RV Life

Well, as I have said before, much as transpired since last we spoke. Life has been hectic as usual which has left me neglecting my blog among other things. I will try to tackle subjects each in turn to do them justice. So, first up is the title subject.

After literally discussing the possibility of full time RV living with The Queen for a decade, we finally pulled the trigger in March and bought a large travel trailer with the express purpose of living in same full time and (hopefully) traveling more. Of course, we picked the absolute worst time to buy a travel trailer with RV demand through the roof in the middle of a buggered up supply chain, record inflation and has eye watering gas prices.

Yeah, we have great timing that way.

We decided on a travel trailer instead of a motor home or a fifth wheel for several reasons. In hindsight, a fifth wheel probably would have been a better choice for our situation (two adults, a growing girl and a 7 animal menagerie). Having said that, the trailer we did get is about as big as “bumper pull” travel trailers go and even puts a few fifth wheels and all but the biggest motorhomes to shame in terms of usable space.

So, to answer the obvious question of “why?”, that’s both simple and complicated at the same time. We had the disastrous attempt at buying a house last year which was a blessing that turned into a curse. With the discovery of mold in the living room, it became uninhabitable for The Queen and M&M who both have allergies to the stuff. With me, the sole provider, losing my job literally on the heels of closing on the house, it became a financial disaster too. Fortunately, we were able to turn around and sell the house at slightly better than break even which left us in need of housing. We landed at an apartment while we caught our breath and figured out what options we had.

If the housing market is nuts, the apartment market in North Texas is insane. We signed a 7 month lease on a third floor unit for more than we really wanted to pay, but it was a complex built within the last 2 years and had no mold issues. There were other pluses and not much negative. We came to despise the stairs especially after coming down with Faucimonia. We moved in and started getting our feet under us again. Things were cooking along great until January when we started smelling cigarette smoke in the apartment. The complex was supposed to be non-smoking everywhere on the property.

Yeah…. not so much.

As near as we can tell from hearing the arguments through the wall clear as day including creative use of the universal adjective and other choice words, the person who signed the lease was a married male; however, he did not live in the unit. The person who was in residence in the unit was apparently the tenant’s “side chick” and “baby mama” who desperately wanted the tenant to leave his wife and move in with her and her baby. That was not happening according to the tenant. Anyway, the hoochie in residence also turned out to have a fairly well developed smoking habit and the smoke started coming through the walls.

The complex essentially had their hands tied in terms of what they could do. Any attempts at evicting the offending person, who according to the terms of the lease should not have even been there, would have taken more time than we had remaining on our lease. During this crisis, the lease renewal offer came in with a minimum 30% increase in rent depending on the lease term selected. Needless to say, this was not a tenable situation for us. After much back and forth, we finally came to agreement with the complex management in which we were let of our lease early with no costs or penalties.

The timing of all this put us moving out just in time for the Dallas RV Show in early March where we happened to run into Number 1 Follower and Best friend along with his wife who were also on the hunt for a new travel trailer. Turns out, we both bought trailers at the show.

For those of you familiar with Texas weather, you are probably snickering in your beverage about now. For the uninitiated, March in Texas is anyone’s guess as to what you are going to get day to day. Snow, high winds, tornadoes, heat, flooding, hail, sleet…you name it, you’ll probably get it during March. Sometimes multiple varieties in the same day.

Our originally scheduled delivery date turned out to be cold, wet and very windy. Since we did not yet have a truck of towing the trailer, we imposed on Number 1 Follower who had just invested in a new diesel pickup. Due to the weather, we were forced to delay a few days and try again. We ultimately took delivery of a slightly different model than the one we originally selected after a weekend of panicky indecision. For the record, I’m glad we got the unit we did.

Why did we not have a capable truck yet you ask? Well, one of the things they tell you when you start looking at RVs is to match your tow vehicle to the size of the trailer. The trailer we chose has an empty weight of over 8000 pounds and grosses out at just under 11,000 pounds. The Queen’s Navigator is getting long in the tooth and simply does not have the towing capacity to pull the new trailer.

Surprisingly, there are very few half ton trucks that would even come close to having the capacity necessary. Ford F150s with the Max Tow package, higher gear ratio and the 3.5L EcoBoost engine is one. The were a couple of others; however, the consensus was that these options were right on the edge of the safety margin and did not handle the weight particularly well compared to three quarter ton or 1 ton trucks. There were even some three quarter ton trucks that did not have the necessary oomph to haul this puppy.

So, after an aborted purchase attempt at a dealership an hour away wherein they attempted to charge me $8000 more than the advertised  price for a “reconditioning fee” which was nowhere mentioned in the ad, we succeeded in locating a reasonable deal at a dealership 4 hours away in Houston on a gently used 2013 Ford F250 with 129,000 miles, the 6.2L gas motor, the right gear ratio, all the bells and whistles, tonneau cover and even a fifth wheel hitch already installed in the bed if we ever choose to upgrade to one.

After the purchase, we discovered records in the glove box confirming that the previous owner had just had a brand new motor installed at a dealership after the original motor crapped out just 2000 miles before we bought it. I’m positive the dealership was unaware of the new motor based on the asking price (under KBB/NADA trade in value).

I absolutely LOVE the truck. It’s a beast. It pulls the trailer without any trouble. The gas mileage while towing stinks, but that’s only been about once a month so far. Doing the math, a diesel did not make sense for us. Had we been towing every week…maybe. Diesel trucks are a significant premium over comparable gasser trucks. We would have paid $9000 or $10,000 more for a similar diesel truck not to mention the extra $0.80 to $1.20 per gallon more at the pump not including DEF, higher maintenance costs (diesels are pricy beasts to work on in terms of both parts and preventative maintenance).

We’ve taken a few “short” trips so far. Once was to a state park about an hour away as a test run to see if anything needed fixing/addressing and to help us learn the things we didn’t already know. The other two have been to east Texas for church related activities about two hours away. Our first “longer” trip is coming up in a couple of weeks when we head to Arkansas about five and a half hours away. We have a long trip in the works for October which will take us over2000 miles roundtrip to South Dakota and back as well as another 1000 to 1500 mile roundtrip excursion probably to Florida which will be shoehorned in somewhere depending on what happens in the near future on the job front.

If you see a big, dark brown and tan Ford F250 stuffed to gills with people and animals towing a 38 foot trailer, give us a honk.

Is This Thing Still On?

There are lots of euphemisms I could use to explain my relative absence from this space for the last five months. Suffice it to say, much has transpired since we last saw our hero relocating to the supposed peace and tranquility of east Texas. I’m still looking for the proverbial country record that I can play backwards to get stuff back not the least of which is my sanity. 

So, let’s set the Wayback Machine for early May when we closed on the “new” old house. 

That was supposed to be a happy day. I was really looking forward to moving in and getting settled after all the chaos from the preceding year. 

Sigh….such was not to be. 

Once we took possession of the house and were able to get in a look around at what needed doing, The Queen immediately noticed the overwhelming odor of cat urine. It took a few minutes, but it finally penetrated my nasal passages which are not the greatest sniffers on a good day. A trip to Lowe’s for a UV Flashlight revealed that, yes, indeed, the prior owners cats' had sprayed everywhere all over the house. The worst of it was the living room. A quick inspection of the walls in the living room revealed that what we thought was painted sheetrock was, in fact, painted wallpaper over sheetrock. 

Well, thinks I, that’s a simple matter of removing the wallpaper (in a room roughly 15’ wide 19’ long with 12’ ceilings….I am such an optimist) and painting the walls underneath. 

 Let’s just say that Murphy is a dirty rotten scoundrel who hates me personally. 

 If you were not aware, East Texas is, in addition to being as hot as the rest of Satan’s outhouse in the summer, humid as steam bath. Why is this important? Well, we discovered through careful research that exterior walls that have wallpaper in a humid environment with HVAC will trap moisture and make for the perfect conditions to grow mold and mildew. 

Guess what we found behind the wallpaper in the living room? If you guessed mold and mildew, give yourself a gold star. Guess who has a major allergy to mold and mildew? If you guessed The Queen and M&M, give yourself another gold star. 

 Not happy making for Daddy Hawk. 

In addition to trying to get settled and keep work going, now I have to figure out how to get rid of mold and mildew off of sheetrock and find a place for The Queen and M&M to hide while doing so. 

 To add insult to injury, my boss called 17 days later and let me know my services were no longer required for the company. 

Well, POOP and other assorted four letter words. They claimed performance issues were the reason. I’ve never missed a deadline or failed to respond to matters timely. Yes, the preceding year or two were a challenge with caring for The Queen mum and dealing with the aftermath of her death, but who wouldn’t have challenges under those circumstances. So much for care and compassion and “work / life balance”. 

So, there I sit. Haven’t made the first payment on the mortgage, no job, a major project to deal with and a house that is unlivable for 2 out of the 3 members of the household. I did the only thing a rationale person could do. I called my realtor and asked what it would take to get the house back on the market. 

Over the next month and a half, I (with some help from The Queen), removed all the wallpaper from the living and study, discovered a water leak in the skylights (which were later determined to have been improperly installed in the distant past), hired a contractor to fix the skylights, painted the living room, hired another contractor to texture the study walls and master bath ceiling and did my best to keep up with the lawn care, car maintenance and job searching. 

We finally got the house on the market, and it sold for full price within a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I was able to land a temporary gig starting right before the closing on the sale of the house which allowed us to rent an apartment back in the Dallas area while we get our feet back under us. There were some other trials in the interim which are not terribly critical to our current story. The temp gig lasted a little over a month before I landed a better temp to hire gig with another company that is much more to my liking and pays better to boot. A big bonus with this job is that it is 100% remote meaning I can pretty much work from anywhere. 

Things are looking up overall. The Queen and M&M are doing much better now that they are in an apartment with no mold. My boss is happy with my work so far. So, hopefully the job will convert to permanent before the end of the year. 

So, the saga continues. Just not in the direction we thought.

Shared Pain...Shared Joy

Once upon a time, I did a ride along with a Denton PD officer as part of a college project. During the ride along, one of the things I learned about were “Dear Chief” letters. Anytime an officer made a mistake that warranted the chief’s attention, the offending officer would write a letter to the Chief that started out “Dear Chief, much has transpired since last we spoke….” Also, one of my favorite quotes comes from the Callahan Cross Time Saloon series of books by Spider Robinson. That quote is in the side bar “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased - thus do we refute entropy.” Well….Dear Readers, much has transpired since last we spoke. Entropy has been getting a workout.

It all started one fine Wednesday evening a month ago after we all thawed out from the great polar vortex event here in North Texas. It had been decided by The Queen and Princess M&M that Miss Tater Tot needed a companion to keep her company. Never mind the three cats, two dogs and multiple fish that were already in the house. I was informed Tater was lonely and needed a friend. The Queen had been in touch with a crazy bunny lady in a nearby suburb who had several varieties to choose from. After much deliberation and handling of many buns including a handsome Lop named Beast, a lovely blue otter colored, female, Netherland Dwarf rabbit came home to join our herd.

 

Thus began the naming saga. Many names were tried on for size and found to be lacking. At one point, M&M tossed out “Death” as a possible name. What ultimately stuck was “Graycie”. Now, you are supposed to keep bunnies quarantined from each other for a couple of weeks so they can get used to each other, make sure no illnesses are transferred, etc. Well, Graycie had other ideas. Despite our best efforts, we consistently found the little Houdini in Tater’s cage to the point we just threw up our hands in defeat and made one large bunny enclosure under M&M’s loft bed. They get along famously and are regularly seen flopped next to each other.

 

Two days later, I woke up Friday morning to an email from my niece and nephew from whom we have been renting/caretaking a house for the last several years. The email indicated that they had decided that they needed house back so that my niece and her friends could move in by early June. I had not had my morning caffeine injection by this point. It was a bit of an eyeopener to say the least. The Queen thought I was joking when I told her. I confirmed that I was indeed honest and true.

So, the hunt began for a house. We, by that I mean me, had been dead set against ever having a mortgage again. We had been making plans to build a house at Mimi’s property; however, that was a multi-step, multi-year project and we were barely in the planning stages due to the care and feeding of The Queen’s parents the last few years. Calls were made and we reached out to a realtor lady we had worked with a couple of years ago unsuccessfully when we were looking for an alternate situation. We quickly determined several key points in this process:

• In the course of two years, the North Texas real estate market went from bad to bat guano insane.
• Renting/leasing was not an option for several reasons
• Houses are staying on the market for less than a week and in some cases just hours.
• Agents are boldly stating “highest and best offer by Sunday”…and buyers are lining up to wave cash at them.
• It is not uncommon for houses to have multiple offers ABOVE asking price.
• As a single income family, our buying potential was limited which put us in a position of looking at the fringes of the market.

With God, all things are possible as they say.

Thanks, in part, to being a permanent remote worker now thanks to COVID, we literally looked at everything in our price range from the Oklahoma border south to Temple, and from Mineral Wells to Canton in a rough hour to an hour and a half circle around DFW Airport. The state of the market in that general area is crazy. Your choices within my budget are ugly small houses built in the 70s and 80s, sketchy neighborhoods, investor “lipstick on a pig” flip specials or fixer uppers. We agreed that, building not being an option, we wanted a house we could be happy with especially since we were going to have to bite the bullet and get a mortgage. So, we spent several late nights looking at the offerings on Zillow, Realtor.com, Craigslist, word of mouth, etc.

Our agent suggested we look at a house in Sherman, TX which was a fixer upper just on the other side of our pre-qual amount. It was in a nice, well established neighborhood that backed up to a wooded area with a creek running through it. The house was built in the 50s and was in desperate need of an update in addition to foundation work as the east wall was trying to separate from the rest of the house thanks to soil shifting. The current owner is an investor who bought it with the intent of doing a “lipstick on a pig” treatment for a quick turn around. The foundation issues put the kibosh on that thought. I was seeing the potential at the first showing, but The Queen was not. We dithered about whether or not to make an offer for a week or two, and we finally asked our agent to go have a second look at it a week ago today. The Queen finally started seeing what I was seeing as well as the potential financial upside. As we sat down to discuss with our agent what to do about making an offer, she called the listing agent who informed her that it was contingent. This was news to all of us as she had checked before we drove an hour and half to see the stupid thing. I said “I’m done” and walked straight out to the car. She apologized profusely for which there was no need on her part.

Anyway, back to the drawing board. Sunday evening and Monday, The Queen was staying up deep into night looking at houses all over North Texas. She located a few possibilities in Sulphur Springs which is an hour and half northeast of DFW. We made arrangements with our realtor to go see them on Tuesday.

The first house was immaculate. It was like a museum from the 1950s. The original owners of the house were a doctor and his wife who had the house built. They added a wing onto the house in 1960 when they started having kids. It had the original wool carpet. They had three sons who all grew up to be doctors. The original intercom/radio worked.  The original 1950 vintage electric range still worked. They had the old console TVs from the 1960s/1970s. They had the blue prints from when the house was originally built. The widow had moved out in 2015 to go to assisted living and died just last year. The surviving sons had kept the house just as she had left it for the last six years. It was jaw droppingly amazing for a one owner house of that vintage…but not for us.

The second house was nice but nothing special.

That brings us to the miracle house. We almost didn’t see if because there were already two contracts pending on it. The Queen and the realtor decided “why not?” and off we went. After a brief lunch stop, we made our scheduled showing time and stepped into the Twilight Zone. Imagine, if you will, a house originally built in Fort Worth in 1868, disassembled and rebuilt with the original lumber in Sulphur Springs in 1874. The house lives through several owners as a one-story farmhouse just a few hundred yards from the courthouse square for just over a hundred years before the current owner bought it. She and her husband decided that it needed full renovation. They added an entire second story including a grand, sweeping staircase. They gutted the walls, double insulated them, added Anderson double paned windows, rewired and replumbed the entire house, modernized the master suite and the kitchen. The house has over 3400 square feet and the asking price was right at the top end of my range. We loved the house. And we walked away deciding not to make an offer on it thinking we didn’t have a chance at it because of the pending offers.

Now, here is where Entropy really started to get a workout. First, at the miracle house, there is a bedroom upstairs that is pink. M&M immediately fell in love with the pink room and claimed it as her own. She then proceeded to have a great old time running around the upstairs playing. This will be important later in our story. Second, on our way home from Sulphur Springs, literally 1 minute from our house, The Queen’s chariot took one on the chin after a driver, whom I shall charitably call “clueless” made a sudden left turn from the middle lane smashing right into The Chariot.

The whole thing felt like it was happening in slow motion until things started flying everywhere. The Queen made a valiant effort to avoid the crash, but there was not much she could do. I was in the front passenger seat (since I was working remotely from the car). Disentangling myself from cords and cups and papers gave me enough time to chase the inner ogre down and put him back on a leash. I got out of the car to check the damage and ask the other driver if she was okay. Instead of answering that question, she said “I had my turn signal on.”  To which I replied, “That does not mean you can turn left from the middle lane.” “Oh”, she said. I got on the phone with 911 to get things rolling. Fortunately, there were three witnesses who stopped to give their information. All had the same story to tell. The Chariot still runs and drives and does not appear to be leaking any vital fluids. It just has the automotive equivalent of a shiner with a few scrapes. Hopefully, the insurance company won’t try to total it. I’ll be getting an estimate from the body shop for my carrier first thing Tuesday morning. The other driver’s carrier has called but not connected with us yet.

Ouch

Physically, we all have soft tissue aches and pains. M&M and I seem to have faired better than The Queen even though the impact happened on our side of the car. The Queen has taken it a little harder. She will heal though. That’s all that matters.

So, Tuesday evening after the accident, we were on the phone with our realtor about whether or not to make an offer on the miracle house. Our realtor told us that the Sherman house came back on the market as the contract that came in under the wire of our second showing had fallen through. The layout of the Sherman house actually works better for our current situation, and there are some other personal benefits to being in Sherman that are unimportant to our story. So, we told our realtor to make an offer.

Turns out that the owner on the Sherman house doesn’t really want to sell the house for what it’s really worth in its current condition and is convinced that someone will come along and pay him his asking price. That won’t be us.

So, I’ll skip the back and forth between the realtors on the Sherman house which took up all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. Thursday afternoon, I get a call from the realtor that the owner of the Sherman house countered our offer by increasing the price to effectively net the same amount as his asking price on clean contract. Our realtor also mentioned that she received a text from the listing agent for the miracle house. Word was that the owner had rejected the pending offers, was pulling it from the market for three weeks to do same minor repairs but that if we were still interested that we could do a deal.

Huh???

So, you’ve heard people say when one door closes another opens? This door not only opened, but it was taken off the hinges.

Our realtor had given feedback to the listing agent including the story about M&M loving the pink room, etc. Turns out the lady of the house, a woman in her early 70s with a serious health issue, decided she didn’t like the investors who had submitted low ball offers well below asking price (one of whom she called a “jerk”) and was tickled at the idea of a little girl playing up there. So, the listing agent told our agent to give them an offer as close to asking price as possible and they would see what could be done. I immediately told our agent to terminate the contract on the Sherman house, and we drafted up the contract on the Sulphur Springs house.

Friday passed with no word. Apparently, the owner was out of town visiting her children. Saturday evening, we got a call from our realtor that they executed our contract with no changes. We were floored.

But wait….there’s MORE!

Our agent says, “So, would you be interested in the washer, dryer and refrigerator that are there at the house?” I had been planning to ask about that as we do not currently have those appliances in our personal possession. So, we said, “Absolutely.” Then our agent drops the kicker. The owner is giving those appliances to us as her gift to us. These are practically new appliances.

Body…meet floor. Floor…body.

I was speechless for several minutes. The Queen and I could not stop tearing up. Our agent sent us a packet with the history of the house which we did not have prior to making the offer. The house is essentially a 153 year old house that was completely rebuilt from the inside in 1983. I can’t wait to share photos. All because a little girl made an elderly woman smile. 

The Everything Update

Dear Readers,

Much has transpired since last we spoke. Rather than try to string together time and sanity to do individual topic updates, I thought it would be more efficient to throw it all in a blender and see what oozes out of the mix.

WORK/BUSINESS

After an initial flurry of optimism generated by actual business coming in the door, my LLC has been conspicuously quiet for the last 3 months or so. Part of that is the seasonal nature of the business. Part is probably not enough solid business contacts to support a growing business. I’ve got a lot of people who say they want to send me business, but the grand total of those who have actually come through and sent me work can be counted on one hand.

So, in order to keep the family fed and the lights on, I took a temporary job about three months ago while continuing the “all options on the table” job search and business growth plan. The pay is not great, but it beats unemployment “benefits”. On the plus side, the company I am temping for has wanted to hire me since the third day I was in the office. Initially, I demurred since we were just getting to know each other, and I had other irons in the fire. Now, I’m just waiting for them to put a bona fide offer in writing. They didn’t choke when I threw out a salary requirements number. We shall see what, if anything, develops there. 

I fly out to FL in a few weeks for an in person interview with a company based there. I’d say it’s encouraging to have a company willing to pay for a flight, hotel and car rental to check my teeth, but I’ve been in that position before. There’s no guarantee that it will mean an offer. If there is an offer forthcoming, it will likely come down to the money (since a major relocation would be involved).

There are several other positions I am pursuing one of which is particularly interesting to me. It would be a work from home position which has a lot of appeal since we intend to homeschool the wonder midget.

Then there was the recruiter who called today about a position I interviewed for a few years ago that is open again. I suppose it’s too much to hope that that company will see the error of their ways and shower me in money.

I’m not giving up on the LLC. If the floodgates open on that front, I’ll be ecstatic. If not, I can’t afford to sit on my thumbs and not do anything.

M&M

M&M, the wonder midget and cutest not so little girl in the world, continues to grow, dazzle and amaze. She is on the downhill side of 5 and a half going on 25. She weighs in at a well-proportioned and lean 52 pounds and measures just a hair or two short of 4 feet tall. All we did was blink, and…BAM!!!...suddenly it’s getting difficult to hold her. I don’t turn down her frequent requests to be carried or held unless I absolutely have to since it won’t be long before it’s physically impossible for me to do so.

I predict she will be the first female drafted into the NBA (not WNBA) as a point guard where she will have a successful 10 year career before retiring to have kids and cure cancer or solve the world’s energy problems. When she is 50, she will be elected first empress of the world for life at which time she will ban all partisan politics and biased media reporting (transgressions of the imperial edict will be punishable by banishment to the surface of Mars where you can live out your partisan fantasies…if you can breathe).

Seriously though, her birthday falls in November which puts her in an awkward scholastic position. Were we to enroll her in public school, we would not be able to officially enroll her until fall of 2018. Then, it would be the choice of kindergarten or kindergarten. Since The Queen has been unofficially homeschooling her since she was old enough to speak coherently, M&M is already well passed pre-K and most kindergarten level school work. Heck, she already reads at a second grade level. So, the plan is to start homeschooling her this fall as an official first grader (I think) and adjust course work as necessary. We will take care of socialization through homeschool coops and play groups with kids of varying age groups. Once she is older, we will investigate having her attend extracurricular activities such as band and sports in the public school system depending on her interest.

Here lately, M&M has been demonstrating behavior well above her age level. She is a very serving and polite young lady who gets compliments everywhere she goes. When The Queen (or, more rarely, I) gets sick, she is right there to help take care of what needs to be done including fetching water, reading stories, hugs, etc. I’d take credit, but it’s all The Queen’s doing.

THE QUEEN

Poison ivy is a right evil bitch. It’s even worse when you are a highly sensitive red head that was unaware that the pesky vines you were pulling and cutting off the fence were, in fact, poison ivy. Two days and a couple of hot showers later, The Queen was covered head to toe in misery inducing rash. That was about 3 weeks ago. At its worst, the rash covered about 75 to 80 % of The Queen’s body. Her eyes almost swelled shut early on. Poor thing looked like she’d been beat up by Mike Tyson. Unfortunately, due to The Queen’s other health issues, she is unable to take the only known medical treatment which is either oral prednisone or intramuscular injection of same. We’ve tried pretty much everything that can be had over the counter. The rash has finally started receding. The worst areas remaining are her hands and forearms. I am hopeful that another week or two will see her right as rain.

In other news, we have a new mantra in the house: All Ivy is EVIL!

Avoidance and paying others to deal with any future ivy disposal needs will be the primary means of defense.

OTHER DRAMATIS PERSONAE UPDATES

OMA AND OPA

Here about two months ago, The Queen Mum (Oma) and her consort (Opa) relocated from the  outer realms to cohabitate with us here at Castle Erickson. The genesis of this move requires a little backstory.

Oma has been suffering with early onset Alzheimer’s for several years now. Her condition is not as bad as some we have known, but it does have its challenges. She recognizes us in the sense that she knows we belong there in the house, but she does not know our names or relation to her. We don’t think she remembers her own name, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. Her short term memory tops out at a couple of minutes. Overall, her health is excellent, and she is fully ambulatory and able to eat. She is, however, starting to lose her grasp on basic hygiene and other skills, and she has a bad habit of stashing food in odd places (only to be rediscovered once it is fully rotten). She is also exhibiting “Sundowner’s Syndrome” which means she gets very confused and active, almost manic, when the sun goes down. It’s apparently common with Alzheimer’s patients. Fortunately, so far, she has been a very gentle and benign patient with no major outbursts or aggressive tendencies. Hopefully that will continue. Given her overall health, we expect her to live another 20 years barring unforeseen illness.

Opa, Oma’s husband of 50+ years, had been caring for Oma on his own in addition to dealing with his own health issues for the last couple of years pretty much non-stop with the exception of our semi-regular weekend visits. Opa and Oma are within a few months of each other age wise; however, their physical conditions could not be more different. Opa’s warranty expired a long time ago, but his condition has been getting progressively worse in the last 5 years. Over the last 6 months or so, we had been noticing his energy levels declining to the point we were concerned. We are pretty sure he had a minor heart attack back in about March or so, but we could not convince him to see a doctor about it. So, that remains a guess. We finally prevailed upon him to come to our house “for a visit” with Oma to rest and let us give him a break from having to do it all for the both of them. So, in early June, they packed a week’s worth of clothes and came to our house.

As you would expect, a little love, genuine concern and regular meals goes a long way to keeping people happy, healthy and wise. Over the next couple of weeks, Opa’s desire to go home went from “maybe in a few days” to “maybe we’ll stay with you all a while longer” to “what do we need to do to move in?” We moved heaven and earth (in some cases, literally) and had their house cleaned out in short order (with lots of help from The Queen’s brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephews). There is a renter lined up to rent their house for the next 6 months following which the plan is to sell it. So, if you want a killer deal on a recently remodeled (professionally) manufactured home (double wide, 2 bed 2 bath) located in Granbury, TX, drop us a line. We’ll work out a deal. Land not included (since my brother in law owns the dirt).

MY SISTER…THE DEVIL

MS…TD is living somewhat of a parallel life to mine…albeit in mirror image. She, her esposo – The Jack of All Trades, and Niece I Do It, recently moved in with MS…TD’s father in law who is getting on up there in age as the saying goes. I, being the wonderful brother that I am, provided some assistance in the moving process. While it wasn’t the worst move I’ve ever been involved in, it was definitely in the running for a top 3 finish.

The winner and holder of the life time achievement award for bad moves was Number One Follower’s practice wife. There are two infamously memorable and epically bad moves with her fingerprints all over them. The first time was when we helped her move out of her apartment at midnight (which I found later was because she was skipping out on rent with no forwarding address)…the cockroaches were less than thrilled when we woke them up by lifting their couch (yes, THEIR couch…dozens of them). And let’s not mention the dryer lint caked on the laundry closet wall. I’m surprised the whole complex didn’t burn down. The second one will not be discussed…I’m pretty sure I came close to witnessing a murder that day (and I would have been only too glad to aid and abet the disposal of the body in the process).

But,  I digress.

In other news, MS…TD is now a genuine published author. If you are into sorta kinda romance/fantasy/smut novels, you can get your fill here , here and here. I am not currently an Amazon affiliate. So, I don’t make a dime off the referral, but MS…TD will be grateful for your support. I provided a decent amount of editing and beta reader input as well as some technical consulting on her debut novel. I was asked to beta read the second novel and got a chapter or two into it before I had other commitments get in the way. Not being a connoisseur of the genre, I can’t say if they are good, bad or ugly.

I will say that MS…TD utterly ignored my advice to change the name of her main character in her debut novel. Somewhere, I have a copy of the manuscript with the name changed to Horace. I like that only slightly better. Beau. She seriously named the lead male in a semi-romantic novel with fantasy elements…BEAU!!! Pardon me while I puke. In the most loving way possible for a human being to hurl, of course. Mephistopheles would have been better. Elmer Fudd would have been better. Sodom Wanna Gonorrhea would have been better. But, no…Beau it is. Shake my head.

MY FATHER

My father, who will henceforth be known as Reporter #6 (he had an actual, minor, credited role in Mississippi Burning), has also put his English degree to use and published a couple of novels. I’ve read a version of the first one. I have a pre-publication copy of the second one somewhere that I haven’t had a chance to read yet. Throw a few shekels at the old man if you’re of a mind to. He tells a decent story even if it’s hard to pin down a genre.

NIECE TWIG

Last fall, Twig decided to uproot and move to Georgia to continue her college education in nursing school. Apropos of nothing, her high school sweetheart, is also stationed at Fort Bragg as an Army Ranger in training. I suppose I will need to give him a blog name now that he is family.

Wait….what?

Yes, a regression is in order. Prior to Twig leaving on the midnight train to Georgia, our budding Army Ranger, henceforth to be known as Gearhead (for his true passion is cars), asked my brother in law, Jack of All Trades, for his blessing to take Twig’s hand in marriage. JOAT’s response was something along the lines of “not yet” which caused a bit of drama. Twig and Gearhead proceeded to make plans for a December wedding despite the drama. Unfortunately, the vagaries of Army life made definitive planning impossible at best. So, the young couple decided to “elope” and get married over Labor Day weekend. Their plan included a vaguely defined idea to hold a reception when time and schedules allowed. Now, for those of you who don’t remember your recent weather news, Labor Day Weekend and Georgia equals landfall for Tropical Storm Hermine. Twig and Gearhead were supposed to meet the chaplain at a Starbucks to get hitched. Well, the Starbucks closed so that the baristas could head for the hills. Not to be deterred, our young lovers got married in the cab of the chaplain’s pickup in the Starbucks parking lot while the storm raged around them.

They seem happy from what I’ve heard, and it’ll be a great story for the grandkids. Word is they plan to return to Texas when Gearhead departs the military sometime in 2019.

NIECE I DO IT

I Do It continues her edumication in the fine art of animation in which she hopes to make a career. She is a very talented artist, but I have no idea what the job prospects are for a college graduate with an art degree in animation.

THE MENAGERIE

Numbnutt, the ½ dog, and Taco, the wonder bunny, have been joined by Tinkle Splat The Wonder Cat (on the right) and Sunny (on the left whom I call Ginger Snap).

The Queen named the dog because, “He acts like a dork.” M&M named the rest of the menagerie. We weren’t entirely sure about Sunny’s gender when he first came here, but he seems to have overcome any lingering doubts about his gender by demonstrating said sexuality without concern for gender or species (much to Tinkle’s perpetual dismay).

Numbnutt is about to turn 12, and he’s slowing down a bit. We almost lost him last fall to an acute case of aggressive gastroenteritis. He recovered, but you can tell he is getting up there in age. He’s slowed down a bit, but he’s still a very loyal and sweet dog.

Taco is a recently widowered bunny after his paramour, Sky, departed for the great rabbit hole in the sky. So far, I have been successful in rejecting any attempts to play matchmaker for the poor, lonely and extremely virile bunny.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Further updates as events warrant.

FREEDOM!!!!

Well...not complete freedom, but freedom from a mortgage at least. As of last Friday, The Queen and I closed on the sale of Castle Erickson closing out 10 years of residency there (with an interlude in Houston thrown in there as well). We are now officially and blissfully homeless (temporarily and figuratively of course).

We've needed a change for sometime now. The Queen has had her hands full taking care of M&M and trying to recover from her ongoing health challenges. Working full time allowed me very little time to keep up with home improvements and maintenance much less attempt to clean out the shop and get any kind of use out of it. We had been working on tiling floors forever with very little progress. Other projects had been started and then put on the back burner after priorities changed.

Despite our intentions to the contrary, we were moving, cleaning, repairing and purging right up to the day of closing. Literally. I left the house with the last trailer load of stuff at about 11:00 PM Thursday night before closing, and did not finish unloading until 1:30 AM the day of closing. The Queen was cleaning until about 11:30 PM. She made it to the hotel where we planned to stay the night a little after midnight. I finally made it there and crawled into bed around 3:00 AM. The Queen's 7:30AM alarm to wake us up to get to closing sucked horribly.

Closing was not without its hiccups. The first came on Thursday when the title company called to say that the buyer's lender had screwed up on the rate lock and was looking to stick The Queen and I with an additional $608 in closing costs AND move the closing date back AND move the closing to another title company. I allowed as how that I was not in favor of any of those developments. I further explained that I had no intention of paying extra for their screw up nor could I move the closing date because of other commitments. After several phone calls, the buyer's agent and the buyer worked it out with the lender and closing proceeded according to schedule.

If only it had gone according to plan, all would have been golden. Well...nickel at least. The next snag was The Queen's driver's license. You have to bring your DL to closing to prove to the title company that you are who you say you are so that they can notarize the closing papers affirming that you really are who you say you are. Well, The Queen's DL had been left at the hotel because the reservation was under my name and not hers and the front desk held her DL for some reason that still escapes me.

We tried having the hotel fax a copy, but they only succeeded in sending a blank page. So, after signing a mercifully short stack of paper, we trudged back to the hotel, took a picture of The Queen's DL and emailed that to the title company. Apparently, a photo of your DL is perfectly acceptable as a form of ID to prove that you are who you say you are.

While we left behind a neighborhood full of nice people that we've gotten to know over the years, both The Queen and I feel no nostalgia for the old neighborhood. There are certainly no regrets in selling the house. For the first time since we have been married, we are truly free to take a step back and make a thoughtful, unpressured decision about what direction to take. Our initial plan is to look for a rental in late fall/early winter after my busy travel/work season is over. We will likely rent for at least a year perhaps more while we decide where/if we would want to buy/build. Our current thought is to save up cash and buy a piece of land not in town but not too far out in the sticks on the 100% down payment plan. From my little bit of research in the last few weeks, that is doable in 2-3 years depending on how aggressively we save money.

Once that is done, I want to design and build a house of our own suited to our needs and desires. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too big. 1500 square foot max (if I could get away with 1000, I'd probably do it...The Queen won't let me do a tiny house except maybe as a guest cottage). Open floor plan. Architecturally, The Queen and I lean towards "modern rustic" (I think that's the term). We'd be happy in anything from Craftsman Period style bungalos to a cabin though. No carpet. Wood floors and/or tile. Just enough room to host a few friends or family from time to time but not so much that we will have wasted space that we don't use 99% of the time and would just accumulate junk.

I'm still waiting for a chance to actually relax. The weekend was mostly spent running here, there and everywhere at warp speed taking care of one thing or another. I may actually get to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. That'll be a shock.

Kill Me Now...

So, yesterday was my second official Father's Day. It was a day filled with hard labor in the hot sun, and I am paying the price today.

The Queen had decreed that we should go ahead and get the antiques moved to storage. As a result, I woke up yesterday and picked up a 16 foot rental truck. Best friend Number One Follower arrived a little after 10:00 AM followed shortly thereafter by the youngest nephew Baby Huey (that's what his mother calls him...so, I'm going with that).

What followed was several hours of championship level 3D Tetris in high 90 degree temps involving old wood and glass including a piano, first into the truck and later into an elevator to get to the third floor storage unit. The saving grace of the day was a steady, cool breeze that felt great on sweat soaked shirts.

After 9 hours in the sun, I'm completely soaked, smell like a goat and have no critical reasoning skills left.

The end result was this:

10' x 15' storage unit with space left for boxes. The Queen vetoed my bonfire suggestion

The Queen promises me that she will locate someone to appraise this clusterstuff as a prelude to an estate sale. We just don't have time for it right now.

By the time we got done, I was overdue returning the truck, I was literally and figuratively baked, I was having trouble thinking and moving was an ordeal. As I asked NOF, when the Hell did I become an old fart? Fortunately, NOF married himself up in life. His new bride K3 was very thoughtful and brought a couple of rotisserie chickens, veggies, taters and fruit relieving me from the need to figure out what to do about dinner. After dinner, I filled the tub and soaked for a good solid hour following which I stretched out on the bed and started watching Longmire on Netflix.

Waking up this morning was an exercise in torture. Moving is optional at this point.

The good news is that The Queen has promised to make up Father's Day for me after the move is done. I thanked her profusely and told her that wasn't necessary, but she is insistent. I've learned not to argue with her about it.

People Are Nasty

I have made an observation about people in general that will come as no surprise to some (probably most) of you.

People are nasty (hence...the title of this post).

Case on point.

Y'all remember the photos of the piles (nee pile) of garbage on the curb that I posted the other day, right? Well, since the garbage company would not pick up Pile o' Crap 1.0 on our regular trash day last Thursday thus leading to me spending a fun filled Thursday night creating Piles o' Crap 2.0 (bagged trash), 3.0 (flattened cardboard), 4.0 (flattened cardboard), 5.0 (bagged trash), and 6.0 (recyclable items).

Well, between Thursday and our next regularly scheduled trash day on Monday, it looked like a pack of lions and tigers and bears oh my had rummaged through my once neatly organized dump.

As you will recall, this was all garbage that had been defiled by rodents. Visibly and unmistakably ruined with filth that would probably gag a maggot.

Grandma's old hard side Samsonite luggage? Gone.

Old coffee/espresso maker? Bye bye.

Whole bags of rodent ruined clothing? Outta there.

People would tear open the garbage bags to see if there was anything they wanted to take and then left it there to be strewn around the neighborhood. I had half a mind to sit in the picture window with my shotgun, but it wasn't worth it.

Fortunately, the garbage company took it all (at least what was left) away on Monday.

If All Goes According to Plan,...

...Castle Erickson will have a new owner on July 11. Acceptable terms were reached late yesterday evening, and contracts were signed this morning.

The funny thing about that is my colleague in the next office has had his house on the market for months with a realtor and no nibbles. I posted my house on Zillow under their "Make Me Move" option not too long ago and have sold it ahead of him. Ain't technology great?

It wasn't all peaches and roses though. I had a few realtors email me wanting to list it for us. Thanks, but no thanks. Back in March, we had a family come look at it. They apparently lost interest. Then, a week and a half ago, a realtor emails me and tells me he was a buyer who wants to see the house "right now". Right now turned into a few days because of family commitments (Niece Juju's college graduation and departure to a foreign land) and my business travel. The buyer and his girlfriend/fiance saw it, loved it and gave us an offer over the holiday weekend. A little back and forth over sales price, and we finalized the deal.

The good news for us is that this is an "as is" deal. In other words, we are giving up a little on the sales price in exchange for not having to finish painting, flooring, etc. and spending the money associated with those tasks. On his end, he gets a smoking deal on a house in a good neighborhood that he plans on redoing anyway.

The Queen and I are excited and looking forward to our adventures as temporarily homeless people. The plan is to sell what we can, trash what we must and donate what we can't sell and don't want to keep. Those things we will be keeping will go into climate controlled storage while we decompress from paying for our own prison home ownership, pay off some debts, hoard some cash and generally enjoy life for a while.

In the near term, we will be camping out with family while we scope out locations for rental property in the general vicinity of my office. Chances are good that we will wind up somewhere in Collin county since we both agree that we have no desire to live in Dallas county or on the other side of downtown Dallas from my office. The current search area is roughly bounded by I-35E to the west, 190/George Bush Turnpike on the south, Texas 78 on the east and US 380 on the north. We may fudge a little on the northern and eastern boundaries a little, but I refuse to go further south or west.

Renting will be a temporary solution while we decide whether we want to buy land and build or just chuck it all and become nomads living out of a yurt or a fifth wheel.

Right now...that yurt is mighty tempting.

In the meantime, anyone who wants to go dumpster diving through a few households worth of stuff...feel free to drop me a line.