Living on the Edge

I Love the Redwoods!

Redwood trees are amazing. If you have never seen one up close, you won't know the grandness of them. They are ancient...some of them were alive at the time of Christ's birth. They are the stallwart sentinels watching and waiting silently. Doing their job without a word or a grumble. They don't care about the stock market, the price of gas or the debate over global warming. They've been there to see it all and continue on.... of course, you won't find me getting this close of a view. Steve takes it over the top...literally!

View from the Treetops

Apartment Life Etiquette

Apartment living just plain sucks.  Sorry, there is no other way to sum it up.  This is a family blog...so I have to try and keep it clean!  This afternoon I came home.  The neighbor's 400 kids were playing right outside our bedroom window...IN OUR WINDOW WELL!!  Just on the other side of that glass was my husband, trying valiantly to sleep after working a graveyard shift (then coming home to care for our sick daughter). 

Our daughter, who has been home sick all week was trying to sleep as well.  They are running around yelling and hollering.  They pile up rocks on the walkways, leave shoes and socks on the lawn, and food wrappers in the bushes.  

Then there is the neighbor above us.  They watch their granddaughter (about 2 1/2) who does not sit the whole time she is there.  She runs, jumps, hops, rolls, and thumps across the floor!  In addition they have a daughter who is about 10.  She rides her scooter in the house (they deny that one--but that's the only thing that could make that noise) and also runs, jumps, hops and moves constantly through the apartment. 
Dad is very heavy footed and mom has a cleaning obsession--we hear her vacuuming at all hours of the day and night.

Yes, I've talked to parents.  I get a cold stare, a dumbfounded look, denials and "that's just what apartment life is" kind of answers.  I am thankful that we live on the bottom floor.  I would hate to make so much noise as to make someone else's life difficult.  I googled (I love doing that!) apartment life etiquette and got this link.  I found a couple other links, but this one was the most comprehensive.  I feel better after reading it because I thought I was being too picky...but apparently the common sense etiquette we live by as residents...is what should be expected of everyone!  Ha! so there!

Here is what I would love to post for my neighbors: 

Dear neighbors....clean up after your pets.  Try a shorter leash and have your dog stop barking hysterically at my dogs. (which by the way could swallow your dogs whole!) 

Clean up after your kids too and teach them to play politely inside and outside of your apartment!  And if you choose to live in an apartment with 4 or more kids...keep in mind that your acceptable noise level is not the same in a house as it is in an apartment!

Please respect that your floor is someone else's ceiling!  You wouldn't like it if I walked through my apartment all day thumping on the ceiling with a mop head...so stop thudding through yours! 

Parking...if you have more than two cars...park in the guest parking!  Unless your 12 year old has a driver's license, you don't need 3 of the parking spots in front of our building...we need to be able to park close enough to carry our groceries in without doing a half marathon!  And guest parking is called that so you know to have them park there!

Bags of trash belong in the dumpster. I would be happy to give you directions to the closest dump for all the uncrushed boxes and old furniture that you discard.  If you would like to give me your apartment number, I would be happy to leave my bag of trash by your door for you to hold on to until the dumpster is emptied on Friday.

So there!  How I would love to post this!  Maybe I should make a pitcher of margaritas this weekend and see what happens....

I apologize for my crankiness...Ok, it's Wednesday and it's been a long week.  No work on the house in a week...thoughts of moving have overtaken us.  A sick kid, an overtired husband and too many teacher's meetings the last couple weeks!  So thanks for letting me vent!  Now I have to go walk my dogs...again...since we don't have a back yard presently!

Quote to End the Week...

“Believe in your dreams and they may come true; believe in yourself and they will come true.”

—Author Unknown

Deputies believe 'insane' killer headed for parents' house | Top Stories | KREM.com | News for Spokane, Washington

via www.krem.com

Read this story...it's amazing and terribly scary! Why would a 'criminally insane' patient be given a day trip to the Spokane County Fair? I know they have discount days for seniors, kids, military, families...but did I miss the inmate discount day? I want that one on the posted schedule so I can avoid the fair that day!

Scary thing about today...today was one of the big school field trip day!

Update:  It's after 11 p.m. tonight and they still haven't found him!  Big points to the Sheriff for taking a stand and stating on camera, that this should never have happened. 

Shame on their administrator who did the political double talk on the 11:00 news.  And double shame on the people at the facility that gave this fellow the field trip. Too many liberals in the kitchen, do ya think?  Can you imagine the meeting where they decided who got to go on the trip? 

"Well John, who should make our list today?  Bob, lets send this criminally insane patient, after all, he hasn't decapitated anyone in quite sometime."

How do we keep our families safe anymore?

Time for a House Update

They say for every year a dog lives, it equals 7 people years.  I think it is like that when building a house.  Every day seems like a month, or two, or three...It seems that we have been in this darn apartment for a year already.  I know it hasn't even been three months yet, but boy it sure feels longer. 

We've had lots of little delays in getting things started, but now it seems as though we may actually be having forward motion.  Last week at this time, they poured our foundation for the house and the shop.

This is the shop foundation.  It's a bit higher to level it out equal with the house elevation.  It doesn't look quite so high now as you'll see.  Virgil and Rex, the backhoe boys filled in with that big pile of dirt that you can see behind the shop.

Here is the house.  No basement...yeah!  One of the things that you will learn, if you build a house...during some stages of building, the house looks smaller than you think it's going to big. While during other stages it looks bigger.  Right now is the smaller part.

Today DD and the girls went by the property.  The cement was poured for the garage and the shop floors. 

 

Here's the new garage floor. See, it's at the small looking stage again.  But it's at least at the closer to finished looking stage :-)  CC is checking to see if she can write some graffiti...darn too late...it's hard!

Shop floor.  Now this actually looks bigger now that the cement is poured!  Look how the huge walls of the foundation seem to have disappeared.  Good job Virgil and Rex!

Well, tomorrow comes the next stage...FRAMING!  Now we should see something exciting!

18 Kids & Counting! | The Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar Family | Official Website

via www.duggarfamily.com

Oh goodness...she is going to have baby #19! I just can't even imagine what her body must be going through! If they can love them all and take care of their children's needs...then God bless them. I see way too many families with a lot fewer children that ignore them, abuse them, and just generally shouldn't have them!

Counting Up Now!

I am counting down the days till our house is done.  It's going to be a bit of a count, I admit.  They just poured the foundation today after all.  But we've already been counting down or rather counting up to this point!

Why were we counting up?  Our house sold in Washington. Escrow was slated to close on June 30th.  Everyone signed off on it, we had a buyer, they were eager to move in, we were eager to move out and pass the house along to another family. Things went smoothly as long as you don't count in realtors and FHA lenders.

So, we had a contract for close of escrow on June 30th, but apparently with the current state of the economy, government lenders only take this date as a mere suggestion!  They dragged their heals, sent it to underwriters, they required a second appraisal, then on to Quality Control, then back to underwriters and then on to cutting that check for us.  All in all it was 22 days past our closing date.

We are happy that our prayers were finally answered and the right family came along (our realtor told us that it would take the "right" person to buy our house--not sure if that was a comment on our house or on his skill as a realtor...LOL!)  So, now we were three weeks past where we had wanted to be....submitting our building permit.

So here comes the next speed bump...Kootenai County.  It took them 4 weeks to approve our building permit.  No, we aren't building the Taj Mahal...just a modest sized home with TWO bathrooms.  I emphasize this because the 1,000 square foot apartment we've called home all summer has only ONE bathroom and coming from a house with three...well, I need not explain the problems involved with that.

Apparently Kootenai has only two people who do the permits and one goes on vacation during the summer...go figure!  So 4 weeks later we have our permit. YEAH!  The day we received our permit is the day we were counting up to...now that it's here and the foundation is being poured, we are starting our countdown. 

In a way, it's probably still a count up...but that seems endless.  I like the idea and the sound of counting down to something. 

Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed that our completion date is before we have to be out of our 6 month lease at our apartment!

Here's the sunset last night from our future home:

 

What do you think...should this be our postcard for our change of address?

(usually) Lost in Ecuador

via baconbeam.wordpress.com

Here is a delightful blog written by a local Newman Lake youth just beginning her year on exchange in Ecuador. She is articulate and knows how to write with flavor and voice. Bookmark this one and follow her adventures eating cat, battling high heels and struggling with a new language.

www.baconbeam.wordpress.com

FREE Chocolate Friday! : Fistful of Coupons

via www.fistfulofcoupons.com

Every Friday Morning through September 25th, Mars will be giving away a FREE chocolate coupon (up to $1.00 value) to the first 250,000 who submit their information online at www.RealChocolate.com. You can sign up every week, for up to 4 weeks and receive 4 coupons per household!

Yum FREE candy!

Quote for this Week:

"The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

--Mitch Albom, author, screenwriter, musician