"The only constant in life is change, right?"
That was a question I heard the other day on a radio show. Of course there's the change I'm not to happy with, Sirius satellite radio taking over XM and going through and changing channels or channel formats that I'd come to really like. The programing changes happened at 9 Pm (pacific) on Tuesday the 11th and some channels 'poof disappeared' and others became more like subscription FM stations with all the annoyingly "cute" canned DJ stuff, everything wrong with regular radio just short of having blocks of commercials added.
Got me thinking though about change in general, what do you think? It sure doesn't seem like that would be a truism normally, but then thinking back to what Stacy, the kids and myself were doing three years ago and what we're all doing today, lives I would never have imagined and where all our lives would be and what we'd be doing now!
So really think about it. It is true, change just normally happens so slowly over time to where it isn't really noticed usually. And (luckily) those big changes you DO notice don't happen all at once!
So back in November 2005, daughter Laura was VERY pregnant, Sean and Laura's husband Russell were in Iraq on their third tour, Sandy was working for another architectural company and still going to USC working on her architectural degree. Stacy and I had decided on the way home from a construction trip to Idaho in August of 2005 that we'd go ahead and try to get out of California while the gettin' was good! So we'd gotten back to Phelan and had been packing, painting, and constructing to get that property ready to sell As Soon As Possible! From what we'd seen on TV home selling shows, we did the normal things of neutral colors repaint in the rooms, redid the kitchen, we also built a back porch deck, re-sheeted a front porch, repaired some plumbing problems under the house that had cropped up, good timing or what!, and took thousands of pounds of stuff in many trips to the dump.
That part of moving got to me and Stacy knew it. From growing up with my mom being a "pack rat", I had kind of gotten like my mom in that regard, keeping just about everything for that far off time when "you might need it again" or one might be able to sell it to somebody else and get maybe a small return on your investment. So I had collections! Almost every motorcycle and airplane magazine since I became interested in the early 1970's as well as years collected from the 50's and 60's. Shelves of books on all the subjects that interested me at the time. So it came down to the age old problem, that you can't take it with you! Although, not THAT way!!!
Problem was all those books and magazines I'd collected over the years from places that carried those old issues and books for people like me weren't worth anything anymore! All the stores that I had shopped at in the 80's and 90's were out of business, mostly killed off by the ease of Internet shopping, and even with a drive involved, none of the out of area places I called were interested in any of it. In Phelan we had the slowest of slow speed Internet, 24 to 28 Kbps connection, on a good day, (we now have 100 MBPS with our HughesNet service) so between that and the time table we were working with to get ready, sold and moved, I wouldn't have the time needed to 'safely' unload most of the collections. So to the recycling bins it almost all went. I had to pare down a lot as where would we put it all in Idaho? Narrowed it down to a bunch of 'historical relevance' or stories that interested me like tests of things I've owned or ridden or flown myself. Stuff like that.
Still, when said and done it was a load!
Anyway, Stacy was already off work on family leave to be with Laura because of some pregnancy problems Laura was having. The doctors had told us that the chances were good that "Tyler" would be born premature and at any time, didn't happen though, when he was born he was actually a week late!
So Stacy did the bulk of the moving prep work. I did what I could on the weekends and still covered Stacy's and my on-call at work. We were on-call, after hour emergency response, for a week for each of us out of every five weeks, so it was a big inconvenience in all that was going on in moving prep.
Well in November we had the place on the market, the home values had already started to drop from the peak during the summer of 2005. Our property had already lost almost $50,000 in value In just three months! It actually sold in just three days to a family from New York. Unfortunately, they could never get local financing and their deal fell through. Back on the market and the Century 21 agent had a couple of open houses, we had the "looky loos" and although interested, most we talked with had to wait until their own houses sold before they could buy ours. Even had a couple of people that wanted us to trade with them. Nope, we already knew where we were going and it wasn't going to be in that area.
In late November it was sold again to a family from Ranch Cucamonga that wanted the two homes we had on our 2 1/2 acre lot because they had adult kids that had moved back home. Also had to wait for their home sale to go through but since they didn't quibble about the price and didn't require us to get every project finished which was great for us, we accepted their offer. Long story shortened, they had problems with their buyer which dragged our sale out to almost the end of March of 2006. I did over a dozen moving trips to Idaho and back over winter, 7 days for each round trip by the way, and not too fun on those snowy passes in a 2 wheel drive Dodge truck hauling a 33 foot long "toy hauler" fifth wheel trailer over loaded with everything we could stuff in it for each trip, we got almost all moved by then. The last trip was our final trip up. Our Tahoe fifth wheel, the two dogs, and the Dodge and GMC trucks loaded was our last trip.
Now November 2008, Laura, Tyler and Russell live in Iowa, Laura is back in animal control again and really likes that line of work. She just needs to get with an organization that actually pays well! And an update on her mentioned injury last post, she got chomped on her right thumb by a Golden Retriever. She'll be losing her right thumb nail shortly and will have a scar from the bite. She's still in some discomfort but hasn't missed any time from it. A trooper!
Sandy has a great job and is a world traveler with that job. She got her new Nikon D-60 camera yesterday (11/17) and by now will be seeing what it can do. She's hoping to be good enough with her camera to be able to volunteer time to take photos of animals for a local shelter and adoption program. She hopes that if good enough she'll get a "gig" with them and hone some photographic skills doing pet photography while helping them out too.
Sean is still supervising and working as a civilian contractor with the Marines and hopes to continue working on turbine engines and possibly get a job with a company that just refurbishes those engines after his contract expires. He also whats to move out of So. California too.
Me and Stacy, well we still plug along in our almost retirement, working for another county, just in Idaho this time. We both are working the regular Monday to Friday job I was always told about but never had until we moved up here. So much less stress and living in a place with four actual seasons other than the seasons of dry, hot and dry, and cool and dry of California. Or nowadays, burned and dry!
So that's our update this week.
I was told that some of our mid-West and spread out family members wanted to read some stories of some of our experiences and lives since there were a lot of years that passed by before we were able to connect again. I sure don't mind and I have no hurt feelings if other readers take a look and pass on to other blogs. The ones that want to read stories like this will hopefully like them!
Type later, Tad
That was a question I heard the other day on a radio show. Of course there's the change I'm not to happy with, Sirius satellite radio taking over XM and going through and changing channels or channel formats that I'd come to really like. The programing changes happened at 9 Pm (pacific) on Tuesday the 11th and some channels 'poof disappeared' and others became more like subscription FM stations with all the annoyingly "cute" canned DJ stuff, everything wrong with regular radio just short of having blocks of commercials added.
Got me thinking though about change in general, what do you think? It sure doesn't seem like that would be a truism normally, but then thinking back to what Stacy, the kids and myself were doing three years ago and what we're all doing today, lives I would never have imagined and where all our lives would be and what we'd be doing now!
So really think about it. It is true, change just normally happens so slowly over time to where it isn't really noticed usually. And (luckily) those big changes you DO notice don't happen all at once!
So back in November 2005, daughter Laura was VERY pregnant, Sean and Laura's husband Russell were in Iraq on their third tour, Sandy was working for another architectural company and still going to USC working on her architectural degree. Stacy and I had decided on the way home from a construction trip to Idaho in August of 2005 that we'd go ahead and try to get out of California while the gettin' was good! So we'd gotten back to Phelan and had been packing, painting, and constructing to get that property ready to sell As Soon As Possible! From what we'd seen on TV home selling shows, we did the normal things of neutral colors repaint in the rooms, redid the kitchen, we also built a back porch deck, re-sheeted a front porch, repaired some plumbing problems under the house that had cropped up, good timing or what!, and took thousands of pounds of stuff in many trips to the dump.
That part of moving got to me and Stacy knew it. From growing up with my mom being a "pack rat", I had kind of gotten like my mom in that regard, keeping just about everything for that far off time when "you might need it again" or one might be able to sell it to somebody else and get maybe a small return on your investment. So I had collections! Almost every motorcycle and airplane magazine since I became interested in the early 1970's as well as years collected from the 50's and 60's. Shelves of books on all the subjects that interested me at the time. So it came down to the age old problem, that you can't take it with you! Although, not THAT way!!!
Problem was all those books and magazines I'd collected over the years from places that carried those old issues and books for people like me weren't worth anything anymore! All the stores that I had shopped at in the 80's and 90's were out of business, mostly killed off by the ease of Internet shopping, and even with a drive involved, none of the out of area places I called were interested in any of it. In Phelan we had the slowest of slow speed Internet, 24 to 28 Kbps connection, on a good day, (we now have 100 MBPS with our HughesNet service) so between that and the time table we were working with to get ready, sold and moved, I wouldn't have the time needed to 'safely' unload most of the collections. So to the recycling bins it almost all went. I had to pare down a lot as where would we put it all in Idaho? Narrowed it down to a bunch of 'historical relevance' or stories that interested me like tests of things I've owned or ridden or flown myself. Stuff like that.
Still, when said and done it was a load!
Anyway, Stacy was already off work on family leave to be with Laura because of some pregnancy problems Laura was having. The doctors had told us that the chances were good that "Tyler" would be born premature and at any time, didn't happen though, when he was born he was actually a week late!
So Stacy did the bulk of the moving prep work. I did what I could on the weekends and still covered Stacy's and my on-call at work. We were on-call, after hour emergency response, for a week for each of us out of every five weeks, so it was a big inconvenience in all that was going on in moving prep.
Well in November we had the place on the market, the home values had already started to drop from the peak during the summer of 2005. Our property had already lost almost $50,000 in value In just three months! It actually sold in just three days to a family from New York. Unfortunately, they could never get local financing and their deal fell through. Back on the market and the Century 21 agent had a couple of open houses, we had the "looky loos" and although interested, most we talked with had to wait until their own houses sold before they could buy ours. Even had a couple of people that wanted us to trade with them. Nope, we already knew where we were going and it wasn't going to be in that area.
In late November it was sold again to a family from Ranch Cucamonga that wanted the two homes we had on our 2 1/2 acre lot because they had adult kids that had moved back home. Also had to wait for their home sale to go through but since they didn't quibble about the price and didn't require us to get every project finished which was great for us, we accepted their offer. Long story shortened, they had problems with their buyer which dragged our sale out to almost the end of March of 2006. I did over a dozen moving trips to Idaho and back over winter, 7 days for each round trip by the way, and not too fun on those snowy passes in a 2 wheel drive Dodge truck hauling a 33 foot long "toy hauler" fifth wheel trailer over loaded with everything we could stuff in it for each trip, we got almost all moved by then. The last trip was our final trip up. Our Tahoe fifth wheel, the two dogs, and the Dodge and GMC trucks loaded was our last trip.
Now November 2008, Laura, Tyler and Russell live in Iowa, Laura is back in animal control again and really likes that line of work. She just needs to get with an organization that actually pays well! And an update on her mentioned injury last post, she got chomped on her right thumb by a Golden Retriever. She'll be losing her right thumb nail shortly and will have a scar from the bite. She's still in some discomfort but hasn't missed any time from it. A trooper!
Sandy has a great job and is a world traveler with that job. She got her new Nikon D-60 camera yesterday (11/17) and by now will be seeing what it can do. She's hoping to be good enough with her camera to be able to volunteer time to take photos of animals for a local shelter and adoption program. She hopes that if good enough she'll get a "gig" with them and hone some photographic skills doing pet photography while helping them out too.
Sean is still supervising and working as a civilian contractor with the Marines and hopes to continue working on turbine engines and possibly get a job with a company that just refurbishes those engines after his contract expires. He also whats to move out of So. California too.
Me and Stacy, well we still plug along in our almost retirement, working for another county, just in Idaho this time. We both are working the regular Monday to Friday job I was always told about but never had until we moved up here. So much less stress and living in a place with four actual seasons other than the seasons of dry, hot and dry, and cool and dry of California. Or nowadays, burned and dry!
So that's our update this week.
I was told that some of our mid-West and spread out family members wanted to read some stories of some of our experiences and lives since there were a lot of years that passed by before we were able to connect again. I sure don't mind and I have no hurt feelings if other readers take a look and pass on to other blogs. The ones that want to read stories like this will hopefully like them!
Type later, Tad
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