Garage Door Blues and A Happy Ending

Yesterday was already a very busy day, starting out by driving out to the far YMCA, then the Chiropractor, breakfast, a quick stop at Target, then off to work. Best laid plans, etc., and even though everything did get done, roadblocks of a more serious nature opened up. 

The concept of automatic garage door openers is pretty simple. A
signal is received by the ceiling-mounted motor which
activates a chain attached to the center of the door. As the
chain retracts, the door moves up curved side railings until it is
fully retracted. Today's doors have to have safety sensors at
the bottom rails and a few other safety features to protect
children and animals from getting pinned or crushed. 

There's nothing like opening up the garage door at 4:40 am, backing the car out, clicking the garage door opener to close the door, and having nothing happen. Nothing! I had put a new battery into the opener on Sunday because it wasn't working well when I picked up our Pizza for dinner. A new battery seemed to resolve the problem, so I didn't mention it to DH. But this ... well this was WAY more of a problem. I had to wake DH up and we had to figure out if it was my opener, the garage door itself, or what. We finally got my opener to work, so I headed off and did my YMCA and Chiropractor, arriving home to see DH just picking up the morning paper. When I clicked my opener, the door didn't budge once again. 

The idea, of course, is that clicking the appropriate
clicker will open and close the garage door, eliminating
lifting the heavy door manually. Our first house up
here in the Frozen Northlands had a manually-operated
garage door, and the homes I grew up with also did. I happen
to be a great fan of the automatic garage door opener. 

DH set up a ladder and we pulled off the housing, checking the motor which seemed to have finally died. We're talking about an original garage door opener from 1960, and it was tired and said "The hell with it, I'm tired and I quit!" I couldn't blame it, but DH still had to get over to the Chiropractor and then come to the office to work for the day. A non-functional garage door wasn't going to cut it. 

We decided to work with the door manually, and I would contact the guys who had fixed it in the past (replacing broken chains and rails for us in prior years). Their operation didn't open until 8:00 am, so I left a message and headed out to breakfast. DH texted me that the door handle broke off when he was pulling the door open to get his truck out, but he managed to work with the lock instead and got it open. 

I opted for the backup power too, so that we can still open and
close the door easily even if our power is out. Our door is old,
wooden, and very heavy and I'm not sure I could lift it on my own. 

Mark, from Hamline Garage Door, contacted me when he opened. He remembered us and also remembered my Father-in-law (everyone knew my FIL - he was a very outgoing and engaging guy). He said he could be out in early afternoon and he would phone before he headed over. So, DH came to work for a couple of hours, then was away from the shop for a couple of hours, and then returned long enough to load up the truck with the next bunch of equipment we were taking home to the new studio workspace. 

I'm totally smiling now. I have a new, reliable garage door
opener in place before our next winter, and that's one more
think off my "possible problems" mental list. Yippee! 

I now have a new garage door opener that's up to code, works like a dream, and has a outside panel so that we don't have to carry openers along with us when we're cutting the lawn or working in the patio area. I had been thinking, just a few days ago, "I wonder how the door will work this coming winter?" Now I know - it wouldn't work at all, but now, I'm suddenly very happy. One less worry on my plate. 

On that note, have a wonderful Tuesday. I'm plugging in photos and getting out of here to the gym. I have to work off the last of my Sunday night pizza binge. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Sometimes I Hate My Laptop

My laptop has been acting up, and I'm rather pissed at it right now. Although it is a touchscreen, I prefer to use a USB mouse since the items I work with go much faster if I use a mouse. My corded USB mouse was acting up last week, so I ponied up, spent the $10 for a new cordless version (on sale, but Logitech, a decent brand) and it installed beautifully. I've been using it without problem over the past few days, but yesterday afternoon, the computer suddenly stopped recognizing the mouse once again. I'm going to replace the crap battery with a good one this morning and see if that resolves the problem, but I'm NOT happy about this. I really think something should last longer than five full days (Thursday through Monday morning). Guess I'm asking too much in today's throw-away society.

Cordless USB mouse controllers are pretty standard now,
and I like the low profile and flexibility of getting
rid of the cord. But not if the darned thing doesn't work! 

DH is all stressed out. Now that we've got the little house sold (and it looks amazing - they did a great renovation job on it and it's now back on the market - overpriced, but I'm pretty sure they'll come down to meet a serious offer), it's time to divest the next thing. Once upon a time, my father-by-marriage ran a business that we purchased from him when we first moved up here. That business kept us in groceries and mortgage payments for many years, until my own business supplanted it. DH is now spending every spare minute going through the items left over from the old business and he'll try to sell them when he has them itemized, cataloged and boxed. It might bring a lot, it might bring a pittance, but either way, it will finally be out of my store's basement which will make me happy. It's a LOT of work, though, and it's depressing for DH to have to go through all of this. The fact that it should have been done more than ten years ago doesn't help either.

Here's what the exterior of the small house looks like now. They
completely redid the porch, repainted the house, put in a lot
of new storm windows, it really looks nice with lots of
new hardwood floors. They gutted and redid the
kitchen completely. Good job. 

Here's what it looked like shortly before we sold it. 

My job will be selling things that don't sell at my store. I do great with the craft supplies and jewelry, but I have bunches of graphic art that I don't have wall space to display. I need to get some addresses, take lots of photos, and market these out to other dealers who might be interested in them. Today I'll start hunting dealer names, etc. I used to be a member of IACA, the Indian Arts and Crafts Association, and many members of that organization might be interested in some of the artwork. Of course, selling the art will also entail taking a lot of photos and I don't have a really good camera for that. But, I'm not quite at that bridge yet. I'll get it crossed.

I belonged to the IACA as a member and a
board member for several years. Great group
of people. I think it's time to reconnect. 

I want to be a lean, mean, selling machine - LOL. I really need to get in gear and just get it done. If I can focus on my self-improvement by going to the gym every day, I can start to get things organized at my business too. It'll work. I might be certifiably insane by the end of the process, but I'm going to make it happen. Now to start organizing and figure out what camera will be best ... Happy Tuesday to all.

Yes? No? Maybe?

We have another property, a house that I often refer to as the "small house". It's not too far away and was the first house we lived in when we moved up here and the first house we owned. It had been DH's grandparent's home and his father and uncle had been raised there. It's a cute American Craftsman house which we've been fixing up for what seems like forever. I'm trying to eliminate clutter from our lives and move on, so I contacted HomeVestors to take a look at the property and see whether or not they were interested in purchasing it.

It was a lot to hit DH with last night, and it took quite a while for
him to get over his initial sport of anger and actually consider the
proposition. But if they can come up a bit more, we'll have a deal. 

HomeVestors is basically a construction company specializing in 'flipping' houses. They buy, renovate, and resell houses. Their goal is to make a profit, but they also have an excellent reputation and want to have everyone happy on all sides of the deal. After an extensive tour and a week of waiting, they got back to me with an offer yesterday afternoon.

The American Craftsman style of home is an attractive style. Our little
home isn't this pretty, but there are a lot of similarities between
this and the one we own. 

The offer is a bit lower than I had hoped and DH wants more. So I'll be calling HomeVestors this morning and starting a negotiating process that I hope will end up with everyone satisfied, my small house sold, and one less thing on my plate. Just because I don't have anything else to do with my time - LOL.

I have some spray adhesive at the shop. I'll try that and see if it
holds OK and if it is easier and faster for my current application
needs. 

On a side note, yesterday's holiday card work went really well and I'm continuing with stage one and ready to start work on stage two later this week. I'm trying out a variety of adhesives now - there has to be something that will be faster than hand applying the adhesive, but spray adhesives can be so messy. Maybe I need a spray box ... I have lots of empty boxes at work. Have a great Thursday and cross fingers along with me that I can get HomeVestors to increase their bid to us.

Day Off Doesn't Mean Day of Relaxation

As usual, my 'day off' is packed with projects and errands, but very high on my list is working on the artwork I promised for B2MeM. I already blocked most of it out in early mornings at the shop on Monday and Tuesday and need to finish the blocking and start the color work today. I'm giving myself today and next week to get this nailed. I love my concept, but it's a bit more ambitious than I've been in my artwork lately - lots of complex elements. If it turns out, I'll be really pleased. If it doesn't, I will at least have done my best. I have a lot of detail work in this, so care and caution are my keywords for success.

After years of painting on metal 20mm miniature statutes, I have a large selection of
extremely small 0, 00 and 000 brushes I can use for the detail work. I don't want to
color the entire piece using mini brushes, though. I have a life! LOL

I also need to finish my story for B2MeM, do some beta work for my ever-patient friend Iris, I have a bracelet repair for a customer sitting in front of me reminding me that I could use the money I'll get for it, and of course I have a long list of errands, grocery and office supply shopping, and my Wednesday afternoon chat with Aearwen that we had to cancel last week because of my frozen pipes issue. Oh - and there's something on the TV called the Olympics that I want to watch AND I have to check my father-by-marriage's house after an afternoon showing and make sure the doors are locked, lights are off and the water is running to keep pipes from freezing.

Grocery shopping at my neighborhood store can go quite quickly. I know
the layout, I know what's on sale, and I know what I want to get. East peasy...

Rumor has it that we'll get at least one written offer for the house by the end of the week. I know this person has seen the house twice already. I just hope that it is a reasonable amount - we do have some expectations of what we're willing to accept and we'll take a deduction from the asking price, but not as low as some of the real estate agents have suggested in their comments when they have viewed the place.

I want one of these signs across the "For Sale" sign in front of my father-by-marriage's
house. I want one less property that we have to worry about. We've worked ourselves
too hard maintaining all of these houses through this harsh winter. 

The kicker is, the house is out of date within the confines of current fashion, but the bones of the house are really good. It could be moved into and lived in just as it is, but personally, I'd be tearing everything down, leaving the exterior walls, and starting from scratch - a lot of work and money. So if someone comes in with a low offer, I understand where they are coming from. Then again...it could be used just the way it is, so scrapping the design is a fashion decision. We won't offer dollars off the purchase price for a fashion decision.

Remodeling a house can be messy and expensive, but if nobody lives in
the house yet, it's a lot easier. 

By the end of the day I'll have baked chicken breasts to eat, strawberries in my refrigerator, and hopefully some color laid down on my artwork. If so, I'll consider it a successful day. Have a fabulous Wednesday.

Salud and Thanks

All of the positive thoughts, good wishes and luck must have worked because the City Council approved my case and I actually had a rather pleasant time. I have always enjoyed the law and it was very interesting to me to sit in chambers and listen to the six or so cases that were heard ahead of me. Most of us were there for the basic same thing - abatement of charges, zoning changes, and updates on previously assigned dates for upkeep and repairs. It was fun listening to the head of the Council. She was point-on in her assessments and I felt she was quite competent both legally and within the confines of the cases that were scheduled to come before her.

St Paul City Hall is a large, multi-storied building in art-deco style.

There are several chambers used by the Council. I wasn't in

this specific one, but mine was similar in appearance.

One of the best things was that a friend of mine was unexpectedly there. Leanna Shaff, the head of the Fire Inspections Department was a member of the Council. Leanna and I had gotten to know each other when she did fire inspections for my shop many years ago. We clicked right away. She's a straight shooter, as the term goes, and she doesn't mince words. But she also understands that people do the best that they can do. It was really nice to see her again and at the end of the hearing she acknowledged me by name and said how nice it was to see me again. In turn I told her that she should phone me and we'd get together for coffee. I hope she takes me up on it.

I like honest people and Leanna has always been straight with me.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.

I also hit stride on my NaNo this morning. I was cruising through the words, unlike yesterday when it felt like pulling teeth to get the words down. The secondary characters who cropped up a few days ago are turning into really interesting characters and good guides for my main historical character. I'm in the beginning of the Rockies now and heading deeper into the mountains tomorrow. I've got 34,000+ words down now and I'm nowhere close to being finished so I know I'll be writing more than 50,000, although I can be a little kinder with my personal schedule once I have reached my initial goal. I'll do the Desktop Meme tomorrow...

Court and Contracts

Tomorrow I have to go to court and plead my case in front of the City Council. This is NOT the way that I wanted to spend my Tuesday afternoon. It became necessary because of hoops, bells and whistles that the city has instituted to fight abandoned houses that just become tawdry run-down properties and often can lead to lowered property values and increased crime. However, that's not our house. Our house is dearly loved and we've been working on renovating and fixing it up to put onto the market in the summer of 2013.

When I moved up to Minnesota in the late 1970's (yes, I'm that old *sigh*), my DH and I moved into his grandmother's home. She was a feisty German woman who, along with her husband, had moved to Minnesota in the late 19-teens. They purchased this little house from the carpenter who had built it and who had lived in it for two years while he built another home for himself. It's a beautiful house - very small but sturdy. It is a typical arts and crafts house, 1-1/2 stories high with a full, unfinished basement of poured concrete walls. It has outstanding hand-finished woodwork - hardwood floors, solid doors, wide moldings, and built-ins all over the place.

The city has decided that since we have not lived in the house for many years, nor had tenants that we were renting it to, it is a vacant house. This means that we have to pay an additional $1100 tax to the city for the property. But, more than that, it means that to be able to put it on the market in 2013 (which is our intention) we now would have to have a series of inspectors come through and certify that the house is properly cared for, totally up to code, etc. I understand where the city is coming from, but we went through this earlier and were assigned a class 1 status meaning we just needed to keep the property up and all would be well. But, someone new came into the Fire Inspections department, determined to impress her new employers, and my file was one that was pulled. So, because of her push, we've been dropped to class 2 status and that's not good. Tomorrow I get to state my case in front of the City Council and try to convince them to allow us to resume our class 1 status. If that happens, I'll have that house ready to go on the market in the summer and it will be sold before the end of 2013. It's a dog and pony show.

I've also been reviewing my contract for my short story "Dragon Seeks a Wife". I already had them change the few things that were actually germane to the document, and so I will sign it (with the certain knowledge that I will NOT be getting rich on this story - LOL). But there are typos, dropped punctuation, etc. that also exists in the contract, even though this is a second run-through. So I'll also tell them about those even though they won't have to change the contract to reflect those changes. But it would be really, really nice if they did change it one more time...just saying...