the world for days at a time. Everything smelt of campfire day and night. It was dark and dismal and the sun was missing the whole time. I think not seeing the sun or blue skies was worse than the Coronavirus self-isolation. They even halted general maintenance and garbage pickup throughout our apartment complex so this place became a sty. To make things worse, the county I lived in put everyone on notice for evacuation. For a period of time, Nicole and I had the added stress of having to contemplate an emergency escape plan. What would we take with us? Do we take both cars? Will our apartment be okay? We couldn't believe it was happening. Thankfully, rainstorms came and the skies returned to normal and just like that the evacuations were lifted and everything went back to normal. At least for us anyways as lots of people in the mountains lost everything and for a while it was pretty scary out here. So hard to believe that happened.
In more positive news, I'm pleased to say that after eight years of dental work, I've finally completed the total restoration plan laid out by my dentist in mid-2012. I had spent my twenties being bad to my teeth and when I got health insurance again as I began my thirties, I finally knuckled down and got serious about fixing my teeth. I had decay everywhere, a crossbite, failing fillings from my childhood, and chips everywhere. My dentist laid out a three-phase approach: Immediate restorative work followed immediately by getting braces leading to three-and-a-half years in braces leading to years of slow painful work getting crowns on many of my teeth. I decided to go slow because I was fatigued from all those unexpected years in braces and apparently it's taken me five whole years to finish the job. There's no more work left for my teeth and for the first time since I was a kid, I can say that my teeth are currently perfect. Nicole and I mused upon what kind of money I've spent all together throughout the last eight years on this and we figure it's somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 out-of-pocket and perhaps double when insurance is factored in. Pretty remarkable but worth every penny now that I have permanently solved the problems. Now to spend the rest of my life taking care of them!