Flood Zones

We’re down to just barely a week left until we’re supposed to be closing on the new house. I will admit that I tend to be somewhat of a chronic worrier, and since it feels like everything in my life has been going so great lately I keep waiting for the ball to drop and something to go horribly wrong. I was so sure this was happening the other day when I got an email from the mortgage underwriter telling me that the house had been determined to be in a high-risk flood zone. This left me worried and confused, as we had already talked to the next door neighbors about the area and they said they weren’t considered to be in the flood zone. I started panicking because I had not budgeted for flood insurance and I didn’t know what this new information would do to the value of the house. I took to Google (as I so often do) and saw that flood insurance can range from only a couple hundred dollars a year to a couple thousand a year. I’m pretty sure I must have been having an off day, because I started assuming all the worst case scenarios. We’d have to spend an extra $100 or more a month on flood insurance, which would totally throw off my housing budget. The value of the house would go down by about 50%. The house would end up flooding before we even moved in. My imagination was just running wild, and not in a good way.

As luck would have it, I happen to have the best fiancé in the world! I went to talk to him and he could tell I was on the verge of breaking down from all of my worries. He took control and told me to relax and it would be ok. He then took to Google himself (really, who doesn’t do this often) and first found out how to contest your flood zone mapping. I hadn’t managed to get any quotes for flood insurance yet, so he called an insurance company to see what they could tell him. This turned out to be the most help because they let him know that the property already had a LOMA amendment on it that exempted it from the flood zone. After finding that out he called FEMA to get a copy of the LOMA letter so we could forward that on to the mortgage company to prove the exemption.

It will probably be another day or two before we get any kind of official notice from the mortgage company about whether they are updating our flood zoning, but we’re hoping for good news. The fiancé and I decided that even if we get moved to a low/no-risk flood zone we will probably go ahead and get the insurance. Being in a low/no-risk zone will make our premiums much lower, though, so it won’t break the budget. Always better to hope for the best, but still prepare for the worst.

Here's to hoping everything else is smooth sailing up through closing!

May I Speak to Sir Richard Branson Please

I was in the kitchen at my parent’s house the other day and I noticed a note on the counter. I’m the nosey type, so I had to read what was on it. I’m looking down at the little sticky note and all that is written on it is “Richard Branson?” I found this to be an odd little note, so I asked Mom what it was for. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey Mom, what’s this note on the counter about Richard Branson for?”

Mom: “Oh yeah, I want Sam to call him!” (Sam is my little brother)

Me (while giggling): “Mom, why do you want Sam to call Richard Branson? And just how easy do you think it is to call him?”

Mom: “Well Sam is has such an entrepreneur type of mind and he’s always got these good ideas. Richard Branson is a great entrepreneur so I thought he’d be a good person for Sam to talk to.”

Me (still giggling): “Well I can see why Sam would want to talk to him, but why would Richard Branson want to talk to Sam?”

Mom: “Well why wouldn’t he want to talk to Sam?”

After that question I stopped giggling and just stood there silent. I had nothing to say. She had made a very fair point. Everyone that knows Sam enjoys talking to him, so why wouldn’t Richard Branson also.

So… Sir Richard Branson, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, my mom would really like for you to have a chat with my brother sometime. Thanks!

London Calling

In just a couple months the fiancé and I will be heading out to London for a vacation. This will be his first trip to Europe, actually it’s his first trip out of the country period, but I’ve got family there so I’ve been visiting since before I can even remember. With the Olympics happening there right now and this trip coming up soon, it got me thinking about the last time I went to London and so I thought I would share some of the highlights of that trip with you…

It all began back in October on a flight home from California. One of my best friends and I had been out there for her brother’s wedding (along with our families and many other friends). She was sitting behind me on the plane and we were chatting through the seats about how much fun we had and how we needed to start planning our next adventure. It just so happened that I had recently been offered a job interview in London coming up in November. I had originally planned to just go out alone, but once we started talking about it, we decided it would be much more fun if we extended the trip and both went. The next day I got online and booked our flights and a hotel and about two and a half weeks later we were off!

We took the red eye and arrived in London early enough that we had a full day when we got there. Our first stop was the hotel to drop off our luggage. I say hotel, but really we were in an old townhouse that had been converted to a B&B. The B&B was in a great location, close to Paddington station, and the family that ran it was extremely helpful. Any questions we had they were quick to help with and they also provided us with maps and would mark directions for us. We were on a budget, so these were not luxury accommodations by any means, but they were perfect for our needs. We had even booked a room on the fourth floor because you could get a discount since there were no elevators. I might also mention that the stairs got more and more narrow the farther up the building you went, so it was a rather hilarious sight to see us attempting to pull our giant, overweight suitcase up the stairs. By the time we reached the final flight, I’m pretty sure the stairs were narrower than the suitcase was. It was all just part of the adventure, though.

(our B&B)

We only had three full days there, but you’d be surprised how much we managed to fit into those days (we were there four full days, but nearly a full day was taken up with traveling to and from my interview). We hit as many tourist sites as we could, including: the London Eye, the Tower of London, the London Dungeon, Big Ben and Parliament, London Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, the M&M store, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and the theatre. We knew we wanted to see a show, but we weren’t set on a particular one or day, so we ended up purchasing our tickets the day of the show from one of the half price booths. I would recommend these booths to anyone wanting to see a show (also in NYC), because we ended up getting great seats at Wicked for about half of the regular price.

(outside the theatre before Wicked)



One little added bonus we got was the Winter Wonderland fair going on in Hyde Park while we were there. They had carnival games and many different rides and food booths set up for this event. We didn’t try out any rides, but it was free to get in and walk around the fair, so we did do that one evening. It provided a fun little element of Christmas to our trip. We may not have been in London for very long, but we sure did manage to create some wonderful memories while we were there!

Here are a few more pictures of those memories:

 The London Eye at night

 Big Ben and London Eye

Having fun in the M&M store

More fun at the M&M store

 London Bridge

 View from the London Eye

Big Ben and Parliament

 Winter Wonderland fair in Hyde Park

Winter Wonderland fair in Hyde Park