Paul visits

Paul stopped by for a visit on his motorcycling road trip. We had tried once before to get to Mt. Mitchell last time he visited and like the last time we met with defeat. Before the road was washed out, this time it was too foggy and rainy to see anything when we finally got close. We beat the rain down the mountain and I still managed to snap a few pictures. Paul also helped me haul another load of bricks. Beware, if you come for a visit, I might put you to work doing manual labor :)

I may have jumped the gun in saying “I bought a house.” I should have said I’m under contract to buy a house. You’d think it was as good as bought, but in this case not so much. I’ve been going though paperwork for about a month and until yesterday everything was on track for me to close next Thursday, but in the inspection process we found some problems with the pluming and electric. The seller agreed to pay me the amount to fix the problems at closing, but the estimates came back higher than they were allowed to pay. So we had to take the money off the price of the house. Then the lender got all the paperwork and said, we couldn’t do that either the problems have to be fixed before they will approve the loan. So that’s where I am right now. I have to wait for them to fix the problems, get the house to pass inspection, and then get the lender to okay the loan. I’ll keep you updated and I’ll be sure to let you all know when I have actually “bought a house.”

Katie

Bricks!

Mom and I just finished salvaging a gazillion bricks this weekend. There was an old brick house in Asheville that’s been torn down and is going to be replaced with new green condos. Part of making the whole project green is in recycling all the construction waste from tearing down the old house. They’ve had scrap metal people come in and take the metal recycling and they’ve opened the loose bricks to the public to take. When mom read about it in the paper, she got me out of bed and we hightailed it down there with the van and started loading up. We were amazed that there was only one other person there when we arrived.

As the morning wore on, more people came and went, but only a few stayed. Most people were ill prepared to haul bricks. They came in sandals with no gloves or tools, as if they expected a bunch of pristine bricks would be stacked in neat piles along the sidewalk where a valet would take their car and load it for them while they waited. Fat chance.

It worked out really well for me and mom. People would walk down to where we were and either see that there was more work involved than they were willing to do and just turn right back around and leave, or they would daintily scoop up a few bricks and not come back. It was like we had the place to ourselves. We made five trips back and forth and now I’m going to make a walled garden in my new yard and mom has a few landscaping things she is going to do around the house. It was backbreaking work and my arms feel like wet spaghetti noodles, but it was defiantly worth it.

Katie

Rebecca is Getting Married!

For those that haven’t heard, my sister Rebecca is getting married. She met another professor while teaching abroad in China and they have decided to get married and live there together. They will spend this Christmas with his family and next Christmas with ours where they will have a second ceremony here in the United States. His name is Chun Xiao, but I call him Mr. Yang because I can pronounce that. He teaches art history and calligraphy and they met when he was taking a class that Rebecca was teaching.

I know you’re wondering what pictures of dew drops on leaves have to do with Rebecca getting married. The answer is- nothing. This was just a tomato bush that I planted and thought looked cool. If you want to see what Mr. Yang looks like, send me an email.

Katie