While last week felt like progress, this week felt like stagnation.

I write these posts a day or two before they go live, but a lot can happen in that short time. We spent last Saturday participating in one of America’s least-favorite chores—raking the leaves and yet more apples out of the front and back yards. By the time all the activities ended, and we’d had a minute to catch our breath, it was getting dark, and we were all ready to settle in for the evening. Then First Reader opened her email.

And promptly panicked.

She had received a note from our government case manager that she wanted, in writing, that we intended to purchase a modular home. I was gob-smacked. We told each case manager, yes, including the current, that we have signed a purchase agreement for a modular home.

(A little backstory on why the timing made us hustle. We received a snail mail letter stating that we had until November 6 to respond, or we’d have to start over with our financing and lose our interest rate. Last Saturday was November 6.)

I spent the evening looking for paperwork. I scanned what wasn’t already in PDF format and dug through a year’s worth of email exchanges with our previous case managers to respond while the date was still 11/6/2021. The following week, we took another form to the bank to get it notarized, then carted it and a cashier’s check to the county clerk’s office for filing. Phew. Because of a renewed covid outbreak in our region, title filings aren’t done in person anymore. We left our forms with the gatekeeper at the recording office and waited for more snail mail. When we got the packet, I scanned the document and promptly emailed our case manager. We were on the ball and got our stuff done.

We are still waiting on an acknowledgment that our emails were received.

This past week the world took a moment to remember Armistice Day when the hostilities known as World War I came to an end. The guns and artillery fell silent in a truce on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” Over the next four years, negotiators hammered out details that would rearrange the maps of Europe and Asia. The tensions that followed can be linked to events leading to World War II. In the United States, we honor Armistice Day as Veterans Day. In the Commonwealth of Nations, it is called Remembrance Day.

This leads back to why the loan process stalled this week. You can’t get in the way of a federal holiday.