Hitting on all 8 cylinders

 That's what my doc said about my current health status.

As a result, I now only have to get my blood drawn, and see him, every 3 months.  Still have to go every month for my shot, and every other visit includes a port flush, but those visits are USUALLY quick and easy.

The port flush this time was NOT quick and easy.  

There was a new nurse.  Why do new nurses ALWAYS have trouble with my stupid port??  

This time was so bad, the other nurse had to come and move the needle around to find the right spot on the port.  I had an anxiety attack. It was awful.

The thing is, I even have a little depression/scar in my skin over the access point where it's obvious that it's been poked over and over for 6 years.  

When I looked at it in the mirror when I got home, and her needle was at least a 1/4 inch off of that mark... HOW DID SHE NOT SEE IT??  She sprayed the numbing spray over the right spot, and then poked way off over there!

Anyway.... 

The condo was shown twice (that I know of), and the first offer was an insulting lowball.  Dave countered without asking me what to say, and fortunately, there was no response to the counter.

Then, someone came in at asking price, so I accepted.  Contract is pending.  Closing set for 4/29/21.

When Dave called my tenant to notify him that he has until the 28th of April (my birthday), he said he's planning to be out on the 15th.  He also didn't send me my April rent, which is odd, since none of us had any way of knowing if the property would sell.  

He DID pay his first and last month's rent when he moved in ten years ago, so I will pay him back his security deposit, and 2 weeks of his last month's rent.

We got a bit more outside work done yesterday.  Dave mowed the front yard, and I cleaned out the herb garden, and added a bag of fresh soil.  We got a tool that is like a tiller on a handle, and I mixed the new soil in, along with some of the leaves from last year that I hadn't removed.

I also added an oregano plant to replace the one that froze to death, and put in some sunflower seeds along the fence, some marigold seeds at the front edge, and a little cluster of cosmos seeds in a space in the middle.

Also got some basil plants to put in pots.

There are already tiny lettuce plants growing in my stackable pots!  Yay!

I'd really like to see Dave get out and do some of the cutting he needs to do in back. We have scrubby areas he has said he would clean up since last spring, and he has not lifted a finger.  Soon it will be too late. Again.

Dave's going to Costco this morning, and we are meeting a friend at an outdoor biergarten for lunch today.  Other than that, Dave will have no excuses, unless he engineers one, HAHA!

I'm happy to see the redbuds are blooming here.  I was worried that the harsh cold in February might have hurt them.

We also have a little bit of new growth on our photinia bush (all of its evergreen leaves turned leather-brown and fell off).

I am off to get my day started.  Have a good week!

Pots full of hope

 I know it's early, but I had to.

To celebrate vernal equinox, I planted seeds in pots. Nasturtium, passion flower (in big boxes with trellises to climb... where I put the cucumber vines last year), Heart's Ease... and the stackable pots have marigolds, lettuces, and cilantro.

It was fun to play in the dirt, and if it's really too early, the pots can be moved into the shed in case of frost.

I also scattered a bag of seed into my wildflower patch.  We'll see if any of it takes.  In nature those seeds would have spread themselves last fall and this spring, so there's a chance.

I'm waiting on the barrel containers, and the new cloth buckets I have.  I will put purchased plants in those, probably about a month from now.  Depends on the weather.

Today, we are attending to a going-away picnic (socially distanced) for our friends who usually take care of the house and the cats when we travel.

They also made us food when I was first in chemo, and while I was recovering from surgery.

They're young, and they hate it here (understandable), and they have the freedom to just up and move away.  She got a job transfer, and he works from home, so it worked out well for them.

Unfortunately, we have very few friends here, and losing them is sad for us.  

Not that we've been together for over a year now...but still...

The extended isolation is one of the reasons they are leaving now.  They feel it will be easier to go when they haven't been actively hanging out with anyone for all this COVID time.

I suppose they have a point, but we will miss them even more than we do already, knowing that they are gone.

Thankfully, we have another friend who is willing to help us out when we travel. She wasn't able to do so for a few years, but she's seen a change in her circumstances, and is willing again.

In other news, we got our tax refunds (federal and state) this past week, and Dave went out and got our generator.

You may recall that we had hoped to do a whole house, hard wired one that's attached to the natural gas supply to the house, but that kind of project runs between $10K and $12K on average.

Given the fact that Dave wants to replace the heat/ac for the house with this year's tax refund, AND $10K is WAAAAY out of range to begin with, we had to scratch that item off as permanently unobtainable.

The gasoline powered, portable generator that he got is plenty.  We will have our service guy add putting a specialized outlet on the back of the house to what he has to do to change out the heat/ac.

It will keep us with enough power to run the fridge, and to be able to work from home.

Anyway, Dave thinks this old heat/ac unit is on its last legs (it had a really expensive repair this past fall), and he wants to go with a more efficient, and up to date, heat pump.  The crew will also fix the shoddy duct work that has always been a problem in this house since we bought it.

If I sell my condo, this will be the last big tax refund we will ever see, so we have to make the most of it.

Off to get my day going. I have lab work and see my doc next week. 

Enjoy your first week of "official" spring! 

Panic

 The condo sale is not yet underway.  

Apparently, there are rules from the association that are causing problems, and Dave did not want to face them, or tell me, so everything is just... on hold... until he talks to the realtor.

He finally replied to her yesterday, at my insistence, but, of course, it was Saturday, so she was very busy. 

Hopefully, they will talk today.

One rule that is causing me extreme confusion: selling or not, is that renters are no longer allowed, and that I can't renew the lease ever again.

I feel this is highly unlikely, and that this rule is being misinterpreted.

I can't see that it would be a NEW rule since October, when I renewed my lease the last time, AND that I would not have been notified of a change like this. 

I seem to remember, from a few years ago, that this rule was added, but current tenants were allowed to stay, and renew, until they chose to move out. At that point, new tenants are not allowed.

The other issue: there's something about the tenant has to move out if the condo is placed on the market??

 WHAT?????  I can't afford this. Period.  AND, I prefer not to break my lease, and put my elderly tenant out of his home.

I also think this is being misinterpreted, because why would the association demand something like that?

Dave needs to step up and do what he said he was going to do, or the whole thing is off the table.

In other news, we finally got some rain last night. It was the first moisture since the snow in February, and much needed.

My daffodils are blooming nicely, even with their brown leaves, but my peonies are not coming up.  The cold might have killed them.  We'll see.

The little shrubs that were next to our shed, however, are clearly dead, and need to be removed. Dammit.

Aside from the anxiety attacks of the past couple of days (from finding out about the condo sale issues), I'm doing pretty well.  I am having SO MUCH LESS pain, over all, that I sometimes forget how bad it was just a few weeks ago.

There are no plans on the agenda for today, so maybe we can get outside and walk somewhere.  

I could use the grounding of being out in nature. 

OH!! And Frank GOT IN MY LAP last night!  The only other time he has done this was after our car accident in October.  He must be able to sense my emotional upsets. 

Wishing you a good week, and please send your good wishes for this condo sale.  I really need it all to work out in my favor.  That would be a nice change.

Albatross!

 It's been another boring week (except for the big news below), but sometimes, boring is a good thing.

We were actually able to get out and take two walks a day most of last week, and it felt so good to get our heart rates up, and to get some decent exercise.

My bone density test results arrived on Friday.  I still have osteopenia, and have not progressed to osteoporosis.  This is good news.

We did some yard work yesterday, after running a bunch of errands.  Dave finally got the weed whacker out to cut back all of the brown, dead stuff in the flower bed, so the "curb appeal" of the house is vastly improved.  

Some of that damage was from the ice storm in October.

The iris are coming up, but the daffodils and tulips in the flower bed are in bad shape.  Fortunately, the peonies hadn't started to sprout yet when we had the latest weather catastrophe.

In the back, I cut the damaged (dead) branches off of the English ivy, and cut the freeze-burned rose canes back. There are tiny buds on the rose bush, though, so it isn't fully dead.

I pulled my dead herbs out of the herb garden (the oregano was black, and now it appears that the sage and rosemary are also dead), and removed my potted plants that froze to death inside the shed.

This included my 6 year old geranium.  It was sad, but needed to be done.

We will do more today.  The mint patch, and my wildflower patch, both need to have the dead stuff cut back, and Dave needs to figure out how to get all of the bent and broken bamboo out of the huge bamboo patch.

There is still a lot to do, and we may resort to paying our guy to come and deal with some of it.

In other news, BIG news, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Margaret, has started talking about how I really should sell my condo in Lombard.  Like, NOW.

It's a buyers' market right now, and my mortgage value has flipped right side up -- after being upside down for 12 years.

She and Dave are pressuring me.... saying, basically, that I don't need to wait for a sellers' market, I need to off load this albatross while it's more likely to be bought.

Anyway, Dave and Margaret are working with a realtor to get everything done. Margaret, by referring us to her realtor, and offering encouragement and advice (she just sold her home in Illinois, and moved to her home in Michigan, after becoming a widow), and Dave by basically managing the entire process for me because my anxiety about it is THROUGH THE ROOF.

If it doesn't sell, and my tenant moves out at the end of his lease, I am screwed.  Bankruptcy, here I come. 

There's also the fact that the condo was my back up plan.... There are some big reasons that I didn't entirely want to let it go, but it's come to the point that I should probably just do so.

I hated living there, after all.... do I really want to go back if something happens to leave me homeless here?

No.

SO, as of yesterday, Dave called my tenant and let him know, and I composed a formal letter to send to him.  

I've also emailed the condo management company.

The realtor has the tenant's phone number, and my brother in law will pass his set of keys to the realtor some time in the next couple of days.

Dave will send the condo association rules to the realtor, so she is aware of the myriad restrictions for listing and showing a property in the building, and off we go.

Some friends of ours here put their completely NOT updated 2 bedroom home on the market last week, and it sold in a day.

My condo isn't updated, and has a few little damaged areas....but I am hoping that this goes as smoothly as their sale did.

The thought is that any actual profit I get from the sale will go toward the mortgage on this house, to reduce the principle, and cut our payments.  
Dave wants to actually pay this house off with the money inherited from his dad, but it's sitting in a cd for a few more months.

We'll see.  We may need to contact a financial adviser about the best path to take.

So, on that note, now that typing this all out has created an anxiety attack for me, I will bid you good week!