A week of doing nothing??

     A month ago Rex asked me if I knew anyone who would replace a fence post for him. I told him to give me a call when he had the post purchased and I would put it in for him. Rex didn't want to do that, "I can pay someone to do it." 

     I told him "I know you can pay someone but I can easily put that pole in for you." After we talked about it for a while Rex said, " If I don't let you put in the pole for me I am keeping you from being a blessing, but it is tough for me to allow someone to give to me."

     Rex called this week that he had the pole, of course he started the phone call by saying, "you know you don't have to come over. I can hire someone." 

     "Rex I will be right over," Rex has helped a lot of people in the last 80 years and he is still helping and blessing people. I wanted to give a little something to Rex.

      I could pull the broken stub of the last pole out of the ground and slide the new pole right into the old hole. The new pole was 2 foot too long so it had to be cut.(I didn't want to dig out another 2 foot of dirt). Rex brought out his saw. Now I had driven over with just my toolbox and no compound miter saw. I cut the pole with Rex's hand saw. I got out my speed square and had Rex hold it against the saw blade so I made a square cut. Not the quickest or easiest way to cut a 4x4 but I had time and could use the work out.

     

     The new pole did not have the beveled top like the rest of the old poles. Rex said he was going to buy a piece to put on it. I said "let's cut off the top of the old pole and screw it to the new pole".

    Rex then told me he didn't know if he could buy a new top for it anymore but he didn't want to have me go to all that work.

     "Hold the speed square again Rex and lets fix this right." You know I think I got more out of putting a new pole in Rex's fence than he did. 

     Then I talked to Diana about needs at Lake View Camp. They needed someone to grout some tile.

Well, I have grouted before so I said "I can help with that." There were 8 bathrooms upstairs in the Impact Building. They had started on 5 bathrooms and finished none.

     I spent 3 hours there on Wednesday and 3 hours on Thursday and all 8 bathrooms were grouted. I just hope the work meets their standards. I guess if it doesn't, you get what you pay for and the work was free. 

    And speaking of free, on Friday I was given a Radii cutter. I was asked if I wanted it and I said "uh, yea. I guess so" I wasn't sure exactly what it was. Looked it up on line this morning and saw that these babies are selling for $1000 with pieces missing. I may have given away some labor this week but maybe I have been more than compensated.

     We are finally being successful at getting houses bought again. For the last month every time I set up a walk through on a house it would have an accepted offer before I could even get there to look. We ended up in a blind auction on the house above and had the winning offer. Yea! us, I think. I have no idea how close the next highest offer was, so we may be paying more than we needed to.

     On this house the seller accepted our offer of  80% of the asking price (less than 50% of original asking price). They needed to sell the house quick as a window had been broken out recently as well as other problems showing up. I will get into that later.

     I wanted possession of this house by September 30 because there is a real issue with the roof.

     The shingles are so far gone that you can see the nail heads. The roof does not leak yet, but there is no reason it doesn't that I can see. The seller is the USDA and they will not close until October 28. Ouch, that is getting late to roof the house, but we are hoping for a couple of warm days in November because we can not leave this through the winter.

     On this house the south side has new shingles but the north side had tarps on it to hold out the rain.

          The tarps have degraded to the point where they are just pieces still nailed to the roof. Not an optimum scenario. 

     See what I mean? There is sheet rock falling in the Living room

     and in a bedroom (I was in the attic and the plywood sheeting is in excellent shape, good thing it is not OSB Board). That means this roof has to go on ASAP. We made our offer with a closing date of November 5. The seller which is a bank wanted rid of the house before there was any more damage and changed the closing date to October 18. I called Micah and told him the closing date had been moved up. He said "that's a good thing." 

    I just waited a couple of seconds and then it hit him. "Wait a minute, That's a funding issue."

   "Bingo, you have found the problem." these are both cash sales no mortgages or loans allowed. We have to have the cash before the end of October for both houses. That is going to take some creative cash movement. Good thing Micah is a CPA. I am sure he will figure it out.

     I was down at Menards this week and they had oak flooring on sale. I was not planning on buying the new flooring for our living room just yet, but it was on SALE!! and I have a short time frame here before we close on any houses with a lesser work load.

    When I had the furniture moved it was pretty sad to see the obvious trail from the kitchen to my office. we had this carpet professionally cleaned this year and it did not stay clean very long.

   Problem is solved. carpet is gone. Pad is gone. Tack strips are gone. All the staples that held down the pad are pulled and gone. I am really stiff and sore, but the floor is ready for the new oak next week.

     I think Sharon is of the opinion I spent most of my week sluffing off in my office and not doing much work (She seems to mention I could do some house cleaning) . It kinda seemed to me also I wasn't working too hard as I went through the week, but I was able to help out Rex and Lake View Camp, buy 2 houses, and get our living room ready for new flooring. 

     I look at my life now days and realize I am not in control, and I don't want to be. I want God planning my days and the jobs I do. Well this week he cleared my calendar so I could help Rex and Lake View (and maybe paid me well for doing it, if I sell a radii cutter). He changed the dates I wanted to close on houses and it really will work out much better. He set it up so I was at Menards where the flooring, I was putting off buying, was on sale and I have next week available to lay it.
     It is comforting and exciting to know that God is taking care of the details of my life and over riding what I think are my good plans. I wouldn't want it any other way.