Greetings discerning readers! Please excuse the hiatus, but there have been some things going on in my life as of late. The main thing is that I moved to a different house. Notice that I didn’t say a “new” house. That would be untrue. This is a 1976, brick ranch. Almost 2100 square feet, four bedrooms, two and a half baths, yada, yada, yada. Of course, I didn’t actually sell the old homestead. We are renting it to a nice family that has the goal of purchasing it from me at some point in the near future. This means that since you last had a fresh post (some dreadful piece concerning paint color about which I can only say I’m sorry), I have a new title: Landlord.
I don’t actually like the term “landlord”, because it gives me visions of this guy. No, I prefer “land baron”. It makes me feel more early twentieth century, more roaring twenties, more Great Gatsby. It also helps me remember that I own not one, but two pieces of Charlotte, NC, and I kind of like that. If the lots were together, I could put a large wall and a moat around them and gaze across the street at my neighbors, whom I would pretend were the serfs in this little make-believe fiefdom. I could do all that, but I won’t, because I like the location of this house much more—although the Lowe’s that’s closest to me here (and trust me, I’ve been there a time or two) is inferior to the one that was a mile away from the former location. You can’t have it all, I guess.
About the house. It was built in the bicentennial year of this great nation, and that means that it has some quirks anyway—like the pink toilet in the half bath. It also hasn’t been lived in for 2 to 4 years, depending on which neighbor you ask. When you live in a house that hasn't been lived in, you find out stuff is broken as you use it. Thus, I have been in the crawl space a time or two, reconnecting drainage pipes and the like. We've shelled out a few hundred bucks for a plumber, even when we pay only $55 a visit because of the home warranty that came with the house.
We bought it from a nice couple that owned it for almost a year with hopes of making big money with a flip. But it flopped. Don’t get me wrong, I love the house, and they did some good things—new roof, new furnace, and new AC. They also laid some laminate flooring throughout most of the house. Incorrectly. And let this be a lesson to all of you, and help keep people like me gainfully employed:
READ THE MANUAL!
As if this
weren’t enough excitement, four days after leaving our former residence, and two days before the new family moved in, some of the kids from the neighborhood decided to break into the shed at that property. The police came and caught some of the kids. Of course, they caught the third-graders that were involved. And the third-graders
weren’t about to out their older culprits. Their mother
couldn’t get them to talk either. Instead of having them booked, or asking their mother who
couldn’t afford to pay for the damage to pay for the damage, I made the agreement with her to have her kids help me repair the damage. We’ll do the handyman thing together and bond and stuff. Perhaps by helping to repair the damage they will learn something about fixing things and also what a pain it is to fix something that you helped destroy. Hopefully it will be a positive experience.
Not to highlight too much drama, but about a week ago my dog was hit by a car. Broke her leg, it did. $1600 for orthopedic surgery. ORTHOPEDIC SURGERY FOR A DOG! I have lost my mind. The needle is only $75, but I had a dog that went that route a few years back, and I didn’t want to do that again (before you flame me, that dog wouldn’t have been out of the woods with one $1600 surgery. We would have been back again and again. Besides, it’s a DOG). She went today to have the staples removed. The doctors are all impressed with her progress (they should, I forked over the money). They did the surgery at half price, which was very nice, but the poor dog is confined to her crate for five more weeks. I tell her she’s lucky to be alive. She just gives me the evil eye.
I preached my first sermon ever a few weeks before the move. I preached part two of a series we were doing at church called Raising G-Rated Kids in an R-Rated World. My topic was “Children Need Memories”. I thought it went well. No one fell asleep. Copies available upon request.
In case you don’t follow football, my beloved Redskins made big news on Yahoo! a few weeks back by signing a punter. Yes, a punter. Are there no free agents they could scoop up? How about a receiver? How about anything? What, they don’t have any more holes to fill? I suppose that when your team is that bad, a kicker will really get your fans fired up, seeing as he’s on the field longer than their offense.
In blog news:
I have added my brother’s blog to my links. Now you can get the perspective of someone in Iraq (in case you don’t know anyone that has been or is there now). This way, you all have a face to look at when you hear our imperial congress tell us that our troops “don’t need no steenking funds”. Oops. Sorry for the politics. I promised myself that I wouldn’t talk politics on this blog, and so far I’ve been pretty good about it. But, when I heard that congress wants to kill our men and women in uniform for political points back home, it about made me sick. Not that I think that W made the wisest of moves with this whole mess, but once our people are there, I think they should be equipped to protect themselves and do their jobs. ‘Nuff said.
Well, that's all I've got. Blogging is a lot like McDonald’s in a way…you are never really satisfied with the food, but you know you’ll be back. If there’s still anyone out there reading, I will try to stay up with this a bit better. I know, this post isn’t very good, and I rambled a bit. I shall strive to do better next time.
