Banking Update; History Lesson

I'm delighted to report today that we are officially free of Bank of America!  We walked down this afternoon and closed all of our accounts.  We've completely moved everything over to Jeanne d'Arc Credit Union.  Hooray.

Our brief (well, too long) visit to the local branch only served to confirm our belief that we were doing the right thing.  Don't get me wrong, the tellers and everyone who work at that branch are lovely folks, and we like them.  They have always tried to help us, even going against BofA's asinine rules and requirements and fees. But the branch is seriously under-served.  There is ALWAYS a line, and there is not physically enough room for the number of customers they regularly have.  The facility is small, cramped, overheated, and smelly.  I feel bad for the folks who work there.

We're also very fed up with the way BofA treats long-time customers, particularly those with smaller accounts.  We overheard an older couple who were demanding to know (in heavily accented English) why they were being charged $6 a month for their checking after all these years of it being free.  As is typical, the folks who can least afford extra fees are the only ones who have to pay them.  The bank employee explained that they had previously used direct deposit, but now that they didn't, there were fees.  The fact that in this economic climate, tons of people are losing their jobs, and thus don't even have a paycheck to direct deposit seemed not to factor into the regulations.  The bank employee could only offer that if they switched to online banking from their home computer, their fees would be less.  This clearly wasn't an option for this couple.

So we're delighted to be free of that mess.  Triumph!

In other news, Lucy came home this afternoon and asked to watch a movie -- one of the Peanuts specials we have.  We recently acquired the whole DVD box set of Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas specials.  Lucy specifically requested one of the lesser-known specials: The Mayflower Voyagers.  I asked why she liked this one.  Her response: "People die in this one."

I'll let you pause to pick up your jaw (at least I had to).

Wow.  I'm not sure if I'm more taken aback by the fact that a Peanuts special features death, or that it's Lucy's favorite one because of that fact.  She's our little Sarah Vowell, I suppose.

I have yet to watch the episode, although I clearly need to do so immediately.  

Buy Nothing Day

We celebrated Buy Nothing Day by going to our favorite zoo -- Stone Zoo.  It was lovely.

The kids are having a great time playing together, and we're enjoying watching them.

We just finished Thanksgiving Dinner, Part Deux: Rise of the Leftovers.  It was awesome.

Lucy went to her dance class this morning; she's loving it.

Tomorrow we do the whole downtown Lowell Holiday celebration, with parade, Art stroll, hot chocolate and the like.  Delightful.

Also, tomorrow will feature Thanksgiving Dinner, Part Three: Leftovers with a Vengeance.

What's cookin'

Happy Thanksgiving to all.
All day yesterday, our house was filled with the awesome smells of Jake preparing for Thanksgiving dinner!  Yum!
Here's what we've (Jake, my mom, and I) made so far:

• Cornbread Stuffing
• "Regular" stuffing
• Cranberry sauce
• Cranberry vodka (may also be referred to as "Cranberry sauce")
• Sweet potato cassarole
• Pecan pie
• Pumpkin pie
• Chocolate tart
• Apple pie
• Cranberry-raspberry-Jello salad

Here's what's going on today:

• Turkey 1 ("normal" turkey, currently cooking in our oven, from Elm Turkey Farm in Dracut)
• Turkey 2 (some sort of heritage breed...currently cooking up at Matt & Mary's, from John Crow Farm)
• Mashed potatoes
• Green beans
• Creamed onions
• Brussels sprouts (with some manner of bacon/maple glaze
• Roasted butternut squash
• Purple cabbage

I will probably update the list later.....I'm sure there's more.

Anyway, all is well here.  Jennifer, Brendan, and Luke are here; Paul and Kathy will arrive later for dinner. We're borrowing Matt & Mary's oven to keep up with the madness.  Woo hoo!

Pies in action:


Hope you're eating well, wherever you are!

1pm update:
Lucy's "napping" in our room, so I am too.  Don't tell her I'm typing.
We watched some of the Macy's Day parade.  It's kind of a tradition here -- Brendan actually marched in the parade one year, and I went into the city to watch him.  It was awesome.

We also watched some of the Dog Show, which is a more recent tradition.  Carter really likes it.

Turkeys are cooking away as planned. We're excited about trying two different kinds of birds.  We're not completely sure *which* heritage breed we got, but it should prove an interesting taste test.
YUM!

A little math problem

Please add the following:
4 4-year old children
3 2- year old children
3 6-or-more-year old children

plus their parental units.

plus one dog (on the hunt for food & love).

Time's up!

The correct answer: TOTAL CHAOS.

And also, a Happy Four-Year Old Lucy.
She had a great time at her party, as did everyone.  Hooray!

Updates from the tenure year

My tenure case has now officially passed both the Department's review process and (just yesterday) the College Personnel Committee.  The voting at both levels (and for all five of us) has been unanimously in favor of tenure for me/us, which is a good thing.
It's off to the Dean next week.
Then University Rank & Tenure.
Then Chancellor.
There might be a few stages in there that I'm missing, because we don't get final word until May.  May 2012.
But who's counting?

In other, less anxiety-producing news, today is Lucy's Birthday! She's FOUR! We can hardly believe it. Here are some pictures of Lucy, Age 4:

(We're in the slow & frustrating process of trying to grow bangs out!!)

I have a backlog of blog posts I need to write....hope to get to those soon!

Happy November to all!

Trick or Treat!

 After a week's delay, we finally had Trick or Treat here in Lowell.  We had a lovely time.  We spent the pre-trick-or-treat prep time up at Matt & Mary's house, where all the kids -- Lucy, Ruth, Woodrow, Henry, and Audrey -- were getting dressed up and revved up for the night.  By 5 pm they were asking "When can we go?  When can we go?" and it was still a whole hour until the festivities were officially beginning.  Yikes!

 

The kids had a tremendous time.  I was at home to give out candy to our trick or treaters (so as to avoid having our house get egged [fingers crossed!]).  Carter was all kinds of worked up about it.  He got into the spirit of the season by dressing up, too:

 

Yup.  He's a reindeer.  The neighborhood kids LOVED seeing him.  

Hope your trick or treat was a good one!

We hate Bank of America

We bought our house using a loan from Bank of America.  We have long been unhappy with this situation due to the various cruddy and unjust things that BofA has done in the mortgage market and on the customer service front.  In fact, it was because of some of BofA's behaviors that we got this particular mortgage, which is a special deal (no PMI) because BofA discriminated against our particular neighborhood in the past (they were ordered under a settlement to make more mortgages in our area).  Doesn't seem like they learned much of a lesson from their punishment(s).

Last fall, we attempted to refinance with another bank (our local credit union) but were unable to because we're totally  underwater on the mortgage.  So there was no way out of this relationship.  Or so we thought. 

Today a letter arrived, letting us know that we are no longer beholden to BofA.  They sold our mortgage to another bank, and that's the end of that.

On the one hand, I suppose I shouldn't really be that upset that BofA has sold our loan to someone else.  After all, we wanted out, and now we know that they did, too.

But they sold our loan to M&T Bank; M&T doesn't even have a branch office in the entire state of Massachusetts.  You know, where we live.  We had our frustrations with BofA, but there is a branch just a few blocks away, and in fact, the folks that that branch have been nothing but helpful.

Also, we have some kind of super-premium checking account with BofA, that we got as a benefit of having our mortgage there.  Said account supposedly costs $25 a month or something ridiculous without the mortgage.  So apparently we need to completely close out our account there to avoid such silliness.  Which means we have to change all our banking crap, including direct deposit, credit card automatic payments, our Paypal accounts, our utility bills, and who knows what else.  This is an enormous pain in the arse.  And, admittedly, one of the other reasons we didn't try so hard to get our accounts away from BofA, given the enormous time suck.  There's also the stupid time suck of dealing with the new mortgage (and its attached escrow account) and getting all of those payments set up.  I'd like to bill BofA for the time I'm going to have to spend on this; shouldn't I get a cut of whatever they made by selling off my loan?

But we're done.  We've had it. We're leaving.  And we want to recommend that you do, too.  Tomorrow -- November 5th -- is Bank Transfer Day.  We're joining the cause and taking our money out of Bank of America and moving it to our local credit union (where we do already have small accounts, but we'll now make them our primary account).  Here's to you, Jeanne d'Arc Credit Union.  Buh-bye Bank of America.