It's finally cold!

OK, so I know for most of you that the cold weather is just part of life...but this sucks. It has been in the 30's here at night. I know, I know, it's much colder everywhere else. You must understand though, cold weather down here is a gradual and brief experience. We all know it happens but are rarely prepared for it. Last week I had to put the AC on two nights in a row b/c it was still in the upper 70's. Oh well. At least with this cold weather it is now impossible to ignore the fact that Thanksgiving is just a week away and that X-mas is coming up soon. I'm still not sure what happened to the summer.

The good/bad/n ugly that comes along with the weather is that I am now able to see what trees need to come down on the back of my property. I may have mentioned that my house backs up onto what was decades ago a rail road. It was actually one of the first rail lines in the South that led to the development and later collapse of dozens of little towns throughout the South in the middle of nowhere. Once the trains were no more and the land just sat there for many years, the city/state finally dug up the old tracks and turned a few miles of this old rail line into a greenway. It is a very nice semi paved trail that leads through a few different neighborhoods. The dogs love running up and down as often as possible. Getting back to the point though, my fence runs along this path and the area b/w my fence and the path, or at least the part maintained by the city, was completely overgrown and filled with junk. Towards the end of the summer I started spraying some industrial strength round up in order to go in this winter and clear out the mess. Now that everything has died back I now have to start the dirty work. I'm not sure when exactly this will take place but I'm thinking sometime around x-mas break sounds good. I will then need to have cook out in order to burn all the dead wood. Sounds like a party!

OK enough rambling. See you all soon.

Constantly Playing Catch Up

Hey everyone,

Once again I just can't get used to paying attention to this thing. I love it in theory but can't seem to remember to keep up with it.
Life is going well down here. Work is busy and the house is coming along. Abby and I are constantly tweaking one thing or another.

As for everything else.. Mom and I had a good as could be expected trip out to Cali to see Molly. We for the most part left her alone as she was mainly interested in seeing us for meals and shopping. That was fine b/c it aloud Mom and I to drive up and down parts of the Pacific Coast Highway. This was really beautiful. We also spent a few hours walking around Disneyland one day. This was pretty much what we expected it to be. Totally worth the people watching.
Molly will not be coming to the Farm for Thanksgiving but she will come home for X-mas.

There is not really any interesting news from Charleston. Mom and Dad finally finished all the reconstruction on Mom's TV room / closet / bathroom. After more than six months of on again off again construction from a lousy handy man they finally found some guys that finished the job in a little over a month. The room's look great. She has a closet most of you woman would die for and a nice walk in shower. We all spent a good bit of Saturday moving furniture back into place thus making the house more presentable. They are now able to put guest up once again.

And as soon as I can find a nice small bed for my spare bedroom I will be ready for guest as well. If anyone has a daybed like frame they would like to get rid of let me know. Perhaps I could strap it to the top of my car over Thanksgiving and buy a new mattress at home.

OK, well I should get back to work. Hope all is well.
See you soon.

Life

Hello all! Sorry I have seriously been slacking off on the blog front. The end of the summer has been one thing after another and it just occurred to me last night that not only had I not been writing but I haven't been keep up on all of your lives.

It is so much fun to see all the pictures you are all taking of the now younger generation of the extended family. Hey, when did we all stop being the younger generation? I'm not sure if I am OK with that...

Quick Molly update; She is now working at a natural foods vegetable place. She was jobless for a while which caused some serious issues b/w her and my parents but I think all is well now. As we all know when she is good she is great and when she is bad she is awful. No middle ground with the Darling Angel. (What I have been calling her for years now) I don't think she gets that it is a joke but oh well.

As for the house, it is coming along. Each free weekend or evening I find myself trying to get one thing or another still put away. I still have one entire room filled with random junk that I am slowly going through. The weather is finally cooling down here so lately I have been trying to do a lot of yard work. Since I can remember my parents have always had yard people but some how I have found a love for working in the yard. I know many of you love living in the big cities but I honestly don't think I could live without a yard. This year I was not so good about vegetables as I normally am but I still managed to get a few tomatoes and as always some green peppers and chili peppers. About a year ago I purchase a lime, lemon and orange tree. The orange tree struggled for life but is doing well. No oranges yet but I expect some next year. I luckily had a few limes but only one measly lemon. The lime tree is a must down here in the summer time. Saves a lot of money while drinking those gin and tonics all season long.

OK well I've rambled on long enough. As always I will try to get better at this. Hope everyone is doing well. Have a good weekend.

The Past Several Weeks

OK, I know I haven't been keeping up with this so here goes.

First, the house is coming along quite well. It is not surprising but it seems to be an never ending process moving into the house and getting it all set up. I had my first successful party at the house back over my birthday weekend at the begining of August. It was a joint bday for Abigail and myself but it all went pretty well. The house is very comfortable, at least when the AC is working, and as soon as I convince myself to start throwing stuff away it will one day all be organized. There is of course constant tweaking or numerous aspects of the house. I find myself thinking all the time about how I could use the small space I have to my best advantage.
The next phase of the house will be to focuss my effort outside. I have been scattering my plants all around and getting them in the ground. Much of my yard is under water after a good rain so I am going to have to do some fill and then leveling in order to not be wet all the time. I am thinking of some type of cement pation with a tin roof canopy coming out from the house. Once that is all in place I will set up some sort of outdoor kitchen area along with the always present grill etc. I will also be adding an outdoor fireplace to try and make the patio a year round option. All of this will happen slowly over the next few months. I hope to have it all in place by next spring so I will be able to enjoy the fruits of all this damn labor.

Let's see, what else is going on... Molly is doing well. Mom and I are going out there over Halloween, so I am really excited about that. I think Molly is once again not really liking where she is but she is more than aware that she has to stay in some type of program. Luckily she really has not been resistant to much of that.

Much of August flew by. Between work and the house it seems like summer just started. This past weekend Abigail and I joined my parents up in the mountains for a few days. It was really nice and relaxing. While it is still hot and miserable in Charleston, it is in the low 70's up at the Mt. house and in the low 80's in Asheville. We were delighted with the weather. I can't wait to be able to open up my windows at home and turn off the A/C. Oh that reminds me.. I still need screens for my windows. Ah, yet another thing to add to my list.

Ok well back to work. I hope all is well out there with everyone. Talk to you soon.

Moving In

Well the floors are done and the fence is up. I didn't not end up being able to put in any of the flooring I wanted but oh well. I have some nice laminite on one side of the house and then some carpet in the bedrooms. With some wonderful help from Dad last night we were able to unload the PODS, portable on demand storage unit, and then fill up the house will all my stuff. I really have more stuff than anyone my age should have. I have not moved myself in yet b/c I still don't have a kitchen. I will work on that next week after the wedding. But past that it is all ready. Oh and I desperatley need blinds/curtains and then I'll be good to go. Ok well I know this is short but i've got to run. Will try and develop pictures for everyone to see this weekend.

Construction

Yesterday I started scrapping the ceilings in the house.

OUCH! I don't recomend this to anyone. It make look great later but my body is in more pain today than ever before. And lucky me still has one side of the house left... Oh boy!

Floor guys are coming today to tell me when they can start. Hopefully soon. I'm ready to move it. I'm totally over the construction/cleaning process and am ready for the moving in part.

Slowly Moving Forward

So I just about have all the tile up. I ripped out the kitchen the other night. The AC was finally installed but seems not to be working properly. I along with Kate's brother Nick, who is my go to guy for construction, have met with numerous people about flooring and we think we should be able to have someone in there on Monday. We hope!
I have the wonderful task of scrapping the ceiling in the next day or two. Let me just tell you how excited I am about that. Then over the weekend I will paint and then just be waiting for the floors. I have decided to do a little kitchen remodeling but that should not take long. Just getting a friend to move some water lines. There's almost 3ft of crawl space under the house so that should not be difficult.
I know I still haven't put up all the pictures. I'm working on it.

Realestate Flyer

So I have taken pictures but haven't gotten them up on the computer yet. Here is the online page for the house. I promise to get pics up soon.

A/C should be done today, so I will continue ripping stuff out tonight.

And So It Begins

First of all let me say that there is still no AC in this house. However I was not deterred b/c of that. On Friday after perhaps the quickest 20 minute closing I have ever seen, I was off to the house to start working.

I started by pulling up all the carpeting. Under two of the floors I found almost completely intact hardwood and the third room had newer plywood. There is still a good bit of tile that needs to come up but that is a more intense project that I am hoping to due tomorrow once I can get at least a window unit in the house. This morning a foundation guy started to repair 9 pillars under the house. This is to better stabilize the house and hopefully better level the floors. Once all of this has happened, I will be having someone put in new bamboo flooring.

If everything goes as planned I should be able to move in about two weeks. While I'm waiting I will be getting some help with fencing and start doing some other yard work.

I have taken pictures and will work and getting them posted asap.

CLOSING

Hey Everyone,

So I just found out that I am closing today at 2pm. I can't wait. This means I get to start doing all this work that I am been planning but unable to do. YEAH!

I will go this afternoon and walk through with a camera before I touch anything. I want the before and after pictures so everyone can realize really how much went into getting this to where it is going to be.

I will try to keep y'all updated as much as possible but if I get distracted for a couple of days don't be surpised.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Relaxing Weekend

OK, so this weekend my mom went up to the mt's with Seamus and Dad and I stayed home in Charleston. It was a wonderful relaxing weekend.
Dad worked most of the weekend and b/c it is already in the upper 90's here, I stayed inside with Tess and watched tv all weekend. It was great! I can't tell you what I watched b/c it was all random stuff but It was so nice just veging out.
I still have no updates on the house. Living with the rents is of course never as bad as it sounds. For those of you that have seen their house, they have a wonderful back deck that we have been slowly doing work to over the last couple of years and even though it is terribly hot right now. By the time we sit down for dinner around 8 it is really nice to sit outside. Luckily so b/c for about 1 month now my parents have been doing construction in my mom's sitting room/bath room. This means that my mothers entire wardrobe and all her random stuff is all over the house. It is not the ideal situation but once the room is finished it will really be nice.
Mom and Dad leave on Thursday to go see Molly in Cali. I spoke with her yesterday and she seemed to be doing well. She was out on the beach and enjoying some sun. This will be the first time any of us have seen her since we shipped her off over St. Patty's day. I know they are all very excited about the meeting and I will be sure to fill you all in once they return.

Ok time to go work. Hope you all have a good week.

Random Updates

OK, hey everyone. I know it's been a while. I tell myself I'm going to get better at this but oh well.

Let's see, what's happening. Well it looks like I might actually close on this house this week or next. After a nerve racking two weeks all the lawyers have finally settled on a price and the title should be cleared soon. So I went off today and met with one of many contractors that has been looking to get a piece of this pie. ie: the numerous aspects of getting this house ready...

The most important note that I should go ahead and tell everyone via blog instead of waiting for my parents to pass the info along, is that after 4 years of ups and downs Rachel and I have decided to go our seperate ways. Between me buying this house and her applying to Dental school, there were too many conversations that we kept not having and a few other issues. So we figured, or perhaps I figured that this was the best thing to do. We are of course still on speaking terms and are hoping to remain friends.

Ok well now that I've dropped that bomb shell.. I think that will be all for now...

Mt's with Mom

OK, I am now blogging about my trip to the Mt. house with mom b/c I forgot to fill out her guest book at the house.

For those of you that have already been to the house, you may have seen that my mom has a quest book that she wants people to fill out each time they/we go out. I have not been very good about doing so; so I figured I would mention my weekend on my blog.

We got up there Friday late afternoon and it was cold. Now I know cold for us does mean only in the upper 50's, but that was still a surprise to us. Saturday was filled with wandering around and adventuring... oops i'll finish later

Yet Another Delay

So I was all set to close this Friday when turns out there is an old tax lien on the house. Oh just to the tune of $60,000+, no big deal right.

Well since this house has been in foreclosure twice in the last few years the banks now have to go back and forth trying to figure out which one is going to eat it and clear the title. Now how two separate banks are able to foreclose on a house and miss the fact that there is a tax lien, I have no idea.

So here I am again just waiting. I had to call off my floor guy and my plumber and delay the dumpster being dropped off. So now I think I will escape to the mountains for the weekend and and try not to worry about all these problems.

On a side note, I think I am OK to say now that for those of you that don't know.... Molly is now in California working out many, hopefully all, of her "issues" . The darling angle has been quite a handful over the past few years, as I'm sure many of you have seen, and now she is out trying to fix her life. She is now is a great place. I flew with her out to Salt Lake City the weekend before St. Patricks day and dropped her off with an organization that helped her through the initial phase. To say the least, she hated Utah. So after almost 45 days there she was finally told to leave and seek a more intensive program. She is currently in Newport Beach, California where she is living with a bunch of girls and they are all getting through there "issues" together.

Now I hope I waited long enough and assume this will not be a surprise to most of you. With any luck Molly will get her head back on her shoulders and be that wonderful girl that we all love sometime soon. Keep her in your thoughts.

Homeowners Insurance

Ok so after an agrivating couple of weeks I have finally found someone to Insure my new home. I can't believe that no major companies are issuing new policies anywhere along the East coast. At least within a couple miles of the coast that is.

So now I am all set to close on May 16th. It is really annoying not being able to go over there and start the construction aspect that needs to be done before the move. I did however have my first injury of the new house. On Sunday Rachel and I went over to start spraying GALLONS of RoundUp. The back yard and side lot are covered in terrible looking brush and misc vines. As I was walking around the yard I stepped right on a nail that went through my sandle and into my foot. Not wanting to act too quickly, I waited until Monday morning to go into my Dr and get the shot and anitbiotics. Not too painful and certainly cheaper than going to the ER, which is what Rachel wanted me to do on Sunday. So if that ends up being the only major injury then i'm going to be just fine.

Hope all is well!

Cousin Sarah

Congrat's to Sarah for her spot in Self, I think, Rachel just read what she said was a great little bit that Sarah wrote about running. If I'm off on the specifics I'm sorry Sarah, just wanted to give you some props...

I hope all is well with everyone. I have spent the day cleaning up my current house in order to get it ready to move and also more importantly ready to rent.

Oh yea, almost forgot.. On Friday night Rachel, her dad and sister, and I went and stood 15ft in front of the stage at the Bruce Springstein concert in Atlanta. Even though I had seen him a number of times before this was the best concert yet. Their pianist just died and they did a nice tribute to him. For those of you that have i'm sure already forgotten, as I had, Atlanta was really beat up by that Tornado. It was amazing to see all these tall buildings with tape and missing glass all over the place. Quite a site....

Ok by for now.

House Update

I just left the soon to be new house this morning and after walking through with my contractor he said that everything looked just fine. Now obviously, as you will see once I take some before and after photos, there is a whole hell of a lot of elbow grease that will be needed before I move in.

There is a laundry list of things to do. First thing will be painting all the rooms and then ripping up the nasty carpet that is currently covering the living room and two bed rooms. There are hard wood floors underneath two of the rooms and the back bed room will probably just get new carpet for now until I can put in hardwood floors later. The kitchen/eating area is tile and even though there are a number of tiles missing I think I will replace with new tile and just have it be not matching. The whole idea here is to fix just what is needed to make it habitable and then do the other stuff later.

To give you a better idea of how much they trashed this house before the previous people were evicted my the sheriff's office, there are no appliance at all. They even stole the AC compressor from outside. They broke all the windows and started ripping up most of the carpet. The bank thankfully went in and really cleaned a lot of it up. They replaced all the windows and looks like they painted all the walls.

As I might have said the house sits on two lots that as of now are broken in half by a fence that only slighty rivals what you might see along the property at the farm. I plane on sealing in the missing boards and bringing the privacy fence all the way across the second lot and making it a huge side yard for entertaining and more importantly the dogs.

Ok well since I spent the first part of the morning crawling around the house I think I should go back to doing some work. I would hate for my parents to find out that I have been blogging on there time/dime...

I hope all are well!

New House

Ok so it's not 100% yet, but I have put in a contract on a house just a few blocks from where I live now and I just heard this afternoon that they have accepted my contract. The house is in a "up and coming" hood but since this is a bank repo, I am getting it at a steal. The house is brick, 2 bedroom, 2 bath, and 875 square feet. There is a lot of work that is going to be needed so if anyone feels like spending a couple of days in Charleston at the end of May to begining of June then come one down. I am very excited and I will take some pictures and let everyone know the status soon.

Congrat's to Bec and John!

Catch Up

Ok, so I know I have not been keeping everyone up to date and I'm sorry for that. I think the best place to begin is with St. Patrick's Day...

While I may get shot for writing about this, here goes. This year for St. Patrick's Day I was invited by Charles, Rachel's dad, to the 207th Hibernian Society St. Patrick's Dinner. A little back ground on this Society is important. The Hibernian Society is an Patrilinial organization for me that has been in existance for quite some time now. Hibernian Hall is located on Meeting St. in Charleston near the court house. Last I heard, the waiting list for non-members was 20+ years. There are of course "honorary" members, ie: Political officials that are very often fast tracked and made members on the spot. Important to note however that most of our elected officials have been members since birth due to the fact that there families have been living in the Charleston area since the begining of time.
Each year before this even happens, letters go out to all of the members asking them to send in the fee for the dinner, I'm sure somewhere b/w $100 - $300, and then also at this time they can request additional tickets if they come available. When my ticket came in I was ticket number 625. I am assuming that there were close to 1000, all white, men that came in dressed up in tuxedo's and started drinking around 6:30. In order to get a good seat you had to stand next to it or it would be taken. For the lucky board members and honorary guest reserved seats were set up at the head of the room. Our friend David Norton, whose house was used for Buba's and Mario's wedding is an honorary member. Finally we all were instructed that all the fancy people were starting to come in so everyone faced the enterance and as the bag pipes started playing all these men started marching in. It really was something to be taken quite seriously and I of course enjoyed laughing my ass off, silently!
Before we could sit down there were a number of toast that had to be recited. Side note, there were so many people and so little room to move around that all the alcohol was placed on the table in advance and we had to serve ourselves. After about what seemed like 20 cheers, we finally were able to sit and start eating. The food was nothing of note but why should it be, everyone was hammered anyways. Then finally after about an hour of eating round two of speaches started and ended with Bob Sheafer? spelling i know not.... He was actually quite funny. Just so you know, the speaker last year was Dick Cheney. The night ended shortly after and all these men filed out onto the streets. Now i'm sure most of them went out to the local pub's, but I went home and passed out. It was quite something!

Delayed Events From Our Trip

OK, so I know I said I would fill everyone in on the details once I got back but I guess I got a little distracted this week. Miami was great, but to explain why it has taken a while to blog about it I must make a side note...

*** In an effort to get my house to the point where it could be sold for top dollar in today's only so so market, my parents and I have been slowly making some improvements over the years. Some have been structural and some cosmetic. Well the latest in ideas was to have all the windows replaced. Yeah! I thought what a wonderful idea. The bid came in and was reasonable. Just before this however we decided to have someone crawl under the house and check on the moisture issue's and see what it was like under there... Big Mistake! Turns out that some Rodents of Unusual Size have been going crazy under there and have ripped out all the insulation and duct work... Oh yea there is also a leaking sewage pipe that is creating a sink hole under my bathroom. Needless to say, I am not getting new windows. All of you apartment dwellers should be very happy right now and not jealous of people that live in houses.
So all of this we found out at the end of last week just before I left. Then on Tuesday morning the English version of Andy shows up at my house and starts ripping everything out from underneath my house and I have ended up moving into the room over the garage at my parents house. Until further notice I have NO AC/HEAT, yes it has been warm enough a couple of days already to turn on the AC if we wanted, and I have no bathroom usage.

Past all the above mentioned, Rachel and I had a lot of fun in Miami. We arrived Friday evening and went straight out to dinner with her sister Rebeca. A nice little Spanish place. Having been up early that morning we decided to head back to her dorm at UM and catch up on a nights sleep without the dogs around. For those of you with animals/children I think you understand how wonderful a thing sleeping without them is. Saturday morning we ate at a local hot spot in Coral Gables and then heading to South Beach. This trip was centered around eating just so you know. South Beach was quite something. I have always considered Charleston to be filled with very pretty people if you catch my drift. SB however had an unbelievable ratio of Hot to not Hot people. I have never seen more bare skin in my life. After walking around and stopping to enjoy a $30 pina colada I was ready for a nap. We headed back to the dorm to get a little rest in before heading out that evening to Joe's Stone Crab. This place was perhaps the best yet most overpriced seafood place I've ever been. I couldn't believe what they were charging. Oh well...
Moving on to Sunday, the only thing I really wanted to do while down there was eat Cuban food. We ended up at the Cuban equivalent of the S&S Cafeteria but it sure was good. There were other places we stopped in and things we did but the food we they main excitement for the weekend.

OK well now I'm tired and need to go back to work. Although mom and dad are in Tucson for some Law things so I will probably go back to ABC/NBC/CBS.com and catch up on some old episodes.
Bye for now!

Miami

Just a quick note. Rachel and I are off this afternoon for a weekend in Miami. I for one can not wait. I will be sure to fill everyone in on the trip next week. Have a good weekend.

Mt. House

Rachel and I came up to the Mt. house this weekend it find everything just wonderful. The weather is ranging from the mid 50's to the low 30's. Looks like we have had a few strong storms up here while we were gone. There is a lot of large tree debris that as much as my mother will hate to hear, is just going to have to wait a while until I get around to clearing it all up. Perhaps closer to the spring I can convince someone to come up with me and just have a nice large outdoor fire one day... Any takers???
A side update on the house up here, for those of you that last saw it and were forced to sleep on areobeds those days are over. We now have nice queen size beds that we have outfitted quite nicely. So for those of you that haven't made it yet or would like to escape for a weekend just let us know. I can get up here almost any weekend as can my parents.
OK, well I'm off to start cleaning up this place so I can ensure my ability to return very soon.

Rachel's Birthday

Yesterday was Rachel's birthday and it all seemed to go over quite well. Her dad took a bunch of us all out to Carolina's, a very old restuarant here in Charleston which has seen a rebirth, and then us young folks walked down to a bar and had a few more drinks to help take in the full aw and wonder of the Lunar Eclipse., ( oh i mean of Rachel's bday...)
I had a very hard time trying to figure out what to buy for her birthday, so instead of worrying about it so much I have decided to borrow a friends pick-up truck and drive down to Beaufort one night soon and go to the only remaing Drive-in Movie Theater that I know of. She was thankfully thrilled with the idea, she has been wanting to do this for quite some time now, but it unfortunatly now looks like it is going to rain this weekend. Oh well.
For Valentines day Rachel gave the two of us a weekend trip down to Miami next weekend to go and see her sister before she graduates from U.M. I can't wait to get down there. I have never been so if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear. My only complaint about the trip is going to be that we don't have enough time to go see you West Coast Florida residents. Maybe next time when/if I get to go down for the sisters graduation. Ok well I guess I need to get back to work.
Bye for now!

Hello all, I am trying to catch up on the times and start comunicating somewhat with all of you through this media. It will take me a while to get connected with some of you but I hope to quickly get in the habit of not only adding to my blog but staying up on each of yours. I hope you are all doing well.
An interesting tidbit to get started... As last friday was Dad's and Sarah's birthday, for those of you who haven't heard we gave Dad a trip for the two of us to go to Vietnam in Septemeber/October. He was very excited! We have been talking about doing this for quite sometime now so we finally decided no time better than the present. And as Andy said to me the other night, Dad's reaction to being told about this trip was quiet different than the first time he was told he was going over there.
Ok, well i'm off to try and fill in the holes in this blog.
Can't wait to catch up with you all.