Category Archives: Life in general

Food, Life in general

Countdown

3 Comments

The countdown is on to closing. Originally, we thought we’d be delayed until Friday, but the inspection pieces fell into place and we are still on for Thursday morning. That means moving on Friday morning and settling in over the weekend, with assorted projects to get underway.

There are fires burning up across the Georgia state line. This morning, on the way to the insurance agent’s place to sign off on the homeowner’s insurance paperwork, the smoke was thick because the wind was from the north, pushing the haze our way. That blew off in the afternoon, but we’re expecting it again in the morning, since the fires are still burning up there.

But let’s go backwards in time, shall we?

For the past week, we have been out to the house almost twice a day, every day. Yesterday early, the pool guys were there after the safety inspection had been completed.

Every job has its own specialized tools. A couple of the guys were wearing these platforms on their shoes. The platforms have four pointed feet underneath, so they’re not leaving footprints in the sealant.

Here’s a gratuitous beefcake shot of a broad-backed worker for those interested. And you know who you are.

We also found to our surprise that the dumpster had been pulled.

As we were leaving, the worker bees from next door were pulling the trailer and the remaining fenceposts off the property and taking them to the other side. I suppose the builder must have had a word and indicated that we were getting close.

After taking some more photos, it was time to head out again. When we returned home, we found a coupe of birds doing that springtime dance. Love is in the air, indeed.

A couple hours later, it was time for a return trip, to check out the pool again. The workers had gone, and there was a snake in the pool.

Not really.

Water!

Slowly but surely, the pool was filling. I had neglected to both charge the battery in my camera and to bring the spare, so that was the final shot of the day. I wanted to take another shot from upstairs without the trailers and posts on the side, but alas, there was no juice. It will have to wait until tomorrow, assuming that I get over there.

Which is a question mark of sorts, as I have an appointment with the ENT in the early afternoon. Nothing terribly serious, but rather annoying: the scans are not showing any decrease in activity (but no increase either), and there’s a bit on tingly stuff from time to time. So, time for a visit to let the doc poke around. I always resist the temptation to chomp down on their fingers…

And finally, a recommendation: if you speak French, or can sit through a movie in French with English subtitles, see Amelie. I finally had the chance to watch the entire movie from start to finish, and it is an excellent movie, with some quite finely nuanced performances.

Gardening, Life in general

The quiet, then the storm

Leave a comment

People have asked what the property looks like. How about a bird’s-eye view? This is from the early part of 2006, and the red outline is the property. At the bottom of the property, the upside down L is another parcel of just under an acre and a half that is to be deeded over to us (99% certainty of that). At the bottom of the image, the small rectangle behind each parcel is the easement into Jennings State Forest.

Yesterday, we simply had to go to the house to see what the pavers had finished and how the fence looked.

Not bad. Through this gate, on the road side, we’ll have a large dog run for the animals to roam. Mickey in particular loves to run, and fast. Fortunately, we have plenty of room for that.

The only issue is that the pavers ran short, and the corner around the skimmer basket is unfinished. This means that our closing, originally scheduled for Monday and delayed to Thursday will likely be delayed to Friday. Boo! Hiss!

It’s all lovely, though.

Last night, and into the morning, we had a line of storms roll through, bringing quite a lot of wind and some much-needed rain. The rain, we welcomed. The wind, not so much: after all, my house is new. What if a tree uprooted and crashed through the roof, or took out some windows, or the entire house just lifted off and landed in Oz?

So, another trip to the house, just to check in on things. Things were fine.

And a lot of the sand was cleared away by the rain.

The builders were on site, and had removed a section of the fence so they could get the tractor in to grade around the pool while they were doing some grading on the rest of the property. With the rain, the soil was much softer than it had been – also welcome, as that will make my landscaping plans easier to implement.

It was a gray, windy day, but things are still coming along nicely.

There is still debris to be removed, still more grading to be done, and there’s still that pesky pool inspection that needs to be completed. So, still some patience to be had as this process – which has been fairly stress-free – nears the end.

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Life in general

You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie

4 Comments

Yesterday, we had the distinct pleasure of taking my aunt and uncle out to the house to let them get a view of it before it’s finished.

I also took a photo of the master bedroom ceiling for Anna (hi, Anna!) – there certainly must be some architectural word for this type.

We found a pool guy slaving away in the back, putting in the line to the pump.

A late afternoon nap is just the thing everyone needs sometimes. And if you can have three out of the four furry critters with you, so much the better.

When we went back to the house today to plan out the walking paths and seating areas in the front, we found that the pool guy had almost finished the entire run, except for the termination area at the pump itself. Things are moving right along.

Life in general

All your base are belong to us

1 Comment

I tossed a chicken into the oven to roast (butter with salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic under the skin, olive oil rub outside, followed by more salt and pepper, lemons, carrots, garlic in the cavity) and then asked mom if she wanted to ride out to the house to look at the floors.

My, aren’t they pretty.

From the living area to the formal dining area.

And back again.

The house from the rear, as the sun went down.

Less than a month away from our target closing date now. There’s a lot of packing to be done…

Food, Life in general

Work in progress

Leave a comment

Last night, while enjoying a meal of braised short ribs with a pinot noir reduction and carmelized onions, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and thyme-steamed zucchini (and after fooling around with plating, just for the hell of it)…

…I unloaded the pictures I’d taken last Wednesday of the house and property. The front of the house, not too far out. There’s a lot more room toward the road. Imagine this with grass – or, imagine it with something else, like grass and various paths throughout, with random oases where one could sit down with a book and a cold drink, pretending to read while enjoying being outside surrounded by the scent of flowers and listening to birds call to one another in their own language. That’s what I do.

The rear faces west.

Continue reading Work in progress →

Cancer, Geek stuff, Life in general

I find your lack of gratitude…disturbing

1 Comment

I think the one thing that pisses me off above all else is a lack of gratitude from people for the things that others do for them. In our case the other day, that translated to keeping a server up and running and answering as many requests as possible under a crush of traffic from not one but two largely-read sites to a particular site. A server where we’ve had to move other people off – and thus inconvenience them – so they would not be impacted by the site that was the recipient of said traffic. A server that was working to the fullest extent it could to handle the processing required by this one site. What did we get in return? Whining from the user, who is paying a grand total of $11 a month and getting the use of almost all the resources available on a very big server, and then a post from him on his site, quoting us entirely out of context and proving that he doesn’t understand a damn thing about shared hosting (that was a given).

Good luck elsewhere, because your account here is toast.

Last night we had my sister’s birthday: black bean and corn flautas, at her request, with some yellow rice and salad, then angel food cake, homemade whipped cream, and fruit for dessert. The flautas were quite good, and disappeared very quickly. Those are definitely something to make again.

In other news, had a brief chat with the broker today, and he doesn’t need anything else (yet – there’s always something else they need, I’m sure, even though I’ve never been fully through this process). Also had a chat with the builders, who have blocked out the pool and deck and who have started to pull the permit for the pool so it can be dug and hopefully completed by closing time. Wednesday we’ll meet with the builders to choose the color of the wood for the floors in the living area.

I’ve also been putting together a seed order and thinking about trees and grass seed and yard tractors. Sweet dreams indeed.

Gardening, Life in general

Holding your breath

2 Comments

Today I did the most significantly foolish and nervewracking thing I have ever done in my entire short life. Thus far. I signed a contract on a house. A house that is owned by a builder, who actually understands the market, and who actually wants to sell the thing, unlike every other owner we’ve encountered along the way who received an offer from us.

The house is so new that it isn’t even completed yet, but will be within the next couple of weeks: a 4/3, situated on 4.1 acres in an equestrian community, with another 1.4 acres very likely to be added on to the back end of the property. It backs up to a huge nature preserve, so there are no worries about a development suddenly arising from the ground behind us, and the entire development is on a single cul de sac – I believe there are abut 30 lots, total, of which only half a dozen have houses. Given the market conditions, that will likely remain the situation, at least for awhile.

We have our realtors to thank for the rather extraordinary fortune. We’d actually driven by this place on a previous excursion and decided at that time that it was a) too far out and b) too expensive. Part a was really a misconception, and the result of too much damn driving around in a single day. By the time we’d found this underdeveloped development, the butt soreness to coffee to aggravation ratios were way, way off. A trip meter shows that the house is 15 miles from the current house, and adds between 17 and 20 minutes to drive time, even at 4 PM. Not bad.

Part b was a little more interesting. We hadn’t looked at the listing for this one since that driving around time about a month or so ago, and the builder reduced the price by a fairly significant amount in the past week. And, to top it off, there will be a pool thrown in for good measure, which means we won’t have to have one dug. Bonus! And to top all that off, the builders are quite nice guys, and totally upfront about why they’re doing all this: they need to unload the inventory, because they’re now paying interest on the house they’ve almost completed on the lot. One of the builders lives in the development, so we’ll be neighbors when all is said and done. And he’s a huge barbeque fan, so bribery is always an option.

And now begins the game of getting everything together and writing more checks, all of which makes me frantically nervous about the deal. Not that we don’t know that this will be our new home. Far from it, in fact, since the approval was already done for a higher figure than the price of this place, and my paperwork is already in order from the first time we went through this. I’m just worried that a meteorite is going to come crashing out of the sky and turn the lot into a dinosaur-killing sinkhole whose worth is only infishing rights.

There are also all those other things that will need to be done – we’re getting a pad for the garage, for instance, but we’re going to do the driveway in pavers ourselves. There’s no way for them to economically sod the entire lot – at over 2 acres cleared, from my estimation, that would cost a fortune – so they’re going to put down five pallets of sod, and we told them to put it in the back around the pool, since that’s where we and everyone else will be spending most of our time this summer. That means we’ll be seeding the front and sides of the lot ourselves, which isn’t a big deal (grass seed is cheap!), but which also means that eventually an investment will have to be made in a riding mower. There’s also the question of the dogs and the immediate need for a fenced in area for them to run and poop in so they don’t get any bright ideas about running out on the county road and getting squished. And finally, one of the biggest things to me: the garden. Since harvest times on most of the better known and more often eaten veggies (for us) runs anywhere from 50-78 days or so, there’s a need to get some things going and in the ground as quickly as the ground can be made ready. That means tilling and picking up large quantities of compost from the city (free!), then making sure the pH of the soil is appropriate in each zone for each type of veg. Wouldn’t it be something to be harvesting some corn three months from now?

I was avoiding posting anything about this, as some kind of superstitious theory and my generally pessimistic nature about this whole house/land hunting thing we’ve been doing for about eight months. Monday we go back to lay out the exact position of the pool and get a quote for extending the deck area in pavers so that people can gather without being right on top of one another. The electric should also be up, with the a/c coming next week as well so the wood floors can be laid in. I’m hesitant to take any photos and post them, so as not to allow the fates to jinx anything, but I may very well haul the camera along with me on the next visit.

Life in general

Buying the farm

2 Comments

Updates have been light around here lately. There’s a reason for that.

What have we been up to?

Experimenting with more no-knead bread. This one is half white, half-wheat. Very tasty.

Making more cinnamon-raisin bread.

Whipping up some balsamic chicken with a creamy herb sauce and having some corn from last year’s farmer’s market haul.

Braising some short ribs, making gravy, and serving alongside a potato hashbrown pie with onions and three cheeses (parmiggiano, romano, asiago).

Oh, and looking at houses.

When we realized last year that we would not be buying the house we currently occupy, we began our quest for new digs.

We’ve looked at 100 or so houses and properties online. Probably drove by or walked through two dozen. Made an offer on two, only to have the sellers not understand that we were not going to pay an extra 20K or so over what the actual appraisal was and that it is not a seller’s market right now. Found a great piece of land, but with a nutso realtor on the other side.

And so last Thursday, we made the rounds again. Another five houses to add to our viewed list. One we crossed off immediately: too small. Another we crossed off because of the huge pond taking up almost the entire back part of the property. The third had possibilities, but no pool and a tiny kitchen: scratch that one. The fourth, quite nice: large screened in pool area, a huge florida room with windows, about two acres. The last one, though…the last one was the one we wanted. And we made an offer. The seller – who apparently has missed the memo that it isn’t exactly a seller’s market – came back with a counter. We met up in the middle, and everything looked good. Until the owner, having set a deadline of 4 PM Monday, wasn’t available to answer some questions or engage in some negotiation about a couple of items.

So, that deal is off. I’d like to tell him that intentionally making it difficult for people to buy what you’re selling results in no sales. Doesn’t matter if it’s real estate, web hosting, or groceries: if you’re an asshole, you’re not going to be selling much of anything.

Back to the drawing board. We found another property right off the bat (of course, since there are tons of things for sale). No pool, but a nice, dry, square lot, not in a flood zone, in an area where there is unlikely to be further development, just under three acres, where we could put in our own (enclosed) pool, build a sunroom on the back if we wanted, have a great sized garden, and have enough room for the dogs to roam.

Maybe the fourth time will be the charm.