Trevor had a year end dance. I was asked to chaperon. I like my boys to dress nicely. We are running into a problem with Trevor. He is getting to be a bigger man than his father. As a result there is not much in the wardrobe to fit Trevor anymore. Trevor is right when he says he has nothing to wear. I am going to have to take him shopping with me and soon.
He looked a little nervous at the dance. His hands were in his pockets. The music was not stuff we listen to at home. A few songs we recognized and Trevor would raise his arms and dance. They were usually the same songs everyone else recognized and big groups would spontaneously just start dancing.
This is a young teen dance so a couple of the songs created snakes on the dance floor where students would grab the shoulders or waist of the person in front of them forming a long sinuous line of people like a moving snake on the floor. They had a couple of line dances where everyone knew the steps. I assumed that the PE teacher had shown them the dance steps as they all new them and none of them was old enough to go to a real bar and dance. I had learned the hustle in my PE class at the same age. We had also been torchered with square dancing and the polka.
I wore ear plugs to tone down the music a little. My hair covered the orange sponges in my ears. Occasionally some chaperon would notice and laugh. They were short chaperons for this dance. I had received a call just that afternoon to see if I could attend. I waited until Trevor got home to see if he was even planning on attending. We had other plans to have dinner with a friend that would have to be rescheduled. I wasn't going to re schedule unless Trevor really wanted to go to the dance. After thinking about it. He chose to go to the dance. I rearranged my dinner plans for Sunday and called the school letting them know I would be there.
It was just the right amount of chaperons. I was glad I was there to help. The kids were great. All you really have to do is stare at them. They look up and notice they are being watched and stop what ever it is they weren't supposed to be doing. I didn't see any incidences or trouble. A few running students and a couple of falls, but nothing serious. The party was from six to eight. This time of year the sun is still up at nine so the room never was dark enough for real mischief. There was a chaperons for every entrance to the dance area plus the assistant principal, who is of a serious nature. He wondered the dance floor making his presence felt and keeping the crowds in order.
The students were a little like schools of fish, clusters of people here and there with a big crowd with the most popular students in one big tight school. A few stray and loos students swam in the open areas. When the music choices were good the arms would raise in the clusters and the groups would bounce to the music causing the whole group to shift like feeding schools of fish. It was fascinating to watch.
Trevor had only a few of his friends that attended. He did dance with a couple of girls. But his hands were in his pockets for a few songs as he drifted on the fringe of a couple of groups. He said he had a great time at the end. I treated him to dinner at DQ afterwards as no food had been served at the dance. He had thought there might be food but it was strictly just music. It made for any easy clean up. I just took my boy and left.
He is a great kid to put himself out there, to fight the uncomfortable feeling of being outside the inner circle. I was really proud of his behavior and his willingness to just be there alone in a crowd. That is the hardest part of our world, where we now have the option to never leave our homes and be glued to the computer or TV, never having to socialize or be pushed into uncomfortable situations. Trevor puts himself on the line. He doesn't hide.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Short time stress
We approach memorial weekend. My last day of work is Saturday. Then I will have nothing to keep my mind occupied and off the fact we have not heard from the bank yet. We absolutely have to hear next week. My tenants want to move in. They want to repaint the interior before moving in. One week was not enough, they wanted two weeks to get everything done. I told them I could try giving them two weeks prior to move in to do the grand interior changes they want to accomplish. From the sounds of it, the house will be lovelier than when we lived in it. But meanwhile the clock is ticking.
We have a good thing going with these renters, and we have to make sure we are out of here. I asked and they said they would probably be here a couple of years. I am thinking of offering them a lease to own with us carrying the contract since they wouldn't be able to get a loan. But I will worry about that later. Its more of a distraction thought to keep me from ripping out my hair over not knowing if we are going to begin moving in two weeks.
When a woman stresses, one outlet is to go shopping. I am trying very hard not to do that as I have a lot of stuff I want to get for wherever we end up and I don't want to waste my money frivolously. I need closet organizers or free standing clothes hangers. I don't know what sizes so I can't just go get them yet. I am pretty decided in my mind that I will need my boudoir in the basement. I am not putting the boys downstairs. That is just asking for trouble with teenagers and sneaking out. Or people sneaking in. Their rooms need to be right next to ours.
Shelves are a big one on my list. I have several melamine book shelves that are on their last legs from the last move, or by being shifted around the house. Melamine does not do well with shifting at all. They will not survive another move. That means I need shelves. I also want the shelves to be organized this time. I want shelves to put our Christmas stuff on so it is accessible and not just dumped deep in the back of a closet as it is now, or on a high shelf that needs a ladder to access like in my garage now.
This house is so big and has such potential, I am thrilled at my options. I just am grinding my teeth with impatience. I am also trying to figure out what size u-haul I want to rent to get the easy stuff up there quickly. If only Riley was a little older he could drive one of the cars for me, but that is not an option at this time. I could also just do a trailer on the jeep so I don't have to pay gas mileage. I am going to talk to Tom. Sometimes my ideas are penny thrifty and pound foolish. A big u-haul hold a lot of stuff. But its $15 a day versus $120 including the gas. It will be a couple of trips either way.
My vision is to do the closets and get them hung up in the new house. The kitchen also can be moved in that first move. Anything small. I am going to need book boxes. Book boxes get too heavy if they are big. I figure I can unpack and reuse boxes also. The gas price is going to kill us in expense. I am going to really use the boys to help me which in itself will be a nightmare. The key will be not to install the TV until everything else is done or I will lose them to their games.
I just want to get started. The wait is exacerbating. And if they don't say yes soon, we will have to go to plan C. I don't think plan B will work because that house is occupied and they would have to have time to move out. We don't have time to spare anymore. The boys get out of school on the 13Th and I want to be moving out at that time. Those two weeks before the end of the month will be going by way too fast. July 15 is right around the corner. My mom suggested pods. I might just have to do that if we don't hear good news next week.
We have a good thing going with these renters, and we have to make sure we are out of here. I asked and they said they would probably be here a couple of years. I am thinking of offering them a lease to own with us carrying the contract since they wouldn't be able to get a loan. But I will worry about that later. Its more of a distraction thought to keep me from ripping out my hair over not knowing if we are going to begin moving in two weeks.
When a woman stresses, one outlet is to go shopping. I am trying very hard not to do that as I have a lot of stuff I want to get for wherever we end up and I don't want to waste my money frivolously. I need closet organizers or free standing clothes hangers. I don't know what sizes so I can't just go get them yet. I am pretty decided in my mind that I will need my boudoir in the basement. I am not putting the boys downstairs. That is just asking for trouble with teenagers and sneaking out. Or people sneaking in. Their rooms need to be right next to ours.
Shelves are a big one on my list. I have several melamine book shelves that are on their last legs from the last move, or by being shifted around the house. Melamine does not do well with shifting at all. They will not survive another move. That means I need shelves. I also want the shelves to be organized this time. I want shelves to put our Christmas stuff on so it is accessible and not just dumped deep in the back of a closet as it is now, or on a high shelf that needs a ladder to access like in my garage now.
This house is so big and has such potential, I am thrilled at my options. I just am grinding my teeth with impatience. I am also trying to figure out what size u-haul I want to rent to get the easy stuff up there quickly. If only Riley was a little older he could drive one of the cars for me, but that is not an option at this time. I could also just do a trailer on the jeep so I don't have to pay gas mileage. I am going to talk to Tom. Sometimes my ideas are penny thrifty and pound foolish. A big u-haul hold a lot of stuff. But its $15 a day versus $120 including the gas. It will be a couple of trips either way.
My vision is to do the closets and get them hung up in the new house. The kitchen also can be moved in that first move. Anything small. I am going to need book boxes. Book boxes get too heavy if they are big. I figure I can unpack and reuse boxes also. The gas price is going to kill us in expense. I am going to really use the boys to help me which in itself will be a nightmare. The key will be not to install the TV until everything else is done or I will lose them to their games.
I just want to get started. The wait is exacerbating. And if they don't say yes soon, we will have to go to plan C. I don't think plan B will work because that house is occupied and they would have to have time to move out. We don't have time to spare anymore. The boys get out of school on the 13Th and I want to be moving out at that time. Those two weeks before the end of the month will be going by way too fast. July 15 is right around the corner. My mom suggested pods. I might just have to do that if we don't hear good news next week.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Weeding in the rain
I drove to Longview Thursday to get the children registered in their new schools. There was a deadline for summer football. I wanted to make sure Trevor was listed as a participant. We will work out the details later about the other stuff. Riley needed to be registered in high school and pick his electives for next year. It will all be put in the computer and his classes spit out, but again I wanted to make sure he was in the system so he could get the classes he wanted.
I ran into an old friend who works at the school. We reminisced for a short time as she was working and students kept coming to her with questions. I feel really good about the new school. It is smaller than the school they go to now by 600 students. Just over 1000 attend. The community college is right next door. You can't tell where the high school parking ends and the community college parking begins except for the cyclone fence. Of course I did enter the wrong parking lot only to find there was no access to the high school due to the fence. I had to drive out and around the block to find the right entrance. It is all permit parking in the area. I never did find the visitor parking, just slipped my old car in with the other cars in an empty spot. It fit right in due to its age. Tom's Cadillac might have stood out and drawn some attention. Riley would probably have gotten his permit by now, if he thought there was any chance of driving the Cadillac to school.
Riley is talking about getting his permit once we move, but I think that he only said it because Trevor was in the back seat going on about how he couldn't wait to get his permit and a job. The job is a good thing but the permit I told him is only allowed if he gets his grades up. I cannot nag him enough about his grades. We will see what the report card states, a little over two weeks left in the year.
After the visit with the school, I drove up to the big house, just to take a look. I am told we are seven days from hearing a yes from the mortgage company, maybe. We are hitting our window when we need to start considering alternate plans. The big house is getting really overgrown. The back was like a scene out of sleeping beauty. The blackberry vines had overtaken the house. They were crawling up the down spouts. You couldn't even reach the back yard anymore without serious clippers.
I had some clippers in my car. I like to carry half my life in my car; extra clothes for casual and dress up and a swim suit just in case the opportunity arises. I have clean underwear for the boys. On the off chance, I get to garden with friends sometimes in the summer I carry around gardening shears. You just never know what might be offered up in a day.
When my girlfriend fell off her bike and broke her collar bone, a couple years ago. I was able to slip on a dress and look professional for the doctors while waiting in the ER. Rather than look like some out of shape biker with my fat thighs bulging out of very unattractive tight shorts. It was a relief to have the spare outfit in the car. We had planned to go out to lunch after biking. I had thought I might need to change my clothes. I just hadn't intended to wear them in the ER, but they were a vast improvement over the biking attire.
So my trunk has lots of useful things in it including a pair of shears. I spent an hour whacking away at the brambles with my shears. It was satisfying work. The rain finally chased me away. But I came to the realization that we have a real problem with the back yard. I barely made a dent with an hour of clipping. The brambles will grow back quickly. What to do to kill them. Digging up the roots is usually my line of defense, but this is a whole hillside. And once they are gone, what do we put in instead to prevent their return. I will have to hit the books on blackberry control.
I also could hear the rain flow through the drains and realized we needed to figure out the damp basement issue quickly. The front drive had issues also with standing pools of water. Hopefully, none of these issues are too big a challenge for us to overcome. We are going to own this house with water and weeds. Thankfully with the open beam plan and the unfinished basement we can see the health of the house with no black mold issues to contend with, yet. I still want to do another walk through just to be on the safe side. A sitting vacant house is not a healthy environment. By the time we close, this will not be such a sweet deal as it was two months ago.
I thought that summer would be easier on a vacant house than winter when the cold does its own damage. But the plants take on a life of their own, ripping the house apart from the outside.
The chores keep growing the longer we wait. I don't even know what is being done to the interior with it vacant so long. I know there was damp in the basement. I could see a hole in a down spout in the front yard that needs repair. The water was not being diverted properly. I am hopeful that by fixing that down spout we can solve the damp basement problem. I am tending towards tiling the basement as the most resilient material to damp and water. I think I might go browse Home Depot today. Check out blackberry abatement and tile. I do want to use that basement fully and finished.
I ran into an old friend who works at the school. We reminisced for a short time as she was working and students kept coming to her with questions. I feel really good about the new school. It is smaller than the school they go to now by 600 students. Just over 1000 attend. The community college is right next door. You can't tell where the high school parking ends and the community college parking begins except for the cyclone fence. Of course I did enter the wrong parking lot only to find there was no access to the high school due to the fence. I had to drive out and around the block to find the right entrance. It is all permit parking in the area. I never did find the visitor parking, just slipped my old car in with the other cars in an empty spot. It fit right in due to its age. Tom's Cadillac might have stood out and drawn some attention. Riley would probably have gotten his permit by now, if he thought there was any chance of driving the Cadillac to school.
Riley is talking about getting his permit once we move, but I think that he only said it because Trevor was in the back seat going on about how he couldn't wait to get his permit and a job. The job is a good thing but the permit I told him is only allowed if he gets his grades up. I cannot nag him enough about his grades. We will see what the report card states, a little over two weeks left in the year.
After the visit with the school, I drove up to the big house, just to take a look. I am told we are seven days from hearing a yes from the mortgage company, maybe. We are hitting our window when we need to start considering alternate plans. The big house is getting really overgrown. The back was like a scene out of sleeping beauty. The blackberry vines had overtaken the house. They were crawling up the down spouts. You couldn't even reach the back yard anymore without serious clippers.
I had some clippers in my car. I like to carry half my life in my car; extra clothes for casual and dress up and a swim suit just in case the opportunity arises. I have clean underwear for the boys. On the off chance, I get to garden with friends sometimes in the summer I carry around gardening shears. You just never know what might be offered up in a day.
When my girlfriend fell off her bike and broke her collar bone, a couple years ago. I was able to slip on a dress and look professional for the doctors while waiting in the ER. Rather than look like some out of shape biker with my fat thighs bulging out of very unattractive tight shorts. It was a relief to have the spare outfit in the car. We had planned to go out to lunch after biking. I had thought I might need to change my clothes. I just hadn't intended to wear them in the ER, but they were a vast improvement over the biking attire.
So my trunk has lots of useful things in it including a pair of shears. I spent an hour whacking away at the brambles with my shears. It was satisfying work. The rain finally chased me away. But I came to the realization that we have a real problem with the back yard. I barely made a dent with an hour of clipping. The brambles will grow back quickly. What to do to kill them. Digging up the roots is usually my line of defense, but this is a whole hillside. And once they are gone, what do we put in instead to prevent their return. I will have to hit the books on blackberry control.
I also could hear the rain flow through the drains and realized we needed to figure out the damp basement issue quickly. The front drive had issues also with standing pools of water. Hopefully, none of these issues are too big a challenge for us to overcome. We are going to own this house with water and weeds. Thankfully with the open beam plan and the unfinished basement we can see the health of the house with no black mold issues to contend with, yet. I still want to do another walk through just to be on the safe side. A sitting vacant house is not a healthy environment. By the time we close, this will not be such a sweet deal as it was two months ago.
I thought that summer would be easier on a vacant house than winter when the cold does its own damage. But the plants take on a life of their own, ripping the house apart from the outside.
The chores keep growing the longer we wait. I don't even know what is being done to the interior with it vacant so long. I know there was damp in the basement. I could see a hole in a down spout in the front yard that needs repair. The water was not being diverted properly. I am hopeful that by fixing that down spout we can solve the damp basement problem. I am tending towards tiling the basement as the most resilient material to damp and water. I think I might go browse Home Depot today. Check out blackberry abatement and tile. I do want to use that basement fully and finished.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Adjusting the WooHoo just a little
As we delve into these uncharted waters clarifications come to light. Basis is only the house not the land it sits on. I have to subtract $108,000 for land value. I took it off our assessors page for the county. But I will check and see what is selling for empty land in our neighborhood also. I figure they wont ding us if we use the assessed value, which is pretty close now to our market value, probably more.
Now, I just have to go back in our last five years of records and pull any receipts or bills for improvements, appliances, landscaping to start a file on basis for the house. If you haven't seen my garage at the moment and the fact Tom took all the piles of papers from our office and added them to the garage in a big toss, during our ready for house showing clean up. It is somewhat a daunting task. But now that I am not working I will have time on my hands. What better way to fill it than to tackle the papers in the nightmare that is my garage. Ack.
We are now current on our house mortgage. It is removed from the market. But if some one wanted to make us an offer for what we owe, we would probably consider it. The tenants take possession August 1. Primary on our list of things to do now is closing on a house and move prior to that August 1. I would like to be out ASAP, once school is over. The tenants will be coming in a week earlier to paint and replace carpets.
I am told I will want to check their color choices. I was thinking as long as they don't add more carpet I am OK. I already know they didn't like the lime green paint which makes me less worried about their color choices.
Tom is off traveling for his new project. He is loving his work. The flexibility and ease of the project appeals to him. He started in boilers and now he is back in them. He came home all excited one day because he had climbed through a boiler for the first time in years. To him it was like when the kids get a new Bionicle or Lego set fresh out of the box. I have a hard time imagining what the boilers look like from his descriptions as I have never had the privilege of getting a mill or plant tour.
He describes these vast empty rooms with pipes running along the exterior walls and ceiling. Scaffolding and ladders are used to reach the top. The room itself is the boiler, with the fire lit in the middle of the floor? I keep wishing he would give his boys a tour of his different mills so they would not feel as I do, lost in an alien world. They are just now old enough. For safety most plants require a minimum age of 12 to 14 in order to tour the facilities. It is a dangerous place if you are not paying attention.
To me plants are dangerous. I could get run over by a huge truck or a moving part could crush me if I step out of a safety zone. You are expected to be aware of your surroundings and anticipate your own safety. To Tom a plant is one big toy box or a gigantic model to be put together not with glue and tweezers, but with welding tools and hammers. I can see the appeal.
Men like race cars and the feel of a little danger. I like a more sedentary life style, warm, fuzzy and nurturing. My projects are on a smaller, simpler, scale, with a practical bent. There is enough excitement recently in my life. Now I am off to tackle the papers in the garage.
Now, I just have to go back in our last five years of records and pull any receipts or bills for improvements, appliances, landscaping to start a file on basis for the house. If you haven't seen my garage at the moment and the fact Tom took all the piles of papers from our office and added them to the garage in a big toss, during our ready for house showing clean up. It is somewhat a daunting task. But now that I am not working I will have time on my hands. What better way to fill it than to tackle the papers in the nightmare that is my garage. Ack.
We are now current on our house mortgage. It is removed from the market. But if some one wanted to make us an offer for what we owe, we would probably consider it. The tenants take possession August 1. Primary on our list of things to do now is closing on a house and move prior to that August 1. I would like to be out ASAP, once school is over. The tenants will be coming in a week earlier to paint and replace carpets.
I am told I will want to check their color choices. I was thinking as long as they don't add more carpet I am OK. I already know they didn't like the lime green paint which makes me less worried about their color choices.
Tom is off traveling for his new project. He is loving his work. The flexibility and ease of the project appeals to him. He started in boilers and now he is back in them. He came home all excited one day because he had climbed through a boiler for the first time in years. To him it was like when the kids get a new Bionicle or Lego set fresh out of the box. I have a hard time imagining what the boilers look like from his descriptions as I have never had the privilege of getting a mill or plant tour.
He describes these vast empty rooms with pipes running along the exterior walls and ceiling. Scaffolding and ladders are used to reach the top. The room itself is the boiler, with the fire lit in the middle of the floor? I keep wishing he would give his boys a tour of his different mills so they would not feel as I do, lost in an alien world. They are just now old enough. For safety most plants require a minimum age of 12 to 14 in order to tour the facilities. It is a dangerous place if you are not paying attention.
To me plants are dangerous. I could get run over by a huge truck or a moving part could crush me if I step out of a safety zone. You are expected to be aware of your surroundings and anticipate your own safety. To Tom a plant is one big toy box or a gigantic model to be put together not with glue and tweezers, but with welding tools and hammers. I can see the appeal.
Men like race cars and the feel of a little danger. I like a more sedentary life style, warm, fuzzy and nurturing. My projects are on a smaller, simpler, scale, with a practical bent. There is enough excitement recently in my life. Now I am off to tackle the papers in the garage.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
WooHoo
The renters agreed. She is a home maker like me. I kind of anticipated that with five kids. Blended family, divorce situation. Two big dogs, 2 of the kids only stay with them for a portion of the month. He is a remodeling contractor. I told them they could come in early before the contract begins and paint and change out the carpets, but we weren't paying for it. They could do it to their tastes. It was right up his ally if he was a remodeling contractor. I told them with 5 kids and 2 dogs we weren't going to spiff up the house for them.
It all went well. They asked about the short sale and if we would get current on our loan. They didn't want to move into a house and then have it foreclosed on them. I told them I had a check ready to go this week as soon as the contract was signed, to become current. I am giddy with happiness. I am hoping they stay a long time. I even offered them a two year contract at this price to guarantee the rent price. I don't know if they will take me up on the offer. But stability is great for us. The longer they stay the less down time we have to worry about.
We just have to pay the mortgage to August, then they will be paying it. The write offs on our taxes are more than the rent. It will be interesting doing our taxes this year. This is new territory for us. A girl friend with a CPA husband told me the basis starts when we put it on the market to rent which was this week. Even though our first check doesn't arrive until August. The basis is our purchase price plus any remodeling and landscaping done, add $20,000 to $350,000. Depreciation starts now. We get to depreciate the whole amount over 27.5 years. It is a great gig. Especially considering my bad paint job and the bad carpets. The renter husband is a remodeling contractor. I get the work for free. Heaven. Maybe I was raptured. If we get news that we are closing next week on the big house, I'll have to pinch myself.
It all went well. They asked about the short sale and if we would get current on our loan. They didn't want to move into a house and then have it foreclosed on them. I told them I had a check ready to go this week as soon as the contract was signed, to become current. I am giddy with happiness. I am hoping they stay a long time. I even offered them a two year contract at this price to guarantee the rent price. I don't know if they will take me up on the offer. But stability is great for us. The longer they stay the less down time we have to worry about.
We just have to pay the mortgage to August, then they will be paying it. The write offs on our taxes are more than the rent. It will be interesting doing our taxes this year. This is new territory for us. A girl friend with a CPA husband told me the basis starts when we put it on the market to rent which was this week. Even though our first check doesn't arrive until August. The basis is our purchase price plus any remodeling and landscaping done, add $20,000 to $350,000. Depreciation starts now. We get to depreciate the whole amount over 27.5 years. It is a great gig. Especially considering my bad paint job and the bad carpets. The renter husband is a remodeling contractor. I get the work for free. Heaven. Maybe I was raptured. If we get news that we are closing next week on the big house, I'll have to pinch myself.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Renters-cory
We are now in negotiation phase with potential renters. They want us to repaint the interior of the whole house and replace the carpets. They have a lab and a boxer and five kids. Tom and I are thinking they should be happy anyone will rent to them with that many in the family. I am to tell them that they are more than welcome to change out the carpet and change paint colors after they move in, having signed a year lease, but we are not doing it for them. The price is right as the house stands.
I have to admit the lime green bedroom is a bit bright, but they have children that could pick their own colors, change it to a color they like. My hope is that they become long term renters and we don't have to deal with this house again for several years. I even have flooring for either Trevor's room or our room if they want to rip out carpet and install it themselves. It matches the rest of the upstairs which we already installed. I just never finished installing. But we aren't going to do it for them. We'll clean the house, then they can take over and decorate to their tastes.
We will be checking past rental histories and doing the due diligence. Well, the property manager we hired will be doing the work. There are things in the contract such as inspections of the interior of the house periodically, to prevent drug dealers from renting. There are also limits to the number of people that can reside in the house so they can't have more than one family sharing the house. They don't even want possession until end of July which suites us just fine. The lease they are in now doesn't expire until the end of July.
I will be talking with them this weekend to work out the details and of course finding out their story to make sure everything will work out to our satisfaction. The other showing, the woman didn't like the house. Tom said he had the impression she was a neat nick. She would not have approved or tolerated the imperfections. Our agent had the impression they had found something else and were just looking to confirm their other choice as best.
I am excited. Hopefully, everything goes as planned. Tom was right though, the house wasn't selling because of my bad paint job and the stained carpets. But I don't see the point of making it all new and special for five kids and two big dogs. They will be as hard on the house as we were, if not more so. But that is all right as it buys us time and as the saying goes"Be careful what you wish for", I now have the rental I always wanted. And our credit rating is still good and will survive. Yeah!!!
Since we don't have to short sale we don't have to force the mortgage company to deal with us by being delinquent. Thank goodness we came to this direction quickly before real damage was done to our credit. One month is not even going to make a ding. Love that. The twists and turns of life have definitely been interesting recently.
Now all we have to do is close on a house and move before the tenants need this place.
I have to admit the lime green bedroom is a bit bright, but they have children that could pick their own colors, change it to a color they like. My hope is that they become long term renters and we don't have to deal with this house again for several years. I even have flooring for either Trevor's room or our room if they want to rip out carpet and install it themselves. It matches the rest of the upstairs which we already installed. I just never finished installing. But we aren't going to do it for them. We'll clean the house, then they can take over and decorate to their tastes.
We will be checking past rental histories and doing the due diligence. Well, the property manager we hired will be doing the work. There are things in the contract such as inspections of the interior of the house periodically, to prevent drug dealers from renting. There are also limits to the number of people that can reside in the house so they can't have more than one family sharing the house. They don't even want possession until end of July which suites us just fine. The lease they are in now doesn't expire until the end of July.
I will be talking with them this weekend to work out the details and of course finding out their story to make sure everything will work out to our satisfaction. The other showing, the woman didn't like the house. Tom said he had the impression she was a neat nick. She would not have approved or tolerated the imperfections. Our agent had the impression they had found something else and were just looking to confirm their other choice as best.
I am excited. Hopefully, everything goes as planned. Tom was right though, the house wasn't selling because of my bad paint job and the stained carpets. But I don't see the point of making it all new and special for five kids and two big dogs. They will be as hard on the house as we were, if not more so. But that is all right as it buys us time and as the saying goes"Be careful what you wish for", I now have the rental I always wanted. And our credit rating is still good and will survive. Yeah!!!
Since we don't have to short sale we don't have to force the mortgage company to deal with us by being delinquent. Thank goodness we came to this direction quickly before real damage was done to our credit. One month is not even going to make a ding. Love that. The twists and turns of life have definitely been interesting recently.
Now all we have to do is close on a house and move before the tenants need this place.
Movie night
Thursday night Trevor was in a pout. I had told him he could go to the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean, the midnight show. He had told me it would be Friday the 20Th. The midnight show was on Thursday night, a school night for a boy with bad grades. He wouldn't have been home until two or three in the morning on a school night. " No Way" I said, and Tom backed me up. He thought it was a horrible idea. He mentioned all the wrong kind of people that are out and about at that time of the night. Trevor pouted and got all teary eyed. I told him he could go Friday night as agreed, but there was no midnight show Friday night. There was a 6:40 and a 9:00 pm.
I loved the 6:40 pm. I had just enough time to get home from work grab the boys and deliver them to the Theater. Trevor wanted the later show. He gets that it is an older more "in crowd" at the later show. Just the reason I want him to go to the earlier show. I could be home in bed at a reasonable hour instead of waiting up to get him.
I call home from work to make sure that the boys have their movie cards. Santa had given them gift cards for the cinema in town, enough for a movie and food. Trevor had also invited a friend. I wanted to make sure the friend was at the house so we wouldn't be delayed.
Cards were located. I was glad I called as Trevor had missplaced his card. It was found under his bed eventually. I was glad to be at work during the searching phase as I know how those crisises go. tom was home to help though so I am sure it went more smoothly than if I was helping find it. I get cranky. The friend was a little short on funds as the boys chose to go to the 3D version of the movie, which costs $10.50 versus the $6.50 regular version. I told Trevor the young man was his guest and to help him out. Trevor did after looking at me hopefully, and futily. My part was getting them to the movie. I had already given each of my boys an extra $10 thinking the cards only had $10 on them when they really had $20. The boys were loaded with money, Trevor could afford to treat his friend.
Once inside, his friend pitched in for the very expensive candy, pop and popcorn that the theater has available. The boys were happy when I left them. I gave Riley my cell, turning it off and telling him not to turn it on until after the movie, to call me to come get them.
Tom had suggested that I buy a bottle of wine, rib eye steaks, and asparagus with two baker potatoes. He was going to cook us a delightful dinner while the boys were at the movie. We would have two hours to play.
I swung by the store across from the theater and bought all those items and hurried home. $37 dollars later ( I bought a good wine but not too expensive) , it was cheaper than going out by far. We could blow over $100 if not $200 if Tom and I go out. Tom made a fantastic melt in your mouth meal.
We tried not to discuss any hot topics that might cause us to argue. Between Trevor's grades, Riley's sleeping a lot and hip pain this morning, the sale of our house, the rental possibility of our house, the lack of a closing date on the house we want, what to offer on another house if we don't get the first choice, there are a lot of sensitive topics. I complimented Tom on his fantastic dinner. We laughed at how sensationalist the news is these days.
After dinner Tom got back into his book. He is reading Ayn Rand 's Atlas Shrugged for the multiple time. It still has not dated itself even though it was written over 50 years ago. I can't recvommend it enough, but be warned there are a lot of sex scenes. Probably one of the reasons Tom likes it.
I had set the timer on the stove for an hour and a half, just so I could pay attention to the passing time and be ready for the pick up. I had a glass of wine with dinner. I wanted to make sure I drank water and was good to drive the boys home after the movie. I was surprised at how long the movie was. They had not called at 9:00 pm when I finally took the initiative and just drove back to the theater to check on them. They were waiting outside. The movie had just gotten out. It was over two hours long.
They gave it rave reviews. The boys said it was hysterically funny. They also said it set up for another sequel at the end. Everyone had a great evening, even Tom and myself.
I loved the 6:40 pm. I had just enough time to get home from work grab the boys and deliver them to the Theater. Trevor wanted the later show. He gets that it is an older more "in crowd" at the later show. Just the reason I want him to go to the earlier show. I could be home in bed at a reasonable hour instead of waiting up to get him.
I call home from work to make sure that the boys have their movie cards. Santa had given them gift cards for the cinema in town, enough for a movie and food. Trevor had also invited a friend. I wanted to make sure the friend was at the house so we wouldn't be delayed.
Cards were located. I was glad I called as Trevor had missplaced his card. It was found under his bed eventually. I was glad to be at work during the searching phase as I know how those crisises go. tom was home to help though so I am sure it went more smoothly than if I was helping find it. I get cranky. The friend was a little short on funds as the boys chose to go to the 3D version of the movie, which costs $10.50 versus the $6.50 regular version. I told Trevor the young man was his guest and to help him out. Trevor did after looking at me hopefully, and futily. My part was getting them to the movie. I had already given each of my boys an extra $10 thinking the cards only had $10 on them when they really had $20. The boys were loaded with money, Trevor could afford to treat his friend.
Once inside, his friend pitched in for the very expensive candy, pop and popcorn that the theater has available. The boys were happy when I left them. I gave Riley my cell, turning it off and telling him not to turn it on until after the movie, to call me to come get them.
Tom had suggested that I buy a bottle of wine, rib eye steaks, and asparagus with two baker potatoes. He was going to cook us a delightful dinner while the boys were at the movie. We would have two hours to play.
I swung by the store across from the theater and bought all those items and hurried home. $37 dollars later ( I bought a good wine but not too expensive) , it was cheaper than going out by far. We could blow over $100 if not $200 if Tom and I go out. Tom made a fantastic melt in your mouth meal.
We tried not to discuss any hot topics that might cause us to argue. Between Trevor's grades, Riley's sleeping a lot and hip pain this morning, the sale of our house, the rental possibility of our house, the lack of a closing date on the house we want, what to offer on another house if we don't get the first choice, there are a lot of sensitive topics. I complimented Tom on his fantastic dinner. We laughed at how sensationalist the news is these days.
After dinner Tom got back into his book. He is reading Ayn Rand 's Atlas Shrugged for the multiple time. It still has not dated itself even though it was written over 50 years ago. I can't recvommend it enough, but be warned there are a lot of sex scenes. Probably one of the reasons Tom likes it.
I had set the timer on the stove for an hour and a half, just so I could pay attention to the passing time and be ready for the pick up. I had a glass of wine with dinner. I wanted to make sure I drank water and was good to drive the boys home after the movie. I was surprised at how long the movie was. They had not called at 9:00 pm when I finally took the initiative and just drove back to the theater to check on them. They were waiting outside. The movie had just gotten out. It was over two hours long.
They gave it rave reviews. The boys said it was hysterically funny. They also said it set up for another sequel at the end. Everyone had a great evening, even Tom and myself.
Friday, May 20, 2011
updates
Stress in moving is always high. There is no easy way to get around it. Riley has been napping after school. He missed Monday for a runny nose. I let him stay home Tuesday to do make up work. He was well enough to go to school, but we had fun. We played pool. I beat him at two games. We played chess. He beat me.
He was working in speech class on bills and the proper terms. They are going to debate each others ideas. Its a very liberal class from the bills that were presented. Demanding vegan lunches in the cafeteria to tax payer funded surrogate moms for gay couples.
Riley's bill was to adjust the 3% increase a year in value rule on property values for tax purposes in Oregon, to reflect Gross Domestic Product when it is less than 3%. So the assessed value doesn't reach the actual market value as we have now. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I had to laugh as he said he had to explain it to his teacher and the class, figures they wouldn't get it.
Meanwhile, we still wait to hear from Bank America to approve our offer. They have a notorious reputation in the industry. It makes me want to switch banks once we reach Longview. I will miss West Coast Bank. I haven't found any bank yet as nice and accommodating, with a user friendly web site. Bank America makes you wait 24 hours after adding a merchant to their account, before sending a check. West Coast provides you in essence with your own private checking account on line, where you can send a Friend a check without delay and keep them in your personal list for future transactions. They don't make you wait for approval.
On the house they are making us wait an excessively long time. We are now three weeks passed our original closing date which gave them a month originally to approve us. We are now going on two months if we get into June.
Good news is Tom mentioned to me that we should check out renting our house. He back pedaled a little when I found a local property manager to come over. I did some tax research. There is so much you can write off on a home when it is a rental that we found it to be a very lucrative option. It will also keep our credit intact.
Four bedroom homes are in high demand on the rental market. We are showing the house this weekend to two different potential families to rent. We can cover the mortgage and the taxes. Mortgage is covered with the rent and the taxes and other costs are covered with the write offs on expenses and interest. It is a pretty sweet deal. The house is already family friendly so to speak. We are rough on a house. I said pets are allowed. We even have a doggy door already installed.
We are only a month behind so it is an easy catch up on the mortgage. Easy recovery. The problem is we need to move out. I said the house would be available in July. Which worked well for the potential renters. Everyone is waiting for school to let out to move their kids.
I did ask for a three month interior inspection, including attic, to discourage drug dealers. A friend mentioned that as a concern. Having visited the "Drug House" in Longview where they destroyed a beautiful home, I definitely want interior inspections to frighten drug dealers away. I also offered discounts for long term contracts. The manager didn't like contracts. She does month to month normally. She said it was easier to evict someone on a month to month. But we don't want turn over and vacancies. I am a terrible house keeper. The house is not that special to us. The carpet is already toasted. I am expected to have the house move in ready after we leave. I may hire some cleaners to achieve that clean goal. I don't throw rocks at bad house keeping. You only have to worry about how the house looks when you try to bring in someone new. Our rent is high enough that I anticipate decent renters because they will need to have professional jobs to afford it. What I do know is four bedrooms are hard to find. And our town has a decent school system with a community that cares.
I have been trying to convince Tom for years to get into the rental business, but having grown up in rentals, he didn't want to be a landlord. Now I get what I have wanted without a fight. Though he did put up a struggle until I showed him the write offs. We had to come up with enough write offs to offset the income created with the rent. The only way people really make money in rentals is if they own the property without debt. All our costs wipe out all the profit in the income. It was fascinating reading and learning about depreciation. I am still trying to figure out what our basis is on our house. Do we use the original purchase price? Depreciate to this year and start with that price? Used the tax assessed value for this year (safe bet in my book)? Use the price the bank wants us to list it for (dreamers)?
Depreciation is over 27.5 years, about 3.6% per year. You can write of expenses, management costs, taxes, interest. Pretty much anything cost wise associated with the house. House hold items and appliances are depreciated over 5 years. Its a lot of book keeping. But I am thrilled to find an out to our nightmare and we can salvage our reputation and credit scores. Everyone is happy.
He was working in speech class on bills and the proper terms. They are going to debate each others ideas. Its a very liberal class from the bills that were presented. Demanding vegan lunches in the cafeteria to tax payer funded surrogate moms for gay couples.
Riley's bill was to adjust the 3% increase a year in value rule on property values for tax purposes in Oregon, to reflect Gross Domestic Product when it is less than 3%. So the assessed value doesn't reach the actual market value as we have now. I thought it was a brilliant idea. I had to laugh as he said he had to explain it to his teacher and the class, figures they wouldn't get it.
Meanwhile, we still wait to hear from Bank America to approve our offer. They have a notorious reputation in the industry. It makes me want to switch banks once we reach Longview. I will miss West Coast Bank. I haven't found any bank yet as nice and accommodating, with a user friendly web site. Bank America makes you wait 24 hours after adding a merchant to their account, before sending a check. West Coast provides you in essence with your own private checking account on line, where you can send a Friend a check without delay and keep them in your personal list for future transactions. They don't make you wait for approval.
On the house they are making us wait an excessively long time. We are now three weeks passed our original closing date which gave them a month originally to approve us. We are now going on two months if we get into June.
Good news is Tom mentioned to me that we should check out renting our house. He back pedaled a little when I found a local property manager to come over. I did some tax research. There is so much you can write off on a home when it is a rental that we found it to be a very lucrative option. It will also keep our credit intact.
Four bedroom homes are in high demand on the rental market. We are showing the house this weekend to two different potential families to rent. We can cover the mortgage and the taxes. Mortgage is covered with the rent and the taxes and other costs are covered with the write offs on expenses and interest. It is a pretty sweet deal. The house is already family friendly so to speak. We are rough on a house. I said pets are allowed. We even have a doggy door already installed.
We are only a month behind so it is an easy catch up on the mortgage. Easy recovery. The problem is we need to move out. I said the house would be available in July. Which worked well for the potential renters. Everyone is waiting for school to let out to move their kids.
I did ask for a three month interior inspection, including attic, to discourage drug dealers. A friend mentioned that as a concern. Having visited the "Drug House" in Longview where they destroyed a beautiful home, I definitely want interior inspections to frighten drug dealers away. I also offered discounts for long term contracts. The manager didn't like contracts. She does month to month normally. She said it was easier to evict someone on a month to month. But we don't want turn over and vacancies. I am a terrible house keeper. The house is not that special to us. The carpet is already toasted. I am expected to have the house move in ready after we leave. I may hire some cleaners to achieve that clean goal. I don't throw rocks at bad house keeping. You only have to worry about how the house looks when you try to bring in someone new. Our rent is high enough that I anticipate decent renters because they will need to have professional jobs to afford it. What I do know is four bedrooms are hard to find. And our town has a decent school system with a community that cares.
I have been trying to convince Tom for years to get into the rental business, but having grown up in rentals, he didn't want to be a landlord. Now I get what I have wanted without a fight. Though he did put up a struggle until I showed him the write offs. We had to come up with enough write offs to offset the income created with the rent. The only way people really make money in rentals is if they own the property without debt. All our costs wipe out all the profit in the income. It was fascinating reading and learning about depreciation. I am still trying to figure out what our basis is on our house. Do we use the original purchase price? Depreciate to this year and start with that price? Used the tax assessed value for this year (safe bet in my book)? Use the price the bank wants us to list it for (dreamers)?
Depreciation is over 27.5 years, about 3.6% per year. You can write of expenses, management costs, taxes, interest. Pretty much anything cost wise associated with the house. House hold items and appliances are depreciated over 5 years. Its a lot of book keeping. But I am thrilled to find an out to our nightmare and we can salvage our reputation and credit scores. Everyone is happy.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
House showing- no news
Riley mowed the lawn for me. Of course I offered to pay him $20 for incentive. Trevor was supposed to do it, but when I got back from visiting the high school for "meet the advisor night" which was not very interesting, Trevor had not started. I had been hopeful he would have been finished. I even picked up DQ with Blizzards as a treat.
The advisor was nice. Riley's advisor is also his science teacher. He shook my hand told Riley to show me around and went back to his work. After all Riley knows his stuff. There is not much to talk about with a child doing so well. We were there about ten minutes. Long enough for Riley to show me around his class room and his binder for planning four years of high school with the graduation requirements.
Riley gets the game. He is easy. I told him he was going to college and we would help. He wants to work with planes. I told him he could be an engineer working with planes. He was pleased with that plan. It dovetailed quite nicely into his wanting to work with planes.
I tidied up and got the house ready for vacuuming after dinner. Riley was tired from mowing. he did a great job. He cut the grass down to the lowest level. It looked great, but that is a hard cut with this mower. Its a push mower and tends to get stuck in the lower level on our uneven lawn.
I figured the boys would be off to school the next day so I could finish up while they were gone. Thank goodness I wasn't working that day. I was free to really get down and clean uninterrupted.
Trevor and I have been at logger heads recently. He has come to realize he will be in eighth grade again. But it will be a whole new environment. He might enjoy it. Trevor's contribution to readying the house was to clean his room of dirty clothes and start a load of laundry, take out the garbage and vacuum just his room. So the chores he usually does, no extras. He did not get paid for helping other than the DQ dinner. I just couldn't get him to do any more.
Once they went to school the next day I vacuumed. The house looked as good as when Tom does it. One of the reasons to give credit where it is do, was last weekend we all pitched in and did a cleaning with Tom home participating. It really made a difference only having one week of accumulation to take care of. The piles of papers had already been dealt with. I had even tackled a small path through the garage mess last weekend. That was why the broken lawn mower was in the trunk of my car. I was off to donate it to the repair shop during the showing. The repair shop takes old lawn mowers. It is great recycling.
I moved the cars to new spots to open up our driveway. I asked my neighbor to move her camper off our driveway, where she likes to park. Now here is where my stress level really went up. She forgot to move the camper. My real estate agent has told me three times now her camper is hurting our sales potential. People are not liking the camper in the driveway. It is not even her driveway. So I had to tell my neighbor she was no longer welcome to park it in our driveway.
I probably would not have been so harsh if she had remembered to move it, but if I lost a sale because of her camper I was upset. There was interest a couple of times, but the buyers had gone with other homes. Who knows if their choosing the other houses had to do with the camper eating up space on our driveway. Flag lots have long driveways, but they are for the owners, not the neighbors to use.
My other neighbor who does share our driveway had been wondering why the camper seemed to always be there. They didn't like it at all. So it was not a hard decision just to tell her she needs to get gravel and make an RV pad in her own driveway. I park on the grass at my house. Why can't she. After all I park on my grass because she is taking up the spare parking on our driveway. It is not her driveway. I was a little frustrated with the conversation. She seemed to think she had the right to use it. She didn't want to find a new home while our house was for sale. She knows how long that could take. We are surrounded by for sale signs. But I really have to make this house as beautiful as possible. The camper, even though she keeps it up better than we keep up our cars, does not help.
She moved it, but not until after the showing. Thus my firm approach that she can no longer use our driveway as her personal parking lot. We have a town open house next weekend, 30 homes and a tour. We are not on it, but I thought we could put out the sign and have it ready to show for the drive buys. It is getting close to the time I want a contract. The boys will be out of school in June. We can move with impunity. We just have to close on the big house so we have somewhere to go.
The advisor was nice. Riley's advisor is also his science teacher. He shook my hand told Riley to show me around and went back to his work. After all Riley knows his stuff. There is not much to talk about with a child doing so well. We were there about ten minutes. Long enough for Riley to show me around his class room and his binder for planning four years of high school with the graduation requirements.
Riley gets the game. He is easy. I told him he was going to college and we would help. He wants to work with planes. I told him he could be an engineer working with planes. He was pleased with that plan. It dovetailed quite nicely into his wanting to work with planes.
I tidied up and got the house ready for vacuuming after dinner. Riley was tired from mowing. he did a great job. He cut the grass down to the lowest level. It looked great, but that is a hard cut with this mower. Its a push mower and tends to get stuck in the lower level on our uneven lawn.
I figured the boys would be off to school the next day so I could finish up while they were gone. Thank goodness I wasn't working that day. I was free to really get down and clean uninterrupted.
Trevor and I have been at logger heads recently. He has come to realize he will be in eighth grade again. But it will be a whole new environment. He might enjoy it. Trevor's contribution to readying the house was to clean his room of dirty clothes and start a load of laundry, take out the garbage and vacuum just his room. So the chores he usually does, no extras. He did not get paid for helping other than the DQ dinner. I just couldn't get him to do any more.
Once they went to school the next day I vacuumed. The house looked as good as when Tom does it. One of the reasons to give credit where it is do, was last weekend we all pitched in and did a cleaning with Tom home participating. It really made a difference only having one week of accumulation to take care of. The piles of papers had already been dealt with. I had even tackled a small path through the garage mess last weekend. That was why the broken lawn mower was in the trunk of my car. I was off to donate it to the repair shop during the showing. The repair shop takes old lawn mowers. It is great recycling.
I moved the cars to new spots to open up our driveway. I asked my neighbor to move her camper off our driveway, where she likes to park. Now here is where my stress level really went up. She forgot to move the camper. My real estate agent has told me three times now her camper is hurting our sales potential. People are not liking the camper in the driveway. It is not even her driveway. So I had to tell my neighbor she was no longer welcome to park it in our driveway.
I probably would not have been so harsh if she had remembered to move it, but if I lost a sale because of her camper I was upset. There was interest a couple of times, but the buyers had gone with other homes. Who knows if their choosing the other houses had to do with the camper eating up space on our driveway. Flag lots have long driveways, but they are for the owners, not the neighbors to use.
My other neighbor who does share our driveway had been wondering why the camper seemed to always be there. They didn't like it at all. So it was not a hard decision just to tell her she needs to get gravel and make an RV pad in her own driveway. I park on the grass at my house. Why can't she. After all I park on my grass because she is taking up the spare parking on our driveway. It is not her driveway. I was a little frustrated with the conversation. She seemed to think she had the right to use it. She didn't want to find a new home while our house was for sale. She knows how long that could take. We are surrounded by for sale signs. But I really have to make this house as beautiful as possible. The camper, even though she keeps it up better than we keep up our cars, does not help.
She moved it, but not until after the showing. Thus my firm approach that she can no longer use our driveway as her personal parking lot. We have a town open house next weekend, 30 homes and a tour. We are not on it, but I thought we could put out the sign and have it ready to show for the drive buys. It is getting close to the time I want a contract. The boys will be out of school in June. We can move with impunity. We just have to close on the big house so we have somewhere to go.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Blood Drive
Yesterday, at Trevor's school, the Red Cross came for a blood drive. Since I am excluded from giving blood due to my student time in England, almost 25 years ago, I told the school coordinator I could volunteer my day as a helper. They like some one to escort the donors to the food table and talk to them after donating. Look for signs that the loss of blood is not causing any dizziness or disorientation.
Most of the donors have tales to tell of themselves or someone they know or knew that needed blood. Experience of those scary events really drives home the point that donating blood is crucial. The book the red cross provides the donors to read, talks about all the exclusions. It says only 30% of the population qualifies to donate and of those only about 3% do donate. Each pint can serve 3 units or three people in crisis. My insurance bill was charged $700 a unit. Each donor was giving the red cross $2100 worth of blood.
The blood has a shelf life of about three weeks. I wondered if the blood being donated at our school would be shipped to the South to replenish supplies used on victims from the tornadoes. I was listening to NPR interview a hospital staff member talking about the overwhelming number of victims that they had to deal with quickly and how every one from all the different departments showed up to assist in the ER even though it wasn't their area.
There were days when Riley would receive blood that wasn't quite his type. He is AB and occasionally he would get just A since that was all the bank had on hand. The blood bank likes to make use of every bag, so nothing expires or goes to waste. Some bags were even a day past expiration. My favorite bags were the really fresh ones. Riley could even change to a bright pink while receiving blood. I hadn't realized he was so pale until the flush appeared. We had become so used to his pasty color.
I had helpers assisting with the donors. Leadership and Builders Club students were scheduled two or three students on an hour and a half shift. They got to miss one class to come help. So I played more of a supervisory role. The students would keep the donors company and distract them while they sat on their compact beds with a tube in their arm flowing a thick burgundy of blood into a plastic bag hanging on a hook below them. Trevor had the first and last shift. The last shift was after school. He was supposed to be in homework club, but this activity gave him an excuse to miss it. I grit my teeth and kept my tongue. It was for a good cause.
The end result was 35 donors. The goal had been for 30, so it was considered a great success. We had over 40 sign up, but some had canceled at the last minute. It is hard to get donors for the middle of the day when people work. It does take about two hours including an hour of screening process when you arrive. The Red Cross must make as sure as they can that every donor is healthy and qualified to give blood. Afterwards, the donor needs to sit for ten minutes at our snack table and drink and eat. Refreshing his system on snacks and juice, while we look for signs that the donor is not going to pass out after leaving or become dizzy while driving a car. That was my job. Its subtle, you don't want to play up the dangers and discourage future donating, but you also need to make sure of the health of everyone before they leave. So I chat to start the conversation, but it is more important to hear them talk, see that they can carry on a conversation and are comfortable. Everyone left in good condition, warned to eat and drink well.
It takes 56 days for the blood to be fully replaced so they can donate again. They may need to take care for the next few days as their energy will be depleted. Donating is not for the faint of heart. That is why people that donate take it seriously. They know that they are literally saving lives. They are only 3% of the population. In their own way they are heroes to someone in need. They are helping that doctor save a life, in that hospital room with the patient.
It is hard to want to donate and be denied. I saw at least one person turned away. If you have vacationed in the last year in a foreign country or you live with someone who has, you are disqualified, as you might have been exposed to a germ that has yet to manifest itself. Ear piercings or tattoos in the last two years will also disqualify you. The list is long. First you read a book with lists, then they have you sit a computer and answer the questions one at a time. Some of the questions are very personal and intimate. But having been through the routine, it made me feel better about the blood Riley received. The Red Cross has a very thorough screening system. They really try to get on ly the highest quality of blood.
The 35 pints the Red Cross received in our blood drive came from the very best of the population, vetted and screened, then poked and prodded. I stand witness. Sadly, I am one of their rejects.
Most of the donors have tales to tell of themselves or someone they know or knew that needed blood. Experience of those scary events really drives home the point that donating blood is crucial. The book the red cross provides the donors to read, talks about all the exclusions. It says only 30% of the population qualifies to donate and of those only about 3% do donate. Each pint can serve 3 units or three people in crisis. My insurance bill was charged $700 a unit. Each donor was giving the red cross $2100 worth of blood.
The blood has a shelf life of about three weeks. I wondered if the blood being donated at our school would be shipped to the South to replenish supplies used on victims from the tornadoes. I was listening to NPR interview a hospital staff member talking about the overwhelming number of victims that they had to deal with quickly and how every one from all the different departments showed up to assist in the ER even though it wasn't their area.
There were days when Riley would receive blood that wasn't quite his type. He is AB and occasionally he would get just A since that was all the bank had on hand. The blood bank likes to make use of every bag, so nothing expires or goes to waste. Some bags were even a day past expiration. My favorite bags were the really fresh ones. Riley could even change to a bright pink while receiving blood. I hadn't realized he was so pale until the flush appeared. We had become so used to his pasty color.
I had helpers assisting with the donors. Leadership and Builders Club students were scheduled two or three students on an hour and a half shift. They got to miss one class to come help. So I played more of a supervisory role. The students would keep the donors company and distract them while they sat on their compact beds with a tube in their arm flowing a thick burgundy of blood into a plastic bag hanging on a hook below them. Trevor had the first and last shift. The last shift was after school. He was supposed to be in homework club, but this activity gave him an excuse to miss it. I grit my teeth and kept my tongue. It was for a good cause.
The end result was 35 donors. The goal had been for 30, so it was considered a great success. We had over 40 sign up, but some had canceled at the last minute. It is hard to get donors for the middle of the day when people work. It does take about two hours including an hour of screening process when you arrive. The Red Cross must make as sure as they can that every donor is healthy and qualified to give blood. Afterwards, the donor needs to sit for ten minutes at our snack table and drink and eat. Refreshing his system on snacks and juice, while we look for signs that the donor is not going to pass out after leaving or become dizzy while driving a car. That was my job. Its subtle, you don't want to play up the dangers and discourage future donating, but you also need to make sure of the health of everyone before they leave. So I chat to start the conversation, but it is more important to hear them talk, see that they can carry on a conversation and are comfortable. Everyone left in good condition, warned to eat and drink well.
It takes 56 days for the blood to be fully replaced so they can donate again. They may need to take care for the next few days as their energy will be depleted. Donating is not for the faint of heart. That is why people that donate take it seriously. They know that they are literally saving lives. They are only 3% of the population. In their own way they are heroes to someone in need. They are helping that doctor save a life, in that hospital room with the patient.
It is hard to want to donate and be denied. I saw at least one person turned away. If you have vacationed in the last year in a foreign country or you live with someone who has, you are disqualified, as you might have been exposed to a germ that has yet to manifest itself. Ear piercings or tattoos in the last two years will also disqualify you. The list is long. First you read a book with lists, then they have you sit a computer and answer the questions one at a time. Some of the questions are very personal and intimate. But having been through the routine, it made me feel better about the blood Riley received. The Red Cross has a very thorough screening system. They really try to get on ly the highest quality of blood.
The 35 pints the Red Cross received in our blood drive came from the very best of the population, vetted and screened, then poked and prodded. I stand witness. Sadly, I am one of their rejects.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Space to run
You give a child an empty house and they will run. They will terrorize. I took the boys up to the big house. They fell in love with it, and immediately started fighting over what room each of them would have. I told them their father would decide and to stop asking me. I am not going to be put in the middle. They bounded around the house checking it out.
We were there after school. I saw boys in the neighborhood of similar age to my boys, older and younger. Earlier I had seen girls walking up the hill from where the bus must have dropped them. With all these big homes, there have got to be some big families filling them. This neighborhood is full of 3000 to 5000 foot homes. Most of the homes are 20 years old or older, a nice established neighborhood. The houses have probably have changed ownership a couple of times. Daylight basements abound on the hillside. A big indicator of big families. Wonderful diverse architecture makes this neighborhood interesting. The lots are all big to accommodate the big houses and still have yards. From aerial footage on the Internet I can see one house has a big pool in its yard just down and across the street from us.
With the children in the house I strongly feel the need for the downstairs space to be finished. There was water in the basement. Seepage from the ground. I am going to have to seal the wall and floor somehow. A friend mentioned there is a metal material you can use to block and redirect ground water. They had just done their basement. I will have to get more details.
There is also an area where the plumbing exists for a bathroom. The toilet flange is already set in the concrete. I love the concept of bringing the laundry downstairs and setting up all the clothes to be stored downstairs on hangers and shelves. Right now the laundry is off the kitchen, no where to hide the loads or dirty clothes. It is just a hall closet.
So much to do. this is not quite a move in ready house the more we look at it. Rods and shelves are missing from closets. The stove is disconnected from trying to remove it. We will need to bring our own refrigerator. The blackberries cover all of the back yard in heavy thicket. The lot is 17,000 square feet of slope. Birds are nesting in the scrub trees. I am chomping at the bit to get to clearing the land of the blackberries. It will be beautiful. The view captures the river in the distance.
I am going to put a few blocking plants in along the sides of the property, up by the house, so the neighbors have a little more privacy. One of them has a RV covered in a tarp in their drive, visible from our back deck. A big laurel or a couple of Arborvitae will take care to make it pretty and private.
The English ivy is climbing some trees and is becoming overgrown and needs trimming back in the front yard. Tom noticed some sand bags in the driveway that concerned him. He thinks we may need to put a drain ditch in with metal grating to help with the water flow away from the house. Its very doable, but you need to do it. Like caulking the sky lights to make sure they don't leak.
I am guessing that is why the house has sat for a while. It does need a little love. Just not as much as the dive. Though I can see us living in the dive, but Tom can't. I just love that Location. And I love old homes.
I have downloaded pictures of the big house onto my picture painter. I have been having fun taking the mouse and painting different colors on the big house. I did grey and then I tried red. I also drew in window trim and shutters on the house. I liked the barn and farm house effect the red color had with the trim and shutters. It gave it character that wasn't contemporary modern.
I just have to figure out the stairs and where to put them for the basement. I also want to enclose the furnace in the basement into its own room. Add that already plumbed bathroom, finish the ceiling down there with all the exposed wiring, But before we do the basement, we'll need to bring in the natural gas lines for the fireplace we want in the living room and the gas stove in the kitchen that we want later. It would be best to do those lines while the walls and ceiling downstairs are open, just to have them there and done. I could even have someone do those lines before we bring the line from the street. From the street to the house and installing a meter on the side of the house was bid $1700 by the Natural Gas utility. The line on the street is on the other side so it added distance to the cost.
When ever you by a house it takes about $10,000 to $20,000 to make the house yours. We like to tweak a house and improve it. If we were staying put in the house we have now, we could probably, in five years, get out of it without loss. But we don't want to stay put. We can't. Tom has already started work with a two hour commute one way.
We added the office over the front room. the office attaches to the master bed room, making a fantastic suite. I use that sunny office as much as I use the kitchen. And it keeps me out of the kitchen so I don't over eat. We more than doubled the size of the back patio, making it more functional, and a great party space. I added landscape plants along the fence, which are always lacking in newer contstuction. If it weren't a flag lot with a vacant house right in front of us, some one would love this house.
We have had positive responses from our showings. Its just that the carpets are shot. People want not to have to tweak a place first thing. They want it move in ready. We are both improvers and hard on a house. The new construction adds value, but the floors with the beat up vinyl and carpets detract. There is a lot of competition in this price range, a lot of vacant homes and people like us who have to move for work or life reasons.
I am hopeful the big house will make the loss on this house a wash for us. But we will have to tweak the big house just as we tweaked this house. It is "quirky" as one of my friends put it. I need to make it not so "quirky", so that when we sell it the next owners will say wow what a deal for such a great house.
I already know we will be tweaking the kitchen. Tom wants a gas stove. The stove in it is a down draft electric ini the island. That means moving the stove and putting in a draft hood, Easy and expensive. The lack of a fireplace bugs us both so we definately want to address that issue. Tom suggested a two sided fireplace. There is a wall that would be perfect for a two sided fire. I can see us easily spending quite a lot on this house, but all for the good. I still think the key is the stairs into the basement. There rest is easy and can be done quickly or over time.
We'll make our lists and prioritize, then do it all. Meanwhile I will need to find some work. Part time, so I have time to do all this improvement. A lot of it is sweat equity. The clearing of the blackberries and English ivy is quick bang for the buck and I can do it all, while we dwell on the rest. Though I wouldn't mind having someone out to run the natural gas lines in the house in preparation for the changes upstairs. Then we could get started on the basement room at our leisure.
The house itself is really not that big. It's deceptive, probably only 1600 square feet downstairs and 900 square feet upstairs. The unfinished basement is not accessable from inside the house. The extra bonus room over the three car garage and the open sunny spaces give the feeling of a bigger home. I think we will be surprised at how small it is once our furniture arrives.
There is so much to do before we move in, yet we need to be there to do it. It is nice we have time and don't have to do one of those closings where you move the next day in order to get out of the house your leaving so the new owners can move in. I have never been successful at that. I always end up renting back for a week. The movers bid us $6000 to pack and move everything, or $1500 just to do the heavy furniture and we do the packing and moving of boxes. My thought is to start ahead of them and get a lot of stuff already up there. We could move the closets and clothes, but first I have to get new rods put in at the big house. I need shelves for the basement so I have someplace to store boxes off the ground. I also am thinking of getting those rolling display racks and setting up a boudoir in the basement for me and all my clothes, Since we will be down to one closet in the master bedroom where we have two big closets now.
I think we may just go up on the weekends and start work on the blackberries until closing since we are still at least a week away if not two or three. Since we haven't been rejected outright like we were on the dive I am told we will probably close. Paperwork and red tape just takes time. If they do reject us, then I will go back to the dive. I just worry it will sell before I can re offer. Tom says not to worry no one wants to pay the asking price for a house that is in such poor shape. With the sun shining I think it will look more appealing, and the location is dreamy.
We were there after school. I saw boys in the neighborhood of similar age to my boys, older and younger. Earlier I had seen girls walking up the hill from where the bus must have dropped them. With all these big homes, there have got to be some big families filling them. This neighborhood is full of 3000 to 5000 foot homes. Most of the homes are 20 years old or older, a nice established neighborhood. The houses have probably have changed ownership a couple of times. Daylight basements abound on the hillside. A big indicator of big families. Wonderful diverse architecture makes this neighborhood interesting. The lots are all big to accommodate the big houses and still have yards. From aerial footage on the Internet I can see one house has a big pool in its yard just down and across the street from us.
With the children in the house I strongly feel the need for the downstairs space to be finished. There was water in the basement. Seepage from the ground. I am going to have to seal the wall and floor somehow. A friend mentioned there is a metal material you can use to block and redirect ground water. They had just done their basement. I will have to get more details.
There is also an area where the plumbing exists for a bathroom. The toilet flange is already set in the concrete. I love the concept of bringing the laundry downstairs and setting up all the clothes to be stored downstairs on hangers and shelves. Right now the laundry is off the kitchen, no where to hide the loads or dirty clothes. It is just a hall closet.
So much to do. this is not quite a move in ready house the more we look at it. Rods and shelves are missing from closets. The stove is disconnected from trying to remove it. We will need to bring our own refrigerator. The blackberries cover all of the back yard in heavy thicket. The lot is 17,000 square feet of slope. Birds are nesting in the scrub trees. I am chomping at the bit to get to clearing the land of the blackberries. It will be beautiful. The view captures the river in the distance.
I am going to put a few blocking plants in along the sides of the property, up by the house, so the neighbors have a little more privacy. One of them has a RV covered in a tarp in their drive, visible from our back deck. A big laurel or a couple of Arborvitae will take care to make it pretty and private.
The English ivy is climbing some trees and is becoming overgrown and needs trimming back in the front yard. Tom noticed some sand bags in the driveway that concerned him. He thinks we may need to put a drain ditch in with metal grating to help with the water flow away from the house. Its very doable, but you need to do it. Like caulking the sky lights to make sure they don't leak.
I am guessing that is why the house has sat for a while. It does need a little love. Just not as much as the dive. Though I can see us living in the dive, but Tom can't. I just love that Location. And I love old homes.
I have downloaded pictures of the big house onto my picture painter. I have been having fun taking the mouse and painting different colors on the big house. I did grey and then I tried red. I also drew in window trim and shutters on the house. I liked the barn and farm house effect the red color had with the trim and shutters. It gave it character that wasn't contemporary modern.
I just have to figure out the stairs and where to put them for the basement. I also want to enclose the furnace in the basement into its own room. Add that already plumbed bathroom, finish the ceiling down there with all the exposed wiring, But before we do the basement, we'll need to bring in the natural gas lines for the fireplace we want in the living room and the gas stove in the kitchen that we want later. It would be best to do those lines while the walls and ceiling downstairs are open, just to have them there and done. I could even have someone do those lines before we bring the line from the street. From the street to the house and installing a meter on the side of the house was bid $1700 by the Natural Gas utility. The line on the street is on the other side so it added distance to the cost.
When ever you by a house it takes about $10,000 to $20,000 to make the house yours. We like to tweak a house and improve it. If we were staying put in the house we have now, we could probably, in five years, get out of it without loss. But we don't want to stay put. We can't. Tom has already started work with a two hour commute one way.
We added the office over the front room. the office attaches to the master bed room, making a fantastic suite. I use that sunny office as much as I use the kitchen. And it keeps me out of the kitchen so I don't over eat. We more than doubled the size of the back patio, making it more functional, and a great party space. I added landscape plants along the fence, which are always lacking in newer contstuction. If it weren't a flag lot with a vacant house right in front of us, some one would love this house.
We have had positive responses from our showings. Its just that the carpets are shot. People want not to have to tweak a place first thing. They want it move in ready. We are both improvers and hard on a house. The new construction adds value, but the floors with the beat up vinyl and carpets detract. There is a lot of competition in this price range, a lot of vacant homes and people like us who have to move for work or life reasons.
I am hopeful the big house will make the loss on this house a wash for us. But we will have to tweak the big house just as we tweaked this house. It is "quirky" as one of my friends put it. I need to make it not so "quirky", so that when we sell it the next owners will say wow what a deal for such a great house.
I already know we will be tweaking the kitchen. Tom wants a gas stove. The stove in it is a down draft electric ini the island. That means moving the stove and putting in a draft hood, Easy and expensive. The lack of a fireplace bugs us both so we definately want to address that issue. Tom suggested a two sided fireplace. There is a wall that would be perfect for a two sided fire. I can see us easily spending quite a lot on this house, but all for the good. I still think the key is the stairs into the basement. There rest is easy and can be done quickly or over time.
We'll make our lists and prioritize, then do it all. Meanwhile I will need to find some work. Part time, so I have time to do all this improvement. A lot of it is sweat equity. The clearing of the blackberries and English ivy is quick bang for the buck and I can do it all, while we dwell on the rest. Though I wouldn't mind having someone out to run the natural gas lines in the house in preparation for the changes upstairs. Then we could get started on the basement room at our leisure.
The house itself is really not that big. It's deceptive, probably only 1600 square feet downstairs and 900 square feet upstairs. The unfinished basement is not accessable from inside the house. The extra bonus room over the three car garage and the open sunny spaces give the feeling of a bigger home. I think we will be surprised at how small it is once our furniture arrives.
There is so much to do before we move in, yet we need to be there to do it. It is nice we have time and don't have to do one of those closings where you move the next day in order to get out of the house your leaving so the new owners can move in. I have never been successful at that. I always end up renting back for a week. The movers bid us $6000 to pack and move everything, or $1500 just to do the heavy furniture and we do the packing and moving of boxes. My thought is to start ahead of them and get a lot of stuff already up there. We could move the closets and clothes, but first I have to get new rods put in at the big house. I need shelves for the basement so I have someplace to store boxes off the ground. I also am thinking of getting those rolling display racks and setting up a boudoir in the basement for me and all my clothes, Since we will be down to one closet in the master bedroom where we have two big closets now.
I think we may just go up on the weekends and start work on the blackberries until closing since we are still at least a week away if not two or three. Since we haven't been rejected outright like we were on the dive I am told we will probably close. Paperwork and red tape just takes time. If they do reject us, then I will go back to the dive. I just worry it will sell before I can re offer. Tom says not to worry no one wants to pay the asking price for a house that is in such poor shape. With the sun shining I think it will look more appealing, and the location is dreamy.
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