What Is The Color Of Your Mortgage: Fill & Download for Free

There was an obscure old riddle in my medical school, reserved tongue-in-cheek for the female applicants who, like me, thought they could beat the statistics:Q: How does a woman wind-up marrying a doctor?A: She must be lucky.Q: But what if A MAN marries a doctor?A: She’s even luckier.Yeah. So it shouldn’t have come as such a shock to me when I arrived home from a girls’ weekend in Vegas to find Nate’s note, scrawled in yellow highlighter, lying on the kitchen counter. There was no explanation, only a list of items he felt I should store for him, in the garage, to pick up once the house was sold. Starting with the big screen TV.14 years of marriage and he left me a note in yellow highlighter, couldn’t be bothered to find a ballpoint pen.People ask me to this day if I saw it coming. I didn’t. I mean, did we have problems? Yeah. We were married. Of course we had problems. But I supported him, emotionally and financially, when he left the Marines just before our vows, during the first 7 years of marriage it took him (while jobless) to finish his bachelor’s, and the next 7 years it took him (still jobless) to “find himself.” I loved him. I believed in him. And he… cleaned out our savings account and left me with a mortgage.What the fuck.He never did explain to me what happened. In fact, he didn’t speak to me again AT ALL after the day he left. One day we were feeding the chickens and celebrating his birthday with cookie dough ice cream, as we cuddled on beach towels beneath our back porch, hidden from the mid-July sun. Two days later he had vanished. I must have gone through a million plus different explanations in my mind, but never really knew. He did, however, say something— I don’t know what— to my fundamentalist Christian parents. So while my father, with his gentle smile and helpful hands, did show up unexpectedly a few days later to provide moral support and help packing, I also felt the judgment of my church upbringing descend upon my head. I just couldn’t imagine why Nate, who I married, in my mind, with a very literal sense of for-better-or-for-worse, til-death-do-us-part— why my faithful husband, the solid and dependable man I trusted implicitly all those years— would suddenly betray me so shamelessly. I resorted to blaming myself. I guess that is what ultimately drove me to do the unthinkable:I reached out in desperation to his parents. Specifically, I called his mom. The woman who, from the beginning, had informed my virginal 22-year-old self that I would never satisfy her son:“But WHY did he leave?” I sobbed. “What HAPPENED??!? No one will tell me.”Her voice, at 6 a.m. her time, was drowsy, but her cruel words resolute. “Well, Meg,” she philosophized, invoking the pet name she had no right to, “Nathan grew up seeing his father and me, and how much we are in love…“And I guess he just wanted that kind of love for himself.”When I think of those first few days, weeks, and months, it was all a nauseating stumble through the toxic fog, a slow-motion punch in the gut. But I do remember a misty quiet sunrise, the color of fresh bruises, creeping up through our backyard, and illuminating the half-dug duck pond— just a hole really— where Nate left his shovel stuck upright, as if in suspended animation. I remember the guilt and reluctance I felt when my shrewd divorce lawyer reviewed Nathan’s suit for spousal support and advised I counter-bluff with the threat of an imaginary P.I.’s findings. A suit that Nathan, coincidentally, thereafter dropped.I remember cutting the bolt on the door to his “personal workshop” and discovering, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars in spanking new gadgets, tools and toys I never knew he bought or had.And I also remember calling the Salvation Army to come pick up all his stuff. Starting with the big screen T.V.*****P.S.? It just feels so damn good to tell that story. I overcome a little more with each set of eyes that read it.*****P.P.S. Although I don’t think I will ever know for absolute sure, a number of things have begun to occur to me over the years. Minor private details of our marriage. His very conservative Christian mother’s harsh but elusive words both at the beginning AND the end of our marriage. The out-of-character impulsive manner is which he left, refusing to explain himself. Whatever he was afraid the nonexistent private investigator had found out. And the signs and symptoms of what, looking back and taken together, I now believe to be depression (leaving the Marines, not working for many years, buying and hiding unused expensive new things). I have come to suspect that the male roommate a friend of a friend tells me he now lives with is, in fact, his committed longterm partner. While what he did was nonetheless shitty, I feel I understand a little better the inner conflicts he must have struggled through. Moreover, as vital as my anger was for me to escape, while wounded, the initial attack, I now find compassion— for both him and myself— to be deeply healing.

In my opinion, the most common mistakes that home buyers make are these:Selecting a House Emotionally. Purchasing a home is one of the biggest financial decisions that you’ll make, you don’t want to simply “fall in love” with the views or a feature in your kitchen, you want to examine it from all angles.Over Leveraging. Houses at the top of your range will almost always look better than homes at the bottom of it. Push that budget a little further still, and the homes keep getting nicer. Don’t get so star struck by a beautiful home that you end up putting yourself in a risky financial situation.Not Shopping Around (and being picky) for Important Pieces of the Deal. Your agent, your mortgage rates, your home inspector - these are things that can save you thousands of dollars and/or avoid costly mistakes.Not Planning in Advance. Think you’ll be buying a home next year? Fix your credit now to put yourself into contention for better rates that will save you money for a lifetime. Research what homes have sold for recently on Zillow, so you’ll have a better idea of what to offer and what’s a “good deal.” Look at the Crime Map to see what areas you’d feel comfortable in. There are so many things to do in advance that can help you when the time comes.Making Surface Decisions. Awkward spaces can seem beautiful with staging, and beautiful spaces can seem horrifying with a messy home owner. Dig beneath the grit and block out the beauty..to try to capture if the real space will work for you. Falling for pretty paint and decorating is a rookie mistake…and ruling out because of superficial flaws - ugly paint color, bad furniture, etc could cost you a gorgeous home at a steal.Not Considering Non-Mortgage Home Expenses when Shopping. There are places where property taxes can be as much as your mortgage, or looking at type of heating closely (ex: oil vs. gas vs. electric) might save you a fortune. First time buyers often are so excited about the possibility of a home, that they miss some of these important added expenses.Unrealistic Expectations. Often first time buyers want their home to look like an HGTV model home, and don’t understand why they can’t have granite counters, stainless appliances, etc..and all their dream features off the bat for the price they can afford.

In no particular order...1. Ability to see the bigger picture: It seems so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life that you forget how wonderful life really is. Sometimes when I'm in a public space I try to pick people and make up their life story. Realize that you aren't the center of the universe and that is ok, because you are the center of yourself.This is one of my favorite words to think about this topic:2. Self reflection: IMHO the ability to evaluate and reevaluate yourself is an invaluable quality to have. No one can see or know what you're thinking besides yourself. If you make a mistake all anyone will see is that mistake, but you have the ability to see everything you did that added up to that mistake. This allows you to learn from the things you did wrong because it isn't always going to be as obvious as you should have went right instead of left.3. Passion: Some may disagree on this point, but I believe in it completely. What is the point of living if you aren't passionate about something? This could be anything from learning to play an instrument to stamp collecting. The ability to be passionate about something transcends hobbies and can provide valuable skills in life such as critical thinking and memory association.4. Sympathy: This is one I like to keep a balance with and sometimes gets overlooked. We always evaluate people based on material possessions; John is a Doctor who makes 6 figures, lives near the beach and drives a ferrari so he must be better and happier than Steve who is a mechanic who has 6 kids and a mortgage. This type of thinking assumes there is a correlation between financial wellness and overall wellness.Understand that different people were provided with different opportunities and just because John makes more money than Steve, this doesn't make him happier, smarter, better off etc.5. Open mindedness: The world is a vast and wonderful place; you should be willing to dive into it whenever you get the chance and explore the great mysteries of the universe. Ask questions like why do males have nipples? Is the color I see the same as what other people see? What do my dreams tell me about my life? Why do I spend so much time on Quora? etc. etc.Also, don't equate open mindedness with being gullible. Always take things with a grain of salt and make sure you fact check/ do your own research.