My Novels

Monday, April 05, 2004

Yippee! Looks like we've rented our house in town. And about time too, since we are both exhausted from taking care of TWO houses -- neither of them youngsters! At any rate, Saturday morning a couple came to see the house; the guy is a marine recruiter (don't lecture me about this, even though I am against the Iraqi 'occupation'); the woman is Japanese, and works with a local Japanese company as a translator. Ahem, this means THEY CAN AFFORD THE RENT WE ARE ASKING!

Guess what? It gets better: they have NO children, and both are in their mid-30s. Didn't look like they want any either, hurrah! Now the only negative: they have two indoor dogs. BUT, these are very small dogs, and they rescued them both from a shelter -- which means they are animal lovers. I pointed out to them the place where I feed stray cats, and the woman seemed willing to keep up the practice. The dogs will stay indoors primarily (probably sometimes on the sunporch where I kept my cats), and will only be outdoors or in the back yard if on a leash. The city has a strict leash law, and in the lease, they must agree to abide by all city ordinances.

I suppose having two small dogs in the house is preferrable over kids. And they paid a large deposit, so if there's damage we can keep that for repairs. However, they seem to be VERY responsible pet owners, and that DOES make a difference. DH was really impressed by them, and the marine is a district recruiter over several cities, so he travels and his wife stays some by herself. I always felt very safe living there, and I think she will too.

They were just crazy about the house, the yard and especially the sunporch for pets. At present, they are looking over the lease, and if agreeable, they will move as soon as possible. They've been here for 3 years, and the marine said he is sure he'll be here at least one more year. IF they have to move then, I hope we can then rent this quickly again.

My Friday work session had the inside of the house spic-and-span; and I painted bathroom shelves and the windowframes on the pet sunporch. Saturday afternoon we painted the large walk-in closet, the foundation of the house, and worked again in that messy garage. Sunday we finished up, just about; I ended up by moping the floors. And we took down the "For Rent" sign.

Oh, Sunday morning I decided I wanted to make the dining room here at the old house into a small den where we can watch TV. The traffic noise is bothersome in the living room, where we had the TV; I just can't seem to get used to that traffic, though at times there is none at all. Anyhow, we rearranged furniture, took the bar out of the kitchen, and put the small fold-down leaf table there for meals. Then we put some of the living room set (two big chairs) in the small den, along with the entertainment center; it's cozy, but just fine. And I DO like this better -- it was our original plan, but we wanted to try the living room, which by the way, still has the sofa and plenty of furniture...but we'll use it more as a 'formal living room' for company.

I also went on a short bike ride, but I'd already spent the morning cleaning, etc. here and was too tired to ride as long as usual. It is a beautiful day, in the 60s; we've had nights in the 30s lately. Not complaining though, for soon it'll be HOT here in Dixie.

Hopefully if we can get those renters in the house, that will not be much work in the future and we can concentrate on this old house. We have loads yet to do, but wanted to get the other house rented before we tackled much more. It'll sure be a relief to get some income coming in from that, as well as not having to pay two sets of utility bills every month!

My internet service here has been sooooo slow, I was thinking I'd have to get another provider. But today I unplugged ALL the other phones in the house (which the ISP recommends) and it sure is faster now. Perhaps there's some sort of interference in the line with the other phones? Who knows!?

Must go now, but I am really glad that things seem to be working out according to our plans. We had planned to get moved here, and the house in town rented in six months...and April 15th will be just about six months since we bought this old house. So we're ahead of schedule! :-)

And last but not least, I found a new almost unlimited online FREE photo storage site. I'm adding the newest updates of the old house HERE. There's also a permanent link on the sidebar entitled, "Farmhouse Country Life." ENJOY, because there's more to come now that I've found free storage, with more space!

No comments: