Today was the last day of swim lessons for the kids.  The kids had fun and got more comfortable with the water, which was all I was hoping to get out of it this first year.  Both kids will still be in the Level 1 classes next year, but that is OK.  I brought the camera and got quite a few good shots.

 

This picture perfect captures the personalities of both of my children.  I promise you I do not prompt Colleen to pose that way.  She does that all by herself.

 

Here is one of Colleen using the kick board. 

 

Here is Wesley with a substitute teacher.  His regular teacher had to miss the last day.  I brought the camera yesterday to get pictures with her, but of course the batteries were dead.  :(

 

Here is Wesley showing off the treats he got after class.   They give out a couple of small pieces of candy with their report cards.  It is probably the part that Wes will remember best.  :D

 

Coco choose a cookie instead of the candy.  As you can see, she is happy with her choice as well.  :D

 

Coco and her swim teacher / life guard.  Although Colleen let her fears get in the way of trying a lot of things, she had nothing but admiration for her teacher, who she'd now like to emmulate when she grows up.  She finally tried what was asked of her yesterday (the second to last day of lessons - which ran Mon-Fri each week for the entire month of July!) and the only reason she did finally try things like Rocket Dive and Floating on your back and belly was because she had to if she has any hope of being a swim lesson teacher and life guard one day herself.

I got an email a few days ago from our property manager for the house in Charlotte.  The one that we had built, lived in barely a year, and weren't able to sell so we are renting it out.  

 

I'm not cut out for owning a rental property.  I have this need to control things.  Can't control a tenant.  Can't influence much of anything when I live on the opposite side of the country.

 

Anyways, the email.  Two issues, the first is that the airconditioning is doing the opposite of what the heating did in the winter.  Now the master bedroom is too cold and the rest of the top floor is too warm.  No, the tenant didn't pay attention to what the heating and cooling company did when they came out and adjusted the damper back in the winter.  Guess who gets to pay for the heating and cooling company to come out again?  I told our property manager that I needed him to be out there when the company comes out so that they can show him how to do it.  I'll be darned if I'm paying a trip fee every time the seasons change.  And if it was coming out of his own pocket, I bet the tenant would be singing a different tune as well.

 

Second issue is that the middle window in the great room is leaking when it rains.  Property manager is going to go out there to confirm that it is not just a caulking issue.  If it isn't, then I have to coordinate with the building supply company and the manufacturer of the window to get it replaced.  Please, please, please let the window still be under warranty.  The house here needs new windows desparately and it will chafe if I have to buy a new window for the NC house before getting new windows here.  I hope to God that the tenant cleans the water up right away, puts towels down, etc.  I also hope that he called as soon as he noticed it, but the wording of the property manager's email leads me to believe it has been gonig on for a while.  The floor that the window leaks on is the very expensive, somewhat tempermental bamboo flooring.  My stomach gets upset when I think about it.

 

Meanwhile, here I sit in my house in WA.  I KNOW darn well that I am lucky, my life is charmed, yadda yadda yadda.  But it galls me that I am sitting in our smaller 40 year old home with a list a mile long of things that need to be fixed or updated, paying almost $700 more a month than the mortgage on the 2 year old NC house.  Meanwhile, one single guy lives in our nearly 3000 square foot dream home in Charlotte and the rent he pays us to do so is more than $600 LESS than our NC mortgage payment each month, NOT including the very expensive insurance policy or homeowner association dues.  I am thankful that we were able to rent it out so that it didn't go into foreclosure and ruin our credit.  I am.  But every time I use our extremely old appliances here, I think of the brand new, top of the line appliances we left behind in Charlotte.  I hope he keeps them clean.  I hope he appreciates them and treats them well.  I wonder if he knows that we shoulder a third of the cost for him to live there.  (*Note: It many not be exactly a third.  I suck at math and I'm not in the best frame of mind right now.  If it's not a third it is close to it, give or take.  I know it is more than a quarter.) I wonder if he feels lucky to have found such a good deal or if he thinks we are giant suckers or if he even gives it a thought at all.

 

In the same email that our property manager sent me telling me of the two issues, he also said that the tenant asked how much we'd sell the house to him for.  First of all, we are significantly upside down on the place, there is no way we could come up with the difference between what we owe and what houses are going for in that neighborhood right now.  Secondly, I just don't know if I am ready to sell yet.  If the tenant could somehow manage to pay what we'd need to get to pay off the mortgage (no bank in their right mind would approve it, but let's go with the hypothetical right now), I still don't know.  I love that house.  I personally picked where the outlets were placed, how deep the pantry is, where the components for the security system (that we still pay for!) all were installed.  That house was built entirely to my exacting specifications, down to how the can lights were placed.  And we all know how cheap I am.  I've been able to tolerate paying the difference between what we are payed in rent and what we pay out in mortgage because I've looked at it as as investment.  I imagine that one day housing prices will go up again and we will be able to sell for a tidy profit and be able to put some of that money into this house.

 

Life's not fair and if you expect it to be so, then you set yourself up for dissappointment.  I know that and I know that I'm not owed anything, and that I have been damn lucky in this situation.  We haven't had the house foreclosed on.  Our credit is still in decent shape.  Our tenant pushes the deadline every month, but he does ultimately pay his rent.

 

But dammit, it is so unfair that he gets to live in our dream home, for less than it costs us, and money that I NEED to spend on this house is going to be spent paying the heating and cooling company to come out and adjust the dampers for him, for the second time in 6 months.  Who CARES if it is warmer in the other bedrooms?  Supposedly it is just him living there in that huge house all by himself.  How many bedrooms can one man sleep in? 

 

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OK Time to put my big girl panties on and get over this pity party.  I have fun stuff that I want to write, stuff that I really do want to remember.  I need to make time to do that, soon!  I will, but the dryer is beeping and I need to change out the laundry. 

 

Love, Jen

 

 

Shawn got a ride home from a coworker, that was nice

 

Chatted with my new friend, Mahtha's daughter, Rebecca

 

Half heartedly straightened up the kitchen.  Mostly consisted of emptying dishwasher, refilling it and running it.

 

Half heartedly fed kids random crap as opposed to cooking.  Coco got left over chinese.  Wesley got something, can't remember what now.  Was probably terrible for him and motherly guilt is blocking it out of my mind.

 

Tried to sneak out to go to Safeway by myself.  Didnt work.  Spent at least 10 minutes trying to round up shoes and what not for the kids to come with me.  I REALLY DISLIKE going to the grocery store with kids.  They are demanding and impatient.

 

The things that I didn't buy at TOP Foods this afternoon because Safeway had them cheaper... well, that was last week.  Ice cream cones are the same price and Ranier cherries are 20 cents more per pound.  Feel chumped.  On the plus side, Totino's pizzas were 2 for $3 at safeway and at TOP they were 1.99 each.  So bargain there.  OCD Jen made sure to note which ones were more expensive when I put them in the fridge.  I have to enjoy them 49 cents more when we eat them.

 

Didn't get to swim at the pool tonight, there was an at home meet.  Go Monarchs!  We saw one of Coco's classmates, Joey.  He is so cute.  He was 3rd in line for his turn to swim and he was all business.  He was so In-The-Zone that he barely registered us as being there.  :)  We'll have to remember to ask him how he did overall tomorrow at swim lessons.  His lessons are the class time right before ours.  It will be nice if he and Coco stay friends, he's a good kid, comes from a good family.

 

I wanted to watch the new episode of LA Ink tonight and I totally missed it.  I'm a crappy TV watcher.  Dad told me to watch a special with JK Rowling in it and I totally forgot about that too.  Plus I stll don't know which channel number ABC is.  All I want to know is: WHAT CHANNEL IS "HOW'S IT MADE?" ON?  WHAT TIME?  and can someone please come over and show us how to watch the TV shows we have DVR'd?  Because it shows that more and more % is used up every day, but no shows ever come up on the list to watch.  Also haven't figured out how to check voicemails on the new phone number.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

 

Love, Jen

Yesterday was Colleen's 6th birthday.  Very low key.  No presents, no cake.  We are having a party for her on Sunday, we'll do the whole big thing then.  Yesterday she got to pick dinner and she choose chinese.  She got seasame chicken and pork fried rice with BBQ pork as her appetizer.  Colleen LOVES chinese.

 

Today has been busy: take Shawn to work, I had a doctor's appointment, then the kids' swim lessons, then we had to pick up the helium tank for the party, then McDonald's drive through, a quick stop at home to eat and catch our breath (and I had a couple rounds with Nationwide, they STILL don't have the billing right on our account!), then to the party supply store, then to TOP foods (play area).  We are back at home and I am tired!

 

We've been going back to the pool each evening and practicing what the kids learned in swim lessons that day.   I think we will still do this tonight, but I am not sure.  I have to cook dinner and we have to pick up Shawn at some point.  It is almost 6 now and the pool closes at 8.  We'll see.

 

We're off to watch more cable.  I'm ashamed to admit that I like to watch all those shows on TLC about real people.  I used to love HGTV but watching all of the real estate transaction shows makes me very stressed and upset feeling.  Best to avoid it.

 

Love, Jen

Comcast made us an offer I couldn't refuse, and so now I have a new phone number and cable (triple play bundle deal).  We haven't had cable since I stopped working a few months before Wesley was born.  The only TV my kids have ever known is from watching DVDs and boy is cable a HUGE DISSAPPOINTMENT for them.  Wesley in particular is very frustrated. 

 

#1. He can't watch whichever TV show he wants to exactly when he wants to.  The concept of a TV schedule is beyond his 4 year old sensibilities.

 

#2. He can't pause the TV show to use the bathroom or eat dinner.

 

#3. Commercials.  He is furious that these "poop faces" (he's already got the hang of yelling at the tv) have the audacity to interrupt the program he is watching with their stupid advertisements. 

 

Colleen is just sad that Hannah Montana (the tv show) isn't at all what she expected it to be.  She loves the website and the music, but she really doesn't like the tv show.

 

I've been meaning to write all of this for a day now, but what finally got me on the computer and writing is that Wesley just almost got in BIG TIME TROUBLE because he came to me all excited talking about "fuck jap".  Fuck jap this, fuck jap that.  I'm all WTF??  Turns out he was talking about a show on Cartoon Network called FLAP JACK.  He must have been mixing the beginning of the first word with the end of the second word.  I just figured that out after I typed it.  Fuck Jap.  Lord help me.

 

TGIF!

 

Love, Jen

 

PS this was Colleen's first week of swim lessons.  She enjoys them.  Dance lessons start tomorrow morning.  I still have to get her tights.  Colleen has swim lessons Mon-Fri and Ballet / Tap on Saturday.  She only has Sunday off.  Wild.