One Life Stand

Well the rental house we put an offer on a few months ago has gone down in price.  It’s still not low enough to be a good deal but hubby suggested we resubmit our original offer and see what happens.  The seller responded quite quickly (guess he wants to get it sold) but we didn’t like his counter-offer (guess he doesn’t want to get it sold that badly).  So we declined the counter but we’ll see if the place is still for sale at the end of the year.  If it is, I’m guessing the price will be even lower.

Of course, we’ve got more than one iron in the fire.  I’ve got a whole list of properties I want to research tonight and we’ve already talked to our realtor about viewing some of them on Friday.  However, we may have to push that to Saturday because I’ve been wanting to epoxy the garage floor for a while and Friday would be a great day to do it.  The weather is finally right (not hot and not humid) and hubby and I are both in town and not busy with other stuff.  We’ve slowed down a bit on the home improvement but I’m hoping to get most of our projects done by the end of next year and the remainder done in 2009.  If only we could find some home theatre seating that we like.  I thought that would be the easiest (and first) project but it’s proving harder than I thought.  We haven’t given up but it’s slipped on the priority list.

When I was in undergrad, everyone had little brothers or sisters.  Some were assigned through the Office of Student Life (or whatever it was called) and some were just picked up along the way.  My friends and I had a crew of little brothers that we somehow picked up.  They were from NYC and some real characters.  There was "Big A", "Aftermath" (aka A-math) and some other monikers I can’t remember.  Of course after graduation, we fell out of touch.

Then out of the blue, "Big A" called my dad’s house over Christmas holidays 2001.  I just happened to be there and answered the phone.  We caught up and as people are prone to do, promised to stay in touch but didn’t.  Fast foward to last night.  My dad called last night and told me that someone named [Big A’s government name] called the house looking for me saying that he was my little brother or somesuch.  My dad wouldn’t give him my number but did pass along his number to me. 

Needless to say, that was a bit of a surprise.  I can’t even believe he still has my dad’s number all these years later.  I didn’t get a chance to call last night but I will definitely call tonight.  I’m interested to see where life has taken Big A, if he keeps up with the rest of his crew and what they’re all doing now.  While I remember babyfaced young men, I’m sure they’re all grown up now.  They’re probably well-established in their careers.  There may even be some wives and kids in the crew.  How time flies. 

Well things have calmed down a bit and most of the busy-ness has ceased.  Hubby and I went to a Halloween party on Saturday.  The guy who hosted the party really went all out.  He had tombstones in the front yard, a fog machine in the backyard along with a severed head in the bobbing for apples container!  There were corpses laid out on the buffet, "eyeball" candy and more.  Even his dog had on a costume.

It dawned on me that we haven’t hosted anything at our house in a while.  With Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, now isn’t the best time either.  We had a NYE party last night but I don’t think I want to do another.  I’ll have to think of another occasion to have a gathering at the house.

Also, on the agenda is to find some rental property as well as possibly flesh out another idea we have.  We looked at a place this weekend but I wasn’t feeling it.  We’re set to go back out with our realtor this coming weekend.  Maybe we’ll have better luck this time.  I just love multiple streams of income.

Be back soon.

While I am definitely NOT one of those women who suggests you have a secret stash and hide money from your spouse, I also am not one of those women who suggests you merge every last thing and only have joint accounts.  It is imperative that you maintain your own credit, even after marriage.  If you become widowed, you may find that all that joint credit history disappears along with your husband.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/11/business/bahr/20_16_0010_10_07.txt