A quiet week?

Monday I put my duplex in St. Louis under contract.  I’d bought a cheap duplex in a shady area of town about 3 years ago.  The numbers looked excellent.  And when it was rented, they were.  But the area of town had gone down from shady.   Some tenants moved out because of the gunfire.  Some had boyfriends who might have been the cause of the gunfire.  And tenants seemed to come and go like a revolving door.  The clincher was when my favorite property manager jumped ship and moved to Chicago.

So a few months ago, I decided to put it up for sale.  Got a low offer.  Countered, and settled for lower than I would have liked.  But it’s time to cut bait and move on. That will leave me with one duplex in St. Louis.  It’s in a better area and has tenants that seem to stay.  I’d be happy to sell it, too.  But I’m not sure the market is right.

I decided the pounds from the family reunion and Switzerland had to go, so I started on the lemonade cleanse.  It seems harder than the last time.

Tuesday I worked hard.  I sent out a proposal.  I called the local insurance company that keeps sending me the same annoying letter to ask if they’d like a better one. (No, it’s sent out by corporate.)  I might call them and ask if I can try to beat the control.  I sent two photos of when I was in Switzerland to The Barefoot Writer’s contest.  They were looking for photos that showed the writer’s life to use on their front page.  I got an email back saying they plan to use it for the front cover for the October edition. It’s an e-magazine, but it pays and I’m excited.  I followed up with a question about articles and was invited to submit an article as well.

Wednesday I spent a good part of the morning fielding calls.  Brother Crawford was cutting trees in a rural area and was killed by falling after a tree hit him. Tom has been tied up much of the week visiting family, making arrangements, and going to the funeral home with them.  The wife is a wonderful woman and strong.  She has her children with her now, but still, it’s got to be terribly hard.

I’m taking a course prior to going to the AWAI Boot Camp and it involves getting jobs from elance.com.  So Wednesday I set up my profile.  Now I need to bid on jobs.  The problem is the first few jobs pay squat because they don’t know you and what you can do.  After you get feedback you can move up the price range considerably—but still not what I typically charge.  However, the instructor says that it’s a good fill in when you have a gap in work.  And that after people like you, you don’t have to bid on the jobs, they come and ask you to work for them.

Thursday morning I babysat this cute 11 month old while his father helped Tom put up sheetrock for a neighbor. He was really good and took a nap part of the time.  I had heard about the tax lien sale on the radio.  I checked… and it was over.  But there were unsold properties.  So I went through them to see if anything sounded interesting.  I found 6 that held promise.

Friday morning I worked.  In the afternoon I went and played with clay.  Actually, we spent the afternoon glazing the pottery we’d created earlier and she had fired.  It was fun to try different glazes.  Of course they don’t look anything like what they’ll come out like.  Marian says it’s always a surprise.  She started to fire them as I was leaving.  They can be picked up on Sunday.

Saturday we decided it was time to uncover all the surfaces that had been smothered in paper and other stuff.  I finally found a home for memorabilia and papers from Kenya.  It must be a very secure home… I can’t remember where I put it!  I dropped maybe 5 pounds from the cleanse and decided I’d better start eating before we left on a trip.

We also went out to visit the houses that were on the tax lien sale.  Three of them were occupied by the owners.  Why would someone let a pricy house go for some thousands in taxes?  I don’t understand.  They have the right to repurchase for a while.  I need to carefully read the laws and understand the process.  I’m not enamored with tossing someone out from their home.  I suppose if it’s not me, it will be someone else. Likely we’ll look closer at one of the others… if we do anything at all.  But it was a fun trip and we found some new roads.

In the late afternoon, Tom went back and mudded the sheetrocked wall.  In the evening I prepped things for split pea soup and Tom made brownies for Sunday.

Sunday we had a meeting for seminary after church.  We had a pot luck—hence the soup and brownies.  Then we had a nice meeting to introduce the new seminary year.

Tom squeezed in a church audit and then headed off to a Stake Priesthood meeting in Branson.

So—a quiet week here.  Well.  That’s what I thought when I first sat down to write.  See, forgetfulness has its uses.