Surprise!

The end of October, when people are preparing for Halloween, Election Day and SNOW? On October 28th we had the surprise of our lives with a Nor'easter that dumped over a foot of snow on our little mountain top. The weather forecasters (as my husband says, people who never get fired for getting it wrong) predicted 1 to 4 inches with a slight possibility of more 'in higher elevations.' Where are we - Mt Everest? We are only a little higher than Scranton, but we got creamed when they received only a dusting to 2 inches. Of course, we are on the weather line, but people in the next town over did not get even 3 inches of snow.

Okay, so the snow is one thing, but we also lost the cable/Internet connection first, then all power for over 24 hours. My husband and I were so unprepared. We should have drawn water, gotten lanterns/flashlights/candles ready. We should have had wood for the fireplace. We should have had food. We should have parked the car at the end of the driveway. We should have had our winter clothes unpacked, including boots...

For a total of two days we were stuck at the top of our hill, one car in a snow bank, the other buried and without snow tires. We had no heat, as the new boiler furnace was to be installed on October 30 (there is timing gone wrong) and with no electric we could not run space heaters. We had no water, because we have a well with a pump, so we got our old charcoal grill out and melted snow to flush the toilets ("a hobo fire") - fortunately we had just bought bottled water for drinking. It was cold, dark, and we were just getting to the point of calling a taxi, mushing through the snow to the road - which was clear - and staying at a motel when the power came back.

So why didn't we leave and stay somewhere else sooner? Well, experience tells us that power does not stay off that long and we wanted to stay here for our pets and in case anything else happened - like pipes bursting, or whatever.

Things work out eventually. We have power, we have our new heater, and we got one car out to make it to the store. The other car is still stuck in a snow bank, (that happened when we tried to drive it out of its parking place and skidded down another hill on our property) but we are expecting a spate of 60 degree days, so it should be melted out soon. Then again, can we trust what the weather people say??? I think we will be buying a large, gas powered snow thrower soon - our current model is electric and a lot of good that did us.

Experience vs. Expertise

Do It Yourself is all the rage now, between HGTV, DIY Network, PBS shows such as Hometime and This Old House. I find the information very useful, but it frightens my husband when I watch them. He is always afraid that I will get 'ideas' - and I do - but he means big ideas. Okay, I admit it, I am addicted to home improvement!

My feeling has always been that it does not hurt to try to do something as long as you have the ability and the funds to get started. I also believe the planning what to do and thinking it through before you start are even more important than 'just doing it.' How are you going to get experience unless you research how something is done and then try? We will never be experts, but we have enough knowledge to determine our limitations - sometimes.

I do pity my poor husband. He will come home from work and I will start to regale him with the information I have found out about how we can do...oh, it does not matter what. He is tired and I know whatever I told him will be quickly forgotten. But he agrees to - whatever - and then when we have the time and I bring it up, I can easily say "I told you about this the other night." I am not playing him, really, but I get excited about the project and the outcome so I tell him as soon as I see him that day. I just have to remember to tell him again in the morning!

You see, this is the influence of my father again. He taught me a lot about how to fix things, especially after my older brothers entered the armed forces and he needed help around the house. "I'm a girl" meant nothing to him, because we could not afford to hire anyone to fix stuff and if he needed someone to carry, hold, lift - and I was it! I grew to find the process of building/repairing things fascinating, which was a good thing, because I was not going to get out of it! Besides, the boys found the work fun, so there must be something to it.

I think I started as a 4 year old, holding a hammer and threatening a nail. My father probably figured it kept me busy and out of his way. Imagine. One day he was on the roof, repairing or re-shingling or whatever - and I thought I could help, so I climbed the ladder! Four years old! My father saw me standing on the roof, so he put me by the chimney, the safest place he could find, and yelled at me not to move until he could get me down. As he went over to the other side of the roof to secure his tools, etc., I saw my mother coming outside to hang clothes. "Hi, Mom," I shouted down to her. I did not know my mother knew those words! My father brought me down, but boy, did she curse him out for having me up there. (I learned later that my mother had a deathly fear of heights.) I kept saying I was only trying to help.

So home improvement means we do the improving, hands on, all that stuff. With limits, like certain electrical, heavy stuff like heaters, some plumbing. Over-our-head means that a project takes longer than one day. My Poor Husband!

Finding a Home - Continued

As my friend who accompanied us reminded me, I did not cover all the houses that we reviewed. If there is a piece of advice that I can give about looking for a new home, it is to bring a friend along. The friend can look at the property without prejudice - without thinking of how the furniture will fit in that room, or why something appears out of whack, or even how to get back to that street the 'special' house was on. A friend is also a great person to bounce ideas off of, since your spouse will be considering his or her concepts, or, in my case, involved in a conversation with the realtor!

More Houses

In reviewing the MLS listings, we saw a 'fixer-upper' for a really low price that was described as a 'Doll House.' It was, although I think most doll houses are larger. There was off-street parking, for one car - small car - and the 'driveway' ended in a large rock on the side of the hill. Oh, and you wanted to get out of the car, too? Sorry, no room for that!

Inside, the living room was cute, the two bedrooms just fit the twin bed in each (I guess the hubby and I sleep separately?) and the kitchen was another 'step-saver.' The listing said there was a second floor, which there was, with steps that you had to lay down to climb up. Something out of an old war movie "We're taking the hill, Clancy, one at a time." My husband did climb up there, but he could not stand up. We heard there was another apartment downstairs, but I could not climb down the hillside to get there. Okay, if I were 30 years younger, wanted a place for my own, maybe..

Then there was the house overlooking the creek (Blue Creek House), very blue exterior, but what a view! The kitchen was smaller than the Doll House, with an eat-in dining area for very small people, but the rest of the house showed a lot of Craftsman details and wood finishes that made us consider it seriously, but... Next door to a biker bar, small bedrooms upstairs that did not seem to have any way to get furniture to (the stairs were narrow and had a landing half-way up), and the mechanicals (heat, water pump) were original from the 1930's. We seriously considered it, but someone else bought it while we pondered.

The Raised Ranch was built over the large garage, which acted as its foundation. At this point, we were not quite desperate yet, just getting tired of looking. Still, this place was in very good shape and had been on the market for quite a while, but was in a community. The older people who had this as their second home did some unusual wiring outside for lights on their driveway, etc. that consisted on indoor extension cords strung through the trees, over the front deck, under the leaves on the ground - can you say fire hazard? And I would like to say that if you have your house for sale, put away your medications and personal information - these poor people were on some pretty intense medications!

This house we seriously considered as well, but when we went back to see the house again - second look - the owners were there and the gentleman told my husband that he really did not want to sell, but his wife wanted to move closer to the grandchildren. Well, so much for negotiation, as he also said that he would make no concessions on anything, 'he could wait forever.'

Home Sellers and House Pets

The homeowners we encountered, which were few, were an interesting lot. Some were very forthcoming about information on the house, others appeared to resent anyone looking at their house. I guess they really did not want to sell. Then there was the house with a tenant, who insisted that there were only certain times to look at the house, since he worked odd hours. We understood that, but could some accommodation be made for when he was not home? No, so we saw the outside of the house and gave up.

A couple of houses had pets, which is nice, but some pets are not friendly. When the listing sheet says "Beware of Dogs," you take heed, especially when one of the 'puppies' almost knocks the door down trying to get to you. Kitties are cute - "is that cat supposed to go out?" - and we are eternally sorry to the pretty kitty whose tail was stepped on by my husband!