Monday, February 28, 2011

Storms


Last night we were sleeping when the tornado sirens woke us up. The next thing I knew, I was wet. No, it's not what you think. The roof did not rip off and let the rain in. Mama spilled her water on me....AGAIN! It's the second time she has done that. She took a drink of water and when she sat it on the table, it fell off and on to my bed. I got up and moved to Scout's bed because Scout had gotten scared due to the storms and moved to Mama and Daddy's bed. I normally do that myself, but I was brave last night and just went back to sleep after the excitement died down. We didn't have any damage here that we know of, but other places did. The storms came though and were moving so fast that they were gone in just a few minutes. It was a lot like the storms that came through on New Year's Eve.

We drove by several homes this weekend, but we didn't find anything we liked. Daddy is still in love with the log cabin and yes, we drove by it again on Sunday. I think he is still going to try and buy it. We are thinking there are personality conflicts between the agents due to some things that we learned on Friday. We will say more at a later time.

Jack
The Greyhound Who May Need To Move His Bed Away From Mama

Saturday, February 26, 2011

The House Hunting Continues


Mama and Daddy didn't have much success yesterday with their house hunting. The Dalmatian House really wasn't one. It was cream and brown. It looked white and black in the photos. Mama said it was really cute, but the RV wouldn't be able to make it up the driveway. Normally, the folks do a "drive-by" of the houses they are interested in to be sure they really want to see them. They didn't on this one, so it was a waste of everyone's time. The second house is still a maybe, but it's a little further out than they we want to be. It has some really nice updates, so it's move in ready. It only has an one car garage though. It has a small lake across the street and that would be an awesome view to see each day. Mama likes it, but is not sure it's the right house. They viewed a third one that needed a total makeover. The basement had some issues and they were considering it until they read the subdivision by-laws and that particular lot cannot have any out buildings built, so no sheds or carport for the RV. :::sigh:::

We are going to do some "drive-bys" today in a totally different area. Hopefully, we will find something that we like enough to see the inside. We have two main things that we need in a house. We need a place to park the RV and we need high speed Internet for Mama's work. The combination of those two things are causing us problems. We also want a yard that doesn't require us to use steps to get to, but so far, we have been able to get around that problem in most of the houses that we have toured.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Is STILL House Hunting

We are participating the blog hop again this weekend. Have fun and we hope you make some new friends!

Friday, February 25, 2011

More House Hunting

(Miss Scout in her pink hat.)

Mama and Daddy are going house hunting today. They are looking at three. We are not holding out much hope, but maybe they will like one of them. Mama and Daddy like to nickname the houses they look at. They named one the dirty underwear house because well, the guy left his dirty underwear out all over the house. There was the urine house. We probably don't need to talk any more about that one. Today, they are looking at the "mystery basement house". It's called that because Daddy thinks there may not be an entrance to the basement from the inside of the house. He has not seen any steps for the basement in any of the photos. Mama hopes he is wrong on that. They are also looking at the Dalmatian house. It's a white house that has some black bricks on it and well, it looks like black spots on the house. They even have a black and white polka dotted shower curtain. It's the one that they are the most excited about today.

Guess what? The mean bank people lowered the price on the log home. That's right, they took it down $2,000 and it's lower than the bottom line price that they offered Mama and Daddy. LOL That means no one else put a contract on it and they just didn't want to deal with us. :-P We heard on the news this morning that the mean bank people are wanting more help from the government. Hmmmm.....maybe they should work with the people who have cash in hand and are wanting to buy their houses. It's just a thought.

We had snow this morning. What is up with that? It will be 60 on Sunday, so it won't last long, but I still don't like it.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Wishes House Hunting Was As Easy As It Is On House Hunters

Monday, February 21, 2011

The Power Of Marketing

Mama is off today for President's Day. She decided to leave us behind and go to the mall and then do some other shopping. Can you believe that? She stopped at Trader Joe's. It was her first time. She said she met the nicest people. There were some elderly gentlemen that recommended the sweet potato fries. They were even giving her tips on how to prepare them. One of the men told her to spray olive oil on them. She had never thought of that and luckily, Trader Joe's had the spray. The checkout lady even told her it was great and to try it on salad. Anyway, the reason we are telling you all of this is because Mama brought us something special from Trader Joe's and the only reason she bought it was because of the box.

Do you see why? There is a greyhound on the box! His name is Bradley. We have to say that the peanut butter treats get 8 paws up from us. Yep, we love them. We are so glad that Bradley put his photo on the box otherwise we would have never have gotten them. Yep, that's the power of marketing and we are glad that Mama fell for it.

Thank you to everyone for their nice comments concerning us not getting the house. We really wanted it and we could still buy it, but they just want more money than we are willing to pay for it. It needed too many repairs and Daddy said we would be loosing money on it. If the bank people come to their senses, then we will re-consider. We know that is not very likely. LOL We hope something good comes on the market this week. Mama is starting to feel like we are just going to have to settle on something. :::sigh:::

Jack
The Greyhound Who Likes Trader Joe's

Sunday, February 20, 2011

No Log Cabin For Us


Yesterday, we went with the folks to visit the log cabin and to see it without snow on the ground. A neighbor came over and talked to Mama and Daddy. He gave them some additional news on the place that made them wonder if they wanted to live there. He's the second person who has warned them that the septic may have an issue. He also told them that there will be special assessments of $1,500 for the next 5 years for road repairs. They said they were glad to learn of the additional costs. Daddy said that the driveway for the motor home would have to be completely re-done and also the backyard was in pretty bad shape and it would take a lot of work to make it nice for us. They left wondering if they even wanted the house anymore. They decided that if the mean bank people came in at our price which was more than we ever wanted to pay for it, we would take it. However, if they wanted any more money, we would walk away. As we were leaving the log cabin, another couple pulled up with an agent. Mama almost told them about the septic, roof and assessments, but decided to let fate decide if we would get the log cabin. We found out today that we are not going to get it. The mean bank people not only did not meet our price, but they INCREASED their price by $2,500. They went backwards! We wonder if the young couple put in an offer. We just hope they put a contingency concerning inspections otherwise, they may be in for some unhappy surprises.

We have wasted a month trying to get that log cabin. The mean bank people who shall remain nameless took 3-5 days to respond to each and every offer. They caused Mama to have a migraine on Friday. Mama is worn out after dealing with them. It's back to the drawing board to find us a new house.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Tour Of Our Room

Since we cleaned our room yesterday, Mama said we could take you on a tour of it.

This is our living room. We re-arranged the furniture and we like it much better. The plants came from our house.


This is the bedroom area, obviously. Sorry for the shiny eyes. Mama used the flash and now she won't help me get rid of them.

We stack the beds during the day and at night my bed goes on the left side of the bed which is Mama's side. She can cover me up easily that way. It works well except she has to step over me to use the bathroom. The other night she knocked a glass of water on me, so that was not good, but usually it works out fine.

The bathroom is to the left of the bedroom. It has really nice granite tops.


Here is the kitchen. The desk is where Mama works and it is also the kitchen table.

The website says our room is 480 square feet. Our old house was 2,600 square feet. Mama says that it has been good for her to get used the smaller space because when we move into the next house, it will seem huge compared to our hotel room. She has found that having a small kitchen isn't bad and actually is more efficient than having a big one because she doesn't have to take as many steps to do things. She does have to put the baking sheets on the fax machine when she uses the oven and we do have the blender and crock pot on the floor when they are not in use, but it works for us.

I hope you enjoyed a tour of our room. It's the place we call home right now.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Is Acting As Your Hotel Tour Guide Today

We are participating in the Saturday Blog Hop. We messed up our name when we joined today. Mama was half a sleep. Oh, well. LOL Have fun exploring and hopefully you will find some new blogs to add to your daily reading.

Home Again - Part 3

 Well, we just realized that we didn't finish telling you about the rest of our trip home.  I don't know if we even remember the res...