Khan
Gone but not forgotten
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2006
- Messages
- 6,924
Gary drove from Gulf Shores, AL to Lake City, FL (with me as passenger). Back to Pine Island tomorrow.
Gym with DW. Why is it so easy some days and others my body is saying "Keep this up buddy and you're doing to drop dead any second"? No discernible pattern to diet or anything else that I can tell.
Lately my mind has been caught in endless arguments about whether it makes financial sense for us to become owners once again as opposed to renters. Today, I am putting it all on paper. Hopefully it will help me make a decision.
This wasn't today, but one day last week.
My Dad's cousin died. He was 87, a wonderful man who had a loving family and a great life. When I was growing up our families were close as his children were close in age to me and my siblings.
I wanted to go to the funeral to hear about his life and see the family. It was lovely and I'm glad we took the time to go.
This was an opportunity to spend some time in the old neighborhood. I lived there from 1961 until I left for college in 1973. Still hung out there frequently until we got married in 1976 and my parents stayed there until they sold the house in 1995 and moved to a condo in another neighborhood.
In 2012 I had been browsing around on Zillow and noticed that our old house was for sale. This was not the owner that bought it from my parents, but one owner after that. It was fun to look at the pics and see how some things were the same, some things had changed. Periodically I'd check up on it and in the fall of 2013 it was still for sale with the price reduced a few times.
Knowing we'd be in the area for the funeral I checked on it again and was sad to see that it had been foreclosed in Dec 2013. Now it's owned by Federal National Mortgage Assoc. Strange to feel a twinge of sadness as it hadn't been my house for 19 years.
After the funeral DH and I took a tour of the old neighborhood, his old family home, our schools, parks, shopping areas, etc. The area had some ups and downs but was looking pretty good!
We went to see my old home. It is a brick 3 BR, 1.5 bath colonial from 1933. I always thought it was one of the nicer ones because it was all brick and had a lovely full height bay window in the living room. The neighborhood looked good but there were a lot of For Sale signs. My old house was empty so I pulled into the driveway. There was a foreclosure notice in the front window. There were no window coverings so I could look inside. When I lived there we had carpet but now the original wood floors looked good. The entrance doors had stickers announcing that "This structure has been found to be vacant or abandoned....etc".
I peeked in the side door, which was our everyday entrance, we'd go up a couple steps and make a left into the kitchen. Wow, looked smaller than I remember. I went to the back corner and looked in the window to the breakfast room. We always ate there unless it was a major holiday when we'd use the dining room. Gee, how many birthdays did I have right there? The kitchen cabinets had been updated and looked nice, but what a small space!
I walked around to the back and looked into the family room. My parents had added that on in 1967 when my Dad started making more money. There's the spot where he put our first color tv, and there is where he had his desk.
I checked out the very small back yard with the huge oak tree. That's where we had our first gas grill. My Mom didn't like to use it so I became the grill cook on weekdays. Good training as I am still the grill cook.
Sometime after I left for college my parents upgraded to whole house air conditioning. The concrete pad for the outside unit was there but the unit was gone and the connectors were laying on the ground. Was the AC unit stolen for it's copper? Or is someone putting a new one in to get it ready for sale? That's optimistic.
One last look in the small window by the staircase. There's the railing that I held onto every time I turned to go up those stairs.
It was a great house to grow up in. My parents bought it in 1961 for $22,500 and sold it in 1995 for $104,000. Then it sold in 2006 for $185,000 and that's the owner who just lost it to foreclosure. Zillow says it's worth $110,000 now.
I'm hoping a young family gets a great deal on this house and makes it a family home again.
What a day!
Just got back from Weight Watchers and the gym, only to find that the ironwork fence to my back yard was open. Hmm! How could this be? It is never open! As I walked back, I noticed that a window to my kitchen was also open (and broken), the door from the backyard to the den was open, and the door from the backyard to my bedroom was open.
At that point, I yelled out, "Is anybody here?". No answer. I got cold feet and was afraid to go inside; I went to get a neighbor.
The neighbor called law enforcement. They were very nice. The first one to get there checked out the house and determined that nobody was inside. We walked through the house, and I noticed that most of my drawers were open, and my change jar had apparently been dropped by the front door.
Nothing else seems to have been touched. The old bottle of hydrocodone was still in my medicine cabinet, so I guess they weren't looking for drugs. My laptop, iPad, and video game consoles were not touched. I haven't noticed anything missing at all, yet.
He called the Crime Scene Unit or whatever it is called, and they came out and took fingerprints. They told me that either someone scared them off, or else maybe they were just checking the place out for now and planned to come back later to take stuff.
My dear companion F is with me now, and plans to stay here with me for a few days just to play it safe.
What a day!
Just got back from Weight Watchers and the gym, only to find that the ironwork fence to my back yard was open. Hmm! How could this be? It is never open! As I walked back, I noticed that a window to my kitchen was also open (and broken), the door from the backyard to the den was open, and the door from the backyard to my bedroom was open.
At that point, I yelled out, "Is anybody here?". No answer. I got cold feet and was afraid to go inside; I went to get a neighbor.
The neighbor called law enforcement. They were very nice. The first one to get there checked out the house and determined that nobody was inside. We walked through the house, and I noticed that most of my drawers were open, and my change jar had apparently been dropped by the front door.
Nothing else seems to have been touched. The old bottle of hydrocodone was still in my medicine cabinet, so I guess they weren't looking for drugs. My laptop, iPad, and video game consoles were not touched. I haven't noticed anything missing at all, yet.
He called the Crime Scene Unit or whatever it is called, and they came out and took fingerprints. They told me that either someone scared them off, or else maybe they were just checking the place out for now and planned to come back later to take stuff.
My dear companion F is with me now, and plans to stay here with me for a few days just to play it safe.
Kudos to you for not going in your house. It could have been very dangerous.