Something happened this afternoon...

That really bothered me.

Myles called me a little while ago and said "I just got the strangest phone call." Mind you, one of our houses is up for rent, so he's been handling a lot of phone calls about it since it went into the the paper on Wednesday. A woman called him about it, and he said that she had made the best impression so far, was very eloquent and well-spoken, but then she asked him a question that made him completely stop in his tracks. She said "Now I have to tell youask you something before deciding if I come to look at the house. We're an African American family. Would this neighborhood be accepting of us?" WTF? They're new to Indiana from California, so when Myles told me this, my first thought was that coming to such a bass-akwards racist state such as this one, they might have heard things and are somewhat apprehensive. That was the only thing I could think up for her asking that question.

So Myles tells me that he felt really bad for her that she felt she even needed to ask that in the first place. After he tells me this, I just sit here, totally shocked, and then Myles calls me again. It was bothering him so much that he had to call her back and apologize for the fact that she had to ask that. (My Myles is a damn good guy. =P )Turns out when she has spoken to other "landlords" in the Lafayette area, when they find out she is black, they've been asking "Well how black are you?" What?!? And, because she is so well-spoken, some automatically assume that she's a white woman, and when she inquires about the property, they've said "Oh, you wouldn't want to live there. It's in a black neighborhood."

Dude, all of that is so wrong on so many levels. Way wrong. So now, I'm sitting here, extremely bothered and agitated by it. I want her to come and look at the Blakely house so I can ask her who she called so I can find out exactly who thaey are, which wouldn't be hard, and turn them in, because asking a potential tenant anything about their race, or sexuality for that matter, is illegal. And it's just plain WRONG.

i'm just amazed that this is going on in the town where I live. I mean, yes, I live in Indiana. Yes, I know Indiana has one of the highest numbers of KKK membership in the US. Yes, I know this is a redneck racist state, but I guess I never really thought about it until now. I mean, I grew up in South Bend, which feels like worlds apart from Lafayette, which is only 100 miles away. It just wasn't like that in South Bend. I mean, sure, we knew it was like that in Osceola, but, wow.

I'm still just really irked about the whole thing. The color of your skin doesn't matter, it's your actions and how you carry yourself and all that. And that goes for ANY race. I'm just....yeah.

Can't I just go to bed now?

I'm really wore out from this weekend, and I will be after this evening, too. Friday we met with our banker and our realtor for drinks, Saturday we woke up late then went to dinner and out to the bar with David and Misty, and yesterday we got tons of "chores" done and then dealt with fleas until about midnight. Tonight will be the aftermath of dealing with the fleas.

Friday Myles and I met Mark and Jay at Hooters, and a little later on, our new tenant for the Blakely house met us over there, had a beer, gave us money and signed his lease. He ended up staying and chatting with us, since he's actually a nice guy and pretty easy to get a long with. So After we got bored at Hooters and I drank way too much sangria, we headed to BW3s (with the exception of mark who was headed to Kokomo. For those of you from Kokomo or who are from around here, will know exactly where said single man would be going.) had a few more drinks at BDubs, where Myles received more reassurance from an enthusiasic Jay that he has a job waiting for him if he decides to quit Steiner. So, we'll see.

Saturday I went and got my hair did, picked up a couple of things (including a new modem, gar) and then David and Misty met up with us at our house. Myles hadn't showered yet, so I made the mistake of flipping on a episode of House from the DVR for David and Misty and I to watch, since Misty loves that show but never watches it at home. Have any of you ever tried to watch House with her? It's an experience, let me tell you. First, she tries to figure out what is wrong...something NO ONE can do, since it's always some obscure, never-heard-of-before condition or disease. Then, since she knows these are reruns that I have seen, she bugs me to tell her what happens. And I truly rarely remember what the diagnosis is. And sometimes she laughs really loud and repeats stuff...especially if she is on a narcotic hangover from taking some pain meds. LOL but, she's my Misty and it's cute and I love her.

After we finished the episode of house, because we couldn't dare leave before she saw the end, we headed to parkside...which is this really crappy hole-in-the-wall local restaurant. But oh man do they have probably the BEST prime rib that I've ever had. The atmosphere sucks and the service isn't the greatest, since they only have one cook, one waitress, and one server, but it is sooooo worth it once you taste the food. We'd never been there before until David and Misty decided that was where they wanted to eat, and I'm glad we ate there. =) Then we headed to our favorite bar, where Misty's cousin is the DJ and we know everyone that works there and a lot of the people who hang out there. We had a lot of laughs and a really good time. I tried to drink "skinny" drinks, but ended up giving up and switching to draft beer. lol I just can't do the mixed drinks when I have good beer available. =P

And then came Sunday. At about 8:00, Myles decided we should check the cats to make sure they didn't have fleas. (The evil rental house had fleas in it, and Myles just then had thought about us bringing them home on our clothes. Something I never even thought about since my mind has been consumed with other stuffs.) We grabbed Piper and took a look at him, since he's white underneatch and it's easier to see them, and sure enough, I found one. So at 8 on a Sunday evening, here go Myles and I, going out to buy flea bombs and flea shampoo, then giving the cats a bath (oh, what fun, to give the world's most skittish cat and the world's bitchiest cat baths) then bombing the house. We had to put the wet cats in my car, put that car in the driveway so they weren't in the house, and then Myles and I had to leave the house last night for two hours. Luckily Brian and Ann let us come hang out with them. lol Needless to say, it was a REALLY long night last night.

And tonight we get to wash all the bedding (since we're bad people and let the cats sleep in bed with us and on it whenever they want), vacuum everything, mop the ceramic floors, get every bit of clothes washed....yeah, fun fun.

Wish me luck!

It's finally...

The last day of working on the rental house. After tonight, no more. The new tenants move in tomorrow and then Myles, Misty, David, Wayne and I can get back to our regularly scheduled programming...er, lives. =P In the midst of all my own house cleaning I need to do this weekend, since I've had to put my house off to take care of Salem Street, I need to finish a round of edits and read some submission. =) I'm really looking forward to reading a few of them, too, since they're ones that I offered revise and resubmits on. *crossing my fingers that they're now even better than the first time I read them* =)

We're on the home stretch!

After tonight and tomorrow, the rental will be done, since the new tenants move in on Friday. I didn't get as much done last night as I wanted too, since a lot of Myles's tools and junk were in the way, but I'm hoping that tonight will be a lot more productive for me. I spent much of the evening last night walking around the house trying to find random stuff to clean. =P Not that that's bad or anything, but it's NOT what was on my list of things to do last night.

I'm actually surprised that I'm as awake and coherent as I am this morning, considering the fact that I left for work at 7:00, since I had to make a couple of stops on the way, then went straight from work to the rental, and we didn't leave the rental until almost ten. And then I got home and crawled into bed to read for about an hour. Today and tomorrow look to be about the same. But on the up side, after tomorrow evening it will be done, and that's all that matters right now.

What I've been up to

So, I know that y'all are aware of the rental drama and that we've been crazy working on it. You've seen the pictures...and if you haven't, they're on my blog and scroll back and look. That's all I've been doing. ALL I HAVE BEEN DOING. We've made mucho progress and I figured y'all might be curious as to how different it looks. We're about three-fourths of the way through. We have to be done by this Thursday evening, since the new tenants move in on Friday, August 1. I'm seeing some late worknights in my future this week. =P A little more painting, some touch ups, and a lot of cleaning. But, we've made A LOT of progress. And the new carpet goes in tomorrow.

Yeah, this is the old-style plaster and lath wall construction that we tore down. The reason behind tearing the wall out was because the windows you see there are new windows that Myles, Wayne, and David put in last weekend. You can see Myles (left) and Wayne (right) through the window...they're working on the new siding that was put up on the back of the house. It was a pain in the butt to tear that wall down, too. I was SORE.

This is paint that I had to scrape off the trimwork. And there is LOTS of this trimwork in the house. I counted the coats of paint. It was nine or ten at my best count. Yeah, not so much fun. I spent about five hours doing that last weekend.

This is the room that was blue, an absolute filthy mess and had the pool table in it. All painted and ready to get carpet in it tomorrow. Then it'll just be sometouch up paint and cleaning the windows and this room will be DONE.

This is some of my odd sense of humor. There is an old well in the backyard and on a night we're they were partying pretty heavily, they broke the concrete and rebar cover on it because they were curious what was down there. Dude, it's a well. It's a hole with water in it. (I actually think this is a water cistern and not a well, but I'm only a girl, so what the hell do I know? Grrr) So David and Myles made a new concrete and rebar cover for it...One that can't be removed. It's pretty obvious what my contribution was. Misty drew the angel. Too bad they covered it with dirt today and it will be seeded. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when someone in the future unearths it. LOL "Oh my God! They buried their grandmother in their backyard!"

And last, but certainly not least, this is all the trash. It takes up almost an entire city block. About nine-tenths of it is what the tenants put out there this past Friday and Saturday. We're just hoping that the trash guys pick it up tomorrow morning. I have NO clue what we're going to do if they don't. There was about half of this amount last weekend and they picked it up, so yeah. We're crossing our fingers. And toes. And legs. And arms. And anything else that can possibly be crossed.

Starbucks has crack in it

I'm not kidding. After a few days last week and the weeke before of having Starbucks in the morning, I crave it something fierce every morning now. Bad. This morning, it was so bad, Misty brought me some at work. But, that's what happens when you have the MOST awesomest best friend in the whole entire world. =) For serious.

I especially need it since I'm going to be going straight from work at 4:45 to the rental to work on it tonight, then going home, going to sleep, and getting up bright and early to work on it again tomorrow. And Sunday. We pretty much have to have it all done this weekend, since the carpet goes in on Monday. And did I mention that we have to tear the carpet out ourselves? The Home Depot installers won't remove it because there are animal stains on it. They consider it a biohazard. So, yeah. That's even better. Yet another thing we get to do. =P

At least tomorrow night we get to have a little bit of fun. Our next door neighbors, who rawk by the way, are having a hog roast for his 49th birthday. "Munsey's turning 49 so we are gonna roast some swine." Sweet. Yes, I live in Indiana...we LOVE hog roasts. Yum. Plus, Jeff will make me some of his to-die-for chocolate martinis, so I'll be set.

And to get back to the reason I started this in the first place, I'm telling you, Starbucks puts some sort of highly addictive drug in there, namely crack, in order to keep you buying more. No wonder there are soooo many of them everywhere and they all do good business. They're not really a coffee shop, they're drug dealers. For serious.

It is...

A decent day so far, even though I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning. That was pretty much hell on earth. =( Myles asked me to drive by the rental to see if they had done anything to it, since they were planning on having the majority of their stuff out yesterday, even though they have until Friday. They still have their non-working cars out on the curb though, and I suspect they still have the two in the garage. *sigh* Oh well, though. When Myles and I get their with our "crew" on Saturday morning, anything left in the house is going out the curb for the garbage, and any cars that are there are gone. I will be calling the police department and having them towed, because they are "abandoned vehicles. =)

After I checked out the Salem Street property I headed to Speedway to pick up a cheap cappucino. I'm used to it being a certain price, so I walked in there with my $1.17, and it turns out, it's gone up to $1.27. And I had no more money on me. So, as I left my coffee on the counter to go and get my credit card from my car, but the manager who I think may have a tad bit of a crush on me told me he'd take care of it and not to worry about it. =) How sweet of him.

Now I'm at work, and have been for an hour and a half, and I have managed to talk to my best friend on Gtalk, post some blogs, change up some stuff on my MySpace and look at some other random stuff. But, no "work" work has been done. =) Sweetness. Now I need to go through all the blogs I look at, which will take about an hour.

And last night was really nice. I actually didn't do ANY work (other than mopping the kitchen floor) and I sat around and read a book for pleasure. =) It was pretty nice. Then I went outside to play with the next door neighbor's puppy...a ten-week-old red and white border collie puppy named Dixie. Oh man, she is sooo cute! They're going to breed her in a couple of years, and it's looking like Myles and I are gonna take one of the puppies. =)

How's your day doing?

I'm exhausted

I spent an utterly and completely exhausting weekend at our rental this weekend. Thirty hours to be exact. Now it's Monday morning and I'm sitting at my desk at work, struggling to keep my eyes open even though I went to bed at 9:30 last night and woke up at 7:15 this morning...and I never woke up once last night. Not once. And the worst part of it is that I still have as much time to spend over there next weekend as I did this weekend, and I have to go over there probably three evenings this week and work on it. The new tenants take possession on August first, so EVERYTHING has to be done by then. It's a lot of work, but Myles and I will get it done with the help of a few of our friends who spent just as much time over there this weekend as Myles and I did. Those are good friends right there. =) Everyone should be so lucky to have friends like Myles and I have.

I'll be working feverishly to get the editing and housework that I have to get done on my few nights at home. Man, I can't wait until this week and next week are over. I just want to get this mess done and over with. Though I am looking forward to tomorrow...our current tenants are getting served tomorrow. Since Myles went down on Friday and filed a lawsuit against them for the damages done to the house. =) I'll be anxious to hear just what they have to say about that. But, I'm just an ass about that stuff anyway--I get pleasure out of it. LOL

I've been busy...

And will continue to be busy. And no, it has absolutely nothing to do with wedding stuff. At all. The lease on one of our rental properties is up in two weeks and we're starting to get stuff ready for the next tenants to come in. One of the things we had to do was get new carpet for the place, since we knew that the guys in there had trashed the new carpet we put in there two years ago to get it ready for them. Well, when Myles went over there yesterday to meet the guy that was going out there to measure the areas, he walked into one heck of a surprise. I called him at the tail end to tell him about a dentist appointment I had, and he didn't even want to speak at all, he was so mad and frustrated. He said that the place was "destroyed". Yup, no good when Myles uses a word that strong to describe something.

So I met him after work with a notepad and pen and we went through the house, making a list of what needs to be done. Keep in mind, the tenants are still living there. Yes, we know this for sure. But how they can be living there is beyond me. So, Saturday when we go over there to start working, the only work I'll be doing is standing over the tenants shoulders (three guys in their early twenties) and making sure they are cleaning everything spotless. Dictator Tera will be in the house. =) After you look at these pictures, go ahead and say a prayer for me, too.

Gotta love...

Those crazy Indiana storms. We had one this past Sunday evening. It got CRAZY outside. I know people who've lived all over the country, the world even, and the one thing they all say is that there is nothing like an Indiana storm. Myles and I were having a relaxing evening watching The Bucket List (GREAT movie by the way), and when we got halfway through, the electricity went out. When we looked outside, the trees were literally bending in half, the wind was so strong. Yeah, it was pretty scary. Needless to say, we hurried up and got "real" clothes on and called my mom and dad to get online for us and see if we had any tornado warnings. Just thunderstorm warnings, so we stood on the front porch and waited for it to pass.

Afterward, we walked around our yard. Not so good. A BIG tree down in the backyard that we still have to cut up and move to the firewood pile (We've been super busy this week and haven't had a chance to do it yet) and TONS of branches and sticks all over the place. Not to mention, 70 mile an hour straight line winds tend to blow all of the leaves off the trees. I got out in the yard the other day and managed to get most of the branches, but there are still a lot more. I swear, every time I turned around from throwing a bunch of them down the ravine, there were twice as many back in the yard.

One of our rental properties, which is actually our first house that we lived in together, is right down the road from us, so it got some damage, too. Rental properties have to take precedence over our house, so we've already gotten that one done. Fascia was torn off, some soffet had come loose, so I had to help Myles fix it. NOT FUN FOR TERA. Have I mentioned that I am extrememly afraid of heights? Myles made me get up the twenty foot ladder (only halfway), to hold the fascia at the peak of the roof in front of the garage. Not fun. I had to really work to keep myself from having a panic attack. *shudders*

But, all is well now, just a tree to cut up. And I'm sure it won't be the last of the storms. =P After all, this is Indiana.

Nightmare on Creekview Lane

Yeah, this new rental is a HUGE pain in my arse. I mean, I'm not doing as much work on this one because Myles is understanding that I have edits and such to get through before we go on our trip. But he's not over there by himself. He has some people helping him. But it still is requiring a lot of running and around and other such stuff for me. Last night I took the girls so Brian could help paint and such, and don't get me wrong, I LOVE spending time with them, but I had a shitload of stuff I wanted to get done last not and not a one thing go done. Gar. After getting food for everyone and running around to the store and such, Kierra, Maddie and I didn't get back home until about 9:30. So we had some girl time watching TV, and eating ice cream and then headed up to pile in my bed and watch House. They love that show. So, we had a good time. Until we woke up this morning. Had to take them home and then go pick up some food for My and then was going to help him. Well, helping him turned into an argument over the damn fridge and I ended up leaving and coming back home. I can understand that we have a budget, but THE FRIDGE IN THAT HOUSE CAN'T BE CLEANED. The bits of food that were left in it got moldy...the nasty black stuff...and that mold therefore stained the plastic of the fridge and can't be cleaned. I tried everything possible and the stains are still there. I truly think he's going to have to buy a new one, but he's denying it and I could just tell he was thinking that I didn't try hard enough. Grrrr. Plus, the flooring people didn't show up today like they were supposed to so we'll be a day behind on that. Just friggin' great. And through it all, I have to get our house cleaned up before our annual NYE party on Monday and I have to get edits done. At least I got through three submissions so far today....on my fourth right now. Man, I'm stressed out today! After I go and get the guys food in an hour or so, I'm going to come home and pop open about five beers and plant my ass on the couch with my computer. =P That sounds poifect to me. I'll post pictures of the Satan house in the next couple of days.