A beautiful cool crisp morning here in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. A brisk motorcycle ride to the Starbucks a mile down the road, a cup of coffee sitting outside, and reading about the problems of F.Scott Fitzgerald’s fictional character, Amory. It’s been a good start to the day after nearly two weeks of near hell.
Sharon and I have been working incessantly on our rental property (please shoot me if I ever acquire another). After the last tenant moved out, we went in to change the carpet and look into a few minor problems. It’s an older manufactured home and the minor problems quickly become rather major as we looked into them. A leaky faucet and a little rot, became a full bathroom tear-down and redo from the two-by-fours out.
We were running under a deadline because the new tenant had given notice and was committed to having to move in by today. So, everytime a project expanded, our time to get it all done diminished and it wasn’t clear until 5 PM last night that we’d be able to get everything done before they arrived. But, at 5 PM last night, I screwed a cover plate on the last electrical plug (with a new GFI installed within) and took one last look around and deemed it ready.
And, it is a good thing too. We’ve been so focused on the rental that we’ve neglected our nursery business and we should be getting into high fall sales just now.
Last evening, after cleaing up, we walked over to our neighbor’s place to the east and had a few drinks with them and talked. They are a very nice older couple who are just on the brink of moving and it was our last chance to socialize with them before they leave to Redmond to their new house near the Microsoft campus.
Then we came home and got out some store-bought sushi Sharon got earlier at the market and sat back and watched a 1947 movie entitled, “From out of the past” with Robert Mitchum. It was good even though it ended badly for everyone in it.
Today, it’s Saturday and it should be good weather and hopefully, we’ll have good nursery sales. The rental’s done and we can concentrate on business.
It’s also time for me to begin thinking about this winter. In another month and a half, I’ll be returning to Christchurch, New Zealand for two and a half months. I’m going to need to work out how to deal with the nursery’s accounting from there and I haven’t really started to think through that problem yet. Sharon’s going to stay here and the nursery will close for the winter just after Thanksgiving (a week or two after I depart for New Zealand). During the winter period, from Thanksgiving to mid-february, we’ll be closed except for by-appointment-only activities and, hopefully, Sharon can work on some of her personal art projects and get some rest.
I’ve negelected some of my personal E-mail over the last two weeks much to my regret. I’m going to turn to a bit of that before we open the nursery gate in an hour or so.