Good News

We finally closed the deal on the land we're buying, so now it's ours! The land is about half woods and the rest is a large field which is overgrown with weeds. First thing this morning, bright and early, I went to Lowe's and bought a new trimmer. A heavy duty jobbie that had a blade attachment along with string. Also I got a new shovel, rake, and plenty of cord for the trimmer. I was all set to tackle my seven weedy acres and turn it into a paradise for all to behold. About an hour and a half into it I realized I had badly deluded myself into thinking I was going to get even the level part done with a weedeater. I plugged away at it all day and got an area about 20' x 40' done. I never put on the string attachment at all, but had to use the blade the whole time, that's how bad it was. I'm switching approaches now and will try to procure a brush hog, maybe I can hire one of the neighbors to run it over at least part of the land. What I got done today in five hours would have taken about five minutes at most with a brush hog. But I'm not complaining about all the work, in fact I'm reveling in it... working on my own land without having neighbors to worry about... breathing the country air...climbing to the top of the hill as the sun was setting to see the breathtaking view of the valley and hills.... no I'm not complaining at all.

Just scratching my head

Isn't it funny how, when things are going good and you're on a roll, things just keep getting better and better? Well that's what I've heard at least. When things get rolling for me they always seem to be heading downhill, picking up speed along the way. Right now it looks like I'm just starting down that hill again, mostly because of money matters - mainly lack of. The one good thing - at least I hope it turns out to be a good thing - is that they reset the closing date again, this time for tomorrow, about a week earlier than the last date they set. The other things going on right now; I need to build a deck on the back porch (money), need to finish the siding on the house (money), my son needs a new bed (money), my wife is having major problems with her back and neck (worry and probably lots of money), I opened the door to the basement and saw an indoor pool we didn't have before which meant that the sump pump hadn't kicked on, so I really need to fix that (money and time), and that noise the wife's van is making is getting worse (money). Oh yeah, mother-in-law called yesterday crying because she needed money. She had already spent her monthly check on cigarettes and needed money to buy something to eat so she wouldn't starve (of course she didn't say she spent her money on smokes, but with a pack a day habit it's not hard to figure where it all went). So here we go... picking up speed down a bottomless hill toward debt and despair. I sometimes wish I was a drinking person so I could drowned my troubles... not sure if that works or not but it might be worth a try... naww.. too expensive. I'll just put on a smiley face and hang on. :)

Maybe soon

I just got back from an overnight camping trip with my youngest son, we went here and it was very fun and relaxing. Too bad we got rained out today or we would have gone swimming most of the day. But... when we came home there was a message from the title company wanting to set up a time for closing on our land...FINALLY!! Hopefully they can work it in for tomorrow, or even later today, still salvaging a little of my vacation to do some work on the land, which was why I took vacation this week in the first place, since we were supposed to close last Friday and I was told there'd be no problems whatsoever that would prevent that. LOL ....right. So just MAYBE I'll be a land owner in a couple of days... we'll see.

UPDATE: It's about an hour later now and guess what.... no closing for this week. They set it up for next Thursday... my birthday. I'm not going to hold my breathe for that date either... it's taken so long already! So right now I'm not in a good mood.

Nice weekend

Today was Father's Day and I didn't want or expect anything but the wife and kids were great. Went out to eat then to a movie with the wife and youngest. I came home and my oldest gave me a nice wrench set. It's been a good day.

The movie I saw was RV. It was hilarious, everyone thought so. This was the second movie in three nights, as we went to see The Lake House Friday for our anniversary. Although I knew it was a chic flick I decided to tough it out for my wife's sake. I ended up bawling my head off cause it was so touching........yeah right. LOL Actually even my wife thought it was a little drawn out. I was hoping that with the element of time displacement that it might have some redeeming qualities, but alas it fell short. However, I would recommend RV to everyone who enjoys a good laugh.

On another front, we didn't go to closing on our land purchase Friday like we were supposed to. The reason given was that the title company wasn't through with the title search, or something like that. My wife and I both changed our work schedules around to accommodate the Friday closing deadline, and I took a vacation this coming week to work on the property. Now I don't know when the closing will happen....if ever. It seems the title people are taking their time because there is a lawsuit involving the sellers and the people who bought the property next to ours. I guess they want to make sure everything is free and clear so as to not run into the same problem those people had, which, as I understand, is that there was a mix up on the property boundaries and the people started building their house on the wrong parcel. Now they have a half-finished house sitting on land that's not theirs.... that would stink.

Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary. I forget how long we've been married....wait.... 22 years. Had to take a minute and think. The marriage is just temporary until we both find someone else... we're procrastinators. Seriously though I don't know of anyone else who would have put up with me for this long. Even though we've had a lot of ups and downs I can't picture myself with anyone else. We're going out, not sure where yet, but it will be nice to have an evening to ourselves.

What the Heck

The last two writings I attempted to post got erased because the system was on the fritz I guess. It took me over an hour on each, and I'm sure my writings would have benefited mankind, but OH WELL, I guess they had to shut down to take a coffee break or something. Or maybe someone of a higher power didn't want me sharing the secrets of the universe with complete strangers. SOooo since I can't divulge any technological world shaking discoveries, just think...Magnetism. It's an amazing and mysterious force that science has yet to figure out.

Actually my last post was aimed at my new neighbors, and not in the kindliest of manners. I won't rewrite everything, but anyone who has lived next door to a string of renters from hell might have an idea what I have to put up with, considering our houses are so close that the eaves on the roofs overlap. My current neighbor gave me further cause for concern when I found out they were smoking pot a couple of nights ago... in a house full of kids. This has been a problem a few times before. The last people over there were nice enough, but there would suddenly be cars coming and going all day on certain days - always parking in the alley and never out front. They would even park on our garage slab(no garage left, just the concrete floor) while they went inside to 'visit'. It didn't take long to figure they were selling the stuff out of their house. I won't go into a lot about the new neighbors other than to say I'm keeping a worrisome eye on them. There are indications things could get volatile if the wrong situations arose.

Neighbors

One reason I can't wait to move out to the country is to get away from the constant stream of renters moving in and out of the house next door. There have been more than a dozen different people occupying that place over the 15 years we've been here. Several of them have been pleasant and engaging, but for the most part they all share the same mode of living... no money to pay the rent but they never run out of cigarettes, beer and drugs. They always have at least one junk car sitting in the yard, at least one dog and usually a bunch of kids running around. The current occupant is no exception. A single woman, she and her kids moved in about three months ago. Even though it's only a one bedroom house there are at least five people living there, although it's hard to say with everyone coming and going all the time. About a month ago they pulled the required junk car into the yard and a few weeks before that they acquired the much needed mutt to stake outside and poop all over the place. When I was outside working the other day I picked up the odor of smoking grass... and not the kind that I had just mowed. This disturbs me a great deal because of the type of person the woman seems to be. I've been in the retail business all my life so I've met tens of thousands of different people and can kind of get a feel about someone. I get a scary feeling about this lady, the kind of feeling that says if she got mad at you she would make up a story and get you in trouble with the law just to watch them take you away. So I've decided to try to avoid her as much as possible.

Over the last year I've really started to worry about things like being falsely accused of something, ever since the very thing happened to a friend of mine and I saw the hell he was put through. He is a well respected, well liked person who I have known for about fifteen years, and all it took was a disturbed woman to say that he came to her house and tried to attack and rob her for his reputation to be shattered. His name was put in the paper (although hers never was) and he was suspended from his job of 25 years until it was resolved. In the end there was a trial where there was no evidence whatsoever except her word against his. The case was dismissed, but not before the judge stated that he thought my friend was "probably guilty"??!! That really instills in me a lot of trust in our judicial system! The notion of "innocent until proven guilty" has really gone out the window.

It's been awhile since I've written anything, mainly because there's not much going on right now. Kids are out of school, which is nice, except for the fact that I have a 10 year old who needs a babysitter who happens to be my MIL, which is not the ideal situation. I'll have to get into that sometime, but in a nutshell it's always a hassle when he goes there, so whenever possible we try not to take him there.

We're waiting for the appraiser from the loan company to look at our land and give the ok to go ahead with the loan. We're supposed to go to closing next Friday.... I'm hoping nothing will go wrong. It seems funny to think how excited I am to be getting this land. When I grew up on the farm we had about 85 acres, so 7 acres of land mostly on a hill wouldn't have been a big deal at all. We had hay fields similar in size and I never thought that they could be anything other than hay fields, but I look at this property and see all sorts of possibilities. Since I've been living in town so long I guess I have an itch to get back to nature.