I woke up in a despairing mood this morning …
so, I decided I’d go for a drive and shake the mood. It is hard for me to
think I may never get to live in the country as I had hoped.
I am willing; Real Estate is not.
Once I made up
my mind to go for a drive – I knew exactly where I would head the car 😉
A few weeks ago,
when I was getting my house ready to show for sale; I found a book I had
brought home from the Scappoose Library in Oregon – I still have the Library
Card from there: we were Home Educating Alyna at the time, and spending a great
deal of time running her back and forth between the two States, so I got a
library card when we stopped there on afternoon. I never got rid of the card.
Today I returned the book I picked
up there, last Summer.
Along the drive, I did some thinking.
While it is true
that I’ve given myself a full year’s time to secure a new home, I a new locale …
I know myself: if the wait drags on for a full year, I’ll be chomping at the
bit.
And while I’m tonging the bit, I’ll
be getting cold feet. Waiting makes me second guess things; that’s
why I like to move quick on major decisions.
I can work things around to fit a quick decision.
Second guessing
throws a monkey wrench in the works, and stops me cold.
Second guesses were crowding me this morning.
Not only can I
not find a suitable house, but if and when I do … I’ll lose all my Senior
Discount Perks. I’ll need a small loan (which will double by the time
everyone’s hands touch it and leave their fingerprints all over it); and
the loan company will bundle the property taxes, home ownership insurance +
whatever else they throw in there to hedge the loan company’s interests (they
are basically at this point acting like loan sharks): I will have no say
whatsoever in how the loan goes down. The Bank that finances the loan will
make those decisions for their good, not necessarily mine; regardless of
what they say, or how they spin it to make it appealing.
And that is why
every house Bob and I ever bought, we paid cash for: no loans. And we were able
to do that because Bob’s Dad deeded the house in Cathlamet to Bob as his
inheritance when Bob’s parents moved to California decades ago. Years later,
we sold the house – and the $$$$ gained from that house sale netted us
four more homes, from 1996 to present.
I want to be wise in buying a new home.
I have never
played fast and loose with Bob’s money. Even though
Bob’s money now belongs to me to use as I wish; I balk at throwing it away
carelessly – that just isn’t who I am. I’m not tight-fisted with money, but I
am very frugal.
Getting a loan
now, almost seems to me … to be a sacrilegious thing.
With a loan, I
won’t in reality, own my new home outright: the Bank will own it – while
making a tidy profit on that ownership by double billing me for the privilage
of the loan.
It’s undeniable/unapologetic loan sharking.
So, I woke up with second guessing
on my mind, this morning.
It’s not so much
that I’m pretty much spending the kid’s inheritance (even though they don’t want
it, anyway; they’ve been clear on that) – it’s the thought of the double
billing, as well as the Bank dictating my life in telling me what Home
Insurance to use, and refusing to give me Senior Discount privileges on the
property taxes.
That irks me: it’s my right,
and it pisses me off it is denied me.
With a Mortgage
Loan, I’ll have a locked in mortgage rate that won’t increase – only because
it has already been increased: if I get a $50,000 loan – the Bank will
increase that loan to $100,000+.
So, By the time
my last mortgage payment is made at 95 yo (if I live that long), the Bank
will have already bought my house for the exact price I paid for it …
and will go on to sell it, since the kid’s don’t want it, for twice what I paid
for it! So, if I buy a $250,000 home, and replace the roofing, the
flooring, do a little personal preference remodeling, ect.; the Bank will be
able to sell it for roughly $400-500,000, when my body dies.
On the other
hand … Heron Pointe increases the Lot Rent (aka; fee for the privilage of
living in their ‘community’) by $300/yr., with no end in sight – and that
can be increased at any given time, on a whim.
It makes more sense to buy that to rent.
And the risks are about the same IMHO.
The longer this
drags on, the louder the second guesses will get.
My friends are praying, too 😊
But our prayer goals are very different.
And, on days
like today, I wonder which ones will win Elohim’s ear 😉
During the drive to Scappoose, a Bald headed Eagle flew over the Highlander's hood – so low, I could see the eyes, and feather vanes ... but not low enough to be in danger of being smacked with the windshield; thank God. And, I passed several Lemmon’s Trucking trucks; every time I see one, I look for Bob’s Truck number: so, far I have not seen it.
That may be a blessing; I honestly
do not know how I would feel, or what I would do, if I ever did see it.
Book returned; I
turned the car for St. Helens. It was past noon, and I was getting hungry.
I stopped at Noi’s
Thai Kitchen Restaurant. It is different that the Thai food we have locally,
and that’s okay – I like switching restaurants once I a while 😉
I ate a few
appetizers while waiting for my main meal … and took a picture to show to my
friends of why I will not even consider dating: not even a ‘friends only’
date – what’s out there, does not appeal to me at all.
Mature men are hard to come by, for one thing.
I outgrew males
with long hair (unruly or otherwise), a loooong time ago. And MPO is
that {man buns} look stupid: on any male. Seeing a sloppy looking male, with
his pants hanging off his ass turns me totally off … seeing that immature ridiculousness
on a 60+ male just makes me roll my eyes. And what’s with the scraggly, unkept,
hillbilly beards popping up everywhere? That just looks disgusting. A 70-year
old male with a motorcycle as his only means of transportation does not thrill
me; at 70, a male needing to prove he’s still ‘got it’ just isn’t strong enough
to keep himself safe on a hog … much less, entice me to hop on one and speed
off in a heated rush of late-life-adolescence.
These males (can’t
call them men; they haven’t grown up yet) are still attached to their mother’s
teats and apron strings.
I.a.m.n.o.t.i.n.t.e.r.e.s.t.e.d.
My friends can
stop praying for a man for me – the man I would
be interested in, simply does not exist in today’s America. I’m going to show
them this picture, point to it – and say, “Please, don’t pray for a man.
I don’t want this.”
My next stop was
McCormick Park: to enjoy a shaded walk, and to walk off some of the calories I
had just packed on 😉
While I walked
the trail, I started thinking of another option for house searches that I have
been avoiding because being surrounded by water makes me nervous. But, maybe it’s
time to consider it.
Since the
country home dream is beginning to fade, maybe I should take a cue from my
beatnik mother, and go bohemian – I was raised bohemian, so falling back into
that rhythm should be fairly easy.
David had
mentioned it last time we had breakfast together; and his son Tavis seconded
the thought: so, I gave Shay a jingle, and asked her to look into the thought.
Maybe it’s time
to slay all the dragons in my life, now that my personal knight in shining
armor rides his white charger beyond the blue 😉
‘Away Beyond the Blue’ – Emmylou Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKY99siT8Qc
After Supper, I
was settling in Bob’s recliner to watch some old black-n-white Monty Woolley (his
movies are hilarious) movies on Youtube, when I glanced out the windows and
saw this pretty pink and yellow sunset.
One thing I will
miss for sure when I leave this house, is all the windows.
