Found it!

After dropping my Blackberry in the steamed milk for my morning coffee and killing the camera function, I have been without viewfinder and searching for my old digital camera. I finally found it where I had neatly packed it. It was put carefully back into it's original packaging and thrown in a bigger box containing my clock radio and the old Play Station. Since the Blackberry I no longer used any of those three items. Until my ATT contract is up for renewal it's back to the old school Fuji Fine Pix. Now, if I just had a new battery....

What the ???

Early this morning I watched a dust bunny roll across my floor. It presented itself about 5 feet in front of my chair. Curious, I got up to look at it. Upon further inspection, I realized it was a juvenile? scorpion, amber in color, almost opaque which helped it blend very well into my hardwood floors. I know this isn't Arizona, but it looked a lot like one of these....

http://phoenix.about.com/od/arizonapicturesandphotos/ig/Arizona-Bark-Scorpions/Scorpion-11.htm

I don't know where it came from but it sure gathered some dust and lint amd a few cat hairs along the way. It didn't appear to be feeling very well. Maybe it ate some of those termite carcasses the one-armed bug man chemically "treated" when I bought the place.

My street, from the end of it looking north. Looks like my house is the end of the road.

Maybe this is my mid-life crisis but I have decided to start training for a some 5k and maybe some day, 10k "fun" runs. There is one on August 1st that I don't think I'll be ready for (at least not to run) but in October the Susan G. Komen race for the cure comes to Reno. I will at least be ready to walk that one! It's hard to train consistently with my schedule especially recently where I have been working until very late at night or very early in the morning and then having to start all over again at 0730. It's taken me two days to recover from working through the weekend. Today I am off and feel pretty good but it's going to be very windy which makes my hike unpleasant and more difficult navigating the hills.This is the view looking east from atop a nearby street about two miles from the house. The near rooftops are in the Fieldcreek development. Sound familiar?

Thistles along the fence of the golf course. This is what they look like right before they shoot their alien pod people spores into your face.

First Bloom

I noticed the first rose bloom of the season yesterday on my way out the front door. While I think roses are very pretty and fragrant, I would never purchase rose bushes. I despise bees and wasps and yellow jackets a whole lot more than I like flowers so personally, I would never plant sweet things that attract them. Besides, roses are a pain in the a** to prune. I realize that these haven't had any attention for a year or so, but if I get impaled much more by those razor sharp thorns, I'm gonna rip 'em all out! In fact I'm gonna offer them to people at the hospital along with my three other major commodities of the property, rocks, weeds, and horse manure. You come dig it up, you can have it!

Right Under my Nose

Last night I fought off my desire to flop down on the new sofa and vegetate and instead managed to drag the hose around the yard and get some plants watered. I have given up on figuring out the fancy drip irrigation system that the previous owners installed. Guess I'm gonna have to call somebody in to look at it. With temps reaching the 90's this weekend I thought I'd better give whatever plants survived the long vacant summer last, a chance at survival this year.

As I was watering along the patio, I noticed a familiar fragrance that I love. As I looked/sniffed closer for the source of the perfume, I realized that what I had first thought as some sort of sage gone to weed in a valiant effort to survive, was in fact the plant that I was planning to go purchase and plant, already there in sextuplicate awaiting a long needed drink. Lavender. Even in it's gone-to-seed state the water rehydrated their fragrance, subtle yet unmistakable, lavender. Ahhhhh.

Oh boy, look what I bought.........an acre of weeds.

I am finally starting to settle in to the new house. While I am not just thrilled with the house itself or the set up of the property, I am thrilled with the location and as they say in real estate, "Location, location, location." I drove back to Lemmon Valley last night to clean out my thrift store donations which I had left in the old garage. I remembered my original intent to move to Golden Valley and after going back, I am happy that I never quite found the right place there. It's always amazing to me how the universe takes care of me if I just let it.

My biggest project is still my one acre of weeds. I made the horses corral larger and they helped clear a good portion, but it's pretty hard work moving 12 foot, six rail horse panels around by myself so the push mower, my back, and if I get really desperate, the neighbor's belching weed-eater, will have to take care of the rest.

So, now I concentrate on cleaning up this place and making it as cozy as I can. Today I have some furniture being delivered, this is the first new furniture I have ever bought, (R C Willey has some occasional good bargains in their clearance section) a leather sofa, an entertainment center and a hutch for upstairs linen storage. My old round screen T.V. is going to look p-r-e-t-t-y small dwarfed inside the middle of an entertainment center built for today's monster flat screens.

close to closing

Last Wednesday the pest control man, a one and a half armed local who grew up just down the road from my new house, and is totally into all bugs, not just termites, treated the house and soil for the beginnings of termite infestation. He dropped a few names of his friends in the horse and vet business, I may have picked up a cheaper hay source from him.
The water filtration installer was also there. I now have (or will have), a whole house reverse osmosis water filter. It even includes the two exterior water spigots. I guess that across the valley where the arsenic level is high, the untreated water out of the hose kills any vegetation that you might try to nurture.
As I mentioned before, I have been incredibly calm throughout this entire home purchasing process. That is my universal indicator that it is the right thing for me at this time. I get an occasional hint of trepidation, usually upon awakening over one little thing or another, like how will I get those boulders out of there, or realizing that I don't have any outbuildings,
or wondering if there's enough room to make a "drive" on the south side of the house between it and the neighbors fence, so I can make a horseshoe to pull my trailers around the back. These are all logistics.

I also have to decide where to install the above ground oil fuel tank for the furnace. I am going to have the below ground tank abandoned and filled with slurry so that it can no longer haunt me with the threat of possible, eventual underground leakage. Here's some information that I never knew, if the square footage of a house is too great, you will have to have not one, but two furnaces to heat the place.

The actual commitment to purchase the house is a little thrilling? scary? as the closing date nears, but I wouldn't say it was stressful. The biggest stress stems from all of the work of moving and coordinating minor repairs found at inspection and the arrangements for the addition of outbuildings. But hey! What else do I have to do with my summer?

Weigh-in

Bubba circa 2003.



Bubba circa last month!



Finally bought the diet kit-teh food, 10% less fat than regular. Started mixing with the old food so maybe they won't notice. The first time I weighed Izzy she was a mere 11 lbs. Last night she tipped the scales at 13 pounds! And in the blue corner, weighing in at an impressive 19.5 pounds, the one and only Bubba-licious.

Izzy,dreaming of being as big as her
brother one day.

What Bubba thinks of of diet food.

Uh oh, I think I just bought a house.

Well, it looks like this may be it. I may have actually bought a house. Compared to all of the stress and agitation that I went through last year when I was searching, and had in fact been in escrow at one point, this purchase has been, well, very mellow. Despite all of the obstacles, all of the little annoying repairs and revisions that must be made before taking possession, I've only been the slightest bit concerned. In fact, I can only remember three nights that I lost any sleep over the entire process.
My Realtor, an exclusive buyers agent, is totally committed to getting me the very best purchase price and not her very best commission. She is very Zen and I have been recommending her to everyone that even thinks about buying a house.We looked at a lot of frogs before we found the prince.

This house bragged that it blended in with the landscape. I guess they weren't lying because the window has been cut to incorporate the boulder. The "house" also bragged that it was "...unique horse property tucked away....," another truth. We almost couldn't find it because it sits off the pavement on a dirt trail and has trees growing literally right next to the outside walls.

This picture shows how most men remodel kitchens. It was really the only upgrade the old home had to offer but if you look closely, there is literally 8 square feet of space in the area behind the cook top.


Look, another charming kitchen. I couldn't believe how many otherwise decent sized houses had these narrow, crowded galley kitchens. I've discovered that part of the reason that I don't like to cook is because the kitchen becomes so cluttered and I become agitated because there is no space. I don't like clutter. This kitchen couldn't even accommodate the microwave. It has to have it's own piece of furniture.




I think I deleted some of the more
hideous pictures along the way,
but here are a couple of decorator ideas for cheery rooms. Note the use of dingy yellow on yellow on the right, and that fancy paint "technique" used on the bedroom on the left.





Next is a house that I almost made an offer on. The house itself was very clean and the exterior very low maintenance. While it wasn't fenced for horses, the property was laid out with lots of room in the back and even had a little shelter/tack room. I went back to look at it twice because something kept nagging at me about the design of the house. Here is the dining area just off the kitchen and breakfast bar.


This is the view from the dining area looking at the living room. The chair is against the wall. He took out the wood burner so he would have some place to put the entertainment center. The space just past the chair is the stairway up, and to the left, the hall to the master bedroom. Try reselling this house to a family!


And so, I finally came upon the house I'm buying. While it isn't perfect, and it isn't even really my style, it is in an exceptional area of town. There is a ton of work to do. The property itself where the shelter and horses will be is littered with boulders. Thankfully it seems that a lot of people like boulders and some have offered to come collect a truckload or two or three for their own landscaping adventures. Still, I'm not quite sure how I am going to unearth the ones that are only partially visible above ground.
The bank that owns the house (it is a foreclosure) has agreed to install a whole house reverse osmosis filtration system to counteract the (very low) arsenic level in my well water, and to pay for treating the small termite infestation. That only leaves me responsible for paying for chimney repairs, oil furnace flu repairs, installation of an above ground oil fuel tank and abandonment of the giant underground tank, a GFI circuit in the kitchen, some minor electrical in the dining room, replacement of the electrical wire from the well pump to the house, and the purchase and installation of a range and a dishwasher. I don't want a dishwasher but unbelievably, the bank won't finance me without one.There are a lot of little things that need to be done also, but they can wait.

Speaking of small galley kitchens, this one is mine and there is a definite remodel in it's future. It will get new paint in the very near future.


This is the dining room and yes, that is a fireplace in the dining room. These are both parts of the original 1964 home. The hardwood flooring is original in this half of the house. I will forgo the fireplace and have an approved wood burning or pellet stove installed before next winter.


I keep forgetting to take pictures of the other rooms when I am inside the house. There is a 1/2 bath just past the kitchen breakfast bar on the right and on the left is the laundry room. If you walk ahead past the bathroom you are in the first floor "bedroom". It is classified as a bedroom because they added a closet and a bathroom. It used to be ? . I'm guessing it was the original master bedroom (sans bathroom) and perhaps a very small second bedroom. It is such a bright room and it will become sort of a leisure room/activity room. That exercise equipment that I have put off buying until I find a house, is going there. There will be a TV set and the not-so-attractive sofa bed handed down to me from a friend, will live there. The spare table, I'm buying a new kitchen table, will fit well in there for doing jig saw puzzles, and the room may have it's own microwave, my soon to be spare, for pop corn or other snacks. If I had a family, I guess you would call that the family room?.

There is a second smaller bedroom downstairs which will become the office. I can finally buy a real computer workstation and bookshelves! It is a decent size room but it is smaller than all of the rest. With it's street level view perhaps I won't be so inclined to daydream while I should be working.

Here is the formal living room. I find it to be the least interesting room in the house for some reason. I think the hardwood floors, which I really love, give the room a not so cozy feeling but I'm sure that can be remedied with some area rugs and warm colors. I can finally buy "real" furniture! A comfy sofa, an overstuffed chair, a living room table (!), an entertainment center (!) an HD flat screen (!), the possibilities are limited only by my creativity and checkbook balance.

Upstairs are the two main bedrooms. The master has an eastern exposure, good for morning light, and it is huge. Using my feet to measure, I estimate it to be 500 square feet! There is a very elaborate bathroom and a walk in closet. When you open the door to the closet it activates the light switch built into the door jamb, much like a car door activates the dome light when you open it. Outside of the north-east corner is a small balcony good for sunning or watching the sunrise. (That's my friend Joe)


I don't have a picture of the second upstairs spare bedroom. It is also a very large bedroom, about 350 square feet according to my bipeds. It is currently known as the "Blue Room." It was the childrens room complete with crayon scribbles on the west wall. It has a ceiling fan with multiple light fixtures which are all a different color. Even the private bathroom has brightly colored tiles. It is the only other room in the house with carpet. All of the bathrooms and the laundry room have tile floors, and as you have seen, the rest is hardwood.

I have waited for so long to make myself comfortable in what I can finally call MY home. I can decorate my way, furnish with non hand-me-down (antiques accepted) or disposable or goodwill furniture. I can go antique or modern or rustic or anything I please. I can FINALLY unpack everything I have hauled around in boxes for the last 30 years. And the best part is.... no one can tell me I have to leave. I will finally be the one staying. This is the proverbial beginning of the rest of my life. It's like everything I have ever been waiting for is cumulating with this house. Who knows, I may even finally find some romance! (The structural inspector was kinda hot.....)

diet time

OMG! I am going to have to take the food away at night. Or I am going to have to take the food away while I'm at work. Or Something! Bubba has gone from 18 pounds of Bubba Love to 19.5 lbs of Bubba Love since the new kitty arrived. I thought that perhaps with some extra exercise thrown in, chasing the young Izzy kitty around the house, he would actually have lost some weight. But noooooo, seems the preferred exercise now is competitive eating!