2009

The Hindus believe that one's life runs in cycles of seven years.     They say that there is a seven year period when no matter how many mistakes you make, things turn out well and you flourish;  this is followed by seven years, where you can do everything right, and nothing works.     I'm not saying this is my belief system, but in reflection it does seem to have worked that way in my life to a great degree.    A case in point is that in 2007 we had a big decline in our health and saw the beginning of the financial problems at Falconhead.    2008 culminated in our having to consider moving which we did in 2009.   It will be seen in the upcoming blogs that the 'cloud' continued, and as of this date (2013) we are still in the midst of added problems which some of you may be aware of.    But hey (!) this is the seventh year!!!!

There were good times of course with a good trip with Jerry and Bev to Sacramento for Hazel's 80th birthday.

It gave us a good opportunity to spend time with some of grandkids and great-grankids.

We enjoyed our new house and Dick immediately had great plans for the yard which was just a dustbowl with a couple of drooping trees.    

But the move did show how much Dick had weakened.    Thank goodness I was in pretty good shape then  as I basically had to do the packing and unpacking myself.    

The day we were moving, the front door was open at our home while the truck was being loaded and Scruffy ran into the road and was hit by a car.     His eyes were rolled back and blood was pouring out of his mouth and we really believed that this was the end of our beautiful little dog.     It was a Saturday and I couldn't find a vet open, but went to the kennels that had watched Scruffy for me when Dick was in the hospital and they called the vet that serviced their kennel and he opened up his office for me in Ardmore.     Scruffy had a broken left front leg, and severely damaged lungs.     Needless to say the journey to Arizona was not the easiest with Scruffy very much the invalid, and we had a delay in getting into our house because of a screwup on the paperwork.     But we made it in and slowly but surely Scruffy's leg healed.     But he never has regained his breathing ability - he tires easily if he runs at all.

Shortly after her birthday, we lost our beloved Hazel, and Jerry, Bev, Dick and I made another trip to Sacramento and stayed with Leslie and Elmer.

We were pleased that Marie and Mindy (with Kody) came and Debbie, Blake and Amber came up from Fresno.

Things continued to fall apart at our properties in Falconhead.     We had sold our condo and the buyer was making payments to us.     At this point she was very good and never missed.     But that wasn't the case for the two townhouses.     It was one disaster after each other.     We were the absent landlords and we were royally taken by everyone we rented to.     Our three bedroom home was badly destroyed and these people never paid a dime past the first rent.    We had a hard time getting them out and had to go back to clean the place up and try to rent it out again.    Either Dick and I were very bad judges of character or we were really on the bad vibes, for every renter took us, by not paying rent, not taking care of the property, and one even stealing our golf cart.     The net result was that by the end of the year we were down $10,000, as we had continued to pay the two mortgages, insurance, taxes and Association dues on both properties.    

On the way home, we stayed in a motel half way, and after a couple of days at home, both Dick and I had bites all over us - yes, you guessed it - bed bugs!     We called an exterminator.     The going rate was $3,500 (which we didn't have) and no guarantees that it would work.    I was fortunate to talk to one who was honest and told me that he wouldn't even give a bid, because the treatments almost never worked and he suggested I go on the internet and follow one of the recommendations there.     So I did.   Two bags of diatemaceous (have no idea if I spelled that correctly) earth sprinkled over the beds, couches, chairs and carpets, washed all the bedding and dried them on the highest heat, put all pillows and cushions in the dryer at top heat.     The cleanup was horrendous, BUT it worked.

Louise and Cheyenne came for Christmas and we had Christmas dinner at our house.    Jerry and Bev came, as did Tricia and Penny, and Doug with his two sons Justin and Ian.     It was very nice.    Debbie and Evan came after Christmas for a few days, so the year ended up on better note (except for Falconhead).   

By the end of the year, we were realizing that there was something definitely wrong with Dick - he could barely do anything without having to sit down and rest, we had to do something about it.

On a lighter note, I just had to add my favorite photo of the year:

2008

Well, we broke a record this year - we moved twice.    This wasn't the usual itchy feet motivation, but being on the 'inside' with events that were happening in the park.     A highly successful investment group had bought considerable land at Falconhead and were developing some very nice homes, especially around the golf course.    They had plans for condos near the golf course and at one end of the lake and had invested a huge amount on the upgrading of the golf course.    John Travolta was part of the group and was going to have media events to kick it off.    First Dick and I bought a second condo and moved into it, renting the other one out.

We made another investment on a two bedroom townhouse which had been repossessed by HUD.    It was quite a mess inside, but the price was right and Dick set to work to remodel it.     In the meantime another townhouse became available, a three bedroom corner unit and we bought it, and subsequently sold the condo at a profit.    We and others who were doing similar things were really excited about the future of the park and of the real estate prices which had been stagnant for a while, were beginning to rise somewhat and it was anticipated would explode when the big project was complete.

 This was the view from our new townhouse.     The one we were remodelling were just a little to the left of this.

But if you remember, Fall of 2008 brought the crash in the housing market.    The big investor company went bankrupt, the houses remained unfinished and the prices plummeted.    Dick and I had put all our hard earned money from the prior few years in remodeling and building and we were sitting with three properties, two of which were worth considerable less than what we had paid for and the HUD one looking as if it wouldn't even give us back the additional money we had spent on it.

We hadbad luck with the condo rental, lost some more money there, but did then get a good renter for it.     We also rented the HUD townhouse and it worked fine for a while, but then typically, we had trouble getting paid.    No wonder I had always been against rentals!!

The year did have its highlights though, with Uncle Ben's 100th birthday party.    One touching moment was when Aunt Lucille flew back with cousin Bob and Ben and Lucille reunited after many years:

There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

Dick had kidney failure that late summer.    He had been getting weaker and weaker and we went to the doctor.     Tests showed that he was dangerously close to a heart attack from the potassium in his system that wasn't being processed by his kidneys.     He had to take some very strong medicine and be tested every day for almost a week until they got the numbers to an acceptable level.     We saw a kidney specialist and he basically warned that Dick could be on dyalisis soon and in the meantime changed a pill and put him on a diet.    The result was that Dick being Dick and sticking to the diet, his numbers continued to go up and up and other than being re-tested twice a year, he is holding his own on this disease (as with the diabetes, again for sticking to the rules).

Come Fall, we took a trip I had wanted to take for a long time.    The plan was to go to the North East, into Canada and visit my nephews in Nova Scotia and Montreal, and do a lot of sightseeing and genealogy visits along the way.    The first change came with the slipping finances and we decided that we had to cut a couple of weeks out of the trip and not see my nephews, but would do the rest of it.     The night before we left, I got 'eaten alive' by a swarm of buffalo gnats, we got a speeding ticket twenty miles from home and had the car hit in the rear when we were in a restaurant, breaking the light!   What a start.     We visited with cousin Ruth and Larry in Indiana, went to Pennsylvania and saw where the Toppers had lived for many years outside Gettysburg, visited Gettysburg itself:

That visit was amazing and we encourage all who can to make this trip.    We went through the Amish country, to Rhode Island (more genealogy), to Cape Cod (history and genealogy), to Plymouth, on up into Vermont and New Hampshire going through the Adirondacks which would have been glorious this time of year, BUT AND IT IS A VERY LARGE BUT,  we had sunshine in Gettysburg and the one day in Cape Cod, the rest of the time we had rain, rain and more rain.    We saw nothing of the Amish - just a window washer slapping right and left.     We drove through the glorious Adirondacks with my saying "This is so beautiful out there, Dick, honestly it is!!".    By this time we had had about ten days of vacation and had seen little else but wet, wet.     We decided to call it quits and headed for home.    To add to the misery of the trip, my bites had progressed to the point that my face was swollen, I had open sores and hid my face from people and ended up in an emergency room and going on heavy duty cortizone!

We did some serious thinking on this trip and in the following month or so.    Finances now were tight.   We had two mortgages, were paying out Falconhead dues on three properties and they kept going up and there was no relief in sight.    Dick's health, although improved, was still not good - he was not able to do too much and after the experience with the buffalo gnats I was reluctant to continue living with the bug situation there and the humidity was making my breathing more difficult every year.
We had to do something, and started thinking seriously of moving closer to California and family - probably Arizona.......

2007

207 was a strange year and it appears that I did not take many meaniful pictures.     Dick and I did take two trips, one to California where we went to Debbies Masters graduation and Blake's graduation from 8th grade.    We also had  good visit in Sacramento with Karen and Cody, and the grandkids.

We spent a few days in Bryant Texas with cousin Margaret and visiting Uncle Ben - now 99.

It was a very sad year for Dick and I.     Brother Bill died after a long battle with althzeimers, and Irene died from brain cancer.    Both deaths struck us deeply.  

It was quite a monumental medical year too - I had two more stents (added to the seven I already had) - and really needed these, with an 85% blockage in my heart.     Dick's hip got worse and he was scheduled for hip surgery, but had to have a pacemaker installed before they would accept him for the surgery.    The surgery was not easy for him, because of the major accident he had in 1950, his body was twisted and the surgeon had to try three different replacement hips before one worked.    The result was that he was in surgery for five hours which made his recovery much longer.    It took a long time for him to get over the whole thing and actually his health has never been as good since.

Mair visited and Louise came and took care of Dick while Mair and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas and Phoenix.    

But we were enjoying our move to Falconhead and delighted in the view we had from the condo, both spring and winter:

The Canadian Geese were with us all summer and lived in the lake above.   

We also added the newest addition to our family in the spring of this year.    McScruffy:

After having quiet laid back dogs for so long, it was hard to get used to the high energy of this one.    But we just loved him and he and I took a long walk on the golf course each day, where he delighted in running as fast as he could and chasing the geese.    He was about 1-1/2 years old and had spent the majority of his life to date in a small cage, being let out in the morning, lunch time and evening to do his 'business' and for an hour or two each evening to play with the children.    The freedom he had at our house and on his walks was obviously a delight to him.