Today I have an excavator, a bulldozer, and a dump truck in my yard. There is a loud roar coming from somewhere in my woods. Bill is riding around on his grass cutter, pulling a lawn sweeper for the leaves in the yard. The day was unexpectedly sunny and a perfect temperature for fleece hoodies.
Hanner is not only going to dump gravel down on my driveway, he's also going to clear some trees, move the driveway and level the ground between the master-bath corner of the house and the pole barn in preparation for MY new garage! That's right, I'll have a place I can park my car close to the house and it won't be full of Bill's mowers! It will have an automatic door opener and will be close to the foot of my front wheelchair ramp.
Hanner's whole family was here this afternoon and saw what all we've done since the housewarming party in March. I have a crockpot of venison, onions and mushrooms happily warming away in my kitchen, the aromas filling the house and drifting out the doors as men and beasts go in and out. I'm sitting with my feet up, a glass of Leelanau cellars Autumn Sunset at my elbow and listening to Mississippi Delta blues, and I think to myself: My life is good!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
A Happy Anniversary
This year I told Bill I wanted him to blow me away for our anniversary. Usually he asks me what I want to do, and I tell him what I'd like and he makes faces and excuses and it doesn't happen. So most years I get a card, maybe he'll bring me some Sweetest Day Special flowers, and we go out somewhere more expensive than we usually choose.
This year he had to go to work at 2 am, so I didn't expect to find a card waiting for me when I got up. This was a good thing, because there wasn't one. I had a morning appointment with my kidney specialist in Mt Pleasant, came home to eat lunch and leave an anniversary card for Bill on the kitchen table before I dashed out to the bank and to grocery shop. I knew he'd be home before I returned; in fact I hoped he'd have some nap time before he had to help me unload the groceries.
When I returned home and pulled into the driveway, I saw a flash of bright orange color near the house and thought: that looks like pumpkin orange! As I passed between the trees and came out in the clearing I saw there wasn't a pumpkin, it was FOUR pumpkins! Two were on the front railing, one on the ground in front of the wheelchair ramp, and one on the ground in front of the lilac bush at the front corner of the house. I believe I squealed like a three-year-old when I saw them! Bill told me they were my anniversary present, and actually I would have been satisfied because they were BIG,and so much more exciting than flowers would have been!
Then Bill told me to think about where I wanted to go to dinner. I was tired and assumed he was tired, so I suggested we just go have Friday night fish and seafood at the S & R Diner. He countered with Coyle's in Houghton Lake, and since we'd never been there, I agreed.
I'll digress here to comment on how much easier it is to dine buffet style with a rolling walker than it is with a cane. For one thing, the hostess will be more careful where she seats you when you have a walker; with just a cane you may find yourself having to navigate steps from one area of the restaurant to another, no one thinks twice about running you down from behind if you are slower than them, and forget being able to go to the salad bar. You have one hand on your cane, one hand holding your plate, and how the hell are you supposed to scoop food onto your plate? The big shiny blue rolling walker is impossible to ignore, and I find myself seated with plenty of room and close to the salad bar or the entrance, depending on the style of restaurant. I should have gotten one years ago!
Back to our anniversary dinner: at some point during our salad course, our waitress came to the table and presented me with two small wrapped packages and said they were from a very good-looking gentleman. I was flabbergasted! What could this be? I opened the first package and found a box, and inside the box was a small leather box. Inside was a pair of cultured pearl earrings! They are beautiful, and they are actually big enough to see! Then Bill tapped the other box and said "this goes with it." So I opened the second box, and it held a pearl ring! Now Bill once gave me a pearl ring for Sweetest Day way back before we were married. I remember him telling me then that it was NOT an engagement ring, it was a "just a ring." I still have that ring and sometimes wear it, but to tell the truth it looked much better on the tiny, dainty little bit of a thing I was back then. It's lost on the big beautiful woman I am today. But this ring...THIS is what I call a RING! It looks "substantial" without looking ostentatious. I love, love, love that Bill not only picked out such perfect jewelry for me, but went through the trouble of enlisting the aid of the wait staff in presenting it to me!
When we finished our meal, Coyle's presented us with a dessert for two, on the house, in honor of our anniversary. It was two layers of fudge chocolate cake with a layer of vanilla ice cream in between, covered with hot fudge and decorated with whipped cream flowers and a lit candle. It's the most decadent thing I've tasted in a long, long time! Between the two of us, maybe we at a third of it. Too rich for our blood! But it was a lovely finish to our celebratory meal, and now I'm going to take my exhausted self to bed.
This year he had to go to work at 2 am, so I didn't expect to find a card waiting for me when I got up. This was a good thing, because there wasn't one. I had a morning appointment with my kidney specialist in Mt Pleasant, came home to eat lunch and leave an anniversary card for Bill on the kitchen table before I dashed out to the bank and to grocery shop. I knew he'd be home before I returned; in fact I hoped he'd have some nap time before he had to help me unload the groceries.
When I returned home and pulled into the driveway, I saw a flash of bright orange color near the house and thought: that looks like pumpkin orange! As I passed between the trees and came out in the clearing I saw there wasn't a pumpkin, it was FOUR pumpkins! Two were on the front railing, one on the ground in front of the wheelchair ramp, and one on the ground in front of the lilac bush at the front corner of the house. I believe I squealed like a three-year-old when I saw them! Bill told me they were my anniversary present, and actually I would have been satisfied because they were BIG,and so much more exciting than flowers would have been!
Then Bill told me to think about where I wanted to go to dinner. I was tired and assumed he was tired, so I suggested we just go have Friday night fish and seafood at the S & R Diner. He countered with Coyle's in Houghton Lake, and since we'd never been there, I agreed.
I'll digress here to comment on how much easier it is to dine buffet style with a rolling walker than it is with a cane. For one thing, the hostess will be more careful where she seats you when you have a walker; with just a cane you may find yourself having to navigate steps from one area of the restaurant to another, no one thinks twice about running you down from behind if you are slower than them, and forget being able to go to the salad bar. You have one hand on your cane, one hand holding your plate, and how the hell are you supposed to scoop food onto your plate? The big shiny blue rolling walker is impossible to ignore, and I find myself seated with plenty of room and close to the salad bar or the entrance, depending on the style of restaurant. I should have gotten one years ago!
Back to our anniversary dinner: at some point during our salad course, our waitress came to the table and presented me with two small wrapped packages and said they were from a very good-looking gentleman. I was flabbergasted! What could this be? I opened the first package and found a box, and inside the box was a small leather box. Inside was a pair of cultured pearl earrings! They are beautiful, and they are actually big enough to see! Then Bill tapped the other box and said "this goes with it." So I opened the second box, and it held a pearl ring! Now Bill once gave me a pearl ring for Sweetest Day way back before we were married. I remember him telling me then that it was NOT an engagement ring, it was a "just a ring." I still have that ring and sometimes wear it, but to tell the truth it looked much better on the tiny, dainty little bit of a thing I was back then. It's lost on the big beautiful woman I am today. But this ring...THIS is what I call a RING! It looks "substantial" without looking ostentatious. I love, love, love that Bill not only picked out such perfect jewelry for me, but went through the trouble of enlisting the aid of the wait staff in presenting it to me!
When we finished our meal, Coyle's presented us with a dessert for two, on the house, in honor of our anniversary. It was two layers of fudge chocolate cake with a layer of vanilla ice cream in between, covered with hot fudge and decorated with whipped cream flowers and a lit candle. It's the most decadent thing I've tasted in a long, long time! Between the two of us, maybe we at a third of it. Too rich for our blood! But it was a lovely finish to our celebratory meal, and now I'm going to take my exhausted self to bed.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Wine and Color Tour
Yesterday's trip was a big deal for me. Because of all my infirmities, it's difficult for me to be away from home for more than a few hours at a time on my own. Being on my own and participating in an activity is a rarity, so going on this bus tour without Bill was both scary and exciting!
First I must say that I was not totally "alone." Vonnie, my cleaning lady -turned-good-friend was also on the tour, and helped me carry my purchases, parked and retrieved my car for me at our meeting place and was generally my chatting partner. The driver was probably accustomed to riders with walkers because let's face it, isn't it usually us "old" people who usually go on these tours? He stowed and fetched my walker for me at every stop.
Yesterday was a perfect day for a color tour in northern Michigan. The drive from Harrison to Cadillac offers wide vistas of gently rolling terrain with many forested areas, several views of small lakes, and not many eyesores along the way. We stopped to pick up the daughter of the tour organizer in Cadillac on the corner of M-55 and M-115 on the south end of Lake Mitchell. I was sad to see that the little strip of businesses on that corner was totally vacant. The woman from Cadillac said everyone now goes to the opposite end of town for everything, and the area can't even support a little party store and a pizza place. Incredible.
I was sitting in the second row of seats on the bus and thus had a great view out the huge front windshield of the bus. I've never been on the stretches of road between Cadillac and Traverse City that I can remember, so of course I loved seeing new sights along the way. I have a "thing" about ghost towns and other abandoned groups of buildings, and saw a few new ones along the way.
One of my biggest fears was not being able to get on and off the bus without humiliating myself. It has been many years since I last was on a bus, and at that time I had no trouble climbing steps. I was able to get on and off the bus slowly but under my own steam. The bottom step was rather high, but there were sturdy handrails and grips every step of the way and I was able to pull myself up. The steps to the seating area spiraled to the left, making the rise between steps shallower and easier to manage. The aisle sloped upward from front to back, but since I was in the second row I didn't have to worry much about it.
We arrived at our first winery, Leelanau Cellars, around 11:00. Too early for lunch, so of course we all hit the tasting room and commenced tasting! We were a group of 50 and not the only people there, so it took be a while before I could squeeze up to the bar. I buy quite a few Leelanau Cellars wines because their more popular varieties are readily available in most grocery stores, and I tasted a few favorites and a few new ones. One thing I enjoyed was their Witches Brew, which they served warm. I'd had a few bottles of the brew last year and several times considered heating it, but thought heating wine would be too weird. So this year I'll know it's not only okay to do, it's the best way to enjoy the spiciness!
We were to eat lunch at Knot Just A Bar, attached to the wine tasting room. It opened at 11:30, but no one had informed the staff that 50 of us would descend on them that day. I'm sorry to say a few of the ladies on our tour were very bitchy about the wait, but I'm happy that I wasn't one of them. They seated us all outdoors on their covered decks and had us all waited on, fed, and out the door in time to be back on the road at 1:00. The weather was perfect: warm, very light breeze, and a touch of an autumn leaves fragrance in the air.
(Some day I'd like to go to Leland and Fish Town, but that would also be a trip without Bill)
Our next stop was a winery I was unfamiliar with: 45 North. I was tickled to hear this family-owned winery is owned and operated by the Grossnickle family, and I wonder if they are related to Karen, my former physical therapist's family. The family corgis wandered in and out of the tasting room while we sipped. Located in Lake LeAnn (the town, not the lake itself), this little place had some of the best wines I tasted all day. I purchase a pricy bottle of cherry dessert wine and also a bottle of Gewurtztraminer, which I bought "untried." But it was part of a blend in one of their table whites, and I was excited by the idea of having a bottle of it again.
When it comes to buying wine, I have a lot to consider besides whether or not I love the taste. I'm more likely to try it if I have someone I plan to share it with, and if I have no one to share it with, can I drink enough of it to polish off a whole bottle by myself? I'm hoping that in the months to come, Vonnie and I will find opportunities to get together in a relaxing atmosphere and share a bottle of wine.
I was really looking forward to our final stop at Black Star Farms. It's an amazing complex of sub-businesses, and the tasting room is right on the main farm, across from the big barn and attached to the creamery where they were making the cheese they sell under the Leelanau Cheese Company label. There is also a large, elegant bed and breakfast and a wine bar as well. I would love to come back some day to see the Bed and Breakfast!
Since we were on the actual farm, we could see firsthand that harvest was underway. The bus had to squeeze past several large trucks full of grapes, and smaller little trucks were unloading the trucks a few pallets at a time and bringing them into the big red barn. It would have been cool to see the grape squeezing action,but I don't know if they have any viewing facilities. I know it's all done by machine so maybe there's nothing to see anyway. There is a huge man-made hill next to the barn, and inside the hill is a "cave" where the barrels of wine age. The photo above is the entrance to the cave. The entrance looks to be large enough for a small truck or UTV to drive inside.
I bought a bottle of raspberry dessert wine that was so true to taste, it was like popping the berries into you mouth, only without the annoying little seeds. I also bought a bottle of their 2010 Late Harvest Riesling, and I'm afraid to ever open it. It's so smooth and pleasing, I fear I will drink the whole bottle in one sitting!
Vonnie used my camera to take a photo of DrunkenScamp
By this time my right foot was really starting to pain me, so I was happy to get on the bus and head for home. And when we reached Harrison, I was plenty sober enough to drive the 3 miles back to my house. One other funny thing that happened that day: I received a printed invitation to join the Red Hat Ladies, of whom there were many on that tour. I'm half-tempted. I wonder if Vonnie got an invite? I notice the Grand Poo-baa lady waited until Vonnie was off the bus before she stuffed the note in a pocket of my purse...
First I must say that I was not totally "alone." Vonnie, my cleaning lady -turned-good-friend was also on the tour, and helped me carry my purchases, parked and retrieved my car for me at our meeting place and was generally my chatting partner. The driver was probably accustomed to riders with walkers because let's face it, isn't it usually us "old" people who usually go on these tours? He stowed and fetched my walker for me at every stop.
Yesterday was a perfect day for a color tour in northern Michigan. The drive from Harrison to Cadillac offers wide vistas of gently rolling terrain with many forested areas, several views of small lakes, and not many eyesores along the way. We stopped to pick up the daughter of the tour organizer in Cadillac on the corner of M-55 and M-115 on the south end of Lake Mitchell. I was sad to see that the little strip of businesses on that corner was totally vacant. The woman from Cadillac said everyone now goes to the opposite end of town for everything, and the area can't even support a little party store and a pizza place. Incredible.
I was sitting in the second row of seats on the bus and thus had a great view out the huge front windshield of the bus. I've never been on the stretches of road between Cadillac and Traverse City that I can remember, so of course I loved seeing new sights along the way. I have a "thing" about ghost towns and other abandoned groups of buildings, and saw a few new ones along the way.
One of my biggest fears was not being able to get on and off the bus without humiliating myself. It has been many years since I last was on a bus, and at that time I had no trouble climbing steps. I was able to get on and off the bus slowly but under my own steam. The bottom step was rather high, but there were sturdy handrails and grips every step of the way and I was able to pull myself up. The steps to the seating area spiraled to the left, making the rise between steps shallower and easier to manage. The aisle sloped upward from front to back, but since I was in the second row I didn't have to worry much about it.
We arrived at our first winery, Leelanau Cellars, around 11:00. Too early for lunch, so of course we all hit the tasting room and commenced tasting! We were a group of 50 and not the only people there, so it took be a while before I could squeeze up to the bar. I buy quite a few Leelanau Cellars wines because their more popular varieties are readily available in most grocery stores, and I tasted a few favorites and a few new ones. One thing I enjoyed was their Witches Brew, which they served warm. I'd had a few bottles of the brew last year and several times considered heating it, but thought heating wine would be too weird. So this year I'll know it's not only okay to do, it's the best way to enjoy the spiciness!
(Some day I'd like to go to Leland and Fish Town, but that would also be a trip without Bill)
Our next stop was a winery I was unfamiliar with: 45 North. I was tickled to hear this family-owned winery is owned and operated by the Grossnickle family, and I wonder if they are related to Karen, my former physical therapist's family. The family corgis wandered in and out of the tasting room while we sipped. Located in Lake LeAnn (the town, not the lake itself), this little place had some of the best wines I tasted all day. I purchase a pricy bottle of cherry dessert wine and also a bottle of Gewurtztraminer, which I bought "untried." But it was part of a blend in one of their table whites, and I was excited by the idea of having a bottle of it again.
When it comes to buying wine, I have a lot to consider besides whether or not I love the taste. I'm more likely to try it if I have someone I plan to share it with, and if I have no one to share it with, can I drink enough of it to polish off a whole bottle by myself? I'm hoping that in the months to come, Vonnie and I will find opportunities to get together in a relaxing atmosphere and share a bottle of wine.
I was really looking forward to our final stop at Black Star Farms. It's an amazing complex of sub-businesses, and the tasting room is right on the main farm, across from the big barn and attached to the creamery where they were making the cheese they sell under the Leelanau Cheese Company label. There is also a large, elegant bed and breakfast and a wine bar as well. I would love to come back some day to see the Bed and Breakfast!
I bought a bottle of raspberry dessert wine that was so true to taste, it was like popping the berries into you mouth, only without the annoying little seeds. I also bought a bottle of their 2010 Late Harvest Riesling, and I'm afraid to ever open it. It's so smooth and pleasing, I fear I will drink the whole bottle in one sitting!
By this time my right foot was really starting to pain me, so I was happy to get on the bus and head for home. And when we reached Harrison, I was plenty sober enough to drive the 3 miles back to my house. One other funny thing that happened that day: I received a printed invitation to join the Red Hat Ladies, of whom there were many on that tour. I'm half-tempted. I wonder if Vonnie got an invite? I notice the Grand Poo-baa lady waited until Vonnie was off the bus before she stuffed the note in a pocket of my purse...
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Color trip/wine tour coming up!
Next Tuesday I'm getting on a tour bus and riding to the northwest corner of the state for a fall color tour and to wine tastings at three local wineries there. One is going to be Black Star Farms, and I hear that place is fabulous!
I'm a little nervous because this will be my first outing on my own, without a family member traveling with me, since my transplant. If I fall ill, I have no one who will automatically step up and take control of the situation. I'm thinking I'll let my blood sugars run a touch on the high side all day.
Also there is the bus itself. It's not designed for handicapped riders. There are steps to climb to get into the bus, and my walker will be stowed in the luggage compartment (I hope there aren't any extra passengers stowed down there as well!). The woman organizing the tour said she'd be sure to tell the bus driver that I'll need to sit in one of the front seats so I needn't worry about tripping down the aisle!
I am so excited about this trip! It's not only a huge step toward more independance and persuing my own intersts and little pleasures in life, I'm taking my camera! I'll take photos of my fellow travelers, the tasting rooms, and hopefully of the colors! The only downside is, the forecast is for mostly cloudy weather that day. But I think my photo editing software can enhance the colors enough to make them look better than the colors I'll be seeing "live!" Heh.
I'll blog later about the reality of the trip.
I'm a little nervous because this will be my first outing on my own, without a family member traveling with me, since my transplant. If I fall ill, I have no one who will automatically step up and take control of the situation. I'm thinking I'll let my blood sugars run a touch on the high side all day.
Also there is the bus itself. It's not designed for handicapped riders. There are steps to climb to get into the bus, and my walker will be stowed in the luggage compartment (I hope there aren't any extra passengers stowed down there as well!). The woman organizing the tour said she'd be sure to tell the bus driver that I'll need to sit in one of the front seats so I needn't worry about tripping down the aisle!
I am so excited about this trip! It's not only a huge step toward more independance and persuing my own intersts and little pleasures in life, I'm taking my camera! I'll take photos of my fellow travelers, the tasting rooms, and hopefully of the colors! The only downside is, the forecast is for mostly cloudy weather that day. But I think my photo editing software can enhance the colors enough to make them look better than the colors I'll be seeing "live!" Heh.
I'll blog later about the reality of the trip.
Monday, October 3, 2011
What Happened?
Remember 9-11, when the shock started wearing off? Remember how we all cared about the families of the victims of the towers and the Pentagon (yeah, about that, don't forget the Pentagon was hit too, and lives were lost!), and the brave and valiant firefighters? Remember how we were proud to be Americans and stood together? We stood proud and brave and pulled together and took care of each other and by golly we were not going to let the terrorists win? Who would have thought that ten years later, the enemy would be within? Now everyone is worried that someone else is going to siphon off our money, our homes, our belongings; either by banking fees, collecting welfare, or working for lower wages. It's not the terrorists I fear anymore.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
House Hunters on HGTV
Sometimes I watch HGTV if there's nothing on TV I want to watch. (this gives me an idea for another blog post at another time) There are several series with the "house hunters" theme, and they bug the living crap out of me. The differences between the process the hunters go through and my own personal path just make the show too unreal to believe. It's like watching Dallas or Dynasty back in the 80's. It seems real enough, but are there really that many people who are like that in real life?
First off, the "budgets" they agonize over. By the time the 30-ish professional couple fusses over their "budget" of half a million, they've already lost my sympathy. I think I could find a way to be reasonably happy with ANY house market priced at $500K, and I don't have a vivid imagination.
These couples always obsess about having enough room for entertaining. Really? Most of the professional people I know put in long hours at work and are too tired and too short on time to plan large, elaborate parties on a regular basis. Make sure the dining room is large enough to host thanksgiving dinners, and let the rest go. Besides, once you have that baby that is somewhere in the nebulous future but you're still hoping to buy a house with a nursery for, there will be no more parties. That is, until Baby is old enough to want birthday parties with allllll of his/her fellow students plus a pony (but no clowns).
The kitchens ALWAYS need updating. It doesn't matter how fabulously beautiful and well-designed it is, every house hunter on this show wants all new appliances and the latest countertop material du jour. The lighting has to be canned, unless it already is, in which case it needs to become dropped lighting. Whether or not the current lighting or the proposed lighting changes provide enough illumination to work properly is beside the point.
I will concede the bathrooms. A shared bathroom with one's spouse NEEDS two sinks, and if the toilet and shower can be shut off from the sink/vanity area, so much the better. I've had both and you better betcha there are days you HAVE to dash in to brush your teeth at the exact moment your spouse lets rip the byproducts on the beans, cabbage and onions consumed the previous evening! So yes, be picky about the bathrooms!
Some shows feature people moving to exotic locations and obsessing about the views from each abode. Here is my advice: if you moved to Costa Rica to live on the beach, then choose the house that is ON THE BEACH and quit worrying about getting stainless steel kitchen appliances and a bigger walk-in closet in the master suite! You can find a big closet somewhere in Kansas, surely!
Here is how my house-hunting experiences have gone, in comparison.Our first time around, our budget was about $40,000. My husband was working a low-paying factory job and I was on disability for being on dialysis. All we wanted was a starter home because we were certain that once I had my transplant I would be going back to work and pulling down as much money as before. After all, this is what everyone in the medical community told us over and over again: the transplant would make me good as new, I'd have so much more energy They lied, but here again it's a subject for another blog entry. Anyway, we thought it was financially prudent to make payments toward ownership, gaining equity, instead of renting until we could afford the house of our dreams.
We looked at a cute little cottage on a large corner lot at White Birch Estates, a gated community out in the woods. White Birch did not have natural gas or cable. The cottage did not have a furnace, a water heater, or even plumbing for hot water. The lot was steeply sloped, had no garage and no room to build a garage except at the bottom of the slope. The house was at the top of the slope. It was near the top of our price range which meant putting in the furnace and hot water would be something Bill would have to do himself, and I had my doubts as to his abilities there. Plus having a garage would be years away. We passed.
We looked at a home west of Farwell just off M-115 in a cul-de-sac. It was all on one level, I don't remember there being a basement, large front lawn, small back yard, attached garage. There was no door from the house to the garage, so you had to go out in the rain and snow to get to the garage. The rooms were numerous and small. It gave me claustrophobia just looking at it empty.I said out loud that the rooms and doorways were too tight to fit my wheelchair, once that day came (and it did, not long ofter). We passed on that one too.
We settled on a 1300 sq ft house on a slab on old US-10. It had an open floorplan, old stained carpeting, crooked wallboard panels, an attached one-car garage, and mis-matched cabinets throughout the kitchen. We lived there fifteen years and managed to entertain on holidays, survive my transplant and two severed Achilles tendons, the loss of two cats and two dogs, the adoption of two more dogs, and the usual ups and downs a couple has when one is crippled and there's never any money. We still own it but it's up for sale, in much better condition now than it was when we moved in.
That was our make-do home.Since we moved in there, we lost Bill's mom, my dad, my aunt, and my mom. My aunt was a single lady and she and I had a close and loving relationship, much more so than I had with my mother. When my aunt decided to move into a retirement home closer to me, the little devil had half a million in assets, plus monthly pension from General Dynamics and her Social Security. Although she lost a chunk of it in 2008, she was still sitting pretty when she passed away. She left most of her money to my mom, her sister, but also left generous sums to my sister and I.
Bill and I decided to take our little inheritance, buy the abandoned property next to ours and build a polebarn on it, and re-do the kitchen an bathrooms to make them more handicap-friendly and attractive. But a neighbor of ours threw a monkey-wrench in our plans and decided to out-bid us (by a ridiculous sum!) on that corner lot, so we decided to move.
We looked at a few small places with bigger yards that were priced at about $80K or less, hoping for a quick sale on the house. But before we contacted any realtors, my mother suddenly died,leaving us half of Aunt Marie's estate plus the modest amount she was living on since Dad passed away. (I don't mean to belittle the deaths of these women, but my grief isn't relevant to this particular posting.) So we stopped looking for a month or so, until we could get a handle on what our budget for a house COULD be, what it should be, and what we should do with the rest of the money.
We decided that due to the volatile stock market, investment was going to be tricky, especially as close as we are to Bill's retirement. We decided instead to find a home we really really liked, pay cash for it, and fix it up in preparation for retirement now, while Bill was still working. And here's where the big snag came in: we couldn't come to any type of agreement on what would be "perfect" for us!
Bill wanted to move somewhere he could tear around on his racing mowers with no one close enough to complain about them. This often meant dirt roads, no cable and no cell-phone service. I wanted something on a paved road that I could drive in the winter and the spring thaw, I wanted high-speed internet and natural gas lines. Bill wanted a pole barn for his racing shop and I wanted an attached garage so I needn't worry about slipping and falling on my way to my car in the winter, nor about scraping the ice and snow off it. Basically I wanted one of the beautiful homes near Shamrock Lake on the north side of Clare, and Bill wanted a farmhouse out in Amishville, but without any Amish neighbors.
The first house we thought would fit all our needs was between Rosebush and Mt Pleasant, right on Mission (Old 27). It sat way back from the road, and was a cute pearly-gray color with rose colored trim. Attached 2-car garage, several outbuildings, and backed up to the freeway. There appeared to be some kind of trucking company on one side, so the only residential neighbor that might object to Bill's noise was to the south and quite a ways away. There was a huge back deck that reminded me of an aircraft carrier, and there was a screened gazebo at the end. But upon closer inspection we discovered that the garage had at one time been a separate building, and the add-on was entirely at main-floor level. The door opened to a short set of amateurishly made steps, which invaded most of the parking area on the near side. The steps to the basement were long, straight and narrow. Except for the kitchen, which was amazing, the rooms were all tiny as were the doorways. Very little closet space existed upstairs. The outside was perfect; the inside not so much.
Then we looked at a manufactured home high on a hill on the west side of Mission. It had an enormous pole barn but no garage. There were cute small flower gardens here and there on the hillside, and it was well within our price range. When we arrived to look at it more closely with a realtor, we discovered that the steps to the side door were unmanageable for me. There was a patio door on another wall but no deck. The only other door led to a basement that had NO INTERIOR ACCESS to the main floor. Inside we noticed that not only were there no appliances, the furnace was gone too, right down to the vents and grates, leaving huge gaping holes in the floor. Some animal had been kept in one of the "bedrooms," and there had been huge turds left on the rug. Bill reported that the basement could only be locked from the outside, not from the inside. That gave me the creeps so bad, I couldn't wait to get out of there!
Bill found a house about a quarter mile north of a paved road just a mile or two south of Herrick Park. It was a one story on top of a walk-out basement. It had about 8 acres of farmland, a big propane tank, no internet available except dial-up, poor cell phone reception, and a huge 4-6 car garage. Bill loved it, but it was unlivable for me. Again,much of the living space was downstairs, and the stairs were such that I couldn't get down to that level without going outside.
Finally while on the internet one day I found a place that had a manufactured home on 27+ acres, mostly wooded. The pictures showed the house looked like a log cabin, it boasted both a pole barn and a garage, there was a picnic shelter and a windmill in the back yard, it had cable tv and internet available, had natural gas heat, and low property taxes. Trouble was, the location was a secret! I scoured the internet, cross-referencing and back-tracking and finally found it just north of Harrison. My husband gasped. "Not Harrison! Harrison sucks!" Nonetheless, the day after Christmas we took the short drive up to check it out. And it was almost everything we ever wanted.
The house was in very good shape, and move-in ready. We closed in less than a month, hired people to change the carpeting to flooring and bought two new appliances (NOT stainless steel!) and some new furniture. We moved in the end of February and threw our first party three weeks later. And all for less than $150K. Great view, I love my eat-in kitchen, my big living room, my deck and front porch, my big windows, the big yard for large dogs to run and play in, the picnic shelter for our summer cookouts (guess what? We DO entertain!), and our trails through the woods winding past the two deer blinds. Now THIS is a story most people could relate to, don't you think?
The end (I'll bet you thought I'd never get there!)
First off, the "budgets" they agonize over. By the time the 30-ish professional couple fusses over their "budget" of half a million, they've already lost my sympathy. I think I could find a way to be reasonably happy with ANY house market priced at $500K, and I don't have a vivid imagination.
These couples always obsess about having enough room for entertaining. Really? Most of the professional people I know put in long hours at work and are too tired and too short on time to plan large, elaborate parties on a regular basis. Make sure the dining room is large enough to host thanksgiving dinners, and let the rest go. Besides, once you have that baby that is somewhere in the nebulous future but you're still hoping to buy a house with a nursery for, there will be no more parties. That is, until Baby is old enough to want birthday parties with allllll of his/her fellow students plus a pony (but no clowns).
The kitchens ALWAYS need updating. It doesn't matter how fabulously beautiful and well-designed it is, every house hunter on this show wants all new appliances and the latest countertop material du jour. The lighting has to be canned, unless it already is, in which case it needs to become dropped lighting. Whether or not the current lighting or the proposed lighting changes provide enough illumination to work properly is beside the point.
I will concede the bathrooms. A shared bathroom with one's spouse NEEDS two sinks, and if the toilet and shower can be shut off from the sink/vanity area, so much the better. I've had both and you better betcha there are days you HAVE to dash in to brush your teeth at the exact moment your spouse lets rip the byproducts on the beans, cabbage and onions consumed the previous evening! So yes, be picky about the bathrooms!
Some shows feature people moving to exotic locations and obsessing about the views from each abode. Here is my advice: if you moved to Costa Rica to live on the beach, then choose the house that is ON THE BEACH and quit worrying about getting stainless steel kitchen appliances and a bigger walk-in closet in the master suite! You can find a big closet somewhere in Kansas, surely!
Here is how my house-hunting experiences have gone, in comparison.Our first time around, our budget was about $40,000. My husband was working a low-paying factory job and I was on disability for being on dialysis. All we wanted was a starter home because we were certain that once I had my transplant I would be going back to work and pulling down as much money as before. After all, this is what everyone in the medical community told us over and over again: the transplant would make me good as new, I'd have so much more energy They lied, but here again it's a subject for another blog entry. Anyway, we thought it was financially prudent to make payments toward ownership, gaining equity, instead of renting until we could afford the house of our dreams.
We looked at a cute little cottage on a large corner lot at White Birch Estates, a gated community out in the woods. White Birch did not have natural gas or cable. The cottage did not have a furnace, a water heater, or even plumbing for hot water. The lot was steeply sloped, had no garage and no room to build a garage except at the bottom of the slope. The house was at the top of the slope. It was near the top of our price range which meant putting in the furnace and hot water would be something Bill would have to do himself, and I had my doubts as to his abilities there. Plus having a garage would be years away. We passed.
We looked at a home west of Farwell just off M-115 in a cul-de-sac. It was all on one level, I don't remember there being a basement, large front lawn, small back yard, attached garage. There was no door from the house to the garage, so you had to go out in the rain and snow to get to the garage. The rooms were numerous and small. It gave me claustrophobia just looking at it empty.I said out loud that the rooms and doorways were too tight to fit my wheelchair, once that day came (and it did, not long ofter). We passed on that one too.
We settled on a 1300 sq ft house on a slab on old US-10. It had an open floorplan, old stained carpeting, crooked wallboard panels, an attached one-car garage, and mis-matched cabinets throughout the kitchen. We lived there fifteen years and managed to entertain on holidays, survive my transplant and two severed Achilles tendons, the loss of two cats and two dogs, the adoption of two more dogs, and the usual ups and downs a couple has when one is crippled and there's never any money. We still own it but it's up for sale, in much better condition now than it was when we moved in.
That was our make-do home.Since we moved in there, we lost Bill's mom, my dad, my aunt, and my mom. My aunt was a single lady and she and I had a close and loving relationship, much more so than I had with my mother. When my aunt decided to move into a retirement home closer to me, the little devil had half a million in assets, plus monthly pension from General Dynamics and her Social Security. Although she lost a chunk of it in 2008, she was still sitting pretty when she passed away. She left most of her money to my mom, her sister, but also left generous sums to my sister and I.
Bill and I decided to take our little inheritance, buy the abandoned property next to ours and build a polebarn on it, and re-do the kitchen an bathrooms to make them more handicap-friendly and attractive. But a neighbor of ours threw a monkey-wrench in our plans and decided to out-bid us (by a ridiculous sum!) on that corner lot, so we decided to move.
We looked at a few small places with bigger yards that were priced at about $80K or less, hoping for a quick sale on the house. But before we contacted any realtors, my mother suddenly died,leaving us half of Aunt Marie's estate plus the modest amount she was living on since Dad passed away. (I don't mean to belittle the deaths of these women, but my grief isn't relevant to this particular posting.) So we stopped looking for a month or so, until we could get a handle on what our budget for a house COULD be, what it should be, and what we should do with the rest of the money.
We decided that due to the volatile stock market, investment was going to be tricky, especially as close as we are to Bill's retirement. We decided instead to find a home we really really liked, pay cash for it, and fix it up in preparation for retirement now, while Bill was still working. And here's where the big snag came in: we couldn't come to any type of agreement on what would be "perfect" for us!
Bill wanted to move somewhere he could tear around on his racing mowers with no one close enough to complain about them. This often meant dirt roads, no cable and no cell-phone service. I wanted something on a paved road that I could drive in the winter and the spring thaw, I wanted high-speed internet and natural gas lines. Bill wanted a pole barn for his racing shop and I wanted an attached garage so I needn't worry about slipping and falling on my way to my car in the winter, nor about scraping the ice and snow off it. Basically I wanted one of the beautiful homes near Shamrock Lake on the north side of Clare, and Bill wanted a farmhouse out in Amishville, but without any Amish neighbors.
The first house we thought would fit all our needs was between Rosebush and Mt Pleasant, right on Mission (Old 27). It sat way back from the road, and was a cute pearly-gray color with rose colored trim. Attached 2-car garage, several outbuildings, and backed up to the freeway. There appeared to be some kind of trucking company on one side, so the only residential neighbor that might object to Bill's noise was to the south and quite a ways away. There was a huge back deck that reminded me of an aircraft carrier, and there was a screened gazebo at the end. But upon closer inspection we discovered that the garage had at one time been a separate building, and the add-on was entirely at main-floor level. The door opened to a short set of amateurishly made steps, which invaded most of the parking area on the near side. The steps to the basement were long, straight and narrow. Except for the kitchen, which was amazing, the rooms were all tiny as were the doorways. Very little closet space existed upstairs. The outside was perfect; the inside not so much.
Then we looked at a manufactured home high on a hill on the west side of Mission. It had an enormous pole barn but no garage. There were cute small flower gardens here and there on the hillside, and it was well within our price range. When we arrived to look at it more closely with a realtor, we discovered that the steps to the side door were unmanageable for me. There was a patio door on another wall but no deck. The only other door led to a basement that had NO INTERIOR ACCESS to the main floor. Inside we noticed that not only were there no appliances, the furnace was gone too, right down to the vents and grates, leaving huge gaping holes in the floor. Some animal had been kept in one of the "bedrooms," and there had been huge turds left on the rug. Bill reported that the basement could only be locked from the outside, not from the inside. That gave me the creeps so bad, I couldn't wait to get out of there!
Bill found a house about a quarter mile north of a paved road just a mile or two south of Herrick Park. It was a one story on top of a walk-out basement. It had about 8 acres of farmland, a big propane tank, no internet available except dial-up, poor cell phone reception, and a huge 4-6 car garage. Bill loved it, but it was unlivable for me. Again,much of the living space was downstairs, and the stairs were such that I couldn't get down to that level without going outside.
Finally while on the internet one day I found a place that had a manufactured home on 27+ acres, mostly wooded. The pictures showed the house looked like a log cabin, it boasted both a pole barn and a garage, there was a picnic shelter and a windmill in the back yard, it had cable tv and internet available, had natural gas heat, and low property taxes. Trouble was, the location was a secret! I scoured the internet, cross-referencing and back-tracking and finally found it just north of Harrison. My husband gasped. "Not Harrison! Harrison sucks!" Nonetheless, the day after Christmas we took the short drive up to check it out. And it was almost everything we ever wanted.
The house was in very good shape, and move-in ready. We closed in less than a month, hired people to change the carpeting to flooring and bought two new appliances (NOT stainless steel!) and some new furniture. We moved in the end of February and threw our first party three weeks later. And all for less than $150K. Great view, I love my eat-in kitchen, my big living room, my deck and front porch, my big windows, the big yard for large dogs to run and play in, the picnic shelter for our summer cookouts (guess what? We DO entertain!), and our trails through the woods winding past the two deer blinds. Now THIS is a story most people could relate to, don't you think?
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Owie
I haven't gone anywhere in the past few days because I broke one of my front teeth Tuesday night and can't get it fixed until almost the end of October. The joys of small-town living: when you need any kind of specialist, you have to wait a long time for an opening.
I did go out to Walmart Thursday afternoon with Wild Bill for dog stuff, hunting stuff and groceries. By the time we got back, my right foot and ankle were too sore for me to walk on it. There is no swelling or bruising so I have no idea what happened to cause that. Today, Saturday, it hurts just as much. I guess I won't make it to church THIS Sunday, either, and I'm sure they've given up on the idea of me ever joining.
I bought one of those battery-operated tooth brushes at Walmart and I must say it's a huge improvement over the electric toothbrushes we used to use when I was a kid! However a few hours later the ache in my outer gum on the right side turned into a sharp pain, like the bone in my jaw was spontaneously fracturing. Once I had my hands washed I reached in and found a big, painful lump. I showed it to Wild Bill when he got off work and he said it's the same color as the rest of my gum, so I'm not going to worry about oral cancer today. I'll just assume it's an abscess on the tooth I should have had a root canal on five years ago but never did (it was the same time my dad suddenly went downhill with his health and I had my hands full with him, my mentally incompetent mother and my drunken aunt). Serves me right. And to add insult to injury, I've already maxed out my dental insurance for this year.
Remember the title of that one blog entry a few weeks ago: fml? Yeah, that.
I did go out to Walmart Thursday afternoon with Wild Bill for dog stuff, hunting stuff and groceries. By the time we got back, my right foot and ankle were too sore for me to walk on it. There is no swelling or bruising so I have no idea what happened to cause that. Today, Saturday, it hurts just as much. I guess I won't make it to church THIS Sunday, either, and I'm sure they've given up on the idea of me ever joining.
I bought one of those battery-operated tooth brushes at Walmart and I must say it's a huge improvement over the electric toothbrushes we used to use when I was a kid! However a few hours later the ache in my outer gum on the right side turned into a sharp pain, like the bone in my jaw was spontaneously fracturing. Once I had my hands washed I reached in and found a big, painful lump. I showed it to Wild Bill when he got off work and he said it's the same color as the rest of my gum, so I'm not going to worry about oral cancer today. I'll just assume it's an abscess on the tooth I should have had a root canal on five years ago but never did (it was the same time my dad suddenly went downhill with his health and I had my hands full with him, my mentally incompetent mother and my drunken aunt). Serves me right. And to add insult to injury, I've already maxed out my dental insurance for this year.
Remember the title of that one blog entry a few weeks ago: fml? Yeah, that.
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