Today is the day! It's officially 'The Holiday's' at our house! The tree is up...the lights are on (not blinking yet...oh yeah...I have to put the blinking bulb in...)..the ornaments are hanging for Tom to knock off...the garland is wrapped around it. No tinsel - Tom eats it. Even some presents wrapped. Husband wants me to make a hat for Tom for Christmas...with slots for his ears. I just might do it.
I was off today. I finally defrosted the little bitty freezer. Like it was going to kill me. It's just a pain in the ass to do. And that's pretty much all I did. The dishes are still in the box. Maybe later...or tomorrow...or Monday. I really want to put them in the cabinet and use them...it's just getting up and doing it. And I'm sure you'd rather have me write bitchy things than not write at all because I am so busy! Let's think about it!
I am drinking some peach tea. It's actually very good. I ordered some Stash tea the other day...the variety pack with 9 flavors. It's tasty. I think it has caffeine. Oh well.
I may crotch-it tonight. I am using up yarn. That's a good thing. I never did take any photos to put them on eBay. You know I wasn't going to. I did think a lot about it, though. Just never got to it. I suppose I still have time. Did I tell you that I thought this coming Monday was the 20th? Well, I did. Imagine my surprise.
I think nothing is on tonight...again. We have a million movies. I just want to see something without war. Or guns. Or cowboys. Or a school marm.
I was watching those Flip this House shows this morning. I like those shows. And it suddenly donned on me! Mumsy (aka Mother-in-Law) has been doing that for years!! Seriously! When I first started working at her Real Estate office many moons ago...I had no idea what I was doing, nor how dramatically my life would change...in a good way. I will tell more of the stories of those good ole days soon...but first, this one.
Musmsy had a work force that consisted of Uncle Ben (a story of a different dimension) and his Motley Crew. Literally. I knew that they did repairs, roofing and remodeling....but I didn't know where the houses that they worked on came from. Mumsy was and still is an investor. She was...I guess you could say...a saver/saviour of properties on the south side of San Antonio. It seemed as if almost daily someone would come in to see her regarding purchasing their home directly rather than selling it. She is an amazing woman. Most of the time not only would she buy their house, but sell them another one in the process. A lot of her business was word of mouth (naturally she ran ads and had many, many listed properties) from families that she had placed in their first homes who would then bring in their brothers, uncles and children because they knew she would treat them fairly and always find a way to make their home buying dreams come true.
Many of the houses she would take in 'trade' were definitely fixer uppers. A lot of them were the poster children for fixer uppers!! I remember lots of them...but a favorite is this one...
She had run an ad for this particular house that was being remodeled. It was for rent with an option to buy...flexible financing. It was a Saturday morning and I was working in the office answering the phone. We would get tons of calls and this was a goodie.
The caller asked if the house was still available.
I said...'Why...yes it is!'
'Oh wonderful'...they answered excitedly. 'Can we go look at it?'
'I'm sure you can', I reply.
'Great...can we come pick up a key?' they ask.
'Let me double check...hold on just a sec', I tell them.
I walked back to Mumsy's office, stood in the door and told her someone wanted to look at the house and could they come by and pick up a key.
She looked at me, smiled and said, seriously, 'Why would they need a key? There isn't any door.'
Hmmmmm.......Makes sense to me!
'Ok', I said. 'I'll just tell them to run on by and if they like it we'll get them a door.'
'Sounds good to me!' Mumsy could solve any problem.
Guess what...they took the house. And they got a door a few days later. And they lived there for years.
But back to the 'flipping'. That was just a small example of what she would do. There were several duplexes in downtown San Antonio that were for sale, but needed to be moved. She bought them, moved them to one acre tracts of land in the country and Uncle Ben and the Motley Crew remodeled them into single family dwellings. I worked with them on one of the houses. I was painting and wall papering. It was fun and quite an experience. I had just never thought about them as being 'flipped'.
Mumsy was the original Flipper. More stories to come...
The Christmas lights are blinking. They are so pretty.
I guess I'll watch Cops. It will keep me occupied for an hour. Have a nice night!
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