Ayn's Multiple World

Ok, steadily planning forward

Good morning this is me. I know again… It’s just that way hehheh. It’s already 5:30 am on Tuesday. We’ve been up for a little bit. Well like an hour and a half or so. It’s taken that long to go through the pictures we had put up from CS’s place. We had hung them up over at Facebook yesterday, but today we went back and labeled all them. We still have to attach them to faces, but I need SOME time to write today. I’ve only got an half hour before the shower, and then some time after that. We’ll try to make the best of it.

Hmm, just heard something on TV. Did you know that it’s almost April 15th – tax time? I think Rich is almost done with his. He has things like that always held up to the last. But, it’s not my thing so I don’t have to be concerned. I’m already typing on my tax money so we’re all good!

It also reminds me that CS texted yesterday and it seems that she has gotten Thom’s mail off. I was really happy to hear that. It takes some pressure off me. There were three more books that came in though. I’m not sure if I’ve got them all. I should have counted. CS did some good work in getting them out. She was able to pull what was needed for them through the computer. We had the 3 boxes packed and all, but we didn’t get to put special things in them.

We’ll have to give Thom an email in the next couple of days to say they are coming. I sure hope he likes them.

Most of the books are on his must read list for becoming a corporal. *Sigh* His birthday is on the 25th, so hopefully they’ll get there in time – they got now 12 days … ok?

Hmm, I think you’ve heard this before. Anyway … CS took care of the labeling and then she had the post office pick up the boxes. She sure did make things easy for me.

Ok, I still want to write a bit about yesterday night. I think we pretty much wrote all day so you know where we were at, but then there was the part where we got home and there were a few texts between CS and us, but pretty much we were waiting for Rich to get home. We weren’t disappointed.

We were a little unhappy though. Rich appears to have hurt his back while at his daughters. He said it went out on him when he played his third game of bowling. YEEKS! Maybe this was his way of dealing with the fact that his daughter was wiping him out at the sport. She is a Master’s of physical education! Hehehe poor Rich.

Rich talked a bit about his weekend, but it took some prodding. I didn’t get so much of the good stuff – what all they were talking about, because Rich downplayed all of that he said. He did say that Jillian asked about 40-50 questions on the multiplicity, but his general ideas was that one day we would meet and she’d probably ask all those questions of me personally. Rich claimed that he didn’t really know how to answer them. *Sigh*

If RICH doesn’t know about multiplicity by now I don’t know who would.

It wasn’t too long after he finished eating that we took him to bed where he belonged. No funny stuff last night though … he had to be babied a lot! He got a very long back rub and it was all done with us talking. I caught him at one point though in that he drifted off … I could hear him snoring. We startled him and said what did we just say? Hehehe poor kid … I guess he was tuckered out.

There was a lot of talking accomplished though. I didn’t know where to start, but I guess we went back to the beginning of the trip starting from the drive there to the drive back and then we took a big leap and went into all the thoughts that we were having yesterday.

AHA! Someone’s baby is up! He’s in the washroom. We gave him our normal greeting and he said gmorning smiley! LOL He’s such a silly goose.

Shoot, it’s pretty close to the shower time. Maybe HE could take a shower first? We’ll see, maybe I will have to do that in a moment. BUT, I did want to say for the record that as many thoughts as we could have about moving to my sisters for our private place “up north” were told to Rich.

Our immediate response from him? It was hard to get, but it at least wasn’t a no. He said that he would have to give it time to think over. I don’t know also how it went over with Uncle Mark. I’m pretty sure that CS would have talked to him last night about it if he was home at any decent hour. I don’t think though that either of them has real regular hours. They are up and down at odd times of the day and night.

I’m pretty sure that things will have to be discussed and there’s a lot of ground to cover, but the thought that it’s a possibility give me a great amount of excitement.

WooHOO!!! Rich is taking his shower first so we’ve got a few more minutes of uninterrupted thought. We talked to him about it being built as our place up north, but then we talked also about it being toward our retirement place. I told him that we wouldn’t be able to retire from work yet, but it would give us a place to go on many weekends and that he could fish from there and even have someone to fish with beside me and Bob. ‘Cept most often he would go out on day trips and then spend the night back at CS’s B&B.

Hehehe I think that’s CS first take on it. I have to say though in my mind it’s more like OUR place like my father had built his condo from the old motel up on the lake. I guess it would be like their place though in that if we weren’t there, we wouldn’t mind if they shared the space with others going by or even Nathan and his girl though I can’t see them coming over any time soon. Maybe though if we built the big Jacuzzi that would be a natural draw.

I wouldn’t mind if CS and/or Mark used it in-between as long as they cleaned up the ring!

*Giggle*

I think that’s one of the things I remembered from the Garvey’s places in both WI and MI. The Jacuzzi was a big deal – especially with the kids. I could put 3 or 4 of them in there at the same time. There place was much to fussidy to think it real comfortable for kids, but it was still a nice idea to have a place all set up to go for breaks.

I’m really sure this idea at 4-500 a month or whatever gets worked out there is much closer to something we can handle with Rich than not. We made sure to tell him we’d give up our ideas on the Oswego place – well at least until I made my first $400,000 writing J That then of course would be different.

But, the thing was that we’d be a lot more comfortable keeping our “rental property” if I knew we had another place that was ours up north.

I can imagine doing some shopping up there looking for things for the place. Pretty much though I would keep it simple enough so that it felt comfortable to others – I might like to go antique shopping though to see what could be worked out. Hmm, an Interesting thought. I wonder if I could get my fireplace mantel ever built in to a wall. Maybe not, but at least the idea is there.

That was a part of our thoughts too last night. We were thinking about getting the 2nd bedroom built back into shape. It sure would take some cleaning up. I do remember something in the middle of the night talking with Uncle Mark, in that he thought they could come down sometime this way too. I would like that, but I know that it would be hell on my sister. Because of their back, they need separate sleeping. Mark could stay on the couch like I had at there place, but I’m thinking that CS would need a separate special bed – that’s IF she could make it up and down 3 flights of stairs.

Now I am thinking though that maybe just like I would expect to do the designing and decorating at their place, maybe we could offer the same to them that over time she could decorate and design THIS room! AND, like with each other – if there were other guest needing a space the room would be open to them.

Man that would be fun! We could do most of the shopping together or at least talk over the ideas, but as long as I’ve been with Rich he’s never had an idea about or for the room. CS has good taste and it would be very welcoming to them to put together something. Maybe that way they could come down and we’d do some things together. It be there “city place.”

We’ll have to think about that some, but now it’s quarter after 6 am and Rich is out of the shower. We’ll have to jump in there real quick. Hopefully we’ll be back!

Ok, good good … we’re here for a few more minutes. We got in our shower, packing and medicine AND we got to smooch-up Rich some … someone had to help him pull up his pants.

Apparently all the back-rubbing we did did not get rid of ALL the problems with his back.

*Sigh*

He says he’s going to have to go pretty soon. We’d drunk most of the coffee so we made some more. Yesterday we’d brought the old thermos with us to work because we hadn’t had a chance to drink coffee yet. We know this thermos loses liquid so we didn’t tip it, but now we’re thinking that we really liked having coffee at work, so beside Rich taking some fresh stuff with him, we’re also going to take some fresh stuff with us. WooHOO!!!

Being a little drifty watching Rich pack up his stuff. He’s being quiet and concentrating and we’re trying not to interrupt, but our little heart is pitter-pattering because we know he’s going to be gone again and it’s coming up in minutes. I hear him filling his mug now L… Ok you … be strong! Yeeks there he is zippering up his coat. And, I hear the keys … And, I know he’s going to walk in and smooch me. BE OK!

Growl … I got smooched AND he said he had a game tonight. He can’t even bend over for his pants and he’s going to do a game? Oh man we’re so not for that! He said that we should pray for rain so we’re going to go with that. Hopefully then the game will be canceled. That’s what we need.

Ok, he is gone now and we’ve got 20 minutes, so let’s make the best of it.

You know where we are going to want to go. BACK TO THE HOUSE THOUGHTS!

When we talked to Rich last night we talked about paying $900 for this rent and up to $500 for CS and then we tried to argue it out that $1400 for two places would be better than $2500-$3300 for one place. I really like the big place and I’d take it in a minute if we could pay off the house, but then I have to appreciate that Rich wants to retire not in debt.

I like the idea that if something happened to Rich then we’d have choices. It be a lot easier moving to West Bend and paying $500 than keeping our place here for $900, but maybe that would be something we could do at that time. Just think that if something happened to Rich, we would not be able to handle work and being alone here.

I would like to say that we should stay closer to our boys, but if they are only seeing us 5-6 times a year – which is probably about how it works out … then why stay here. Better to build a place so they could visit up there – especially because it’s not that far out.

We’re still stuck on the part that it’s not really a beach/woods beautiful scenery for them to lavish in. I’m not sure what to do about that. I would have to ask beside fishing what else there is to do in that area that would be a draw to the kids. Like at their grandma’s house there was the Indiana Dunes. We don’t have that kind of fun there. We’d really have to check it out.

Maybe we could get them into the snowmobiling with Nate, but then that would take a lot of money they don’t have. We better leave that part off. I think mostly they are young kids their lives are changing and we just have to be available when they’ve got time.

I think we could go through a long transition point where we could do both a place down south in Chicago and up North. I really was encouraged that Rich said he’d have to think things over. I would like to hear Mark’s opinions too and then there’d be if it was a go to think about things … well things would have to be thought through how it happened.

I told Rich there was a room now that we could sleep in until things got built according to our income potential, but then I think too that after Rich got done with the divorce, then maybe he could take out $30-40,000 and do a real nice job at getting things built in sooner. I really have no idea on the cost, but it would be well worth it.

There’s still a big point in contention. Even if we could afford $500 a month, and we could afford the money to get the place fixed up, then we’d still have to assure that Mark and CS could hold onto the place – that they wouldn’t lose it as part of our investment. I think in this regard a lot is going to depend on if they can get the place refinanced. It would help to have the place built up, but not substantially. I think there are others that are in worse shape CS indicated so they might not be a priority. So the question might be … would $500 be enough to assure that they wouldn’t lose the place?

I think they are bringing in about $3500, so then it would be like bringing in $4000. This would be if Mark didn’t get another full time job that would be more like he’s been trained for. I think we’d have to play worst case scenario – as if he didn’t get another job that had a more serious income.

It’s a real question if they could survive and pay mortgage with $2000 a month and then still survive on the other $2000. It still might be a struggle. If we could afford someone else to do the labor then it would be less important that Mark be there, but the point is that it’s a hard thing to watch them struggle so much … just it be harder to think of him working 70-80 hours a week. We’d hope that he’d be around more to be doing things enjoyable to life.

I think as to Rich and me … we’re probably bringing home closer to $7500, but then we’ve both got some fixed expenses. There’s also no guarantee that Rich would hold onto his jobs. That would have to be a part, but if we were only paying $1400 for the two places, then it wouldn’t be such a strain on either of our incomes.

Ok, it should be taken to mind that this is just tentative thinking. I’m really not sure what Rich brings in … this is just what I think he earns.

I’d like to talk to CS some more today. I think she plans and figures stuff more like us. She also though knew that we were getting ahead of ourselves last night. But, I think that her texting later to see where Rich was might have had something to do with figuring out where he was at with it. I just know the part that I think that CS place is perfect for her. And, it’s good for us too, even if we’d only have a place downstairs. If we could combine the living situation for both then it would be a plus, plus. I think in this day and age … financial security has to be planned in with everything – including toward our retirement dreams.

I really don’t think it would hurt Rich either to have a place up north. If he wants to keep his expenses down AND do the fishing thing. Being 2 ½ hours north might be just the thing.

Ok, shhh … we’re going to need to get going, but maybe some more thoughts later, k?

posted by Ann Marie @ 4/14/2009 07:00:00 AM Comments: 0