Deja Vu

The townhouse is under contract (as far as we know) and the other day after church we went over to check on a couple things.  It was totally a day of deja vu...

January 2014

October 2007

December 2004

January 2014

April 2000

January 2014

October 2007

April 2007

January 2014

March 2000

January 2013

November 1999

I guess some things just never change.  On the plus side, our new friend, the plumber, was able to fix the sink issue rather easily and this time Mr. Ranch didn't have to call for help.

Something to write about...

As I sat here watching Tony da Fish freak out, I thought..."hmm, I don't have any more blogs scheduled". So you get a brain dump...yay!

This week has again been full of interesting adventures due to the cold.  I had two mornings when it took me an hour or more to get to work (usually a 32 minute trip).  Yuck.  Luckily, I didn't have a class at 7 either day, so it's all good.  The hot water pipe under the kitchen sink froze again--and again we were able to thaw it out using the trusty hair dryer. Unfortunately, the water pipe that leads to the refrigerator water dispenser is also frozen and despite cutting two (small) holes in the wall, we haven't been able to thaw that one.  The Girl is freaking out because "What is there to drink?!".  Um, water.  From the sink?  Right.

The townhouse furnace passed the inspection by the official furnace guy...but somehow was turned off after that inspection was done. So, when the plumber arrived today to fix the drippy faucet he called Mr. Ranch to say it was 38 degrees.  Uh, oh. Thankfully the plumber is a competent adult and sorted it all out...the heat is on, the faucet is fixed...Mr. Ranch is going to confirm that tomorrow though.  And I had a lovely conversation with "the window guy" today (that is fixed, too).

I'm attending a literacy conference this week--today was a long day.  I got to the hotel about 6:30 am and secured on-site parking (yay!) which meant I could stay through the last session (ending at 5) and still pick up the kids by 6 pm.  I'm hoping to secure on site parking again tomorrow so I can do the same drill again.  Great conference though--today I saw Patricia Polacco signing autographs...but since I'm trying to attend 15 hours of actual class I wasn't able to stand in line.  I was also able to secure a ticket to the luncheon on Saturday where she is speaking.  Tomorrow I get to hear Henry Winkler speak during lunch about his career as an author--not as The Fonz or Barry Zuckercorn, but I'm hoping he works those into his talk. I also ran into a couple folks that I don't see often (a group of teachers from the kids school, an English teacher from my school) and met some very nice people.  I have to write a 2-3 page paper to earn my 1.0 college credit, so maybe I'll just post that here and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I think I am going to go find somewhere warm (my bed?) and read--I do "owe" you a "What I read in January" post I suppose, so stay tuned for that "soon".

Saturday morning check in

Yes, I know this is posting on Sunday morning, but I'm writing it on Saturday, so there.

Originally I was going to call this "Teachers in Tights" (see the next paragraph) but then I decided to write a brain dump instead.

This spring our faculty is putting on a parallel musical to the one the kids are doing.  We are doing "Once Upon a Mattress", which I feel like I've seen, but don't recall a lot about.  I started watching this on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfHDRIYtAxM and then didn't finish, so I'll get back to you on that.  I'll be one of those characters in the background...not a major character.  I'm sure I'll have some exciting stories about participating in this event...stay tuned. We had our first read through on Friday and it went well--there are lots of talented folks at my school.  I sat with the choir director and one of our tech guys, as well as my good friend who retired last year and came back just to sing with us.  We all had a lovely time humming along to the "chorus" parts and laughing at the main actors lines.  Should be a good show.  For those of you who are local (or who have a driving desire to see me in a high school play), I'll make sure you get details later.  I'll be the one in the back.

Mr. Ranch and the kids left at 5:30 this morning to go skiing.  They are going to one of the resorts where they eat lunch "on the mountain".  I got up about 5 to tell them to have a good day and The Boy had a melt-down because I wasn't coming with them (he better be growing, because these melt-downs are killing me...).  I said, "um...you guys eat lunch on the mountain and I usually fall asleep in the car...do you really just want to watch me sleep in the car? Really?"  He was eventually pacified by my statement that I'd go to the library and get him some more books.  Excellent.  So I went back to bed, intending to get up at 6 and walk...and hit my snooze 9 times...so I got up at 7, walked on the wii, broke up a couple dog fights, and now am enjoying some Starbucks Mocha coffee (on sale and $3 off coupon last weekend and Mr. Ranch hates it...so today, while he is gone, is a good day to brew it).

We potentially have a real offer on the townhouse... cross your fingers, say a prayer, whatever you are willing to do that it works out.  I am really tired of being a landlord...lately the tiny benefits have been outweighing the detriments.  We've had a couple of other offers in the last few weeks--I think two, both really low for what we want to sell for and low for the market, as well as asking for a lot of closing costs.  The townhouse two doors down from ours (which is nearly identical, except it has "new" counter tops) allegedly sold last week and the current offer on ours is very similar to their selling price.

My school finally had our annual holiday party yesterday.  Since we have finals after winter break, having a party before winter break is challenging--lots of folks live far enough away that we don't want to go back to the school neighborhood for an evening party and after 3 is tricky for those of us with kids.  Since last week was finals week we were able to start about 2 (students left at noon) and end by 4...taco bar followed by cake, some door prizes (I didn't win this time, but once I won a Santa night light and once an school t-shirt). The Ranch Children actually had a half day as well, so Mr. Ranch picked them up, took them to Jimmy John's for lunch and then let them watch the Great Muppet Caper while he got an oil change.  By the time I got home about 5, they had dealt with this year's Christmas tree, cut up last years for firewood, filled, run, emptied and filled the dishwasher and started dinner...whoo hoo!  Of course, I just found a machete on the patio table...weird...whatever. Maybe I should go to office parties more often.

 Thanks to all of you on Facebook who gave me ideas for future blogs...like I said though, some are a bit intellectual for me (after all, this is a blog about "nothing", right?) but there are a couple possibilities.

Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend and that you get to sleep in for MLK day!

The joy of being a landlord, or not.

Mr. Ranch and I bought a cute little townhouse in 1999.  We moved in, with our two kitties, in the spring. We intended to stay in it for a couple years, sell it, and get something with a yard, garage, etc.  In 2007, after adding two kids and and a dog, we moved into our current house but didn't have any luck selling the townhouse.  We somewhat reluctantly rented it out. We've had some great tenants and some not so great tenants, folks who took care of the property like it was their own and folks who, well, didn't.  Our most recent tenants moved out a couple weeks ago and the property is for sale again.  So far it has been a frustrating process for me--people who see it give us feedback like "it backs up to a street".  Well, yes, that is true.  There is also nothing we can do about it, so maybe some feedback about things we can change would be nice.  We've also had quite a few say things like, "well, I'm not interested in a property like this, but if you put in all new appliances, new flooring, new paint, and lowered the price by 1/3...I'd think about it."  I'm just hoping that sometime in the near future there is a young couple who stumble on it and think "ah, we'll just live here a couple years and then..."