End of a Year

Sometimes it can be rather painful to see yourself through the eyes of others. At Pella Christian High School they have the pictures of all the graduates up on the wall by class. One day when Tony the international student who lived with us was at the school early for an activity, one of the teachers asked if he would like to see the picture of his host parent.

Sure said Tony, and he and a couple of the girls who are also from china went down the hallway to view the Senior picture of Me. Now I have never been very fond of my senior picture, but have never really cared because who is going to look at it now 30 years after the damage was done by my idea of "looking good" back in 1976. Well the sad part of this tale is when these teenage girls from China saw my senior picture one of them said, "What happened to him? He used to be handsome." 
Well, I am pretty sure that was not a compliment. Its not like I am still living in some fantasy where teen age girls would see me as looking good, but I am not sure I want their pity or maybe just a tinge of disgust either.
     Micah and Matthew put shingles on a couple of houses we bought this year. Tony even helped them shingle a couple of days.

Boys shingling. Thanks to Russ for the equipment

The first day he helped to shingle was right after school was out last May. I think he had heard a lot of roofing stories from the boys and thought he was missing out on a grand part of life. I always say it is not what happens that matters but how you tell the story. Anyway when Matthew and Tony came home after a day up on the roof in the sun I asked Tony, "so what did you think of shingling?" He looked at me and said, " that is not as much fun as you would think it would be". Ah, isn't that how much of life is. He did go back in August and help the boys again for another day. A little time must have dulled the pain.
     I also had the opportunity to shingle a roof this year. I did it almost all by myself. Do I sound like a 3 year old there? Old age sets in and you do regress you know. Micah was helping me work on a house and there was a storm rolling toward Oskaloosa. We were hurrying to get everything under cover and cleaned up before the rain. We had just picked everything up and made it undercover in the garage when the rain came down in buckets. Just as the deluge was begining to let up one of the tenants stuck his head out the door and said "Hey, there is water coming through the living room ceiling and plaster is falling." Those are not some of the words I like to hear. I like to hear things like "wow this house is in perfect shape", or "we had a leak under the sink so we just fixed it ourselves because we didn't want to bother you". ( I can dream of a utopia can't I?) Anyway Micah and I went in and looked at the water dripping from the ceiling and pieces of plaster slowly drooping down and then going splat on the carpet. Oh Yea!!

Room where the ceiling fell

     We went up on the roof to look for where the water was getting through. Now I do want to explain that before we bought the house I had climbed up and did a quick look at the shingles. I am not saying here that I actually got onto the roof and walked around but I had at least looked at the shingles. OK, did you get that? I had at least looked at the roof. Well, when we climbed up on the roof after the leak Micah walks over to a valley in the roof and points at some tar the previous owner had put there. Micah then looks at me and asks " Did you even look at this roof before you bought the house?" I said "yes I did". He points down and says "there is tar in the valley and you didn't think that was going to be a problem?" Snarky youth if there ever was one. I answered " OK, I said I looked at the roof I never said I actually got on it." Jeepers what does he want from me perfection?
     I was at the bank the other day depositing some cash and feeling rather small about it. All I had to deposit was a down payment of a rent payment in the amount of $60.00. It was one of those days when there were no other customers in the bank. Why do they call them customers? They take our money and we walk out with out any merchandise. Oh sorry I digress. All three tellers on duty were watching me and listening as I deposited the whole $60.00 in our checking account. I was sort of feeling guilty for taking their time for a small deposit when a woman came into the bank and walked up to one of the other tellers.  She carefully dug around in her pocket and laid a quarter on the counter top. "I want to deposit this quarter in our account." What did I hear that right she was putting a whole 25 cents in her account? Hey baby I got 60 bills here, do you see that Mrs. teller? 60 dollars in paper currency, you got a big depositor here, not just a coin but greenbacks baby. WOO HOO. Amazing how one's perspective can change. Mr. money bags me can strut with pride out of that bank after a huge deposit like that.
     So just remember this year hang around the people with smaller houses than yours, older vehicles than yours, and smaller incomes than yours and you will always feel like a big shot. 
     If I start looking now I might find someone who doesn't fit those qualifications for me by next December. Happy hunting for you this year. If you are looking for someone poorer than you to compare yourself to you can always use me.. 

A week down Yonder

Sharon and I went down south for a week. First night was spent in Memphis. We went to Beale Street before the serious partying started.

Ate at a restaurant called Miss Polly's.  Some of the best BBQ pork I have ever tasted. Slightly blackened and spicy. When we had our own meat company I had the opportunity to taste some winning BBQ contestant's cooking. Of course they expected the meat to be provided for free because if they won a contest with Iowa Farm Families Pork it would bring a lot of business to Iowa Farm Families. Yea right, that happened lets see, Oh yea never. Anyway, Miss Polly's knew how to cook BBQ pork.

I spent part of the week studying Framework for Christian Faith. 

A bit too fundamentalist for my taste, but one should never read just what you agree with. To read the opinions of those you disagree with makes you justify and define why you believe what you believe. 

I also reread a book called Turtle Feet. The self told story of a young Bulgarian man who goes to India to become a Buddhist Monk. He ends up disenchanted with Buddhism and all religion.

Looking through the pictures, I started to think maybe I was the only one learning and studying.

Do you see Sharon reading?

No, she's sitting on  a wharf, or in the surf

Standing on top of a Pyramid. Yes you read that correctly. Bass Pro Shoppes in Memphis is in a Pyramid. Of course it might have been that the man taking the pictures of Sharon only took pictures when she was doing nothing, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

There is a lodge inside where you can stay. Some of the rooms are only $250 a night. I don't know, $250 seems a bit steep to me to stay overnight in a store.

We took a ferry out to Ship Island which is about 50 minutes from shore

nice secluded beach

I was glad to see they counted the passengers back onto the Ferry 4 hours later to make sure no one was left behind.

We drove south of New Orleans. I wanted to see where the Mississippi finally emptied into the Gulf.

We finally turned around when the water was on the road at what I assume was high tide. We were about an hour and a half south of New Orleans at this point

We ate at a restaurant way down at the mouth of the Mississippi. It was run by a man who immigrated from Vietnam in 1990. He said the water was 20 feet deep in this spot when Katrina hit..

If you look behind me you can see the stuffed deer are decorated for Christmas. Yes this picture was taken in July.

 I had my computer with me and had planned on spending just a few minutes each day on it. After the first night I could never get connected to the internet. No e-mail, no markets, no information. I think God wanted me to just shut everything down for a week and it was a good thing.

Another project house

We have been working evenings on a house we bought back in April. Sharon had a problem with the color

I finished painting and realized the boys were pretty much missing every time the paint came out. They did paint some on the trim, but Matthew reminded me of Tom Sawyer, because if he had a paint brush it was soon in Micah's hand. 

The inside needed some cleaning up and updating.

Living room

It is amazing how much a coat of paint and new flooring will change a room.

Kitchen

Goal is to have the inside totally finished in 2 weeks. There were times in the last two months when I thought the project would never end. Matthew had a week off from work and that really sped things up.

I am glad he lays carpet for us.

Micah is very precise with measurements. Maybe has something to do with being an accountant.

Front porch then above. Now below

I was reading the other day if you are buying houses to rent figure about $5,000 in unexpected expenses beside the costs that were calculated in. Yea, that would be about right. Need to get this baby finished and the cash flow reversed.

Some one is going to lose their internet

Yesterday my world seemed to screech to a stop. I kinda knew that I relied on the internet to do what I do. E-mail constantly flows in. Markets are available at the click of the mouse. I returned home after a meeting and had no e-mail, no internet, no land line phone service. I called the local internet provider.

I asked them if the internet was down or if it was my router. I expected the usual answer of "we are working on it and should be back on-line shortly. 

Instead the answer I received was "your service has been terminated for lack of payment. We called you a week ago to inform you your bill was not paid." They had called my son's cell phone which used to be my number. 

Every month I pay the internet charge on the 19th or 20th. It is on my calendar and will not stop reminding me until I clear it. Of course at this point I could not check my credit card bill to prove that I paid because MY INTERNET WAS SHUT OFF. 

The nice lady at MCG told me if I came up to the office and paid they would reconnect my internet before the close of the business day, but there was the reconnect fee.

I do hope I was much kinder than I felt by the time I had paid the last month's bill and the reconnect fee, all the while thinking I just know this has already been paid. I did explain to the Lady that I would be back as soon as I had internet and could prove I had paid the bill.

I went home and explained to Matthew in my best calm, kind, understanding voice that if he receives a phone call from someone such as MCG he should tell me. He said he did tell me. I said well next time make sure I am listening when you tell me. I then checked out the credit card statement and found that no, no payment had been made to MCG. I remember going on-line and paying it, but it must not have processed.

While relating the story while we were eating last night, everyone started to laugh. They seem to remember Matthew telling me MCG had called that the internet bill was not paid and I said, "our bill is paid, but it sounds like some one is about to lose internet." Tony thought it was worth the $50.00 to reconnect just to hear the story. I did notice he did not get his wallet out though. I informed all those laughing, that I would be charging $1.00 an hour until I had my reconnect fee back.I don't think they believe me.

Letting things slide

A little over a year ago we were up at Dordt college. Matthew has my guitar up in Sioux Center. He was concerned with the sound degrading.

So he called in the expert to take a look at it. 

It is nice that the boys still ask for advice once in a while.

After spending time trying to reset the strings. For those of you who do not know, that is not tuning it, we were changing the distance between the frets and the strings.

We came to the conclusion that the humidity was way too low in the dorm at Dordt. The guitar was simply drying out.

I also found out that I had lost a lot of my ability to play.

What once came naturally was now lost. I really should pick up a guitar and hone the skills that are disappearing back to where they once were. When the boys were running cross country races their coach told them, if you stop running for just a few days you begin to lose speed and endurance. It really is the same with your walk with God. If you let it slide for a couple of days, it will hurt your relationship. If you want to play the guitar well you need to play it every day. If you want to run long distances well you need to run every day. If you want to have a relationship with God you need to talk to Him and listen to Him every day.

a whole lotta work done

We have reached the end of the road fixing up the investment house we bought. That of course is only temporary because as soon as the temperature stays above 50 degrees this spring we need to shingle the house and garage.

this what the laundry area looked like

a coat of paint and new flooring helped tremendously

and then there was the bathroom.

first tore out a lot of stuff.

Then put it all back.

The bedrooms needed some work

Personally I think they look a lot better with new paint and new carpeting.

We also replaced the doors and planed down the wood work

Spent a lot of time planing down the wood work.

The living room was not too bad

We did repaint and replace doors and trim.

The kitchen had recently been updated so that saved us a lot of work and money. It only needed a few small fixes

It will be kind of nice to have some free time on Saturday.