A real shame

About twenty years or so ago there was a house in town that was very run down. When I would drive past it on my way to work I would wonder if it was ever going to be torn down or fixed up; it was apparently abandoned. The windows had long been broken out by local vandals throwing rocks through them, and the doors were hanging off crookedly, half off of the hinges. The wooden clapboard was falling off, what was left on the house appeared to be rotting. Then one day I noticed a few vehicles in the driveway, the next day scaffolding framed the house.

Over the next several weeks a wonderful transformation was created. Brand new Pella windows were installed, new doors, new vinyl siding, and about a dozen solar panels on the roof appeared. Shortly after it appeared that someone was actually living in the place! Every day when I would drive past this now wonderful example of urban renewal at its finest I would think about how much I wished that I had the kind of money it would take to retrofit my own house with the newest technologies for climate control and energy conservation. But it wasn’t very long before the house was abandoned again and vandalized again, back to holes in the windows and the beautiful solar panels broken. Every single one of them was full of holes. I don’t know if it was a hail storm, or vandals, but every one was ruined. I never found out the story behind that poor house, but it is once again a very sad and lonely house. It’s a real shame.

The mad dash to the Post Office

When I was a teenager, I remember my parents always waited until the very last minute to file their taxes. I can remember going with my mother to the big Post Office in the next town over, pulling into the driveway at 11:50 pm and handing the big envelope to the Post Office employee that was standing there with a big net on a pole. The net reminded me of either a big butterfly net, or the kind of net I used to envision the staff from the mental hospitals used to try to catch the mentally ill patients that were trying to escape the insane asylum.

Ever since I’ve been on my own, I’ve always filed my taxes much earlier than the deadline; I don’t even know if any of the Post Offices stay open that late on tax deadline day. One thing is for sure – that mad dash to the Post Office on tax deadline day is one family tradition that I don’t want to continue and pass down to future family members. The stress of waiting until the last minute for anything just is not worth it!

Doing business with family

On the surface, one would think that doing business with your own family would be a good way to get started in business. After all, families are supposed to be supportive of each other, right? There is another saying, though, that the prophet is scorned in his own village. I’m sorry to say that my wife’s family appears to be the type of family where they will not be supportive of each others efforts and will not do anything to give each other a break. That is really sad, and makes it very difficult for anyone to become successful. Family members should not be haters, and yet it seems as if that is exactly what is going on here. Very sad, really.

The Internet makes moving so much easier

How many times have you had to move from one house to another in your lifetime? Two, three times? I don’t know about you, but I think that moving from one house to another is a huge pain in the you-know-what! When I was a young child our family moved three times, and to be perfectly honest they didn’t involve the kids in the move at all. They just sent all of us kids away for a week to a friend’s house or to a sleep-over camp and at the end of the sleep-over when our parents picked us up they just took us to our new home. Matter of fact – oh by the way, while you were gone we moved. This is our new house, and this is your new bedroom.

I guess we should be grateful that they came and picked us up! We never would have found them if they had just moved away and left us there! Wouldn’t that have been a nightmare for the camp owners and/or family friends! Anyway, the point being we never saw the work involved in moving, all of the packing and unpacking, none of the negotiations with removal companies, none of the headaches.

Since I’ve grown up and been on my own I have had to move five times. And they were a pain. Especially the first four – prior to the invention of the Internet. I found it very difficult to locate the services that I needed to make the move go smoothly. Thank goodness for the Internet and all of the resources that I’ve been able to use to find the right companies and services that I needed to make the last move as easy as possible. It even helped me find the house that I wanted to buy!

Moving

Thanks for the post from Sylvester Campbell

The list of things that need to get done before moving is seriously getting longer and longer. I know that I sort of take on that responsibility since I am a homemaker and my husband works out of the home, but he is going to have to help me with some of this list or it just isn’t going to get done in time. The things at the top of my list today are to research New york energy rates and find a list of day-cares that I am going to check out when we go for our house hunting trip. I really am excited about this move, but I do wish that I could crawl in my bed and just wake up when all of this work is done! I just want to wake up and be in my new home with everything unpacked and my children in their new schools. This is not my first rodeo, I have done this plenty of times. I know in my heart that it will all get done and work out, I just need to start my to-do list!