The Feed for My New Blog
Hi, everyone! I thought I'd give you the link to the feed for my new blog since you'll need to update your feed readers manually. It appears that at least one person has had trouble reaching the new site for some unknown reason.
Click here to update your feed reader.
Thanks for reading!
Blog Moving Day Is Here
Well, I'm moving at last! Goodbye to Blogger! You've been good to me!
As I previously said, after three years of the "same old, same old", I'm ready for a change. Please come check out my new blog!
You'll get to see pictures of House 17 "before & after". You'll also get to see what I look like!
Click here -->
TrishaAllen.com
30 Day Challenge: No TV, Day 22
I feel like cutting out television has completely "defunkified" my life!
I'm sure many people out there can relate to me when I say I felt like there was never enough time in my day to get everything accomplished that I wanted to do. I was forever feeling behind. Well, not "chilling out" in front of the set affords me what
feels like another 8 hours each day! Now, I wasn't actually watching 8 hours a day of TV. But, it still
feels like I've got that much bonus time! At minimum, I was watching a couple of hours before bed and had the TV on during the day in the background while I was home. And, naturally, it would draw me in. So, who really knows how much I was watching!
In addition,
we've cut our cable bill down by more than $30 dollars per month! That's enough to hire a lawn treatment service for our new house, House 17, to control all the weeds and fertilize the grass for us. I'm still debating whether to just keep the money and do it myself while working on my tan. But, that's because I have extra time now from not spending it in front of the TV!
My sleep schedule is also much more on track. I've been going to bed around the same time every night, when it feels natural to do so. And, I've been getting up earlier in the mornings. In the past, I'd flip channels until there was nothing interesting on and THEN go to bed. So, many times, I was heading to bed too late and sabotaging myself for the next day.
I really just did this challenge on a whim. But, I'm so proud of myself for sticking to it and NEVER CHEATING! This TV addiction has plagued me since I was a child. It took me this long to own up to it, acknowledge that it was really affecting my life in negative ways, and do something about it. Each of those three steps took time.
How's everybody doing on their 30 Day Challenges that they started with me? I know
Steph faltered on the "no alcohol" thing--but, did she get back up?
Clifford, are you still going to the gym?
Real Estate Wiki
I just received an email in my Realtor mailbox from the folks that have put together the first privately-funded (meaning there are no ads and no one is profiting from it) real estate wikipedia, called the
Real Estate Wiki.
Real estate is such a complex area of business that the normal Wikipedia is thusfar unable to really scratch the surface. The contributors to the Real Estate Wiki are hoping they can help. They're made up of thousands of professionals who write the articles and definitions you'll find there.
When the beta site was launched in January, it began with 7,000 articles, 3,000 definitions, 500 acronyms, 400 biographies of real estate leaders and authors, 600 real estate brokerages, and 800 real estate associations.
It has since grown to include a total of 10,000 articles.
The Real Estate Wiki is asking for volunteers to compose more articles for the site. Check it out if you have time!
Oh, and, among all those authors and all the books they list, there is nary a mention of Robert Kiyosaki. I thought you'd find that interesting.
Honey, The Garage Is Haunted
I’m sure we all have someone in our lives that we consider lovably dopey and capable of such accidental humor that it sends us occasionally into spontaneous, uncontrollable peels of laughter. They’re a little like a big, silly dog—true blue and completely unaware of their own gullibility. No doubt, this is the archetype that inspired Disney’s character, Goofy. I have a person in my life like that—it’s my fiancé, Michael. Only, he can be quite genius in his own right. He’s brilliant at technical problem solving. And, I suppose it’s that very contrast in his character that makes him even funnier to me.
He’s the sugar in our relationship. I’m the spice--which explains why I just can’t help myself but to…well, read on….
A few weeks ago, we began to hear from Contractor 3 and his girlfriend that House 8 is indeed haunted. As you can imagine, numerous questions arose that I SO WANTED to ask but didn’t. I’m not a non-believer. I’ve experienced things, too. I’ve seen things. I’ve even lived in a haunted house. Now, I know you probably just changed gears here and stopped thinking of me as a rational, logic-oriented person! But, I’m telling you I witnessed cabinet doors opening and closing by themselves. Secondly, there was loud rotating knocking on the walls, the door behind me, and the mirror in front of me while washing my face one night at the bathroom sink (my roommate was in the very next room and heard nothing at all). And, finally, we moved out after my roommate was hit hard and thrown by some invisible force right in front of my very eyes. There were other witnesses to that event, too.
I also saw, smelled, and heard unexplained things as a child in a theatre in upstate New York that used to be a church, then some type of fort during the Revolutionary War, then a church again before turning into a theatre. So did lots of other people there. There was a bizarre incident involving a tomahawk from the prop room that about eight people experienced along with me.
Anyway, so when Contractor 3 reported that his girlfriend felt a presence in House 8, I was still dubious. In my book, “feeling” a presence can be any number of things including--but not limited to--psychoses, skin problems, or even delusions of grandeur. I don’t know her well—the girlfriend, that is. But, she seemed of pretty sound mind in the limited times we’ve been around her. We’ve enjoyed lunch with the two of them a few times. And, her skin looks healthy. She wasn’t scratching or anything. So, that leaves me with either of two conclusions. She either believes she is psychic and uses that as her way of feeling special in this big, bad world—or, House 8 is haunted.
The two of them say that a face came out of the wall in the back bedroom toward Contractor 3 one day. They’ve heard giggling coming from an empty room. And, when I allowed them to stay a couple of nights there to “investigate” (I was just happy that someone could make House 8 look lived in so it wouldn’t seem like a vacant property to anyone who happened to be watching), they called me with reports of lights turning on and off by themselves in the middle of the night. Finally, after they weren’t able to get any sleep, they decided to remove the bulbs from the errant fixtures.
Michael has stayed overnight at House 8 several times. I’m currently waiting on the sale of House 8 to Contractor 3. But, in the meantime, since vacant houses can be targets, we’ve wanted to make House 8 look alive (ha, no pun intended). Michael says he never experienced anything out of the ordinary while he stayed there. Contractor 3’s explanation of this is that he believes Michael just isn’t sensitive.
But, let’s get back to my original point. Sugar and spice—Michael’s nice and I’m NOT! LOL! I’m mischievous. I decided to tell Michael that I was worried that something could have followed him home from House 8. How could we know that he wasn’t haunted now?
I let the topic drop for a few days or so. Then, one evening, Michael was waited for me while sitting in the car in the garage. The garage door was open. Suddenly, the garage door closed! Michael turned off the car and yelled into the house at me, “Did you do that????” “Do WHAT?” I asked. “Close the garage door,” he said. “No, did you accidentally hit a button?” I replied. We let the incident drop.
The next day, I hurt my neck doing pull-ups in the gym. Being a weekend day, Michael was home. I told him the Ibuprofen I took earlier just wasn’t cutting it. So, I was going to lie down in bed for a little while to rest my neck. He continued to work away on his laptop in the living room. Then, we heard the garage door open! Michael raced through the house to run out the door to the garage and see if he could catch someone playing the garage controls. No, there was no one to be found. He closed the garage door and came back inside. A half hour later, we heard the garage door again! But, this time, when Michael ran into the garage, the door was closed. The garage light was on, though. So, we knew that the door had moved. Michael tinkered with the controls on the wall—and, discovered nothing seemed strange about them. I was still lying in bed, but could hear all the commotion. Michael turned to come back inside when the garage door opened halfway, stopped, and went back down again! I yelled down the hall, “Do you think someone’s messing with us? Or, is it just broken? Is it HAUNTED???” He wasn’t sure, he said. But, he wasn’t buying into the whole “haunted” thing. He checked to make sure the release cable wasn’t tied up in the door opener at the ceiling somehow and then came back inside.
Another hour later or so, I was beginning to finally feel the relief from another dose of Ibuprofen. I was almost ready to get up. That’s when the garage door opened again! Michael walked in a huff down the hall to the garage…AGAIN. He yelled to me in an obviously perplexed voice, “I guess I’m going to have to go to Lowe’s and get another wall panel. Or, I’m going to have to disable this garage door for good.” I could hear him gathering his things to leave.
But, before he could get far with disabling anything, I went down the hall to stop him and show him the contents of my pocket. I had one of the garage door remotes the whole time. I was snickering wildly at him as I watched him vigorously trying to figure out whether the garage door was haunted! Of course, I don’t really think he ever bought the “Haunted Garage” theory. But, it was fun to play with him just the same. You know, if I were in his position, I like to think my first thought would be to really check to see if my devious little fiancé was playing a cat and mouse game with me! You’d think by now he’d know….
But, that’s part of his charm. He has a wonderful sense of humor about these things, thank God. He says that life with me is never boring!
Remind me to tell you the super glue story sometime!
Walmart Ladies Wear
I did something today that I've never done before! I bought clothing at Walmart!!! Yikes! Yes, OK, I must be a little bit of a clothing snob. But, I had to replace my construction clothes finally. They were looking too worn and painted over. I looked like a vagrant person. It was humiliating. And, there's nothing worse than doing hard labor and feeling down on yourself at the same time! Occasionally, I'd have to run to Lowe's. I was even underdressed for that!!!
So, yes, ladies and gents, I'm wearing articles from Walmart. But, with shirts being $5, it's hard to feel badly about destroying them. I'm absolutely terrible about wiping my caulk-laden hands on whatever I'm wearing, too. I did notice while I was there--and, wondered if this is meant to say something about the Walmart clientele--that Small and Medium sizes were almost non-existant. Everything was Large or Extra Large. It was frustrating. It was almost like I'd punched through a mental block to be able to shop in the clothing section at Walmart, only to find out they didn't want me there!?!
Today, tomorrow, and Sunday, I'll be caulking, priming, and painting House 17.
It's come to the point now that if we don't finish and refi House 17 SOON, we're going to be in trouble. There are bills to pay. On paper, it looks like we made quite a profit last year by selling so many houses. So, naturally, we owe a little bit in taxes. Luckily, our CPA was able to carry forward losses from years previous to offset the amount we owed. But, still, it's going to be a total of $1490 in fees to our CPA for tax preparation for our two businesses (I'll explain that later), Michael, and me. Michael gets a refund of $1417 for federal taxes. But, he owes $327 to the state. I owe $109 for federal taxes and will be receiving a refund of $5 from the state. So, if you're counting, that means we're negative by $504. It could have been MUCH worse. So, I'm not complaining.
But, that, plus the fact that we're paying two mortgages and have to come up with $5544.33 in late March to pay Contractor 3 for the work he's doing to House 4, combined with attorney fees I'll have to pay very soon once the paperwork is done for the sale of Houses 4, 8, and 13 to Contractor 3, and we're broke!
I have to do something QUICK. We have equity in our houses--that's where all our money is. But, the cashflow situation is reaching a critical point. Naturally, I have to refinance something.
I'm hoping to God that I can find a lender that will be willing to do a refi without sending an appraiser through the interior of the house. The downstairs doesn't even look livable. I spoke with the manager at a local bank today. He's going to have a lending officer call me at 3pm. Supposedly, for in-house loans, they just get the value of the house from comps on a pc. But, I'm worried that their in-house loans won't work for us. What I've heard so far included a 3 year pre-payment penalty and a 15 year loan, which has payments that are too high for us. If we have to go through their mortgage side, we may not get lucky on the appraisal--they might have to do a full walkthough. I guess I'll find out today!
I Officially Quit Today
I came to a final decision over the last week to go ahead and quit working as a Realtor with clients for good. I notified the clients of the last few listings I had left today. Then, I emailed my broker to let her know. It remains to be seen if I'll keep my license for our own properties. It depends mostly on the fees versus benefits of receiving commissions on our purchases.
The brunt of the expenses involved in getting a license are behind me now. I will still be paying yearly fees, which add up to around $600, and monthly office fees (about $30+ per month) to keep my license with a broker. So, if we do enough in real estate investing that I make more than $1000 in commissions each year, it should still pay to keep my license.
There are also continuing education credits that must be satisfied, but I can take advantage of low cost or free classes when they come around. I believe I will have to take two classes per year to satisfy that requirement.
Another benefit to keeping my license is that I won't have to pay an agent to list properties for me! I still will end up having to pay my broker a portion of what would me my "commission" on the sale of our properties. But, it would equal far less than if I had to pay an agent 6% of the total sales price.
Now, you must be wondering--what drove me to this decision? Oh, that's an easy answer--time and money. I worked my little tail off this past year trying to make a go of the Realtor gig. There were many weeks where I worked 50-60 hours chasing leads, doing classes as necessary, and doing marketing. That 50-60 hours figure doesn't include what I spent doing our investments, either. As far as money goes, I actually LOST money being an agent! That's right! After all the fees, classes, gasoline and car costs, clothes (I had to purchase suits), marketing my listings and myself, I ended up in the negative--even though I closed a few deals!
And, I don't know about you. But, I'm not willing to PAY to work THAT HARD at something I don't love. And, I sincerely didn't love it. In fact, I'm just not cut out for customer service. It's one of those lessons you have to learn the hard way, I guess.
Trisha the Realtor, R.I.P.
"She just had to try"
10/27/2006 - 2/28/2008
30 Day Challenge: No TV, Day 14
I am pleased to report that I haven't cheated on my
30 Day Challenge at all.
Not once! Well, there are always TV's in the gym, but they're always tuned to absolutely nothing interesting. I'm sure they do that by design to keep people from loitering too long on the machines.
While we were still living in House 2, we both found ourselves walking over to turn on the TV in the living room quite often only out of sheer habit. But, we always managed to stop before hitting Power.
Michael didn't have to take on this challenge of no TV with me. I really would have just left the room if he wanted to watch! But, he thought it would be a great opportunity to grow spiritually and really better himself. So, he's been doing lots of studying in that respect instead. Good for him! I didn't even consult him before doing this challenge--and, he took it in stride!
I will admit, though, that I'm not over my addiction to TV! I still find myself thinking about it. And, on a really tough day like today, I HANKER for it! I think,
Oh, I wonder what's happened on "Smallville" or "Supernatural". I even find myself missing the Food Network. I love that "Bizarre Foods" show. I'm really just craving the distraction and mind-numbing that follows. I think it's like a drug.
But, my addiction has come to its timely end by necessity. We like the "no TV" lifestyle so much that we've cancelled the extended basic cable forever. So, buh-bye, Food Network and VH1 (good riddance to that one--crap on a stick it is)! We're keeping the very basic channels simply to be able to quickly access weather reports. We are in Oklahoma, after all!
Here's what's convinced me to change my TV-wanting ways forever.... I'm creating again! Michael and I have taken on a new project at night while we're NOT working on House 17--we're building a new blogging home for myself!
So, not only do I have a new physical address, but I'll have a new web address, too!
It's been in the works for the last ten days. Yes, it's been going on during our move and during our remodel for House 17. Like we needed something else to do, right? But, guess what!!! We have a lot more time for constructive projects now that we're not wasting our minds on late-night TV!
And, I'm saving up some suh-weet content for my new blog's debut! Think pictures, lots of pictures (of House 17 before and after), and I'll update you more
on my plan to manifest a free vacation (using none of our own money). Yes, I've gotten started on my evil scientist plans already!
My new blog will still be mostly the same format. I'll be blogging about our deals, just as always. But, I'll also write about varied business themes as the mood strikes, too. I am looking forward to a more "grown-up" look and feel to my blog. I'm ready to graduate from the "newbie blog" themes that Blogger provides. And, after three years of blogging, I just really need a change.
I did something today that I've never done before! I bought clothing at Walmart!!! Yikes! Yes, OK, I must be a little bit of a clothing snob. But, I had to replace my construction clothes finally. They were looking too worn and painted over. I looked like a vagrant person. It was humiliating. And, there's nothing worse than doing hard labor and feeling down on yourself at the same time! Occasionally, I'd have to run to Lowe's. I was even underdressed for that!!!