It’s been almost a month since I last posted. Time flies when your old and having fun…
So many things have happened since my last post. Let’s start with the house. Not much has been going on from the outside but a lot has happened on the inside. All the electrical is wired, inspections passed and now for the insulation and drywall. We’ve charted a path with Pella about the windows. We’ll see how the results are once all the pieces are in place. We have updated door hardware coming and have ordered all the interior doors. The Pella sliders are amazing and will look incredible. I’m kind of pissed at us for deviating from the recommended windows, but we’ll learn. The painters are working on staining the beams and the insulation guys start tomorrow with insulating all the interior walls. The foam guy came today and foamed in all the cracks with closed cell foam to stop air loss. We’re still trying to get the front door sorted out with Pella. The local Pella team sez the current front door won’t work as delivered. The corporate team sez it’ll work fine. I’m letting my contractor and architect work out the problem with Pella. They’ve been less than helpful. The local people are awesome, the corporate people are terrible. I wouldn’t recommend Pella unless you don’t have a window choice. Nice windows, terrible customer service and support.
We’ve paid for the new bed and entertainment center, all built by the Amish who work with Simply Amish. Beautiful stuff and will last forever. We’ve picked out a sofa and dining chairs for the kitchen bar. We still need to buy a mattress, but that will wait for a couple of months until we get closer to occupancy. Lots of little stuff to worry about. We finally have a connection plan for power, and that’s getting spun up. Giant pain in the ass working with PNM, which is going to be Wendy’s new employer and my old employer. We have to put up a private pole, run the lateral up the pole and wire it over to the power pole (that I also own and has the transformer I bought) so they can hook it up. PITA!! Hopefully next week that will start. We still have the septic to install, but that should be pretty quick and easy.
As the house is sitting on a 3′ building pad, there is a bit of an uphill climb to get to the front door. I think we’re going to build a 3 1/2′ retaining wall around the property with cement blocks and then stucco it. I’ll install steps at the appropriate location for access to the original ground level. That’s a ways out.
Personally, I’m so ready to get out of this trailer and into the house. The main A/C unit fan went out, so we’re running the two alternate units. The units are able to cool down the RV to 90 degrees when it’s 110 degrees outside, so not a great temp gradient but at least it’s not terrible. The mobile RV repair people are going to replace the entire A/C unit as fan motors are not available since they come from China and are tariffed at 80%. And we all know that we pay for that, not China – so thank you President Trump. The man has no idea about the real world and is a complete moron about how things work in reality. Sorry, one of my sore subjects. Stupid people.
Okay, it’s August so I’m a little more than half way through the year. That means retirement is closer. I’m going to retire 1/20 as that will make me 73 years old and I want to have my own time now. I’m planning on learning some Spanish, playing golf and focusing on playing guitar. I think I’ll finish my drone pilot license and do some pickup work. I’m going to make an appointment with a lawyer here to get our living will and family trust set up in accordance with NM law. I think I’m going to title the land and house to the trust, and probably all the vehicles.
We thought we were going to lose our baby Harp on Sunday. He was lethargic and not eating or drinking. Having been down that path with 3 other dogs, we were going down the rathole of losing Harp too soon. Turns out, Harp was having an arthritis flair up and he was in pain. The Vet prescribed a shot, did a blood test and x-rays on Harp. He’s healthy, passed the ultrasound with flying colors. The meds are starting to take effect and he’s showing improvement. I thank the Lord that Harp is still here and will be for a while. I’m grateful.
Well it’s time for bed. I’ll post more after the wall board is up and the house is ready for stucco. 3 more months!!
Take care everyone.
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