Questioning

I found it very disheartening...almost disturbing after cleaning this last apt. Living in it was a gal, a bit older than my 26 yr old daughter, works in the same place but each has such a totally different life. How does one get up each day to such a filthy messy unkempt life and not be bothered by it? How does one take a shower in such grime and feel 'clean' after? Come home each night and work all week to what? An abusive-lazy-good for nothing-take all the money I make, boyfriend. Than sit around and smoke and have some beers and watch tv and discuss what? Develop what? expand on what? no hobbies, no interests, any goals? How can the world survive if this is the future? I am saddened and scared. Too many children are being raised in an environment of no pride in where they live or how they take care of themselves. Many are not taught HOW to take care of themselves, respect themselves let alone respect others.
I have my garden, my photography. I keep up my house, my yard, keep creative with projects. I teach my kids to clean, cook, sew...love themselves and others. Patience and compassion-respect and honor...More of this needed. Not money, not hand outs nor sympathy but encouragement and a hand to teach.
I want it to be different for my tenants. I help them, I give them chances...but too often it doesn't matter. They don't seem to want it. And that is sad.

Long ago

Tonight I worked cleaning in one terribly filthy apartment. My 26 yr old daughter was there helping. As she scrubbed the oven and stove I didnt hear the "oh Gross! Oh ewww how am I supposed to clean this?" coming from her. I remember not too long ago when the kids were very young, and came with my husband and I when we worked on the apts. Most often they did not enjoy the dirty work. My youngest loved to scrub floors but that is because he wanted to play in the water bucket. Or when he got to use power tools, no bribing was required. The girls seemed to enjoy painting cause they made designs on the walls--goofy girls. At their very youngest, each had their own mower or would take turns and every week we all piled into the front of the brown 'crappy' truck as they called it. Austin had to sit on my lap, the girls squeezed in between Creig and I. They would get paid at the end of the evening with their choice of ice cream cone at the 4
Queens Dairy. Bubble gum swirl if I remember correctly was usually the choice.
Sigh...now they are grown and dont work with us as much. In fact, my husband and I dont even work together much. Tonight I was at one apartment cleaning and across the parking lot at another one of our complexes, he was by himself working on the plumbing in the bathroom. I stopped over on my way home and sat there on a five gallon bucket as he took apart a medicine cabinet for the parts so he could fix the one already hanging. That's my man, practical and making use of what he has.
This used to be such a passion of ours. The excitement of fixing a unit up, what we could all do with it, were always at the top of our conversations. We have slowed down, and struggle now just to muster up the energy to do it over and over with each apartment as it empties.

I miss the whining of the kids, the teaching them, the fire in my husband as he comes up with great ideas to redo a unit- Friday date nights at the lumberyard or the drive around the neighborhoods looking for our next conquest.
Seems so long ago....

Last Thing

Really the last thing I should be doing is writing here. I tell ya, when it rains it pours. I put so many things on hold or did them half way to get by until this porch sale I had was finally over. The basement here and two rooms upstairs, the basement at the apartment-FULL of stuff collected to be sold. Four years worth. WEll I finally committed to two days to have a sale. But it took two WEEKS to get it all ready. That was last weekend. Unfortunately it rained both days. I still had good traffic and what didnt sell went to Goodwill.

I thought once the sale was over I could get caught up on the rentals or the planning of Angie's wedding shower. Instead I have been trying to multi-task too many things and nothing is getting finished.

Court last Wednesday for a tenant of 3 yrs. Her boyfriend hit her upside the back of the head with a bat. He is lazy, doesn't work, takes her money, sweet talks everyone and WAS finally put in jail for what he did. I told her, you let him come back and you are out of here. I will not tolerate the man around my other tenants. Well, she let him back. So, I gave her a 30 day notice to move. And when she failed to pay her rent this month I took her to court. Wednesday of this week I go to court on another tenant. He is on section 8. I guess you could say I am cleaning house because I filed an FE&D on another gal that I am sick and tired of trying to track down and get money from.

So, like I said...being on here is really the last thing I should be doing. I might start today by getting a walk in before it starts raining again. Hogan is sitting on the porch waiting for me.

Drama house

So, I have this big old house. What a grand place it must have been a hundred years ago. Nice wide oak woodwork, beamed ceilings, huge foyers and hallways. What was once a single family home, now accomodates seven apts. The first is a one bedroom. The other six are efficiences. Cozy little units with tiny kitchens fixed up really nice. And for one person that is on a fixed income, they are a perfect fit.

Unless the 7 tenants don't fit with each other.

Pam lives in #1. She is my age, on disability, has two sons one which is in and out of jail for meth every few months.
Justin lives in #2. Young guy, kind of hippish. His family owns the pawn shop downtown. He just wants a nice inexpensive place to live. No contact with anyone else. He wants no socializing or to even have the other tenants know his name.
Good ol Bill is in #2. He is a bit older than me. Has a drinking problem and according to two of the other tenants in the building, uses crack. He also likes to watch porn and if he gets to drinking, becomes a bit suggestive and obnoxious (I dont like how the guy looks at me but I act like I dont notice)
#4 is empty. Has been for over seven years. Husband tore up the bathroom to redo and there it sets.
Now Curtis is a good guy. Apt #6. Is currently unemployed but has done work for us in the past when I really need help with painting or cleaning. He is a good cleaner. Only problem with Curtis is that he is severely overweight. He can not do ladders or get down on the floor. Not only is he heavy but he smokes. He gets winded pretty quickly.
#6--Anthony! He was born on the same day and year I was. Good guy. He is a bit slow which is no big deal. I just wish he wouldnt TALK SO LOUD. I can hear him downstairs when I step into the building. The drama with Anthony is with his girlfriend. I dont like getting calls at 11:00 pm from her to discuss how awful this guy is to her. Cant seem to get through to her that she should STAY AWAY FROM THE GUY!!! What am I supposed to do about it?
In #7 I have a handicap gentleman and his neurotic girlfriend. The paramedics are called to that house at least every two weeks. She is either trying to kill herself. If she isn't than he is.

So what is all the drama about? Goodness. I get at least one phone call a day from Pam. She tells me about every detail in her life along with all the buzz and gossip in the building. There is a lot of he said, she said going on amongst them all.

It's gotten to the point where I have raised my voice and said

"I DONT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT. IT IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS. JUST STAY AWAY FROM EACH OTHER etc etc etc"

Worse than a dorm or my house when the kids were in grade school.

Oh, gotta go...phone is ringing. Gee, I wonder if it's Pam

Takes all kinds

What to do what to do?
I can not believe it.
What do you get when you have a fairly new floor in a kitchen and a tenant gets it grimy with dirt and grease and than they put wax over all that?
Well, I know what I get...a sore back and arm from trying to strip it all off.

Ahh ha

I think I have had my 'ahh ha' moment. Sure, my knees have been slowly getting worse over the years. That started when I dislocated the kneecap in high school. In fact it dislocated a couple of different times in basketball. And again in college when I was dancing to Redneck Mother at a frat party. Oh yeah, I guess again when I was playing volleyball in college. Than over the course of my life time after college, I abused it even more-my knees, my back, pretty much my whole body. Man, I think back to what I all used to do. All the lifting milk cans and hay bales and five gallon buckets of feed. At jobs during the summer between college in factories Than having three kids and continuing a life of hard labor--no pun intended. It has only been the last four years that I have really been forced to slow down.

But I was refusing to accept it.

I had my ah ha moment today. I was slapped in the face with it. Working with my husband in an apt., trying to help him move a roll of carpet, the stove, reach up to screw the blind brackets to the window frame, painfully brought back how I used to do those things alone. I moved appliances, I could pull a huge full extended WOODEN ladder out of a basement and set it up against houses that I painted WHILE my kids were in a playpen below. I carried five gallon buckets of paint--not one, but two--up a flight of stairs. I pushed a mower strapped with a 9 mo. old in a baby pack. Heck, I loaded the mower in and out of the back of my car by myself. Shoveled snow off sidewalks for hours-and LOVED it. I thoroughly enjoyed working.

But not today. The scariest part came when I finally got to sit after a long day of working and getting dinner made and cleand up. I got this horrible dizzy spell as I sat down to watch some TV. Damn migrain. What now, is my whole body going to hell? What am I going to do? Work is my life. I dont know how to relax, I dont know how to have fun. I dont know what else to do!

So I will go to bed feeling my knees and my shoulder pound.Try not to feel that numbness in my neck and arm and the nauseating migraine linger. Hope I dream again, not being aware of my body except for a feeling of freedom.

29 years

We have been married now 29 years. Sunday was our anniversary and it resembled the day 29 years ago. Big rolling clouds, sun, and windy! But even though we had snow the weekend before, it was dry this Sunday. Creig and I drove 2 hours to Galena IL. Strolled up and down Main St checking out the shops. As always, we were drawn to the architecture and old history items that many of the shops had to offer.

We had to get away --far enough away so we would not feel guilty that we weren't working at the apts. My knee was hurting but I didnt care. Just as we were ready to call it an afternoon, I found a sun to commemorate the day. I look for a pair of artsy earrings or a sun plaque for my garden on any trip we take. This sun was happy and holding his own in the wind. Kind of paralleling my husband and I and our years together.