Nerve Wracking Day!!

We settle on the mortgage on Daddy's house Friday, and Monday and Tuesday were a whirlwind of activity trying to get everything done no one thought to tell us about until the last minute! We found out Saturday that we had to have an Alabama Wood Infestation Report ready for Closing! That left a mad rush to find someone Monday who would come out immediately and have it ready in time. The people that the mortgage lady recommended said they would get in touch with me yesterday to set up an appointment, but they never called. So, I called someone more local and they agreed to come right then!! When I called the first place back to cancel, she said OK and HUNG UP!! No business sense of being polite at all. And they don't know that we intended to get two Termite bonds with them, when time permitted!! Now the nearby business will get that money. HA!!

Then, yesterday, we went to the bank to open an account to receive the estate money, something the tax lawyer had told us to do. Lo and behold, we found out we had to have an Employer Identification Number for the ESTATE!! When I went online to try to find what was needed, the IRS.gov site was just as confusing as it had been when I looked at it right after Daddy's death. So, I called, went through menu hell, and finally talked to several VERY NICE PEOPLE!! What a pleasant surprise. They helped me get the right form and helped me fill it out, and I was able to get the EIN right then. One of them also recommended that I get the publication no. 559, dealing with settling an estate. I've ordered it, and thought some of you might be interested in getting one, too. From what I can tell from the online version of it, it would have been very helpful back when I started all this.

We also found out at the bank that I will need a copy of the will in order to transfer Daddy's CD's over into my name. That sounds simple enough, right? Nothing is simple, when it comes to this stuff. You see, we don't have the will any more. I called our lawyer niece when we got home to ask her if she was through with it, and she told me that our County has it until after Probate, which is like 5 months from now!! But, she was able to FAX a copy to our bank with the court seal on it. Just one more thing to deal with.

We had tried earlier in the day to deal with a newbie on eBay from France who had paid us with a Western Union transfer, a payment method we don't accept. Since he was new, we decided to try to cash it. I had to go online to find the nearest place that would take care of it, and when we went there, the number wouldn't work. After calling the Western Union representative from the phone at their booth in the store, we found that the name on the eBay sale and the amount of the transfer didn't match with the correct information. So ... I've written him, hoping eBay will translate correctly, and told him to get a refund and pay us the way we state in the auction.

This was all just too much stress for me yesterday, and I broke down right in the bank. I managed to keep the tears to a minimum, so I don't think anyone but DH new just how unhinged I was. By the time I had dealt with the IRS to get the form filled out properly, I was on a chocolate crave that couldn't be denied!! Hubby came to the rescue, went to the store and bought me two big Hershey bars, and I promptly ate both of them!!

It's no wonder that I'm writing this at 3 o'clock in the morning!! Hopefully, when some of this stuff is finished with, I'll be less stressed and my body will let me sleep. I sure hope so. I'm really not a worrier, so it's not like I'm lying there in the middle of the night thinking about all this stuff, because I'm not!! But it's taking its toll, anyway.