Let us take a walk through My Day. I guess, technically, since this affects all of us, I should say Our Day.

This morning, after a very restless night of almost-sleep, I put the baby, who was running a fever of 102, into the car and headed to work, where we spent 7 hours. Tiny A did very well, except that since she has a fever, she will not sleep unless someone is holding her. Naps were short and fitful today.

On the way home the only road out of town was blocked for over a mile. I was stuck on the island for an extra hour, during which I went to the Burger King Drive Thru to order a “low carb” veggie burger (made by MorningStar Farms!) and an unsweet tea. Can you guess? The tea was rotten, as tea often is when it’s 10 hours old. The burger, which was advertised to be “wrapped in a lettuce bun” came to me in a plastic bowl with shredded lettuce and tomatoes on top. That’s OK though, I had dinner in the crockpot! Yay! We did manage to do one thing right today, after all.

Poor Baby A was so tired she couldn’t even eat, so I lay down with her in bed, just as my dad walked in. Now, if you know me, you know that generally I am like a 5 year old when my dad comes over, and I never want him to leave.

But today when he told us that TWO DAYS AGO the county raised the impact fees for new construction from $2500 to $6500, my first thought was “ok, thanks for coming by, I have some dishes to smash, see you later”.

So. Three months ago, my dad ordered a survey of our property. The survey guy strung us along until last Friday, while interest rates increased almost ¾ of a point over the last few months. Along with ¾ a point on our mortgage, this surveyor has now cost us 4 THOUSAND DOLLARS. Four thousand dollars is a family trip to Europe, folks. A decent car for me to drive. A complete finished upstairs in our new house, which did I mention is now costing us FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS more than we budgeted? Did I mention that this is happening because the guy my dad hired to do the survey took THREE MONTHS to do it? For the last 3 weeks of this three months, every few days the guy would tell my dad “I’ll be out there early next week”. Over, and over, and over again.

If this guy had done his survey two weeks ago, we’d be 4 thousand dollars less in debt. Actually I should say, TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, as we now have to mortgage these 4 thousand dollars over 30 years.

Thanks for coming out. I’ll be here all week.