Seriously, It's October?

Holy crap! Seems like it was just summer. What happened to September? The hot humid weather really throws off the internal calendar.

The last two weeks have been all about getting the house at 44 Grove Street ready for the market. So here is the culmination of these efforts. Not all that impressive. I could have written a more attractive narrative. But the porch is painted, trees are trimmed and garage is gilded with wood putty in all the rotten places. From the outside, it all looks real nice. Compared to the other properties in this price range, seems like a real deal.

The real work is now inside. The idea is that when a buyer steps into the house they will gasp and think, "this place is so nice and roomy". This means all of our quasi-unnecessary crap has to go. I rented a storage space about 10 miles from here with the idea that it will be a holding spot until we move. My mom and Dad (and Jon) came on Saturday to make trips to this storage facility with boxes of books, shelves and other unnecessary furniture. At one point, Grandpa almost bagged a buck with his pickup truck. We were leaving the storage compound and I saw this dear about to bound into the road. I yelled and grandpa slammed on the brakes just in time to miss (by inches) this 6-point buck running at full-tilt.

So now my computer work station is back upstairs in the old location but a bit tidier. I've been working on a piece for the Children's Museum which I just finished. I realized that for the price of a DVD duplication job I coulld probably run out and buy a DVD inkjet printer for my own labels. If I can find a good price locally, I might just do that. it seems to come up more and more often.

I took Bill Hebert too see the new house and he was thoroughly impressed. I sort of needed that. There is much anxiety surrounding the funding of such an endeavor.

Mary's credit check from one of the three bureaus looked stallar. But evidently, the other two both had record of a delinquent account. About 5 and a half years ago, Mary was enjoying taking a karate class in Cedar Springs. The thing was, they required an expensive "membership". She was feeling so good about the class that she signed up for a multi-year commitment. Then all of a sudden, her husband died unexpectedly and she found herself a single parent. She could no longer make the classes. She asked to get out of the contract but the owner said that she had signed the paper and it was beyond his control. He said that something could be worked out through the company in Pennsylvania that handled these iron-clad membership contracts. They told her that she could get out of her contract by paying $480. Seeing no other way out she resolved to pay the penalty. Instead of writing a personal check, Mary went to the bank and purchased a money order to make it more official and easily cashed. Problem was, the bank does not fill in the "pay to" line for money orders less than $500. Mary just stuck the money order in the envelope and sent it off to Philadelphia in first class mail. A week later, the health-club-membership-scamming organization called to tell her that time was up and since she did not send the $480, she would have to pay the entire $1500. Puzzled, she went to the bank and discovered the Money Order had been cashed but not by the company she had sent it to. They traced it to a bank account in Philly and got the name and address of the guy who had signed his name in the "pay to" line. Unfortunately, the police were unwilling to investigate for this "small" amount and the company pretended they never received the payment. The $1500 went to collections and there it sits as a blemish on her credit score. Of course, she would not pay a second time for services that she had not received.

The bank for our home loan said that she would need to arrange to pay off the $1500 before we could get the loan. We told them that that was a "deal breaker" and I just got word yesterday that they would overlook that particular requirement. Whew!

The weather has turned gorgeous again and the autumn colors are starting to come out. I'd go take a picture but the battery charger for my old camcorder is in the storage unit 10 miles away.