Sir Alfred the Brave

Inspirational song: Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)

The day was nearly over. I had watched a little TV, but it was all shut down while I sat in the cool basement, scrolling through the internet before heading up to blog and then go to bed. Alfred had been crawling all over me, wanting to cuddle. I had even fallen asleep sitting up a couple times, and woke to find Alfred stretched across my middle, holding my arms down. He was very needy. But in the quiet, once the TV was off, we could finally hear what was going on outside the house. All around my neighborhood there have been random pops of black powder, while people play with the fireworks that are legally obtainable in this part of the county, in this state (more than I recall Colorado allowing back when we were in college). I don't think about those sounds much. I've lived close to army posts too often, where the sound of gunfire off in the distance is such a common occurrence, I barely even heard it. I lived in a few rough neighborhoods in my day too, where one is a little more attuned to that sound, but unless it's followed by shouts or sirens, it's quickly forgotten. Alfred is not so calm about it. He freaks out even when there are computer animated graphics of fireworks on TV. When they started tonight, and could be heard clearly, I looked down to see Alfred hugging the carpet, belly-crawling to hide under the lap blanket that was loosely draped across my knees, making a tent between the ottoman and the floor. Poor little chicken cat. He does this with thunder too. This next week is going to be hard on him.

We had planned on going to see the fireworks at Folsom Field on Tuesday, a tradition Mr S-P grew up with, that we tried to pass along to our kids. At least one wants to be there for them. (Foster daughter says she and her new husband aren't all that into fireworks, so they might skip out.) For the first time in decades, I was planning to suggest we buy some of our own to shoot off in the street one or two nights this week. I've traditionally been a tightly-wound wet blanket when it comes to personal fireworks, but now that I'm full of new coping skills (mostly found in pharmaceutical bottles and directions from my doctors to take it easy when life gets to be too much), I feel like I might be flexible and calm enough to have them in my own personal space. I don't want to spend too much money, but a few aerials and Roman candles might be in order. (I didn't participate the first time the kids and men folk played "Harry Potter dueling with Roman candles," but I think now I can play along. Doubly so considering we are supposed to re-watch the very last movie in the series this weekend with our neighbors.) I believe it won't be a hard sell to convince the kids (of all ages) that we need to have some brightly colored explosions of our own.

I didn't take many pictures today. My doggies are in the mountains for a few days while their papa builds stuff with the lumber we carried up on Monday, and I got a lovely picture of them sent to me. It's quiet around here in their absence, not counting the firecrackers up and down the street. I focused on throwing a few emails around, getting a massage, and buying stuff I needed, plus one or two things I had no idea I wanted. There was a free tasting at the liquor store, and a bottle of herbal liqueur asked to come home with me. There was a sale on hair color, and now I think I might have to go full mermaid (I now have four colors to blend for the tips of my hair, not just two). And I am ready for the gigabit internet service as of this afternoon, with a new modem that can handle the blazing hot speeds. I'm still feeling like a whole lot of things are happening around me, as fast as I can process them, and then some. It's exciting, and almost slightly scary at times. But not quite.

Mother's Work

Inspirational song: Mother (Pink Floyd)

I was a good mommy today. I drove my baby all over town, showing her houses where she could live (closer to me), having lunch with her, and sitting with her at the banker's office, getting good advice on how to afford those houses we looked at. Things are very close. Now we just have to keep a super close eye on new things as they hit the market, and have an offer ready to go at a moment's notice. Yes, I know, they are 18 pages long and specific to each property, so I can't just make a template. But still, I have to be quick on the draw with them. It will probably take several tries from here to land a good one.

My day started early (after last night ended late -- not my fault, Shelly in BC had a livestream going of a new litter of kittens who were rescued last night and I HAD to watch some of it). I had an early appointment down in Thornton to get tires on my car, after postponing removing the snows for two solid months. I thought arriving ten minutes early and going inside to check in would mean I'd be out of there on time. By the time I was allowed to leave my key fob, it was five minutes past my appointment time, and I literally was the SECOND PERSON IN LINE. I sat and waited for twenty minutes for Costco to open, and then I wandered around for half an hour getting only cat supplies, cheese, and a rack of ribs for this weekend. I came back at 10:30, thinking one hour should be enough to put tires on my car and throw the old ones in the back. I was told they were only just then starting to balance them. I didn't actually get to leave until five minutes to 11, which was five minutes before I was supposed to be in North Boulder to get my child. (Feel free to consult a map if you don't know how far these points are apart. Colorado is freaking huge. Just for the record.) I drove as fast as I could, taking as many rural county highways as I could, but I still got us to our first showing appointment 30 minutes late.

The houses we saw were interesting. The first one was large and in okay shape but not great. I felt it was significantly overpriced, even knowing the realities of a hot real estate market. I can't justify a high price just because someone says they want that much. The appraisal still has to come in on target or it won't work for us. The basement bedroom in house one was interesting, in a cosmic sense. See photos...

House two was familiar to us, but it wasn't until later that we figured out why. I was comparing ages with my daughter, saying she'd beat me to her first house. I didn't get to buy until I was 31. The first house I bought was a mid-80s contemporary in Fayetteville NC. The house we saw this afternoon was finished in much the same design style, with the same stair railings, vaulted living room, and other layout philosophies. The price on this one was very close to target, but I don't think she was ready to pull the trigger on this one. Her banker gave us encouragement, though. Things are close. Just a little more tweaking and she will be in the debt-to-income-ratio sweet spot.

I had a million errands to run, even while kiddo was in town, as did she. I dropped her off at one appointment while I went to handle some of my own business. By the time I got her back to her own car in Boulder, I was worn down to a stump. I've been hiding in the basement most of the night, too tired to go to bed, but too happy to be upset about it. I feel like the world is on a moving sidewalk right now, progressing swiftly onward whether I walk or just passively ride along. Lots of activity going on around/with/through me and most of it is heading in the right direction.

In Secret

Inspirational song: Biggest Part of Me (Ambrosia)

Why is it every night lately as I start opening the blogging platform, I have yacht rock songs echoing in my mind? I'm not married to the idea that the songs at the top have to pertain exactly to what I'm writing. Sometimes they really are something I heard on the radio that ear-wormed their way into my head, that I can't get rid of. I think that's the case tonight. I am fairly sure a couple times over the last several hours I have heard the promos for the Yacht Rock channel on Sirius. I'm embarrassingly happy about the fact that it's back for now. Maybe that's why I have let the songs follow me after the promos end. It's rather lowering to admit that the young punk I used to look at in the mirror has turned into a middle aged woman who secretly gets excited when Hall & Oates or Pablo Cruise comes on the radio.

I got the announcement this evening. While I was secretly hoping my nomination would be contentious, and someone would veto me, thus saving me from myself and freeing up my 2017-2018, it was not to be. In a unanimous decision, the Rotary board has accepted me as one of their own. PR and Communications chair. Everyone is going to know my name. Watch out, Longmont.

I've actually had a very busy day. I wasn't allowed to wallow in my phobia of calling on the telephone. In fact, as of my notification of selection on the board, I guess I won't be allowed to hide behind that phobia for an entire year. If someone says call the newspaper, I have to call the newspaper. If someone says call the mayor's office, I'm gonna call the mayor's office. So spending all day on the phone with the house inspector for the next sale, the buyers of said house, the sales rep for the fabulous internet service in town, DirecTV to renegotiate my contract (44 minutes...), a listing agent and the showing service for tomorrow's house tours, and someone I'm leaving out (I'll think of it eventually) really just all counts as practice. Or conditioning. Or numbing. I won't quibble over semantics.

It was worth all the phone calling. Can I brag just a little bit about my home town? Many years ago, visionary voters overwhelmingly approved municipally owned utilities, so our electricity rates are quite reasonable. They also approved covering our town with fiber optic cable in every single neighborhood, and providing city wide gigabit internet service. I can't remember exactly what they call us. A gigabit community, maybe? It has taken years to get this over the entire town, and my neighborhood was one of the very last to get it. This actually worked in my favor. I had a contract with CenturyLink that I got the day we moved in, which expires a month from tomorrow. When the Nextlight service becomes available in your neighborhood, you have 90 days to sign up for it to become a charter member, and I didn't want to have to pay for two services or buy out my old contract. Charter members get the service for $49.95 a month F-O-R-E-V-E-R. No taxes (it's citizen owned). I could rent a Wi-Fi router, but I don't have to, and eventually they'll have built in capability through the box that comes in from the cable outside anyway. Capability of 1,000,000,000 bits per second (1,000 Mbps) download speeds. AND blazing fast upload speeds. I checked my speed today, and I have 25 megabits per second download, 4 upload. The charter member status stays with me and stays with the house. You bet your sweet ass I am going to use this nugget of information as a realtor. "Come to Longmont. Buy a house with a Nextlight membership. 50 dollar internet for life." I might just have finally found the key to selling real estate here, rather than having to drive half an hour to work on any given day. Maybe that PR job is right for me after all.

No Escape

Inspirational song: You've Got a Friend (James Taylor)

They got me. Like trying to escape the Mob, I thought I was clear, and they sucked me back in. I told myself that now the big summer fundraiser was over, I was going to coast at Rotary for a while. I thought I'd just show up for lunch on Tuesdays, and socialize like 80-85% of the members. I planned to take the rest of the summer off, and then jump back in to volunteering in September for the Palisade peach sales. Alas, my cunning plan was foiled. Weeks ago, the president elect asked me whether I wanted to take over the PR duties for the woman who was moving up into the pipeline to be president in two years (called the "president elect nominee"). I delayed, saying that I needed to talk to her, and see how much work the job entailed. I am somewhat leery of taking on too much, remembering how seriously being the president of the spouses club in Charleston hindered my recovery from diverticulitis. (Granted, the lupus probably factored in there heavily, had I known that it was the underlying problem.) Today was the transfer of leadership, and all of the other board members were recognized and gathering for photos. The new president mentioned to the club that the PR position was still unclaimed, and the woman who was vacating it came to discuss it with me after the meeting. She swears it really isn't that much work. Maybe half an hour a week to put together the newsletter, a little bit of website updating, and then social media updates as needed. She says it really isn't more than one day a week of work. I caved in and said I would do it, if she would provide me some training wheels at first. Since I dragged my feet on it, I have to wait for the rest of the board to approve me for the job. I don't know that any one of them would refuse, but I make no assumptions.

Driving home today, I marveled at how far I've come in two years. When we arrived in Colorado exactly two years ago, I knew that I wanted to move to this town, and I only knew one person from my old life who lived here (and at the time, I didn't quite realize he was here--I don't see him very often anyway). We picked a house, and hoped that the neighborhood was good. (It is, mostly, but it gets dodgy a few blocks in any direction.) I chose the real estate school in Fort Collins because it seemed more direct to drive north than to drive down into Denver to other schools. I didn't really want to go down through Aurora or Arvada traffic, which were the other two options I saw. I lucked out and ended up working for the instructor, and feeling like his brokerage was absolutely the right fit for me. But finding leads was still a problem. I didn't know very many people in town, after six months at that point. I knew my next door neighbor, and that was about it. The boss said farm your friends and contacts for your first deals. I didn't know anyone here, and I certainly didn't know anyone who was looking for a house. Boss also said talk to professionals in related fields, like title agents and mortgage brokers. So when I signed up for a bank account to use for my business, at the bank a few blocks from here, they said they would have the mortgage broker from the main office on the other side of town call me. We met at a coffee shop downtown, and in a flash, my life changed. She took me to Rotary the next week, and within seconds of witnessing the group stand and recite the Four Way Test, I knew I had found my people. If I keep down this path, not only am I going to be in tight with my eight or ten good friends in the group, but everyone will know my name. I am on track to know all the movers and shakers in this town, and to be in a position for them to view me positively, as someone with volunteering in her soul.

I don't know any other way to behave in a group like this except to volunteer often and throw my all into it. I share my time, experience, talents, and passion liberally in these situations. I am uncomfortable being recognized for it, so I gladly do it behind the scenes, not out front. I feel like a board position will be more visible than I wanted to be, and specifically being the Public Relations person will be painfully visible. But if they need me, I can't say no. I just can't. Thus I find myself waiting to hear whether I'm approved. So much for taking the summer off.

Up a Hill

Inspirational song: Climb Every Mountain (Sound of Music)

There is an excellent chance  that I will not be home to post my blog at its regular time, and it's also possible that neither my phone nor my person will have any energy left by then anyway. It's worth it to me to go ahead and do it now, so I can crawl straight into bed when this impromptu adventure is over.

I didn't plan on coming up to the claim today. My intention was to sleep off all the fatigue that had built up over the last month. I had even begun to do just that, crashing for a hard nap at 930, after being awake less than 2 hours. (I finished the last drop of my coffee and crawled in bed, where I was quickly surrounded by all four feline satellites.) Mr S-P woke me at 1030 and asked whether I wanted to come with him after all, and at first I said no. While he loaded the car, I scrolled through Twitter long enough to wake, and decided maybe I wanted to climb a mountain after all. I don't get invited up here very often, mostly because for the first year I wasn't capable of hiking here. Now that I'm significantly healthier, I'm training myself to say yes whenever I am invited to do so. I'm glad I saw the light today.

We bought some lumber on the way here, pieces that will form a more sturdy frame for the solar panels. There still is no road all the way to his property, nor will there be anytime soon. We had to haul everything in. He filled a wheelbarrow, and I tried bringing up just one 2x4 on my shoulders. I had to abandon it halfway up, and when he made a second trip with a flat cart, he retrieved it. I stayed at the top and burned through a little of the slash pile. (Yes, we checked to see whether there was a burn ban first.) I'm not a boy scout-level fire starter, but I impressed myself. One match, caught instantly, and burned steadily for 2 hours. I'm starting to really dig this mountain living stuff.

Kept It 100

Inspirational song: Sunday (Sunday in the Park with George)

The big day is now over. After months of planning meetings, weeks of design (for my contribution), days of frantic sign art, hours of last-minute shopping for every eventuality I could think of while in mega-stores, staying up way late and getting up offensively early, today was go time. We had to be at the park at 8 to set up, and I made myself do it, even after staying up until nearly 2 to finish blogging before I conked out last night. Mr S-P wasn't even up yet when I left the house. I didn't even bother trying to reheat yesterday's coffee, if there was any left. I intended to come back and change shoes (out of my crappy pottery shoes that were falling apart), grab any missing items, and maybe put on makeup, once the event was set up. I should have known better. We hit the ground running and didn't stop until we were packed up and driving home this afternoon. Sure, we had time to chill at our various stations as the day progressed. But it was every bit as exhausting for me as I expected. At least there was a thick cloud layer until the very moment we started loading things in our cars.

We didn't get quite the turnout from the public that we had hoped for. There was quite a bit of competition, especially from a big Latino festival downtown and the big annual event at the church where our Rotary normally meets. Our beer and wine sales didn't cover our event costs. We did raise thousands of dollars for the foundation, which was our primary goal. It is true that sometimes you have to spend money to make money, so I am at peace with that.

I was pleased overall on how the signs came out. I spent hours this morning whipping out new ones on the fly. I think I would have just died had I not switched out to making them with big fat Sharpies. They're all in my car now. Not sure what we'll do with them. Probably display them at our next meeting, to give a final thanks to our sponsors. They came through for us.

Here's Your...

Inspirational song: Signs (Five Man Electrical Band)

A haiku, about my "feelings" --

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow
Refrigerator

I have not had more than a few hours of sleep a night for more than a week. I've been pushing myself super hard physically, way more than a woman with my health concerns has any business doing. It's nearly 01:30 as I begin to write, and I've just set my alarm for 06:00, so that I can get up and do it again. I plan on being awake only long enough to finish and share my blog post on Facebook, and then swallow the rest of my night time pills.

My big accomplishments for the day: I completed the offer on the latest house and submitted it to the listing agent. I had a lovely conversation with her by phone, and agreed to the amazingly reasonable counter proposal (a date change and an exclusion clarification). And as soon as my buyers read the email I sent and sign the counter (I think they went to bed early), we will be under contract. Huzzah!

Also, I made a late day trip to Costco, and once they closed for the night and made us leave, we went to Wal-Mart. Between the two, I spent a couple hundred dollars and got almost everything that was on my list to supply for the picnic. All except jumbo sized zippy bags. (Oops.)

I spent every other minute of the day working on the signs that were supposed to be done Thursday and Friday, before I ended up driving all over Loveland and Jamestown, looking for houses. I still have about five or six crucial ones that must be done, hence the early alarm I just set. I am so glad I switched to drawing them out in Sharpie. Painting was imprecise and taking far too long. I have cleaner lines and more work complete with the markers. Fewer truly dumb mistakes too. (Here's my sign.)

The Chicken House

Inspirational song: The Bottom Line (Big Audio Dynamite)

I was supposed to have all day to myself. For that matter, when I planned my schedule for this week, I was supposed to have all of yesterday as well. I thought there would be three, maybe four full days available to me to finish making all of my signs for the Rotary event on Sunday. Now I'm starting to freak out. I have several of them made, but I'm missing a whole list of them that are held in someone else's email chain who knows how many I'm supposed to whip through tomorrow. And not only did I lose most of Thursday and today, but now I'm not even going to have Saturday morning free.

But in exchange, everything I'm doing instead can't be considered "free" in any sense. I have been working. After a long year where I could barely drum up enough business to keep my skills sharp, I'm working like crazy now. I love doing it, even when it gives me panic days to catch up on my volunteer obligations.

Same couple who found the mushroom house yesterday went with me to another four places. We started out way west of town, in a couple newer housing developments that I absolutely loved. They did too, although the houses each had some flaws. For house number three, it was so new that my GPS (circa 2013, same year as the house) didn't have it on a map. We had to fake it to get there, but we did it with only a little backtracking. We ended up staying there much longer than any other house thus far. We had to hurry to get in right before our hour was up on the last one, and it was all we could do to be in there just a few minutes. (Hint to home sellers, make sure your house doesn't stink before putting it on the market. Really, really do this.)

We went to a late lunch, and talked over what we had seen. And then I called the listing service for house number three, and set up another showing so that we could go right back. It really was a spectacular place. It might have helped me think so, in that all the animals were home and they were really friendly. There was a chubby dog who hopped up and down when we came back the second time, especially when I told her that she was just so sweet we had to come back and visit her again. (I think she believed that was the whole reason.) There was also a fluffy tabby cat who looked like a Maine Coon, who was chill enough to let me pet her belly. Out back, there were three chickens who let the buyer walk around and through their little chicken gang, and who watched me intently while we looked around the walk-out basement.

I have started preparing an offer for this house, and by the time I had it about 90% done, I was used up. It's sitting in my draft file on the MLS site, and sometime after I sleep, wake, and down a *big* cup of coffee in the morning, I will send it to the buyers to review. The last few days (weeks) have worn me down enough that I'm not confident I haven't made some significant errors, especially of the mathematic kind. I can't make any mistakes at this point that would cost me money to repair, or worse, cost me my reputation. When it all comes down to it, that is worth everything.

A Home To Remember

Inspirational song: White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)

Surely other realtors collect houses on their Top Ten Weird Places list, right? I'm not the only one making a point of memorializing for posterity the ones that leave me and my buyers tilting our heads sideways in that canine gesture of confusion? We went into another four houses today. Number one was absolutely beautiful, but had such a tiny yard that it is probably not happening for these guys. Numbers two and three had potential, but were laid out so poorly that we were barely inside of them for five minutes. The last house was obviously remodeled extensively, a flip with a big budget, and my buyers were really digging it. They were, that is, until one came up from the lower family room of the split level and said, "There are mushrooms in the basement." Huh? Mushrooms? They meant that absolutely seriously. The brand new carpet was soaked across a band of six or eight inches, spanning the width of the north wall, and no lie, there were toadstools growing on the baseboards. This wall was underneath the kitchen on the inside, and the exterior wall ran under the deck where the drainage was sloped the wrong way and the gutter downspout ran right over the poorly arranged rock bed. I'm not sure what caused the problem, but it was a big enough issue that as soon as I got back home, I called the listing agent (who was also the house flipper) and told him about it. His voice started out chipper enough when he returned my call, and as I described the issue, I could hear him crumbling in on himself. Sorry, dude. Water happens. It's a shame. That house might have been "the one" for this couple.

I really loved the yard on the third house. It was a quarter of an acre, the same size as my Original Park, but laid out in a rectangle rather than a wedge, so it didn't feel quite as enormous as my last house. There were a ton of flowering shrubs and mature trees, bordering on the overgrown, but I liked it anyway. It made me want to get out there and prune a few things back (although the wonderfully overcast day that fell as a storm blew over might have been part of why I had such a strong desire to work outside). I even loved the chicken coop that the sellers had out back, although my buyers explained that they were absolutely not into the idea of raising chickens.

I don't think any of the houses we saw today are going to be 100% right for this couple. I had to expand my parameters a little to come up with four more houses for tomorrow. The good news is that they are serious, and their timetable doesn't allow for any foot-dragging. Within a week we ought to be under contract, God willing and the creeks don't rise.