Life is funny. I have been recently been working on trying to control less and trust more. Sure enough, Sunday afternoon I got a call from a realtor trying to get into my house so I ran over there. The couple was interested and said they were going to put in an application. I really didn't get my hopes up because we have been through this with several people. Well, Monday morning the app was in, Monday afternoon she was approved with a great score. My property manager told her she had 48 hours to get the deposits into the office, so by Weds afternoon. Tuesday morning, 9am she was waiting for the office to open to get in the cashiers check. She will sign the lease and get the keys on Friday and start moving in (and paying rent) on Monday.
So Sunday we leave for Washington! On time and with the best weather we can expect for February (partly raining the whole way up). We should be there on Wednesday so we can switch rolls and start OUR search for a home. Thank goodness for craigslist.
Now I just have to trust that this will work out too and we have a home that is just what we need for yet another chapter in our ever-changing life! So buckle up and try to enjoy the ride.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Renter Drama
So our house is for rent, and we are using a property management since we are leaving the state, but OH MY GOODNESS why do I always seem to attract people with family drama that they tell me ALL about?? This is what I have dealt with in the last few weeks:
- Lady #1: Had 3 kids, was real nice, even loved all my crazy paint, but....just divorced, forclosed on her house, filed bankruptcy and her ex was refusing to pay child support....
- Family #1: EIGHT adults and 1 kid, wanted to turn our bonus room into a place for their band, actually laughed at the paint with my husband standing right there while they spoke Spanish as if we didn't understand. And they smoked. (My son has one lung, if we move back, we can't have any residual smoke in our walls)
- Couple #1: Seemed nice enough, moving here from Utah.... with their SIX boys and 4 dogs. Wanted to turn the bonus room into another bedroom. Just quit their jobs and only the husband had a job..... my yard is only 14.5 feet deep and the width of my house, can we say "bursting at the seams"
- Lady #2: 2 teenage boys and the teenage girlfriend. REEKED of smoke, left cigarretes in my driveway, but chewed gum so I wouldn't smell it on them......SERIOUSLY, do people not get that non-smokers can smell you from a mile away??? Then when questioned about their dog, she skirted the question, called it small. When pushed for the breed, she hemmed and hawed until the boy spit out "he's a pitbull!" They walked out, I went upstairs to turn off the lights and the bedroom STILL smelled of smoke, yuck.
- Man #1: Fast talker, was losing his home that lost half its value, that is understandable, the housing situation here is beyond terrible. He wanted to downsize and stay in the same school district (so he lives a few blocks away). He touted being a Christian and being a "good person". Admitted to bankruptcy and forclosure, but forgot the part about not paying income taxes. Admitted to 2 dogs, but forgot the part about the cat (my husband is severely allergic and again, we might move back). He bragged about stashing away 15k in a safe to hide from the bankruptcy but was actually mad that we asked for double the deposit because of his history. We tried to compromise by refunding 1/2 after 9 months of paying on time and then he wanted the 1st two weeks rent free and the deposit split over 2 months. We said okay to that but then he didn't want to pay ANY money (the deposit) until the first.....WHAT??? You are now debt free, you claim you have a large amount of cash, clearly aren't trustworthy and you want to be moved in before you pay us?? How far do you really think you can push it and how desperate do you think I am? We cut him loose and he came back with, "If I pay the double deposit, can I still get the first 2 weeks free?"
- Lady #3: Nice, has a stable county job but is either renting the house for her and her fiancee and his girls... or her dad and her teenage boys will live there. Apparently the dad and her boys hate the fiancee and his girls and they all live together, or will be living together?? I don't know, all it translates to me is family drama that may end in the lease being broken.
My head hurts from all of this. We have 2 more weeks till Greg finishes his C school. If we don't have a renter, he will leave us behind until the house is occupied. In the meantime the kids, dogs and I are staying with my SIL with only enough stuff to fit in the back of our van. And I started a new college class yesterday.
Here's to finding a normal renter who will pay the rent on time and take care of my house!!!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
My upgrades are smarter than me??
So with the 40K in free upgrades from our builder, we got a very nice kitchen, including a faucet that comes out like a sprayer. It makes it so easy to rinse the whole sink and wash large, weird things like my 2ft X 3ft bread board or my huge stock pot. Until today.
The other day I noticed that a little water was squirting out of the part that connects to the hose. I gave it a couple of twists and the water stopped so I assumed it was fine. This morning I stepped on my floor mat in front of the sink and it was wet, so I assumed the kids spilled something. Later I stepped on it, it still wasn't dry, in fact it was MORE wet. I lifted it up and it was SOAKED (it is that thick foam mat from Walmart) underneath, and there was a puddle dripping out of my cabinet under the sink. Crap!!!
I opened the cabinet and tore everything out of there and the box of trash bags disintegrated in my hands. Thank goodness for home warranties! I called the builder and they came over ASAP. Technically it was homeowner maintenance that I am supposed tighten that faucet on a regular basis.... Umm, great, you think you could have mentioned that in the numerous walk-through's for the house??? I know what every little random pipe sticking out of our house does but I didn't know to tighten the sink.
Fortunately, they seem to like me and they sent over the drywall guy to remove my toe kick and thank goodness!! It was soaking wet and the drywall behind the pipes is wet. So right now there is lots of banging, and vacuuming and they are going to leave a turbo fan to dry out the drywall....
All this because my upgrades are smarter than me. My mother will be so disappointed after all the years of teaching me maintenance. *hangs head in shame*
The other day I noticed that a little water was squirting out of the part that connects to the hose. I gave it a couple of twists and the water stopped so I assumed it was fine. This morning I stepped on my floor mat in front of the sink and it was wet, so I assumed the kids spilled something. Later I stepped on it, it still wasn't dry, in fact it was MORE wet. I lifted it up and it was SOAKED (it is that thick foam mat from Walmart) underneath, and there was a puddle dripping out of my cabinet under the sink. Crap!!!
I opened the cabinet and tore everything out of there and the box of trash bags disintegrated in my hands. Thank goodness for home warranties! I called the builder and they came over ASAP. Technically it was homeowner maintenance that I am supposed tighten that faucet on a regular basis.... Umm, great, you think you could have mentioned that in the numerous walk-through's for the house??? I know what every little random pipe sticking out of our house does but I didn't know to tighten the sink.
Fortunately, they seem to like me and they sent over the drywall guy to remove my toe kick and thank goodness!! It was soaking wet and the drywall behind the pipes is wet. So right now there is lots of banging, and vacuuming and they are going to leave a turbo fan to dry out the drywall....
All this because my upgrades are smarter than me. My mother will be so disappointed after all the years of teaching me maintenance. *hangs head in shame*
Packing
Well the movers come on Monday and I have been going along thinking that this was going to be SOO easy since I don't have to do any of the heavy lifting. Not so much.
I realized that since I am not going to be able to supervise every item at every moment (there will be 3-5 movers and from past experience, they split up) I have to PRE-organize everything so they don't pack things that need to stay.
Oh and then comes the tricky part of renting out our house. Our property manager wants us out so it will rent faster, but we can't pay rent in WA and pay our mortgage on an empty house. SO we are staying here with my SIL until it rents. Until it rents. I really hate not having control. So in my pre-packing, I have to separate the very basics that will fit in our car but sustain us for an unspecified period of time... are we going to be living out of suitcases for 3 weeks or 3 months??? The darn dog kennels take up nearly half of the back of the car, so we just half of the back of the minivan to fit very important papers, Gregory's medical records, clothes and school books. I have tried to minimize it as much as possible but how do I plan appropriately for an undefined time period?? Oh and don't forget an oxygen tank to get Gregory through the high elevations of our trip... Is it wrong to strap a kid or a dog to the roof??? Maybe the husband???
So this is what my piles break down to:
The problem lies in where to put these piles. Mentally I know the order of all things, but how do I adequately separate or label these things for movers?
This is what still needs to be done:
I realized that since I am not going to be able to supervise every item at every moment (there will be 3-5 movers and from past experience, they split up) I have to PRE-organize everything so they don't pack things that need to stay.
Oh and then comes the tricky part of renting out our house. Our property manager wants us out so it will rent faster, but we can't pay rent in WA and pay our mortgage on an empty house. SO we are staying here with my SIL until it rents. Until it rents. I really hate not having control. So in my pre-packing, I have to separate the very basics that will fit in our car but sustain us for an unspecified period of time... are we going to be living out of suitcases for 3 weeks or 3 months??? The darn dog kennels take up nearly half of the back of the car, so we just half of the back of the minivan to fit very important papers, Gregory's medical records, clothes and school books. I have tried to minimize it as much as possible but how do I plan appropriately for an undefined time period?? Oh and don't forget an oxygen tank to get Gregory through the high elevations of our trip... Is it wrong to strap a kid or a dog to the roof??? Maybe the husband???
So this is what my piles break down to:
- Stays with the house
- Stays with us
- Goes to SIL's house
The problem lies in where to put these piles. Mentally I know the order of all things, but how do I adequately separate or label these things for movers?
This is what still needs to be done:
- Pre-pack stuff that might "fall off the truck"
- Take down stuff like artwork, curtains, charts and visual aids in school room
- Schedule services to be turned off (on hold for hours, faxing copies of military orders to break contracts, having to explain our random living situation on why we can't transfer service to WA right away)
- Repaint wild colors of my rooms
- Clean house
This is on top of the regular tasks of kids, schooling, meals, dogs and my own college class and Greg gets to be blissfully un-involved in San Diego.
There is an upside though, the kids are getting old enough to actually be helpful. They are able pack simple things like DVD's. And the questions they ask about what is staying and going are funny. Hannah wants to know if our plants are going with us (we just did the landscaping in October). Gregory wants to know if we are taking the doors and the paint that is actually on the walls. He was quite mad that "Grandma's paint" (the marroon in the guest room) was staying!!
Mi Vida Loca!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Got carrots?
So I have a 5lb bag of carrots and they are nearing the end of their life. I made a chicken potpie variation in the crock pot but still had more. I don't know what got into me, but I got a hankering for carrot cake (low vitamin A levels??). I haven't eaten any since I was kid and we CERTAINLY never made it unless it came out of a box.
So out came the cookbook (Betty Crocker to the rescue!) and my new favorite aid, www.allrecipes.com. Finely shredded carrots didn't work out so well, there was more on the counter than in the measuring cup and a little bit of my skin. The blender did a fabulous job of grinding up the carrots to the perfect consistancy. I really should use that thing more often, I think the last time I used it was in San Diego! So dry ingredients mixed in and in the oven it went. It took longer than estimated to cook, but it came out AWESOME! My sister is bringing over the cream cheese so I can make the frosting but there is going to be a bit of a hole in the cake.
So what do you do with too many carrots? Make carrot cake!
So out came the cookbook (Betty Crocker to the rescue!) and my new favorite aid, www.allrecipes.com. Finely shredded carrots didn't work out so well, there was more on the counter than in the measuring cup and a little bit of my skin. The blender did a fabulous job of grinding up the carrots to the perfect consistancy. I really should use that thing more often, I think the last time I used it was in San Diego! So dry ingredients mixed in and in the oven it went. It took longer than estimated to cook, but it came out AWESOME! My sister is bringing over the cream cheese so I can make the frosting but there is going to be a bit of a hole in the cake.
So what do you do with too many carrots? Make carrot cake!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Others views on homeschooling
So last night I watched the new episode of Wife Swap and the guinea pigs were:
1. A superficial family obsessed with looks, baby beauty pagents and winning 1st place.
VS.
2. A feminist doctor and her stay-at-home husband who unschooled the girls.
It is always interesting to see what types of views mainstream society has about how "backwards" and "socially-inept" homeschoolers are. Granted, there is always some extreme cases (which always seem to make the news) but if you want to run to the other side of the school spectrum, look at all of the school shootings in the last several years.
Is THIS what we are supposed to be striving for? Conform or become a emotionally scarred social leper who will eventually act out to the point of killing people? I don't know, that seems like a pretty scary ultimatum to me.
Anyway, the superficial father said something along the lines of, the only homeschoolers he had ever met where unable to interact with the people around them and were uncivilized. However, this man stuttered every other sentence, didn't seem to understand sarcasam and was visibly intimidated by the feminist who expressed her opinions on a woman feeling obligated to clean the house in "hooker boots".
The scene that took the cake was when the feminist-mom was forced to enter superficial-baby (13 months old) into a beauty pagent and when she did NOT win first place, the 7 year old brother and FATHER were to the point of tears?!?!?! The 7 year old said, "If you aren't first, you are a loser".
At the other house, superficial-mom decided to enter feminist-girls into a beauty pagent. She primped, trained, and dressed them to the hilt. The big day came and they competed, lost and above all had FUN. Superficial mom had a light-bulb come on and realized that winning and looks are NOT the most important thing and cried over her behavior towards her son. She would yell at him and tell him he was not good enough when he lost. Way to bolster your child's self-worth there!
The interesting thing about this show is it seems like the people who are most interested in trying to change others to be just like them really end up seeing the flaws in their own life. Maybe they feel insecure about their own choices and safety in numbers gives them a false sense of reassurance that they must be doing an okay job if everyone else does it.....right?
The other interesting point is that this show definatly seeks out the most extreme families and homeschoolers do make it on quite frequently. So does that mean that main-stream society views us all as crazy, or there are more of us out there than we really realize? But kudos to them for finding a family that isn't uber-religious or under-educated hippies. Not that there is something wrong with them; it is just that they aren't the ONLY type of "crazy" homeschooler out there :-) Because remember, after our children have learned to eat, walk, talk etc and then turn 5, we suddenly become too stupid to teach them anything else without the "experts".
Okay, well back to the letter of inquiry I am trying to avoid!
1. A superficial family obsessed with looks, baby beauty pagents and winning 1st place.
VS.
2. A feminist doctor and her stay-at-home husband who unschooled the girls.
It is always interesting to see what types of views mainstream society has about how "backwards" and "socially-inept" homeschoolers are. Granted, there is always some extreme cases (which always seem to make the news) but if you want to run to the other side of the school spectrum, look at all of the school shootings in the last several years.
Is THIS what we are supposed to be striving for? Conform or become a emotionally scarred social leper who will eventually act out to the point of killing people? I don't know, that seems like a pretty scary ultimatum to me.
Anyway, the superficial father said something along the lines of, the only homeschoolers he had ever met where unable to interact with the people around them and were uncivilized. However, this man stuttered every other sentence, didn't seem to understand sarcasam and was visibly intimidated by the feminist who expressed her opinions on a woman feeling obligated to clean the house in "hooker boots".
The scene that took the cake was when the feminist-mom was forced to enter superficial-baby (13 months old) into a beauty pagent and when she did NOT win first place, the 7 year old brother and FATHER were to the point of tears?!?!?! The 7 year old said, "If you aren't first, you are a loser".
At the other house, superficial-mom decided to enter feminist-girls into a beauty pagent. She primped, trained, and dressed them to the hilt. The big day came and they competed, lost and above all had FUN. Superficial mom had a light-bulb come on and realized that winning and looks are NOT the most important thing and cried over her behavior towards her son. She would yell at him and tell him he was not good enough when he lost. Way to bolster your child's self-worth there!
The interesting thing about this show is it seems like the people who are most interested in trying to change others to be just like them really end up seeing the flaws in their own life. Maybe they feel insecure about their own choices and safety in numbers gives them a false sense of reassurance that they must be doing an okay job if everyone else does it.....right?
The other interesting point is that this show definatly seeks out the most extreme families and homeschoolers do make it on quite frequently. So does that mean that main-stream society views us all as crazy, or there are more of us out there than we really realize? But kudos to them for finding a family that isn't uber-religious or under-educated hippies. Not that there is something wrong with them; it is just that they aren't the ONLY type of "crazy" homeschooler out there :-) Because remember, after our children have learned to eat, walk, talk etc and then turn 5, we suddenly become too stupid to teach them anything else without the "experts".
Okay, well back to the letter of inquiry I am trying to avoid!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Washington
As we prepare to move to Washington state, I have been exploring the world of craigslist. The best part is it doesn't cost money to post on it like ebay does. I found their "farm" section and they had everything from horse saddles to rabbits for sale on there! I found these cute pigs, chickens and even goats and so now I am trying to find us a rental with some land so I can do more than just garden. Washington is great, I can rent a house on 2 acres and several outbuildings for less than I pay for my mortgage here in Las Vegas! Oh my goodness, "heat waves" of 80 degrees and cheap property, I may never come back here!!
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