alleymon It’s been a while so I thought I’d better write to let you know what’s going on.
My drive time has gone from 2 hours a day to nearly 3. This and the fact that in the fall of this year the Department of Transportation will be starting a 2 year project to widen a 3 mile stretch of Ortega Highway (Widening from 10 to 12 foot lanes and adding a 4ft shoulder). This will cause long delays as only one lane will be open (westbound in the morning 6am to 9am then closed completely then open eastbound from 2pm to 7pm then closed completely) and issues like landslides and other construction mishaps could make those delays even longer. So Stacy and I have decided to sell our house and move into the Irvine house. We will pay off mom’s mortgage with some of the equity we built up in the house and then pay mom reduced rent (since she won’t have to pay an 1100.00 mortgage each month).
We’ve got 5 weeks to get our house up to sale quality and have a long laundry list of repairs and maintenance to do. Paint rooms, re-do baseboards downstairs, fix and paint the fence and install new stove (The broiler door got stuck with a steak broiling in it. A crowbar fixed that, but now we need a new stove). I’ve got to put in a French drain and extend a drain out to the sidewalk from the backyard. There’s the backyard sprinklers to completely redo and SOD to put in. We will be renting a storage unit and moving all of the stuff we don’t need but don’t want to get rid of. Reduce the clutter for selling.
We are putting the house up for sale at the end of March per the Realtor’s advice. We can’t move until mid June so Branden can finish out his school year. So if the house sells early, there will have to be a long escrow. Mom also needs 2 months notice for her current tenants.
Branden started Little League practices a couple of weeks ago. He got drafted into a league that he isn’t ready for yet, so we’re trying to get him on another team in a lower league. I’m not going to let a coach put him in right field for the season just because he isn’t ready for that level of play yet.
We went to Kevin and Sara’s house last Sunday for the February Birthday celebration. Wow, there’s too many of those. We had a nice time getting reacquainted with David and Nancy who we hadn’t seen in quite some time. The kids all played really well together and spent most of the day outside playing tag, I think. Kevin and Sara were happy to have the house quiet and enjoyed talking to adults without the constant badgering of the kids. “Mom, can I have….?” “Dad, will you….?
I took care of a couple of chores Mom has wanted me to do for a long time. Attaching her headboard to her bedframe. Much less complicated than Kevin thought. No sawing or drilling. Then, taking down of the Christmas lights, but not the party lights (whatever). Also, I installed her digital camera software on her computer and showed her how to use it (Let’s see if she remembers).
We are taking a vacation July 9-15th and traveling to Cape Cod. I hope we can get together with Wendy and Dave sometime during that trip. Stacy got a free week as a prize at some conference she went to and we had to use it up before the end of the year. Hopefully we’ll be settled in the Irvine house and I’m sure we’ll be more than ready for a vacation.
I think that’s it for now. I hit all the important stuff. We’re all healthy and besides the stress of the impending sale and move, happy.
