Scrooge

I was not expecting to walk into the bank with a plan and walk out with a check. I was expecting some sound advice, options, and maybe some encouragement.

By the time we left, I felt like we were never going to be able to do this. The weather was contributing to the malaise with a pathetic fallacy, seeming to mirror my mood with a sharp cold wind and small flakes of snow on April 10. I was ready to give up the ghost, it was so discouraging.

Have you ever felt like you were talking and talking and were pretty sure that you were making sense, but the responses you were getting back seemed to have nothing to do with what you thought you had said, so you started to wonder if perhaps you were being unclear or were losing your mind?

That's what this was like.

It does not help that pregnancy makes you stupid, and sometimes makes it harder to arrange your thoughts.

We explained our project, gave her numbers, and she gave us home equity lines of up to 35 thousand, balloons, and the news that they no longer did refinancing. She rattled off possibilities and numbers, did not explain enough for me, and generally delivered all information in a " I hate to tell you that you have two months to live" sort of tone. It was discouraging, disheartening, and frustrating. I am well aware of the mortgage climate, falling home values, and market instability. We were not looking for someone to blow smoke up our collective arse, but we were looking for reality, and what she gave us was more of an "It was a dark and stormy night" portrayal.

We came to our architects and builder the next day feeling like we had bad news, in the face of their excitement over their great new plans for the elevations and exterior of the house.

We came out feeling hopeful.

That's next.