The Home Study, The Real Deal

Guys,

The home study took 8.5 hours.  Eight hours and thirty minutes.  Yep, an entire day.  She showed up at 10am and didn't leave until 6:30pm.  I knew it was going to be long, but she said 3-4 hours when she arrived since I was a single girl and there was no one else in the house to interview... Wrong.  I was mentally prepared for 8 hours until she said that.  I wish she hadn't even said anything about it, but that's what made the last half so much more miserable.  Either way, I was definitely not prepared for over 8 hours.  I was losing my mind. 

We had 55 pages of questions to go through and at 12:30 I asked what page we were on and she said page 13... of 55. 

It was by far the worst part of this entire pre-licensing experience.  Its mentally draining because you're being asked such a variety of things, and things that are very personal.  Also, there is a lot of replication, questions asked a little differently but the same core question.  I'd imagine they do that to try and catch people in a lie, but I have no idea. 

Plus, she hand wrote everything!  Which seemed very inefficient, but she said she can be more thorough if she does it by hand, and then she goes back later to type it all up.  Anyways, just be prepared, if you ever have to do one of these.  Here are some sample questions from what I can remember:

• Where were you born?
• What's your mom's address?
• What's your relationship like with each of your siblings?  How often do you see them? Where do they live?  Are yall close?
• What would you do if she doesn't get along with pets?
• What's your relationship like with you dog? (haha for real... I said, she's my pet...?)
• Who does your lawn?
• What's your mom's address?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• Her: Who will the guardian of the child be?  Me: What?...I'm not adopting, is this relevant if they are a ward of the state?  Her: Lets just answer as if you are adopting... Me: But I'm not, I'm single. I have no plans to have any kind of permanent placement... Her: Ok so who would be the guardian if you were adopting?  Me: My mom I guess... Her: Have you talked to her?  Me: No, because I'm not planning on adopting... Sigh. I need another cup of coffee, can I get you anything? (Maybe you want to see my taser?)
• Who are your best friends?  First and last names, please.  Why are they your best friends? What do ya'll do for fun? Where do they live?  Will they be at the house?
• How much do you drink during the week? During the weekends? When is the last time you got sick from drinking too much?
• What's your mom's address? 
• Give me 5 adjectives about each of your parents, step parents included.
• When's the last time your lost your temper?  How did you handle that? 
• Tell me about any past relationships? Any long term ones?  How did they end? How you handled that?  What are their names?  Yes, first and last, please.  And where do they live?
• What do you do to relieve stress?
• I need details of all your bank accounts, Roth IRA's, mutual funds, latest paystub (and first born child, if you ever have one).
• How are you prepared to handle a child?

Really nothing is off limits... Nothing.  So many of these questions were just massive opened ended questions (see last one listed above).  I was getting pretty irritated at the end, mainly because I was just watching the clock thinking for the love, this can't go on much longer, but it did. and did. and did. And so many of the questions we had already talked about, she really did ask for my mom's physical address 3 different times.  I'm not sure what was confusing about the way I answered it the first time, but we finished with a promise of her to call if she had more questions... I'm crossing my fingers she comes back soon.