Friday, March 30, 2012
Mega Millions, Here We Come!
In exactly 50 minutes we will know if all our financial and property woes are things of the past! A group of the teachers at work pooled our money today and bought 170 California Mega Million Lotto tickets. Now we know our odds are embarrassingly slim, buuuutttt, one of us had a psychic tell him 5 years ago that in 5 years he would "come in to some money" (let's hope she wasn't talking about the quarter he picked up walking to his car yesterday). So we have that going for us.
41 minutes to go...
41 minutes to go...
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Oh Boy...
J and I have finally succeeded in talking ourselves out of Old Goat for various reasons (the most obvious that we can't get financing for it), and have whole-heartedly agreed that it was Providence that kept the deal from going through. And then today we received an email from the owner offering to drop the selling price by 52 G's (I feel so gangster writing $52,000 like that). Really? After two weeks of analyzing every single negative aspect of the property in order to feel OK - no, good - about losing it? After yet another 850 mile weekend trip up there to look at a dozen different places?
We just sat and stared at one another for a good minute, not knowing what to say. Does one laugh or cry in this moment? We didn't know, so we did both. And now we're back on the sofa in front of our computer screens, pouring through the one hundred something listings we've been pouring through for six months now.
Someone please tell me there is an unofficial "selling" season, and that it is coming soon. In the meantime, J is looking up trailer parks. I'm not joking. He is moving north May 1st come hell or high water. Or should I say, come our own property or Dirty Dave's Dive Park.
But no matter what, this scenery (and this is just a shot from my car on the highway) keeps our spirits up and keeps us reminded of what all the stress is about:
We just sat and stared at one another for a good minute, not knowing what to say. Does one laugh or cry in this moment? We didn't know, so we did both. And now we're back on the sofa in front of our computer screens, pouring through the one hundred something listings we've been pouring through for six months now.
Someone please tell me there is an unofficial "selling" season, and that it is coming soon. In the meantime, J is looking up trailer parks. I'm not joking. He is moving north May 1st come hell or high water. Or should I say, come our own property or Dirty Dave's Dive Park.
But no matter what, this scenery (and this is just a shot from my car on the highway) keeps our spirits up and keeps us reminded of what all the stress is about:
Sunday, March 18, 2012
36 Years Old and My Dad Can Still School Me
My dad just left my house after coming over to fix the vacuum cleaner (which he didn't) and look at a few potential properties together. He compiled a list over the weekend of 20 or so listings and emailed them to me this morning. I spent about two hours viewing most of them, and once done, sent back this terse, f-ed up response: "None of these will work."
As one can imagine, my father, having spent 15 hours researching these properties, wasn't thrilled with that reply, and, being the incredible man he is, called me on it. As we both teared up in the hallway, we realized that out of our whole family, we are the negative, pessimistic ones. We are the ones that automatically rain on every one's parade, even when it's sunny and a balmy 75 degrees out. And what's funny is I have always hated that about him, but never knew that he hates that about me, too. What is bonding if not the moment you and a your dad discover that you share the one thing that you both despise the most in each other? Beautiful.
And as we stood there bonding and taking a serious, not so fun look within, I knew (and hopefully he did, too) that I will not regret making this move with him and my mom. That as long as we have honesty and enough love to speak the truth, we will be OK living on a farm together. That is, as long as our joint pessimism doesn't ruin us in our first year.
As one can imagine, my father, having spent 15 hours researching these properties, wasn't thrilled with that reply, and, being the incredible man he is, called me on it. As we both teared up in the hallway, we realized that out of our whole family, we are the negative, pessimistic ones. We are the ones that automatically rain on every one's parade, even when it's sunny and a balmy 75 degrees out. And what's funny is I have always hated that about him, but never knew that he hates that about me, too. What is bonding if not the moment you and a your dad discover that you share the one thing that you both despise the most in each other? Beautiful.
And as we stood there bonding and taking a serious, not so fun look within, I knew (and hopefully he did, too) that I will not regret making this move with him and my mom. That as long as we have honesty and enough love to speak the truth, we will be OK living on a farm together. That is, as long as our joint pessimism doesn't ruin us in our first year.
Strike Two
We didn't get Old Goat. Damn this process!!! It appraised way under the selling price and so a bank won't finance. The seller just said he'd wait a few more years and put it on the market again for what he wants to sell it for.
So we are again back to square one. I just spent 3 hours searching online for new properties and there is NOTHING. The suckiest part of all of this is that we were literally starting to pack. I already measured the land, we figured out what walls to knock out of the backhouse to make it bigger, etc, etc. Ahhhhh!!!
This used to be fun. Now it's getting exhausting.
So we are again back to square one. I just spent 3 hours searching online for new properties and there is NOTHING. The suckiest part of all of this is that we were literally starting to pack. I already measured the land, we figured out what walls to knock out of the backhouse to make it bigger, etc, etc. Ahhhhh!!!
This used to be fun. Now it's getting exhausting.
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