Wasting and Gifting Time

We closed on our refinance this morning and the process took twice as long as it should have, thanks to some sloppy work and slight-of-hand by the mortgage company.  We had paid some fees up-front so we would *only* be borrowing the cost of the home, but the final settlement papers didn't include those payments, so the numbers were all off.  Plus, closing was almost 2x what The Guy had calculated it to be. Now, some of that is on us because, looking at the estimate papers again this morning, there were some glaring inconsistencies.  Still...

What I'm most peeved about is how long it took.  Because the numbers weren't right, I had to go everything slowly and double check as much as I could.  Because the closing costs were off by such a large factor, The Lawyer had to explain everything, multiple times, using tiny words and hand gestures so I could understand what the real cost would be.

Sure, I'd like some of that money back, but mostly I want those 2 hrs.

Contrast that with our trip to NYC this weekend by train to see friends and the Rockefeller tree (see pic last post). After dinner, rather than taking an earlier train home, we decided to walk around to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and check out the window displays.  We took the 11pm train back to Philly, only to sit on the tracks for 1+hr because of an accident.  When we finally made it to Trenton at 1:50am (10 minutes after the LAST train of the night) we had to sit until 4am to catch an Amtrak.  We finally made it home to our bed by ~5:30am.  That's a looooong night.  But, spent asleep on the shoulder of My Beloved, it was the best time I spent all weekend.