Back In Roseburg

I'm back.  I think...

So here's what happened.  As you all know I was working in Bend, about a 55 minute drive away.  When the roads were snowy and icy it was closer to an hour and a half one way. Being older, overweight, and fairly inactive, being on my feet for eight hours a day took a toll.  I would drive home and then hobble from my car to the sofa to put my feet up.  

Once home, depending on what shift I was working, I didn't feel like doing anything but recouping on the sofa.  I know my husband was frustrated because he was home alone all day, and then he would want to do things and go places with me on my days off and I really didn't want to. 

But because of various circumstances, not working was not an option.  I thought originally I'd have to work for about two years but things only got worse and I could see me working for a long, long time and that was making me increasingly unhappy.  

Don't get me wrong...  I really did enjoy my job at THD (most of the time), especially once I got promoted to Paint Associate.  But it wasn't how we had planned our life would be when we bought the Prineville house.

One day I was fooling around on the internet and clicked on Zillow to see if our house zestimate had increased since we bought it.  I was quite shocked to see the zestimate had gone up by about $400,000!  I know the zestimates aren't always accurate but still... It got the wheels turning. 

I did a little more research and contacted a highly rated local realtor to see if she would give us a more realistic estimate on our home's value.  Long story short, she did come out and gave us a starting sale price of about $200,000 more than what we bought the house for.  So much better news than when we sold our Bakersfield house, basically for nothing.

We listed our house in September 2014.  I was a little nervous because I was really familiar with the Douglas County real estate and I would see properties in that area, in that price range that hadn't sold, in some cases were still for sale four years later. 

We had a couple of showings and everybody loved it.  I mean, after all, the house was an extremely well built home with a fabulous, unbeatable view.  We thought at one point we were going to get an offer until they couldn't produce a financial proof letter.  Then about four months after listing we had another showing (different people) and got a very positive feedback.  About a week later we got an offer.

The bad news was the offer was for $75,000 below list price!  I was very disappointed but I wasn't ready to throw in the towel.  Since we were told from the beginning that this was an all-cash offer I knew they would have to have close to what our list price was.  I got my calculator out and started making lists of different sale prices and what we would get after realtor fees, closing fees, etc.  I knew how much cash I wanted to get out of the sale and I was willing to wait if I needed to.  The other thing in our favor was I knew these people were from out of state and were in a hurry to find a place. A previous offer they had made on another house fell through after a bad inspection.

We countered at $10K below list and received another counter offer, this time $50K below list.  That still was not good enough for me.  Our realtor suggested figuring out our lowest offer and re-counter with that.  I took out my list and told her my lowest possible acceptable price.  They once again countered that and we just sent our previous counter back.  They accepted.  It was $25,000 below list price but I was going to get the cash I felt I needed for the move back to Roseburg.

All went well until our home inspection.  Turns out there was something wrong with our heat pump and we never even knew it! We ended up having to put a new unit in to the tune of $3,000. Once that was taken care of we contacted movers to get estimates (ouch!!!), started packing and looking for a place for the animals.  I got rid of the chickens in one day by listing them on Craig's List for free. Finding a place for the bull and two horses was a little more difficult.  I finally found a place in Redmond that took the horses and didn't cost me an arm and a leg.  And not until virtually the last moment did I find a place for our bull.  

We have friends in Washington State that have a farm and they generously offered to take Dakota.  By then time was getting very short because I feel like I have to do everything properly.  He had to have a sexually transmitted disease test (took a week to complete), get his health certificate and brand inspection.  We finally got everything done and I made the long drive up and back.  Thank goodness they loaned me an extra GPS because driving through Portland nearly got me undone!

SOOOOO....  we sold our Prineville house and are back in Roseburg in a rental.  I got all but one credit card paid off so that is a huge relief.  We found a really nice place that both of us agreed to and put an offer in.  After a couple of counter offers they accepted.  Our closing should be in August and so far the inspections have come back good.  We aren't quite locked in just yet but it's really close. 

I'm glad it didn't take us a year like the last time...

We have been taking little day trips like we used to and I started bringing the camera again, so I'm hoping to be able to start blogging again.  Maybe not every day, but every so often. 

Here are some pictures of our rental.

The neighbor's tree (he doesn't know what it is).

 The front of our rental.

Front yard.

Back yard.

From the back looking at the back of the house.

Game Room Curtains

I've been wanting to make some window coverings for the windows in the game room for a while now. I had thought that when Carli came to visit we could work on them together. But alas, that was not to be. We were able to go to the fabric store and browse the fabrics though, and I did finally find something I liked. It was rather pricey though. Good thing I had a coupon for 40% off!

Once we got home I decided I wanted to make them wider. One panel would have covered but I like to have the folds all the way across when the curtains are closed. I think it looks a bit classier. Since I had bought the last of the fabric at Joann's I had to go on-line to order more.  Good thing there was a sale going on at the time I ordered. It was 60% off!!

And of course as I suspected, once I got the order the dye lots were just a little off. So I forged ahead anyway and put the ever so slightly darker panel on the outside.

I mentioned before that I am anything but a seamstress but I thought how hard can it be to basically sew straight lines. I did a little online research and realized I needed to match the patterns. Oh bother...

I tried to figure out what several web sites were describing (they all were saying the same thing) and finally I just said screw it and pinned the pattern together the best I could. It actually didn't turn out too bad. So the worst thing is everything isn't exactly square and straight. But you can hardly tell!

I didn't use a liner either. I didn't want to spend the extra money and I figured since the top is open the light is going to come through anyway, no matter what. 

Here's a closeup view of the seam of the two panels. Not a bad pattern matchup if I say so myself. You can kind of see the dye difference too.

Now I am thinking about the two side windows. Hubby thinks they should be shades rather than curtains because even pushed to the side the curtains may block some view and light. He's probably right. That means I'll probably have to call a professional. Unless I attempt Roman shades...

The Wickiup Place And Devils Lake

After our trip up the mountain on the chair lift we decided to go see how the teepees I built a couple years ago were doing.

They were still up.   

Maybe a few pieces fell down but for the most part it was still all there.

Then we went down the river to see how the other one was holding up.  

It was doing maybe a little better than the other one.

The scenery looking down the Deschutes River.

Can you see something inside?

Look closely!

This is the second teepee like structure.

Hubby near the second structure.

Looking up river.

A couple of cuties. 

We spent a little time enjoying the river and the putting a few more branches on each of the teepees. On the way home we stopped by Devils Lake to take a few pictures of the beautiful lake.

The lake isn't all that big but the water was crystal clear.

One day we'll have to spend a little more time exploring this lake.

Up The Mountain

Last Thursday after my morning mammogram appointment (I like to call it "getting my breast pressed") we loaded up the car and headed for Mount Bachelor to take the ski lift to the top and have lunch at the restaurant there.

Some things have changed since the last time we were there. There is now a frisbee golf course that you can play once you get to the top. As you play you make your way down the mountain. 

I didn't get a picture of it but there is also a dog sled ride. When we were there, two teams of dogs were waiting to pull a small SUV-like vehicle along the trail. Apparently one team takes the vehicle out (usually about 4-6 people are on board, including the musher) while the other team stays put and rests. It looked like it might be fun but I would want to know more about the price and length of the ride first.

If you look at the ski lifts here every third chair is a bike lift. There is (are? the grammar nazi is confused) quite a network of roads going down for bmx bikes. Is that what they're called? Anyway the bikes are set in the bike rack and the riders are in the chair behind. 

It's nice that they came up with a few ways to make extra money during the summer months.

Looking down at the parking lot.

Looking waaaaay down!

Heading up!

Once we got to the top we went to the restaurant and had lunch. I don't know if it was an off-day or what exactly the problem was, but it was less than stellar. The ice tea for the baby was bad and she requested a change out to orange juice (found out later the batch had been brewed with only one tea bag); my hot wings were so vinegary they were inedible; plus I had to remind them to bring the blue cheese dipping sauce that was supposed to come with it; the onion rings should have been taken out of the fryer a minute sooner (they were rather dark); the Kid's Menu mac 'n' cheese was more of an adult fare so that it was hardly eaten (kids want the stuff that comes out of the box with the fake orange cheese, not "gourmet" stuff for adults!); my margarita wasn't fantastic (it was made using "home made sweet and sour mix" and had to be on the rocks only--really??? No blender???). The only things half way decent were the burgers. We got there around 1:30 pm and it seemed they didn't have enough wait staff. Everything took just a little longer than it should have. After all that they still charged us for the tea, which I felt we should not have been charged for since it was their error (the waiter told us what had happened).

So how's that for a restaurant review?

After our mediocre lunch we headed out for a patch of snow and some photos.

Some flowers up there. If you look closely you might see the bee in the middle.

Beautiful view.

Look closely and you can see a plane in the middle of the picture. Very weird to be higher than the plane!

I took a bunch of shots of the girls sliding down the hill. I only included about half here. Scroll down the pictures fairly fast and its almost like a video.

The lodge at the top.

Posing on the rocks.

Time to head back down.

And here we are back at the parking lot. We were way up there!

After this we went to our "Wickiup Place" where I've built the little teepee like structures. I'll have that for the next blog.