Wednesday, September 30, 2015

T-4 Weeks and Counting

I can hardly believe the house will be mine in a month. I'll be moving again for the second time this year. I have been packing up the things I will not use in the next month so they are done. Can I just tell you how I hate looking at boxes? I'm going to break down everyone I don't need when I unpack and recycle them. I am sick of boxes.

The appraisal by my bank has been done. The land survey is being done Oct. 5th. The repairs from the home inspection were pretty minor and those are being addressed by the seller. She also had a termite inspection done. I have learned the house is well insulated, something I cannot say about the apartment.

I'm going to rent a 16 ft. truck for the day. I have a friend loaning me a dolly and I have a small one. So, we can load two at once. It will take two trips with the truck to get everything. I suspect all the boxes will go in the first truck load and all the furniture will get broken down and loaded in the second load.

Lamps will go in my car, clothing will go in my car, and wall art will go in my car. So will all the plants. Once we have returned the truck, I can come back to the apartment sweep and mop floors, scrub toilets and sinks, and vacuum all the carpeted floors before I pack the broom, mop, and vacuum.

Since I am moving out on a Saturday, I won't be turning keys in until the following Monday, along with my final lease breaking payment. The property manager and I will take a last walk through so he can inspect for damage and I will get my damage deposit returned shortly thereafter.

Then comes the business of unpacking and setting up my home. I'm excited. I'm ready for this. Apartment living is as bad as I remember it being. And I haven't lived in an apartement since I was an undergrad in college.

In my mind I am already thinking of color schemes for each of the rooms. I am not a person who can live with neutrals. I need to be surrounded by color. Calming colors are best, blues, lavendars, greens, the colors of water. Although I like the colors of sunrise and sunset. It will be interesting to see what I finally choose.

TTFN

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Home Inspection Today--We Passed!!!



Move in in about six weeks. I can hardly wait. I will no longer have boxes and boxes. The house, it's a cute little ranch.


Why there it is. I will have to put a storm door on, but that is minor. Many houses don't have storm doors here. I don't understand, today there was a wonderful breeze.  I also had a neighbor stop in to say hello and pose for a photo.


I also had a mystery red leafed tree next to the porch. Today I read the tag. It's a Plum Krauter Vesuvius. I will have plums!!!! I love plums.

I'm so ready for this. I can hardly wait. I want this six weeks to go by quickly, but when I look around and see all I have to do, I want it to go slowly.  Looking forward to having a home again.

TTFN

Friday, September 18, 2015

24 Hours of Amazement

Thursday I spent most of my day sleeping. I had a sore throat and sore ears. I drank hot water, honey, and whiskey when I was awake. I managed to eat a little, but I wasn't hungry. I slept, watched couple videos and headed to bed early.

I knew I had to be up and showered to meet my realtor at a home we were going to tour. Lucky us it wasn't going to be on the market until Monday.

There is a story behind this house. It was for sale at the same time I was bidding on the house next door. I wasn't all that crazy about the house, but it had a salt water pool. The pool was the big motivation for even placing a bid. I'd seen realtor photos of the house next door and it was dark and dreary. The carpeting was atrocious at best. I didn't even want to look at it. It too, went under contract.

Late in the afternoon Thurs. I got a call from my realtor. She told me the loan had fallen through and it was again up for sale, but had been totally renovated. She sent me the link. It wouldn't open on my phone, so she sent it to my email. I checked and asked when we could see it. I'm not sold, but even I can see it's worth looking at now.  So, we set it up for 9am Friday (today).

I finally dragged myself out of bed at 8am. Took my blood pressure and blood sugar and hopped in the shower. I got out, dressed, took meds, and headed out the door. I'm thinking I'm going to be late. Traffic on River Road in the morning is awful at best. However since I was going the opposite way, some kind driver let me through. I pulled onto Island Estates Drive and saw my realtor come around the corner a car between us. Yeah, not late.

I stepped in the house and my first thought was it's bigger than the one next door. At least the living room was. It also had a coat closet. I'm impressed. The light grey walls with the smooth ceilings and white trim are lovely. The dining room and kitchen have white ceramic tiles. The living room has a wood laminate floor. I love wood floors. The cupboards in the kitchen are brand new and oh so many of them. So are all the appliances. The counter top is granite. I've always wanted a granite counter top.  Then I discover the simple dining room light fixture. I just love it. My realtor knows where it came from and tells me it's a $300 fixture. The furnace/ac unit are new, the hot water heater is new, the roof is new. The bathrooms have been completely redone. There are one and a half baths. There are no floors in the bedrooms yet. (This house was not going on the market until Monday). They are planning to put in carpet. I asked my realtor to find out if they would put in the wood laminate instead. They agreed. It is being done this weekend and they will be hanging the rest of the interior doors as well as putting on all the hardware.

By this time I am ready to make an offer. The other realtor says if the laminate floors go in there is no room for price negociation. I agreed. It is more important to me with my allergies to have hardwood floors, even laminate. We gave her an offer and I put my money down. She came back asking for a change to protect us both and a large deposit. I agreed and wrote a new check. She signed it and it is at my bankers.

The original closing date was one of the changes. We had set it for Nov. 16th. It is now set for October 30th. I'm happy about that. I have been pre approved for this anyway.  My down payment is in order. So, we are good to go. I'll be joining the home inspector on Tuesday afternoon. I don't expect him to find anything wrong. I'm hoping to get some photos.

Now, I have a headache, to go with my sore throat and plugged ears. I fully plan to go to sleep, don't anyone wake me before Sunday. And then wake me in time to go to church.

Never expected to buy a home today. My daughter asked if I was running a fever or if I was delirious. She new I had no great expectations for the house when I went to see it. In fact, I truly went thinking I was going to be wasting my realtor's time. Imagine my shock. I'm calling it a day.

TTFN

Saturday, September 12, 2015

BHC Hit the Decatur Book Festival Running

Set up began at 8:30 Saturday morning. We ended up needing two extra tables. The first arrangement lasted about an  hour and we were setting up books again. The show opened at 10am. We were non-stop people until 6pm. I don't have any idea who else was at the show unless they were across from us. There was an elderly gentleman and his wife, he wrote about his pets. There was a group of three across from us who never left their chairs and they had someone running for drinks and food. My take from the poster I could see is someone had written about being in an abusive relationship. Next to us was BAS-BLUE who sell books and things for readers of books. They had an interesting little catalog. We passed out about 500 packets of trading cards for the authors who were there, Blue Harvest Creative (BHC) and the commemorative one for the book festival. We took stuff down at 6pm and returned it to our Headquarters. There was a chance of rain and no one wanted books destroyed.

The gang headed for dinner. I headed for my hotel. I had not felt good all day. I arrived back at the hotel by 8:30 and was fast asleep by 9pm. Big improvement over the night before.

Day two started about 9:30 with us putting together more trading card packets. We used all the trading cards we had. Set up started at 10:30 as we weren't supposed to open until noon. We could have opened at 11 there were that many people. Again we were busy all day. Autographs were put into our books as we sold them. Trading cards were handed out. Emerging authors were spoken to, trades people who sell books were talked to by 5pm people had started packing up and moving out. We remained until 6pm. We had people until 6pm.

At 3pm on Sunday we gave away a bag of books donated by the authors. Those there had signed their copies. We also gave away a 16GB Kindle Fire which we loaded with 10 of our ebook, the winner's choice.

As a group we sold 101 books. As an author I sold four books. I am pleased with the amount of books there I wasn't sure I'd sell any. I networked with more people than I can count. It was amazing.

We finished up eating dinner at the Iberian Pig. I highly recommend it if you are in the area.  I had the most amazing mac n cheese. It had chorizo sausage in it. It was the best I've ever had. I also sampled bacon  wrapped dates and eggplant chips. Also awesome. The flourless cake was heavenly. And the white sangria was just perfect. All in all a wonderful time.

The authors who went are a fun group. The red headed roadie is a keeper and our leaders at BHC are the best. I'm already looking forward to next year. Hope we see you there.

October Already

 I'm not sure where the time has flown. June was an exiting month. July was a mess. I had a change of medication which caused me to gain...