Give me Beaumont or give me debt

Want to make God laugh?  Tell Him your plans.  The house closing came down to the last day, but fell through due to financing issues.  We were told all along that the couple was “pre-approved.”  Hah.  My realtor told me to go ahead and schedule movers.  Four days, they were at our home packing.  Following are a few suggestions, should you find yourself  selling your home:

1.  Do not allow them to pack the kitchen first.  They knew I was living there, because I told them not to pack the master bed and bath.  Did they think cooking and eating would not become part of my needs three times a day?  Not counting snacks and treats, of course.

2.  Do not disconnect anything until you sign and get your sale proceeds in the bank.  I spent hours calling everyone, documenting who I spoke with, dates and times.  I was fortunate to spend hours making new friends as I called saying, “It was all a cruel joke.  I’m not moving.  It was those “voices” and I swore never to listen to them again (until the next time I need to make critical decisions).  The light company didn’t even levy a reconnect charge because “it wasn’t your fault.”  Was it the voices or had she actually offered an olive branch?  I mean, what other electric company would I be using?  We don’t have windmills in our backyard, for goodness sakes.  Must be making up for outsourcing customer service to India and heard our cries and disdain for the company policy, “How to give customers absolutely no customer service whatsoever because being nice to customers is not cost-effective.”  File this policy under, “Costs soar as customers clog phone lines to complain, creating overtime.  Now it costs 150% more to provide customer disservice.  Just how stupid do they think we are?  Have you noticed how helpful sales staff has become since we cut up our credit cards and refused to shop where the businesses didn’t care if we spent $$ in their stores?   Masters degree in Business?  Bull.  Victims of over-education is more like it.  The Executive pressure to cut costs or you won’t get your huge bonuses, saw years of declining sales due to the idiotic simpletons who get paid the big bucks and then get fired when the whole cost-savings effort resulted in lost jobs, lost bonuses, etc.  Play nice and we can help each other.

3.  “Do not pack my vanity area” is mover-speak for “go ahead, pack the makeup, hair dryer, hair products and cutips.  The church members love to see her looking like a 70-year-old street-drunk at Sunday School.  I’m asked to sit at the back so as not to frighten small children.  It is Halloween season, ya’ know.  I coulda’ won first prize for ugliest church member. 

4.  Don’t ask movers to load anything into your car.  The “are you going to buy us lunch” onslaught begins.  You laugh and brush them off, but they elect the female team member to ask point-blank “are you going to buy us lunch?” 

5.  Don’t tip until the final day.  Yes, folks, you are expected to tip.  They all but reach into your purse for the money.  Unless you are a server, I don’t recall ever being tipped for showing up to work.  The assault has been perfected.  Beware of those who try to be your “mover friend,” it can get ugly.

6.  Don’t leave your personnal tape, scissors and permanent marker on the boxes you’ve been sorting.  I went outside to retrieve said items that had magically disappeared.  After spending hours on end searching, I approached my new “bff” and asked if she had seen those items.  She hesitated, started to say no, then said she packed the only scissors I owned.  The she snapped my marker out of her pocket and handed it to me.  I said “Thanks” quite cheerfully, I might add and walked away.  You might ask, “What’s the big deal about one marker?”  This wasn’t just any old magic marker.  This was the latest in the capless, click on/off like a ballpoint pen.  I am forever leaving the caps off and finding a dry felt nub that is painfully useless.  The bigger story was that I knew where it was (miracle) and was able to utilize it during the packing.  Question:  did she really pack the scissors or are her children using them for school?

7.  As a result of scheduling the move and then not moving, moving company rep threatened us with thousands of dollars expected to pay for the work done. 

My realtor called that dismal Tuesday morning with the unexpected news, but not in time for me to stop the delivery of the container used to transport my home over land and sea.  Listen carefully:  the mover picked up the container at “containers are us” and drove it to our home on the back of a special truck.  Their rep, Sandy, asked why I didn’t call before the movers had left Houston for
Beaumont.  I told her I had only just found out and then discovered the movers were there.  “But you should have called us earlier.”  (Is she kidding me?)  I repeated myself (see above).  Yet she threatened me with paying the per diem for the container.  What the heck?  The Port of Houston (I assume she got it there) is on their way to Houston.  Don’t you just drop it off and forget it?  Certainly you don’t sit on it indefinitely (what part of “I’m not moving” do you fail to understand?).  

Moving is not for the faint-hearted.  When we bought our Beaumont home, I told Keith this was the last time I was moving.  HAH!  Never mind that I had supervised five moves in as many years.  Good thing, I knew what to expect.  Kinda sorta. 

If I got an all-woman jury, I’d get probation for kicking Keith’s butt.  Never mind.  He’s much bigger than me and I’m a huge chicken.  The secret is out:  the woman with the big bite, is a sissy.

For now I will live in Houston and Beaumont.  Hey, AT&T even restored my original phone number!  I love America.

 

 

Thursday, October 22, 2009 The house that wouldn’t sell

Have contract on the Beaumont house for $315k.  The house appraised for $393k which is what I wanted to list it at in the first place!  However, a sale is a sale.  We were to close yesterday.  However, seems the appraiser’s report stated, “this is in a depressed market” and the lender and mortgage insurer (PCMI) got hinky and wanted more money from the buyers that they don’t have.  Turns out he failed to do a credible market analysis of the area.  Our four subdivisions have sold at a rapid rate and for great prices.  The buyer’s agent has written the lender with this information.  Pray that they relent and approve the loan.  If you pay 20% down there are no worries with PCMI, you are exempt. 

The movers had been working four days on packing (they work 6 hours/day) and when they showed up with the container, I had to send them back because the closing wasn’t happening.  We cannot afford to pay storage for our belongings in Alaska if our house here doesn’t sell!  So I packed up a few things to give mom and headed for Houston.  We played Scrabble last night and I whooped her.  I can’t get too accustomed to the agony of winning, because she will rebound with a vengeance 

Sorry this posting is not so funny, hope you don’t mind.  Keith is pouting because I am not in Alaska with him.  I’m pouting because I have to handle ANOTHER move without him.  He’s coming into Houston December 16 for the holidays.  We’ll spend that weekend with our boys in Mississippi to see his family.  We’ll drive back to Houston around the 21st and see my family.  Mike and Debbie and most of their kids will be here and I get to see them!  Since they live in S. Carolina, I covet this time to fellowship. 

While I’m living here, I will get to spend time with my youngest brother, Mark, and his wife, Donna, playing Scrabble with mom.  We’re hoping their daughter, husband and granddaughter, Zoe, will be here this weekend from New Braunsfel.  This granddaughter is absolutely gorgeous!! 

I’ll miss my church and friends in Bevil Oaks.  Many have said they would come for a visit.  If only 25% of those come up, it will be party time! 

Mom and Aunt Pat are planning to come next summer and I am so thrilled.  That is if we have a house for them to stay in.  Keep praying for God’s hand in this decision.  If  He decides we must keep the house, send some friends to help me unpack all that.

From Time Magazine By Nancy Gibbs Friday, Oct. 09, 2009

The deserving did  not win.  What follows is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article today.  The last paragraph explains who should have won.

“At this moment many Americans are longing for a president who is more bully, less pulpit. The president who leased his immense inaugural good will to the hungry appropriators writing the stimulus bill, who has not stopped negotiating health care reform except to say what is non-negotiable, whose solicitude for the wheelers and dealers who drove the financial system into a ditch leaves the rest of us wondering who has our back, has always shown great promise, said the right things, affirmed every time he opens his mouth that he understands the fears we face and the hopes we hold. But he presides over a capital whose day-to-day functioning has become part-travesty, part-tragedy, wasteful, blind, vain, petty, where even the best intentioned reformers measure their progress with teaspoons. There comes a time when a President needs to take a real risk — and putting his prestige on the line to win the Olympics for his home town does not remotely count.

Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, who the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former army Medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress.”

Submitted by Melanie Gonzales with food for thought

Canadian Consulting Engineer,  10/5/2009

Fishing in polluted waters – automatically

 

Robotic fish with tiny chemical sensors are being developed to hunt out potentially hazardous pollutants in water bodies in the U.K.

The project, funded by the European Commission, will develop fish that will have autonomous navigation capabilities, enabling them to swim around a harbour without human interaction. They can also return automatically to a hub to be recharged when their batteries run low. BMT Group is coordinating the three-year project.

 

Couple of questions:

 

1) When will the nerd patrol develop digital fishing poles to catch the robotic fish?

 

2) Can we develop robotic snakes that can use some sort of detection technology to hunt out terrorists in the desert?

 

Mom, can I keep ‘em, Mom? Can I? Please?

The inventory of our “goods” to be moved to AK, I opened the storage building, and there was a yip, yip.  I knew it had to be a puppy.  This morning I watched at four romped around my backyard.  I took them some food, but they were very cautious.  It wasn’t long before they crowded the bowls like vultures over a fresh kill.   They were out for morning dew and licking the pine trees for water.  I figured it didn’t hurt to feed them.  Let the new owners deal with it. 

 

You can’t see the blond, short-haired runt, as he is behind the “madding crowd” (for those of you too young to remember, this was a movie, “Far from the Madding Crowd.”)  The other three are little fur balls.  Their feet are small, so I don’t know that they will grow to be very big.  I think they are much thinner under that fur.  I guess I need to go and rescue the plastic food bowls before they mistake them for a chew toy. 

When I walked outside to place the food near them, I was horrified to find I was locked out…AGAIN!  All I was wearing was a blouse and my underwear.  No one can see my backyard and I was so focused on watching them, I started plotting.  Maybe the truck was unlocked to allow access to the garage door opener.  I had to walk around to the front yard, in my panties, looking down and praying no one would drive by.  But the truck was locked.  I have to decide, do I break a window in the truck or in the house?  I located a shovel (we never put anything back where it goes) near the porch, and carried around the back of the house.  Low and behold, the door I actually exited was standing wide open!!!!   I had tried to enter a locked door.  For those who’ve never seen my house, the entire back of the house is windows and doors.

It’s a good day when your neighbors don’t spot you walking around outside in your underwares.  I hugged God and sat down to write this additional fiasco (it’s a full moon) that happened to me.  My life is so crazy, I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years hold for me/us.

Anyone want a puppy?  First one here gets pick of the litter!

It’s a contract updated 9/27/09

We put a contract on a 2500 sf townhouse.  It is three stories, but you enter the house on the middle floor where there is a bedroom and full bath and closets, then go upstairs to the kitchen, breakfast area, and small den with fireplace.  The master is enormous and the bathroom has separate shower with double shower heads and glass doors.  There are six molded shelves in the shower, for all the hair products, razors, etc;  Big jacuzzi tub, double sinks (rare here), for sure.  There are two balconies with outstanding views of the snowcapped mountains.  Downstairs is a partially completed basement with another bedroom and full bath, plus a large “living room.”  It could be used as a mother-in-law suite.  Part of the basement is unfinished so we’ll use it for storage.  In other words, when you come visit, you will have your own level to yourself!  We have a small backyard, big enough though.  I’ll have to upload a photo of the front of the townhouse when I can find one.

Bookcase in downstairs basement

 

kitchen has two pantries.  The bar is longer than pictured.

 

Looking from front door to the back door.

den

guest bathroom

 

master bedroom

master bathroom shower

master bathroom sinks and cabinets.  We wish the toilet was in a separate room with a door…oh well.

Not “California Closets” but after going so long without a home, this is a cadillac closet to us.  There are two closets in the master bedroom.

View from top floor balcony.

view from second floor balcony

Note the building at ground level.  It’s the Alaska Deputy Sheriff’s offices.

A neighbor told me the neighborhood is very safe and that she often leaves her front door unlocked!

Of course, the purchase of this townhouse is dependant upon the closing of our Beaumont house, but we feel confident this will work out.  If not, God must have better plans for us.  Please keep praying.

Everything has been signed and the closing our Beaumont hosue October 23.  It has happened so quickly.  We’ve made an offer for a house here, and will let you know how that progresses.  We tried getting a ranch style house in South Anchorage that had a dynamite kitchen.  However, I checked the condition of window sills and windows.  Wood was rotting and there was hold between the panes in the sunroom that could not be treated because you have to remove the wood framing and try to spray in between the two panes.  The house was too old.  It would have cost us around $30k to replace the windows and that would have been too much for the neighborhood. 

Keith has deadlines at work and is anxious.  He leaves tomorrow morning for a conference in Las Vegas, that cannot be cancelled.  I leave on 2/28/09 for Houston and then on to Beaumont.

Right now it is hailing at the Anchorage Airport, snowing big time in the mountains and the wind is whipping our awning.  I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t rip completely off.  I can’t reach the handles to release it.  I asked Keith when he picked me up at lunch to lower it, but he didn’t have the time.  We rushed to Denny’s, signed the papers, the realtor and Keith left, I ate, then walked back to the RV.  It was cold!  You could see snow falling on the mountains (resembles fog).  It’s too early!  What happened to fall?  One week of beautiful gold leaves and then freezing temps.  Go figure.

We need to get moved up here as fast as we can because the severe weather will keep the movers from getting here.  But that’s what I think.  I’m sure moving companies will drive anywhere, anytime, just for the money.  Look at it this way.  If there is an accident, we have insurance and can buy all new stuff!  Just trying to see the positive side of life.  Looking at the photo below, I don’t need to feel stressed.  My legs still work.

 

Found a cottage industry that is so cutting edge.  Kaycee will want to make some of these for the beach!  She has made such beautiful things for the kids and the new baby due 12/25/09 (Kaycee is my nephew, Nathan’s, beautiful wife). 

 

I’m taking orders for Christmas.  If you want me to use your husband’s lingerie, it is an additional $5.  This gives new meaning to crotchless underwear.  That’s one way to get rid of those pesky stains, huh?

Sold!

Today, our buyers accepted our counter offer on the Beaumont House.  Praise God.  One less think for us to think about.  I’m hoping they will do a quick close so movers can get everything up here before the ice and snow sets in.  Unless we sell the Pathfinder, we will try to sell it down south.  However, it’s almost paid for and I say keep it!  We will have the contract all sewn up Monday, as the Buyers are at the Grand Canyon, but return Sunday to Houston.  They don’t have a house to sell, so we’re hoping they will close quickly so we can have a house here before the van gets here with our furniture. 

I’m breathless, just thinking about what’s ahead.  Fortunately, we’ve moved several times and I can manage things.  We starting to make lists, i.e., brakes for Pathfinder, getting money, stuff like that.

Stay tuned, more to come.  Keep praying for us.

Real Estate update

So, we had buyers looking at our house this past weekend.  We’re asking $325k ($70/sq ft), but they weren’t willing to pay $315k.  The silence has been deafening.  We’ve decided to raise the price, keep the house and wait until the market changes.  Alaska is drop-dead gorgeous, and I can’t wait until we can move into a house here together. 

Until God decides, we will travel back and forth.  I will summer in Alaska and winter in Beaumont.  Keith will come home at Christmas and all will be well in the land.

Or maybe this is God’s decision, so we’re ok either way.  Miss my Beaumont church and church friends.  Miss having a car to use.  Miss southern food.  Tex Mex is my mantra.  The Mexican food here is nasty.  Sushi is awesome, and steak from Lone Star Steak House rules the place.  All of the chain restaurants are fantastic.  And the mountains, and the prairies and the oceans, white with foam!

We’ll be back later, Keith and I are going to Applebee’s for a great burger from their two for twenty menu.  All I’ve done this week is visit my chiropractor, which has greatly healed my poor back.  It’s unbelievable what he has done for me to speed up the healing.  I’m finally pain free.  I even walked to Denny’s around noon for lunch, read the paper, had coffee and talked to my friend, Sue Haver, from church.  She is such fun and has a great laugh and sense of humor.  I talked to Ann Polk, another friend from church, and my favorite son, Chase.  All in all, it was an uplifting day.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 – September 4, 2009

For the past several weeks, Summer  started acting strangely:  growling, baring her teeth, lunging at us and scaring the life out of us.  Then Wednesday, September 2, as I sat at the table, the girls starting growling at each other.  When one is under the blanket and the other wants inside, too, the fight is on.  Thinking Summer wanted up on the sofa, I tried to pick her up under the tummy.  She whipped around and bit my knuckle, splitting it open where I could see the tendon.  I knew it was going to be bad.  I told Keith that I was afraid she would have to be put down because once she crossed that line to bite, she would do it again.  Then I talked to two of my doctors Friday morning and they told me she had to be put down.  I was afraid she would bite someone else, perhaps a child.  Her aggression was unbelievable.

I drove her to animal control all by myself.  I got halfway down the hallway, and started bawling.  I was hysterical.  And so alone.  Keith said he couldn’t do it, and since I didn’t have anyone here, it was left to me.  Keith agreed that this needed to be done.  He just couldn’t do it.  Women are the stronger sex.  Animal control officials made me carry her to the animal pens because she is a biter.  I walked past kennels with 8 pitt bulls, a rottweiler, a rat terrier all in attack mode, their barks boucing off the cement walls.  Summer shook and stayed still in my arms.  At the last kennel on the left, the tech opened the door, and said to put her in the kennel (that was inside the pen).  Friends, as I leaned down (I’m still sobbing with my face buried into her), Summer climbed out of my arms, across my neck hanging on for dear life with her paws.  I kept sobbing, ”I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I love you.”  I calmed her, then she went right into the kennel.  I had to turn and walk out rapidly away, and heard her crying, and crying, while all those maniac dogs were barking and scaring the life out of me as they lunged at their fencing.  The tech pointed a box of kleenex at me and I thanked him. 

 I could not stop crying and had to sit down on a bench while waiting to fill out paperwork.  I sat on bench and this Jamaican lady asked, “are you ok?”  ”yes, I just get so emotional when I have to fill out paperwork.”  I wanted to scream “I have to kill my dog, and the sun is shining too brightly.”  We were at Animal Control.  Did she think I get choked up when trying to adopt?  Then bench was too hard?  I know she was trying to help and appreciated her letting me talk about it.

 

Alaska law says biting dogs must be quaranteened for ten days.  I can’t stand this.  I feel so guilty.   Leaving her there, I hate myself.  Summer grew up sleeping with us every night.  I shouldn’t have to lose two dogs a year apart, first Jake, now Summer.  We still have Jenny, but it’s not the same.  We adopted Jenny at 18 months old and Jake was three.  I’ve had Summer since 7 wks and she slept on my shoulder as a puppy.  I took her to the gift shop every day.  Even though we had adopted Jake and Jenny, Summer has always been more special to us.   

Several Alaskans I spoke with before taking Summer to Animal Control, had dogs that bit humans, and every time, they would shoot the dog.  Evidently, these hunters, fishermen, and gatherers come from hearty stock and take care of their problems themselves.  Of course, Keith and I couldn’t do that.  Alaska’s Animal Control is state of the art, compassionate and extremely humane facility.  The tech explained what will happen when Summer is put to sleep.  She also believes as we do that Summer may have had something physically wrong with her. 

Chase’s Summer Joy had an awesome life and brought us so much joy and so much sorrow at her end.  I’ll never regret getting her, raising her, loving and being loved by her.  But it hurts as well.  Chase’s Summer Joy:  March 18, 2004 – September 13, 2009.  We’ll miss  you, baby girl. 

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Remind me why I have daschunds? When researching the idea of breeding Summer three years ago, a breeder told me Summer could “turn mean” after having her pups. I thought no way. Summer truly had a delightful disposition before an after her puppies and always allowed me to handle her food around her without protest:  until now.

Lately, she has tried to establish her role as Alpha Female, but that is my role. Keith and Summer go to bed first. Later, I attempt to enter the room and she comes unglued under the covers, growling strongly and snapping if you try to pet her. I found if I should ignore her and just get in the bed, she immediately shuts up and snuggles up to me. I had never seen her that vicious before. But I thought it was handled.  The same behaviors occurred when I would be in bed and Keith came into the room.

Keith and I picked up Quizno’s for lunch today, he dropped me home and returned to work. I put my food down my food and purse, leashed the dogs and went for their potty break. When I returned, I hung the leashes, checked the bedroom for random “accidents” and noticed the bathroom needed to be sprayed with bleach. At the computer working on these blogs, I heard growling and looked down to the floor. Summer had her head under the couch quilt, and I thought Jenny was on the couch/under the quilt. They usually growl at each other over territorial rights. I reached down with my left hand to lift Summer up to the couch, where I normally rearrange the quilt to cover both dogs, allowing enough distance for each to have some territory. Like a flash, Summer twisted around and bit hard on my ring- finger knuckle. Bending my finger, blood starts oozing and I could see the knuckle bone! I bandaged it up (one S and two Shrek bandaids) and called Keith, who was non-plussed, because he was busy. I asked him to pick up two splints and some surgical tape on the way home. The incision across the knuckle was sharp, therefore, the wrinkle fit right back together. Except for the pain and purple where the vein broke open, I think I can survive without a doctor, unless it becomes infected, then I’ll have no choice.  (My hesitation is due to having only one car, preventing me driving any place and Keith didn’t need to get me for a dog bite.)

Summer has become so aggressive, that Keith has become alarmed. We aren’t sure what to do. Since we are around kids in the RV park, I’m afraid Summer might bite one of them.

What were they fighting over? Jenny was actually under the couch when the growling started. She and Summer were EATING MY TUNA SANDWICH! Summer thought, I guess, that I was keeping her from mylunch. How rude of me. Guess I’ll shoot her then fix me some more tuna here. After Summer tore me a new one, she attacked Jenny and then the screaming began. Summer was viscious in biting Jenny, and I managed to stop the slaughter with my voice commands. And it wasn’t, “Now, now, you two play sweetly.” Poor Jenny was so scared she jumped into my lap and would not get on the couch with Summer. Who could blame her? Right now she has her head against my hip and her rear end near my knee, shaking and scared. Any recommendations from my dog lovers out there? Otherwise one of these dogs has to go.

Recap: I am crippled after falling the last three times, and have been attacked by my dog. Can’t get appointment with my psych doc until 9/15. Looks like I’m headed to more neurotic behaviors. Agoraphobic? You betcha’.