Thursday, May 24, 2012
We Got It!
We are officially landowners in Templeton, CA (next to Paso Robles)! Well, barn owners, too, but once I post photos of our will-be barn home, you'll see why I don't add that in with exuberance just yet. Yet. But once we're done with that puppy, I'll splash it all over this blog like a gigolo splashes on aftershave.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Out with the Old, In with the ????
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| Last porch-sitting at 513 Goldenrod (notice knee brace...still) |
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| Our pod and old ford truck loaded up. Ours is the tiny place between the two big ones. |
First, J and I officially moved out of our Corona del Mar beach cottage at 8:00 pm last night and it was incredibly bittersweet. We had three amazing years in that home together, and will miss it dearly, along with our landlords, believe it or not. ;) They are worth staying alone! But, we set this date so we would continue to pursue our dream of working on and owning our own land, so off we go.
Second, we just opened escrow (yesterday morning!) on a 5 acre property (with main house, barn, pool, spa, chicken coops and lots of animal pens) in Templeton, CA, and if it closes by May 18 - not an easy task - it's ours! Here is the driveway, one of the pastures with one of the chicken coops, and a few of the current residents:
Third, I'm staying with my parents until the school year is over and until my other knee rehabs from surgery in June. J and both dogs head up to the trailer park in a few days. If we get this property he will only take up residence there for a few weeks. If we don't, it could be months. Ah, the adventure continues...
Friday, April 20, 2012
And the Dogs, of Course
A friend just suggested this little guy for our little ones. I would freaking die laughing seeing our big trailer and then their two little ones parked right next to us! There literally is no choice here. They must be purchased.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
It's GO Time
Well, since we didn't win the 1 trillion dollar lottery last month, we are back to being common folk, and what is more dirt-of-the-earth-American than trailer parks? A while back I jokingly posted that perhaps a good ol' trailer park would be our first destination once leaving our beach side cottage in Corona del Mar. Truth be told, I didn't really believe that. Just goes to show you what I know.
We have yet to even find a property we love, let alone start the tediously long process of escrow. So, in exactly 10 days, we move out of our tiny house snuggled between million dollar homes, and haul our Airstream on up to a...TRAILER PARK in north Paso Robles. I'm not joking this time. And not the fancy one with updated laminate flooring in the showers and a coffee maker in the laundry facilities. Nope. If we're doing this, which we are, we're goin' full-blown. I found the cheapest park within a 20 mile radius, and it is so authentically old school American, that the lady I spoke to asked me my name and phone number and then said, "Alright, darlin. We'll see you and your rig the first week of May for 3-4 months." No credit card, no deposit, nothing. She reserved us a space (we are already fondly saying to friends and family, "When we get our space set up, we'll have to have you over") for 3-4 months based solely on my word. How beautiful is that? Just to move in to our tiny place now, we had to fork over $6300 in cold, hard cash and promise that our firstborn would be tossed in should we default on our rent at any time. But this is Orange County, after all (and little did the agent know we're not having a firstborn. Take that.).
We have already packed up our family and living rooms, and I'm harvesting the rest of my winter garden now before I pull it all out this weekend. It is bittersweet to be sure. This morning we walked out to go to work and there was a "for rent" sign on the lawn. Both of us stopped in our tracks and stared. This is really happening. I can't lie and say I didn't have a tiny tear in my eye. What a magnificent three years this home and little beach community have given us. And my job. God, what an honor it's been to work at a school as amazing as OCHSA. My island of the misfit toys, as I called it my first day there three years ago.
Oh, and if trailer park living isn't exciting enough, I just had gnarly reconstructive patella knee surgery on my left knee, which has left me pretty much useless except to point at stuff with my crutch that J will then pack up. He doesn't really love this part of the move so far. And because I am a class A procrastinator I also have to get the right knee done before the end of June when my insurance runs out. God, my timing is impeccable.
So, in summation: J leaves in two weeks forever, and I will move in with my more-than-gracious parents (once again) for the remainder of the school year and until my second knee heals. I'm guessing I'll be able to join J and the dogs mid-July. Oh, and it tops off in Paso during the summer at around 105 degrees and we have no AC in our "rig". I hope our dogs don't die of heat exhaustion when we make a quick run into town for supplies. That would really put a damper on things.
We have yet to even find a property we love, let alone start the tediously long process of escrow. So, in exactly 10 days, we move out of our tiny house snuggled between million dollar homes, and haul our Airstream on up to a...TRAILER PARK in north Paso Robles. I'm not joking this time. And not the fancy one with updated laminate flooring in the showers and a coffee maker in the laundry facilities. Nope. If we're doing this, which we are, we're goin' full-blown. I found the cheapest park within a 20 mile radius, and it is so authentically old school American, that the lady I spoke to asked me my name and phone number and then said, "Alright, darlin. We'll see you and your rig the first week of May for 3-4 months." No credit card, no deposit, nothing. She reserved us a space (we are already fondly saying to friends and family, "When we get our space set up, we'll have to have you over") for 3-4 months based solely on my word. How beautiful is that? Just to move in to our tiny place now, we had to fork over $6300 in cold, hard cash and promise that our firstborn would be tossed in should we default on our rent at any time. But this is Orange County, after all (and little did the agent know we're not having a firstborn. Take that.).
We have already packed up our family and living rooms, and I'm harvesting the rest of my winter garden now before I pull it all out this weekend. It is bittersweet to be sure. This morning we walked out to go to work and there was a "for rent" sign on the lawn. Both of us stopped in our tracks and stared. This is really happening. I can't lie and say I didn't have a tiny tear in my eye. What a magnificent three years this home and little beach community have given us. And my job. God, what an honor it's been to work at a school as amazing as OCHSA. My island of the misfit toys, as I called it my first day there three years ago.
Oh, and if trailer park living isn't exciting enough, I just had gnarly reconstructive patella knee surgery on my left knee, which has left me pretty much useless except to point at stuff with my crutch that J will then pack up. He doesn't really love this part of the move so far. And because I am a class A procrastinator I also have to get the right knee done before the end of June when my insurance runs out. God, my timing is impeccable.
So, in summation: J leaves in two weeks forever, and I will move in with my more-than-gracious parents (once again) for the remainder of the school year and until my second knee heals. I'm guessing I'll be able to join J and the dogs mid-July. Oh, and it tops off in Paso during the summer at around 105 degrees and we have no AC in our "rig". I hope our dogs don't die of heat exhaustion when we make a quick run into town for supplies. That would really put a damper on things.
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.
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