Salada Tea tag line: The price is what you pay, the value is what you receive.
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The country house. Why am I not out of there yet? It will be two years in October.
Reasons include:
- The first winter, 2010-2011, was very bad. Neighbors told me that we'd got more snow here at the city house than they'd seen in decades. The country house also got a lot of snow, trees down, power outages. Fred, the van, is no good in snow, and with a long uphill driveway there, I just didn't hazard trips.
- In the spring my kidney attacked me. Through the entire 2011 summer I had that stupid useless stent (they'd put it in the wrong place) that tore up my bladder if I so much as lifted more than a coffee cup, or walked, or drove, and I lost a lot of blood. I had a lot of pain and no energy.
- The loss of time during the winter, spring, and summer of the first year hurt me badly financially. I had sold a lot of stock to buy the new house which reduced my income significantly. The idea was to sell the old house to the Hairless Hunk's in-laws and then reinvest the proceeds, regaining income. Instead, that house is now costing me almost $1,500 per month in taxes and utilities, on a reduced income, so that now it becomes difficult to hire pros for moving the big stuff and for repairs without dipping into investments, reducing my income even more.
- I made some headway last fall. Then there came a cloud. I'm here because Daughter and Hercules live here. The company Hercules works for made some demands on him in the fall that, with a new baby, he didn't want to fulfill. But that company was looking iffy anyway. They had been bought out, and the new owners were consolidating offices. It started looking like one way or another they might have to move. There's no way I would stay here if they moved. I'd go back to the old house and sell this one. So ... I stopped moving things down here. Just in case.
- In the late spring of this year, Hercules quit the old company and took another much more secure and satisfying job. But I still haven't been motivated to get my tail in gear. Money is still tight, but that isn't going to get better by waiting. So, why not?
- I really like the old house. (I merely tolerate this house.) Here's a wonderful description of the three village(s) I lived near: http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2012/8/Community+Pages/Rhinebeck-Red-Hook-and-Tivol. Why would anyone want to leave that? I had 1.35 acres surrounded by woods, on the top of a ridge. From the back deck I could see miles of farmland and mountains. It's beautiful countryside, and I'm so afraid if I sell it I'll never go back. I don't want to lose it.
- Hordes of people are convinced that the end of the world (by whatever means, from monster meteor to terrorism, to ... you name it) is due this December, or the religious folks are expecting the Rapture and/or the Second Coming, also December, anyway, whatever, I am also worried. Not about the same thing as the end-of-life-as-we-know-it people, though. I worry that some nutty group will decide, if the world doesn't end on schedule, that they have been anointed to make it happen. And here I sit in hailing distance of NYC. If the shit hits the fan (or the uranium hits the breeze) this is not a good place to be. The wrong people have guns here.
- If any of the above means we can't stay here, the country house is ideal. It has plenty of room for a real garden. There's a well that can be tapped with a hand pump. The woods are full of rabbits and turkeys. The right people have guns. There's a fireplace with plenty of firewood available. It's up a steep dead-end road so it's less attractive to marauders. Plenty of room for Daughter, Hercules, and the Nugget.
I never ever ever wanted to be a landlord. I cringe at the thought of someone messing up something that is mine. But it may be that keeping the country house and renting it out, perhaps even to the Hunk's in-laws, is the only way to go. It gives me back the income I need, keeps the house in case I ever want or need it, and gives me a good excuse to revisit the area. Short of burning it down, or turning it into a meth lab, there's little that renters can do that can't be repaired.
Maybe I can be convinced to do that. Or forced to. I've got to get going, some direction. THIS isn't working.
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