Wrapping Up June…
After a long, painful struggle, Jo’s brother Bill passed away on June 15th. In late April his hip fractured as he was getting into their car. He spent the following 2 months in the hospital undergoing several surgeries. He has been fighting diabetes for many years and has had to depend on dialysis treatments for several years due to kidney damage. He was laid to rest on June 21 with full military honors.
In other news…
As I have mentioned before, Jo and I are very much wanting to find somewhere else to live. This area has gone seriously downhill in the last (almost) 20 years we’ve lived here. To put it politely, the demographic of this area is changing – and rather rapidly.
Between loud motorcycles / cars racing up and down nearby 40 Highway all night, and the almost incessant battering from all the morons with “boom cars” it’s become a miserable place to live. The Independence Police are useless – unless you sign a complaint. Which of course lets the offending party know who to retaliate against. I really don’t need some gang-banger driving by and putting bullets through my front window.
Aside from that, both Jo and I have pretty much lost whatever enthusiasm we may have had for mowing yards (especially the back yard – more on that later), and the constant maintenance and pouring money into this money-pit of a house. I’m sick of wondering if this basement (where my computers live) is going to flood when we have a week straight of rain.
Our backyard is a pain in the butt of major proportions – and always has been. It’s filled with big trees that constantly rain branches into the yard that I have to spend an hour or more picking up every time it needs mowed. I don’t even want to talk about the 9 million tons of leaves the damn things unload every fall.
Then there’s all the crap (mostly poison ivy) that grows in the fence on the west side of the yard. And there’s my neighbor on the west that hasn’t mowed or had mowed her backyard in…. what….. 3 years..
Anyway…. We’re looking at some options other than another house. For one thing, with the housing market today, the only way we could afford another house is if we won the lottery. I just looked at one in Liberty on Zillow.. $350,000 with payments of over $2,000 – if we “qualified” which I’m sure we wouldn’t.
We are looking into one of the many “Retirement Communities” in the area, and I think that’s the way we just might go. With residents 55 and older, no kids, no 20-year-olds in the apartment above having loud parties every night, and someone else gets the ‘pleasure’ of mowing and upkeep. No more worrying about plumbing, painting, re-tiling, or any of that other fun stuff.
We may even pick one on the Kansas side. It’s actually cheaper than in Missouri from what I’ve researched so far – which is a bit of a surprise – but a good one, actually.
With that in mind, we’ve started the process of downsizing, and that’s going to be a major project! I’m thinning out my massive collection of insulators. Some time ago, I sent an email to a local insulator collectors’ club offering hundreds of insulators – for free – if they wanted to come by and pick them up. Never had the courtesy of a reply, so most have gone to the recycling center. I’m still going through what’s left, keeping maybe 20 – 30 of the best pieces, and recycling the rest.
I’ve placed a few photos below, so check ‘em out!
That's it for now!
Stay safe!
Rod
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