Tomorrow is Christmas (as I write this) and we’re as ready as we ever are. It seems the holiday creeps up then – wham – it’s here. Even though we were more organized this year than in most years it still seems strange that tomorrow is The Day.

It was easier to get excited when we were kids. Looking forward to school vacation, riding our sleds, building snow forts, and eating cookies and goodies from Mom’s kitchen. There were church events and a party or two; band concerts and seasonal music provided a Christmas sound track. Now that we have no kids in the house and are working right up to the day, some of the magic is no longer present.

2016 Christmas Tree

There are a few other topics I need to cover including the house hunt and a few other updates.

The house I mentioned in my last post (Kutzu Ridge) appears to be a non-starter. I spoke to the realtor who has the listing and he advised me the home needs a new boiler. The boiler provides radiant heat as well as domestic hot water and would be about a $15,000.00 repair. Even then there may be unknown damage to the radiant heating coils built into the floor. The house had been vacated but not winterized and everything froze up. The realtor also had a few details on the lot, which slopes down sharply from the house, and problems with the water district that supplies the area with water. An embezzlement case has caused water rates to go sky-high, typically $200.00 per month as the water service tries to rebuild their finances. Even empty houses are charged $150.00 per month even if no water is consumed. Not a good situation when this would be a 2nd mortgage for us until retirement in a couple years; the extra monthly expenses would be hard to absorb. Given the needed repairs and higher utilities I think this house is out of the running, although I really liked the interior and it turns out there are two bedrooms and a bath on the main floor, features high on our priority list.  Pam will check back from time to time to see if the price drops significantly over the next few months.

Speaking of which, Pam continues to monitor the realty listings but nothing of interest is on the horizon. One strange listing came out of Ouray, CO. A house is on the market that has a problem: a 40-ton boulder rolled off a nearby slope and bashed through one wall of the house, broke though the floor, and is currently sitting in the basement with the top of the rock still above the first floor. House is being sold “as is” (wall is still open to the elements) for  $286,000.00. Might be a great fixer-upper–  but — not for us!

Closer to home, we had snow on Thursday night, 2 – 3 inches of heavy, wet stuff. Pam took this photo of me out on the John Deere garden tractor clearing some of the sidewalk areas on Friday morning:

Clearing recent snowfall.

Note the driveway has already been cleared. Temperatures were not bad so the cleanup was not to onerous. I will say that the cut-down cable chains that I made for the tractor’s rear tires last fall worked very well, far better than the conventional chains I had used the past few years. With this addition (and the extra suitcase weights that were my Christmas present last year) the little tractor does a respectable job of snow plowing.

That does it for this post. We hope all who read this have a Merry Christmas!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Ignore that diabetes, we’re having a pie for Christmas Day (strawberry/rhubarb)!

Happy Trails.