Consequences

First, observations on life....

Sauteed kale is surprisingly delicious.  J. combined tortellini, shrimp and kale into a delicious dinner.  I love kale.

On Friday, J. made white bean kale soup - only we call it stew.  Added sausage and brown rice.  Delicious and we've eaten it for three days.  It's amazingly delectable and when sour cream is added, even more rich and satisfying.  Kale!

If you wish you could go to Reno or a casino and you can't - sticking to our budget and saving up for our 15 night cruise in 7 months - you can play Hearts of Vegas online.  If you ingest two Blue Moons, you will feel just like you are in Reno only a lot quieter and no smoke.  AND you're amazing hubby will cook a delicious dinner for you making it easy to eat something.  

Our Internet is giving me fits this weekend - J. miraculously has a repair person coming out tomorrow 'cuz it's super slow.  Ridiculous.  Though for my 'pretend Reno' slot play, it managed to hold it together for the time I played.  

OK.  Observations over. 

I lunched with H. yesterday - I try to see him every week or so.  He's in Intensive Out Patient now so no real 'family sessions' to attend - which is sort of nice. J. was home all day today - nice to not have him trek to Modesto for 1/2 day or so.  

H. is doing well.  He looks great - gained some weight  - looks healthy.  

He finally shared his 'consequences' document - 25 consequences of his addiction.  He's hesitated me reading it and after reading it, I get why.  Many things revealed.  

I wish things being revealed would end soon.  Will it ever end?  Sometimes, it feels like it won't ever end.  

H. never says he's sorry - it's something they (addicts in recovery) don't say?  And sometimes, as I read through things that were lied about or ignored, it's hard to not have him say "I'm sorry".  I acknowledge that if it were a phrase he were to say, it would be constant and never ending and perhaps that's why it's not uttered.  Like all addicts, H. has done and said things that are awful - and restating 'sorry' over and over might have it rendered meaningless?  But us living through what we've lived through and still feeling violated and shattered, it's hard to have him not offer (at least) that once in a while.

60 Minutes is on - typical Sunday night.  I'm fading fast - expedited by two Blue Moons.  I have a super busy week ahead - school is back in session and the meetings are ramping up.  Year-end is in progress but it's time consuming.  I am working hard at making progress on that major task during the week to hopefully limit the number of weekends I have to add in to get it done.  But when meetings take up hours in my week - along with doing all the things my assistant did - it's hard.  I feel scattered and overwhelmed a good chunk of time.  The HR director extended the posting for my assistant's job to give us more time to have applicants.  We have some but none of them have me turning cartwheels at this point. 

I'm going to get two frozen cream puffs out of the freezer and drizzle with a little caramel sauce - another Reno thing - usually at the buffet, that is my go to dessert.  Then I'm going to wind down for the night and head upstairs.  I worked on culling my room today - three HUGE bags of donation items and a bag of trash from cleaning out my nightstand.  Progress!  Trying not to stress out about all we have to do - and just biting the bullet and doing what we can on a regular basis. 

We hope to finalize our floor plan ideas this week and send those off to the building team.  We haven't found the PERFECT plan - but we've found a couple we like and we hope with notes about things we'd like to change, the builder's team can sketch out something we really love.  

We also need to plan a mid-week trip up to CC so we can meet the loan people and hopefully finalize the building plans.  Aiming for mid-September.  

Sold!

J.'s friend R. pulled up in front of our house as I was loading up some return items for a trip to Target and said 'you must have sold the Mariner!'.  I said 'YES!  About an hour ago'.  A really nice young couple from Michigan drove all the way from San Mateo to buy it.  They pulled up to our house in a new Porsche so not like they were 'just starting out'.  He works for a car company in San Mateo and must be doing fairly well.

One more thing off the long list of things related to the exit of our guests.  It's nice feeling things are getting back to normal. 

J. and R. went to the Valley's Got Talent show at Gallo last night and I piddled around the homestead. 

I spent the morning cleaning out the two upstairs bathrooms.  One full (and very heavy) bag of trash and another one in process.  Tons of cosmetics and toiletries - I was brutal.  If it hadn't been used, it was gone - no matter how expensive it was.

I can't wait to have my very own bathroom in our new house where all my products can reside happily together.

Feel like we have to keep working away at getting things cleaned out and organized to avoid complete and total chaos this coming summer.  While cleaning out, we are making lists of things we need to do to the house before we can list it.  Right now, that includes redoing the small area of grass in the backyard and resurfacing the bathtub in the kids bathroom.  We'll have to start thinking about those updates by January to March to be ready to list the house in May or June.

(We're not positive of the timeline for selling this house but we're penciling in some ideas which helps jump start all the things we need to do).

We got a sort of pre-approval from the lending company for the new house but with the timing of selling this house sort of undetermined, it's hard to know what will need to happen to qualify.  In a perfect world, we'd rather deal with the financial challenge of two house payments for a few months vs. getting ourselves completely freaked out about moving twice - and actually, that is the least of it.  I could deal with knowing we will need to be temporarily housed somewhere for a few months.  It's figuring out what to do with all the pets in those few months that gets me concerned.  Super hard to find rentals that allow pets and definitely not going to be able to have them in a hotel so....we have to figure out all this timing.  Makes my head hurt. 

Sometimes, I just want to pull out the statements for our investment income and say 'really?  I'm pretty sure we will be OK'.  But mortgage qualification criteria don't treat investment income the same as earned income.  On the books, we need my job income to qualify. 

It will all work out.  We are blessed.  Very.  Paperwork is just that - and it will all end up OK. 

When we took the tour of the place with the land owner, a bright orange dragon fly flittered by repeatedly - and I said (as I always do) 'Hi, Mom!'.  I'm sure she will be helping out from where she is to get things to go as smoothly as possible - much like she did when we relocated from Hayward to Tracy 18 years ago.

Changing Perspective

Today was a super hard day.  My assistant is now a teacher at the neighboring district here in Tracy.  I am thrilled for her since teaching is what she wants to do for a career.  The tons of stuff she did daily/weekly/monthly is all on my shoulders now - in addition to all the stuff I do anyway. 

I have moments when I feel completely competent and capable of juggling it all and moments when I want to run screaming from the building.  Today was an overwhelming 'I am so done' kind of day. 

Possibly being way closer to retirement than I'd planned is influencing my perspective?  Not sure.  But it's possible. 

And today, this thought entered in the mix:  'I could retire at then end of March, 2019, and not do another budget.  I'd give up the amount I'd miss in pension annually for skipping April through June in order to never have to do another budget ever again.  It would be well worth it. 

But if that's the timeline, I need to basically clue people in by end of October.  I'll have to ponder that.  It would be nice if the district could hire my replacement in time to allow for some overlap. 

Expensive....but worth it. 

I'm going to take tomorrow (Saturday) off and put in some time in the office on Sunday.  I suspect that once I get a little more organized about the things that need doing and get a 'system' down, it will get easier.  And we have posted the job so hopefully, in a month, there will be someone who will be learning what to do and can take over.

R.'s dad dropped my rings by - and the pawn shop slip was in the envelope with the rings - and get this:  she took those rings to the pawn shop within one week of moving in here with H..  ONE WEEK.  She started stealing from us the minute she got here.  The only 'good' thing about that is maybe (fingers and toes) crossed there are more items that are in the pawn shop and when the 'clock' on the loan is over, there will hopefully be more notices about other missing items so I can get them back. 

Truly angry and disappointed that we invited a thief and a liar into our home.  I talked to H. about it and he was shocked, too - said she told him she was going to sell stuff and he said 'you can sell any of your stuff you want but nothing of my parents.  No way'.  He didn't know she'd stolen from us until towards the end of their time here - that's what he says.  I don't know if it's the truth or not but I do feel like his 'seriously?' reaction matched mine in terms of surprise and disgust.  He said 'I'm just so glad to be away from that level of crazy'.  Sums it up. 

Next week is the start of another year - teachers come back and school starts on Wednesday.  Before we know it, Winter Break 2018 will be upon us. 

It's going to be a long year that will likely go by like lightening. 

Miracle

J. entered the study and said 'I want to surprise you with something but you have to close your eyes'.  I was suspicious but I complied.

He showed me this picture on his phone.

R.'s dad received a letter from the same pawn shop we went to in June - these were collateral for a loan R. took out.  Her dad bought them back for me - only $80.

I am so happy.  Still rings missing but the ring on the left?  It's a rare find, matches J.'s wedding band and was the ring I felt most sad about.  The ring on the right is the ring J. gave me when B. was born.  I'm sad about all the missing jewelry but getting these two back really helps.

Miracles do happen.  So grateful to J. (Rachel's dad) for going there to look at what she got the letter about.

And mildly irritated at the pawn shop - because we were there with letters H. received from their business (which was for junk jewelry that wasn't ours) and inquired specifically about any other items under either of their names - and they said 'no'.  I think it's likely they had to let the clock run out on the 'loan' they gave against the value of these?  But still.  It would have saved me six weeks of heartache to know that the rings were there - just waiting to be in default status.

Very happy to have these back.  There are still so many hard, hurt, damaged feelings about everything that happened but getting these back helps smooth the angst a wee bit.

Leap(s) of Faith

Upon awakening this morning, J. asked 'how did you sleep?'.  I replied 'pretty good, how about you?'.  'Good until around 5:15 when I started ruminating'.  'Ditto' was my reply.

Yesterday, we put a deposit on a just shy of a quarter acre lot to build our next home.  We met with the realtor and the builder - very nice people.  The realtor called the owner/manager of the golf course (who owns all the land the houses are being built on, all the golf course land and the surrounding undeveloped (but will be someday) land) - and he was happy to meet us in the parking lot of the golf course and drive us around in a golf cart to see our lot up close.  We also got a wonderful tour of most of the course, were able to visualize the future development and were very impressed with his very welcoming demeanor.  Really, think about it - how many people would drop everything, hop on a golf cart and spend time with two strangers - when you are the owner of all the property?  We were very impressed - he was very nice and easy going.

And the land owner and realtor are also building homes - they will be our neighbors - so that is really cool, too.

We went in thinking we would buy one lot and quickly decided to buy a completely different lot - because the first lot we chose was much smaller and given the size of the house we want to build, there were concerns it wouldn't fit.  Price difference was only $20K so we were fine with the (much) larger lot.  It also made us rethink the original lot to see the plot map for the next round of homes being built - what currently looks like open space would have been houses across the street - so we opted for a lot that is sure to stay 'open space' since it's overlooking one of the golf holes.

The great thing about this development is that semi-custom means 'you pick'.  We can (literally) find any floor plan we like, send to them and they will design the home with those features to fit on our lot.  The possibilities feel a bit staggering at the moment - but we already have a 'tentative' plan and will continue to look over the next month or so.  They confirmed we will need to come up here quite a few times in the planning phase and the house should be completed in about a year.  That sounds like a long time but is actually 3-6 months sooner than we had been thinking?  So now we've got to regroup around me (possibly) retiring even earlier - and is that feasible.

I'm psyching myself up to retire from my current job, get moved to CC and settled, have a few months of sleeping in and being at home and then finding work somewhere.  Probably not 'needed' but would certainly help smooth out the rough edges of our budget.  That leads to lots of ruminating about health insurance, etc. - I can pay out of pocket to stay on my current plan if I retire - but if I ever stop that coverage, I can't come back in.  So....I'll have to be careful about that 'cuz I truly don't want to work until 65.

I'm hoping I can find some part time work - and/or even substitute teaching - to bring in some $ but not have to change benefits.  I'm sure there are tons of jobs in this area - so I'm not too worried.

And then I ruminate about 'and if you start collecting SS at 62, that will limit what you can earn...' .  Do I work and wait to claim?  And if yes, how long?

So many things to ruminate about.  And we're just beginning.

I moved up to Northern California in 1984 on a wing and a prayer.  Felt led here by a force that kept reassuring me 'it's OK.  This is where you are supposed to be'.  I feel pretty much the same about this move.  It is a leap of faith to leave California and start fresh somewhere completely new.  It's easy (super easy) to over think every little thing and end up in total 'mind meltdown' about all the moving parts.  But we can do this.  I'm sure we can and I'm sure we will be fine - and we are going to have an absolutely beautiful home in a beautiful city.

We're heading home from Reno today - thank you to Atlantis for the free rooms - we're counting on those rooms to continue for the next five months.  I can't wait to be considered 'a local' and play here often.  Sitting at a machine betting 50 cents a pull is fun and entertaining and my goal is to get to Black Diamond status - Atlantis' player loyalty tiers are based only on time at machine - not dollars in.  So I just have to keep hanging out here.  Not a problem 'cuz it's a very nice, fun place.

More later on some locals I met this trip.

BFF

My BFF (Best Friend Forever) J. reached out via email yesterday - so happy to see another post.  I was happy to know that people out there are still reading?  During the chaos of the past few months, I thought to call her a zillion times but I would start the conversation with?  "Hi.  My son is a heroin addict.  He and his also addicted girlfriend lived with us for five months.  Her dad knew but didn't tell us when we invited them to move in with us".  What a great way to reconnect?

But as always - she is my rock.  Her friendship has seen me through some of my hardest days - losing my mom.  Losing my job.  Finding myself in a new line of work that is more rewarding than I ever imagined.  Everything happens for a reason.  Everything.

We have dinner planned for a week from tonight and I can't wait to see her!

Up early this morning to head out to Sacramento for two nights - work conference.  It seemed like a great idea to go way back when but now?  No, I'm really not feeling it but I am going. It's also our admin 'retreat' and I can't miss that, no matter how much my social anxiety is kicking up.  I can get through the long days of soaking up new information just fine but the social stuff in the evenings?  Super hard to pretend I'm thrilled about going bowling.  I probably won't be able to move tomorrow. 

J. and his brother B. (both of J.'s brothers have the initial B.) are also heading towards Sacramento for two days of golf.  Spending the night up there tonight and home late tomorrow.  J. and I are meeting in Auburn on Thursday afternoon (after my conference is over) and heading up to CC to meet with the builder on Friday morning.  Super excited.  We've started making lists of wants and questions.  I've been looking at design ideas online every chance I get. 

Last night as we were tidying up the kitchen, J.'s brother asked 'so M., when are you planning to retire' and I said without hesitation '20 months'.  And J. said 'her being able to name a date just happened'.  And I realized 'wow, yes.  I can officially name a date'. 

I told J. last night before bed 'I look around this house and all this stuff to deal with and I just feel overwhelmed and exhausted'.  He said 'we have some time'.  We're going to have to put our butts in gear daily/weekly to make headway on this stuff.  We will have lived in this house 19 years when we move out and that's a long time to accumulate a ton of stuff.  But we will get there.  One day at a time.

Off to the races. 

Still Pondering

I have sooo many posts in draft stage but I just can't bring myself to push 'post' - things still feel pretty raw in my heart and soul and while it helps to write some of it down, it feels too hard to share it with everyone.  It's been a very long few months and it shows - constant dark circles under my eyes; broken sleep.  Hardest budget cycle ever for me given all the chaos happening at home while I worked 45 straight days to get it done. 

Maybe some light is due and we can create our own.

Short version:  H&R are heroin addicts.  Addicted for a long time.  Addicted before we invited them to live with us and stayed that way throughout their time here.  Too many details to bring up and relive and too many constant 'bad memories' about the things that happened in the weeks leading up to us changing the locks and kicking them out.

They are both in (separate) rehab facilities.  H. is doing very well.  We don't know how R. is and for the most part, we don't give a crap.  Focusing on our immediate family member's well-being and process towards sobriety is about all we can handle at the moment.

We spent most of June and July in 'taking back our house' mode.  Cleaning out furniture and 'stuff'.  Taking it to the storage unit that R.'s dad will be paying for staring 8/1.  Junking a lot of stuff that was left behind and her family doesn't want to reclaim.  As bad as all the stuff with H. is (and was and still is to some extent), my mind boggles at R.'s reality - she lost custody of her children because of her drug use and she's got way more bridges to rebuild with her family than H. ever will. 

We're glad to have them out of our house and H. will never live with us again.  He knows this.  He has a host of legal issues to work through and he will do that - he understands jail time is a very real possibility because part of his sobriety means the people around him have to stop covering for him.  So no $ from us to pay the myriad of fines he has for the 8 misdemeanor charges against him.  Hopeful that his residency in a drug rehab facility will result in the judge continuing to make H.'s participation in rehab a condition of his release along with community service and/or whatever else?  But it will be what it will be and H. & J. are going to start working through that process in the not too distant future. 

As we enter August, we are also working on reclaiming our life....our wonderful, blessed, happiness filled life.  We are taking a HUGE step towards that as of NOW. 

Next weekend, we will be in Carson City, NV and we will be putting a deposit down on a semi-custom home on a golf course.  For real.  And shortly after the house is done - Winter 2019 to Spring 2020 ish - I will be retiring.  Officially. 

We pondered keeping two houses for awhile - because I've been planning to keep working until I hit a longevity step and then a full year past that to incorporate that compensation bump in my pension?  But lunch with my dear friend G. (who retired a couple years ago) helped me shift from 'stop looking at what you will have if you keep working and look at where will you be if you stop'.  And doing that - creating a budget for the 'new house' based on my pension if I retire in 2020 - is still a very good income.  We can do this.  We really can.

Our 11 year age difference has presented challenges in planning and the realization how so often, folks keep working and working and then retire and have some major health thing happen.  We don't want that.  We want time TOGETHER while we are both still able to get around reasonably well. 

So we're reclaiming our happiness and giving ourselves a much needed 'fresh start' of sorts.  We both feel really excited about the building process - we have input into the layout of the house and we're building from the ground up so we get to pick virtually everything - and the activities up in Carson City (heretofore known as CC) combined with getting ready to sell this place and move will keep us very busy for the next 20 months. 

My boss knows that we are building a home in another state and I suspect he suspects that my move will be tied to the completion of the house but for now, I'm not going to confirm or deny any plans. Lots of things could still happen and while we will be committed to building by this time next week (with money down to confirm our commitment), we'll see how things go. 

So there you have it - in a nutshell - the past few months have been pretty damn awful but things are looking up.  I feel a lightening in my heart having made the decision to leave Tracy - and while I love our house and feel sad about leaving, I know we will be equally happy in CC in our beautiful, brand new single story house which will look out on the first tee of the first hole of a beautiful golf course. 

And I think I'm even interested in trying golf again.  I took a few lessons early in our marriage but just didn't get into it.  But it might be worth trying again given how convenient it will be to plan.  And easy to head home after. 

More soon - I'm going to spend the day piddling around the homestead and starting the slow, long process of cleaning out cupboards and drawers.  Making lists of 'keep, donate, sell, move' so we can get stuff out of the house.  We don't plan to list the house in Tracy for at least another year...so we've got time.  But I also know how fast time passes and I want to get on it and keep on it so we don't end up in a mad dash at the end.