Home Life

I don't think I can get enough of posting pictures of these two.  Both sleeping in their favorite spots.  Hawthorn, the Ragdoll kitten, is growing by leaps and bounds.

Hawthorn Growing Up and Kansas Being Cute

A couple days before Christmas and Hawthorn is growing like wildfire and Kansas is just as cute as she's always been.

Aww! Photo Moment

When I saw this, I jumped up quick and grabbed my eCam.

Both girls lying on the same wicker couch - Hawthorn, the pretty Ragdoll kitten and Kansas, the sweet Saint Bernard.  Glad to see they know they're a pair.  Just us three girls.

A Typical Family Scene

Here's what life looks like when nearly all the dogs decide to show up downstairs.

 

This is Sarah and she's very sweet.  This is the first time she's jumped up on the couch.  Luckily, I'm prepared because I have my Ozarks Crescent Mural blanket covering it up.  Gee, everything looks so cluttered and I promise it's not.  I'm pretty minimalist.  I only keep the things I love and use.  You can see the recliner I sit in with my sweater sitting there and my laptop.  I grab the laptop and set it on the arm of the chair and get my work done.

 

This is my dog, Kansas.  She is also very sweet.  You can see a birthday present on the coffee table.  The girl owner has a birthday coming up.  I do need to come up with names for both of the people I rent from, since I won't divulge their actual names here.  I just need to create some cute pseudonyms for them.

This is Samson, the little guy.  He is so cute.  I love his walk and the fur that sticks up on the end of his paws.  He loves road trips, so any excuse to hop in the car and go for a ride and he'll be right there.

You saw Maguire in the last post and he's here in the room too.  So only one dog is missing and that's Weezer, a girl.  I have my Saint Bernard and the owners' four dogs include two boys and two girls.  There's also four cats of theirs, but they are all older, so they never venture downstairs.  I am currently cat-free.

They're a fun bunch and make life a joy.

Ozarks Resort for the Winter

I will be spending November through February or four glorious months in the Natural State at the Bayou Resort at Eagles Rest on Lake Norfork in Gamaliel, Arkansas.  I am so excited.  I need a break and I'm tired of the stress and worry of having my dog be outdoors for the winter.  She's always been indoors, except for the past two years.  I figure she's done her time outdoors.  She seemed to be fine about it, but I don't think it's ideal.  I figure if I spend the next two or three winters away and summers too starting next summer, then work here without any living costs for the other five months, I'll have enough money within that timeframe to buy my own place.  So it works out in all ways.

This is a one room cabin, which is what I will have, except with one bed and a loveseat.  Perfect.  The kitchen comes completely stocked, except for food, of course.  The bathrooms have been newly remodeled and they look nice.  There's satellite TV with HBO and Cinemax and WiFi, so I will be sticking with my regular routine of working online and watching TV.  I love working at home.  The beauty of not being tied to an office is that I can take it on the road.  Not many jobs you can say that about.  The owners gave me an unbeatable monthly rate and their emails were so nice and sweet.  You won't find many innkeepers like that.  I'm not sure why most innkeepers have such an aversion to doing business via email.

This will be my view.

Here's some interesting information taken from Bayou Resort's web page:

"When out on the lake you'll see there are no homes or buildings on the water's edge.  With the exception of one small area, all buildings are on ridgetops well back from the shoreline.  This is because it is illegal to build on the "Corps Strip," a federally owned band of land all around the lake.

"Without the Corps Strip, Norfork Lake would not be the pristine, natural experience it is known for.  Instead of buildings, you see hardwood forests, limestone bluffs, and cedar glades, all diverse eco-land types well populated with wildlife and wildflowers.  This natural beauty comes at the small price of having buildings set back an average of a quarter to a half-mile from the water's edge."

Here's an aerial view of Fout Boat Dock, which is right next to Bayou Resort.  It's my understanding that what makes a resort in the Ozark Mountains is access to boating, fishing and water sports, such as scuba diving, water skiing and swimming.

And here's the swimming pool.  I'm not so sure I'll be taking advantage of this though, unless there's some warm winter days and they keep it open.  Ozark winters are mild, but there is snow.

It will be nice to have life with just myself and my Saint Bernard again.  I'm certainly looking forward to it.  Peace and quiet.

UPDATE:  I've actually cancelled my reservation.  I'm pretty surprised myself.  Call me superstitious, but my oldest friend called me up out of the blue and whenever that happens, it's always a sign that my future travel plans are out of sync with what's good for me, hence the change in plans.

Goals and Saint Louis

I have two goals right now.  The first one is buying a car, a very specific car.  And two is buying a house.  My home could either be somewhere in Kansas, in the Ozarks, Kansas City or Saint Louis because I need to be near my Mom.  I'm always looking at other places for retirement, which have included Bulgaria, upstate New York, New Hampshire, Boston, the North Shore, Cape Cod, and even Rhode Island and Maine; that's practically all of New England!  But it may very well likely be the place I choose coming up.

I want to buy a New Beetle in the next year or two.  It'd be nice to have a 2009, but it'll be a few years before they even come down to less than the $13,000 mark, which is still too much for me.   I'm seeing 1999-2000 ones for around $4,000 and 2002-2003 for $5,000 to $7,000, more in my price range.  These cars hold their value.  Just as a bit of trivia, the New Beetle debuted in 1998.  I had a 2003 for awhile, so that's when the love started.

I'm good at saving money.  Luckily, it's a strong natural trait of mine, so depending upon how much I save, when I want to buy and the car that grabs my attention, we'll see what I'll be driving.

After I buy my car, I'll be saving for a house.  And after the house, my nest egg.

I was going to stay on here until my Mom passed on.  I really hate to say that, it sounds so inappropriate, but it's one of those things that comes up when thinking about the future.  She is someone I take into consideration when making plans.

At times staying here has seemed like the right thing to do because she loves my company.  The thing is it will be many, many years from now before she's gone, and truth is, I don't want to live here that long.  There's other things I want to be doing, plus I prefer living alone.  And I'd really like to spend some time with my Saint Bernard.  I'd like her older years to be spent indoors like she's used to.  She's outdoors right now and I just don't like that.

I do some cooking for my Mom and the dishes and the garbage, but my presence isn't necessary.  She misses me when I'm gone and I like spending time with her, but my brother is here to make sure she is OK overall.  There's no medical need for it as she's very healthy, but she doesn't have a car anymore and her grocery trips are lessening, so she does need someone nearby.

Since I'm obsessed with real estate, I'm always looking.  Here's one of the places it has taken me to most recently.

I've discovered Saint Louis through HUD and all the houses there are very nice and very cheap, plus they have brownstones.  I absolutely adore brownstones and to have one of my own is likely why I feel so good about considering Saint Louis.  That and the energy there is really good.  After discovering the wilderness, small towns and the countryside, I don't know if I can permanently commit to a new city, but with prices like this, I may want to live there for a few years.

It's interesting because most cities don't have houses that are as nice in this price range.  Plus, I'd have the Ozarks in my backyard.  Technically, Saint Louis is in the Ozarks on the very northeastern edge.

The one I totally fell in love with which I think is under contract right now is $20,000, and it has $5,500 in repairs, though it doesn't look like it needs any.  Here it is.  I just love it.  It's pink!

There's two more that are architecturally similar and a great deal cheaper.  This one is only $4,000 and it is when I first saw this style of architecture.

Below is another one selling for $10,000.  I like the way it looks.

There's one in which I absolutely adore the interior.  It's got these fireplaces and this vibe that is just the coolest.  It feels like New Orleans and Boston in the '80s and '90s.  I love that!  The outside reminds me of a school, which is a little bizarre, but I like it.  Here it is.  I'd say it's my second favorite.

This last picture is where I noticed that vibe I was talking about.  It's so great.  I really miss that.  After all, that is the generation I am from.  There's quite a few brownstones with two units.  Makes me feel like being a landlord.

The first fireplace is so pretty.  I really like it.  The only thing is this place has four bedrooms, which is too big, although it doesn't list a living room, a dining room or a kitchen like all the other listings do.  So, perhaps I'd turn two of those four rooms into a living room and a kitchen.  That would be perfect because then there'd be one bedroom and one room for an office.  Just what I want.

This house is only $9,600, so it is affordable.  I just hope that there are properties like this listed there in a few years.  It would be terribly disappointing to not find any similar properties in the future.

This is my original plan.  There will be modifications, of course, but nothing terribly drastic.  It's nice to move onto different projects now that I've set up a good income after searching for more than a year for how to make money online by doing good old-fashioned work like you'd do at a regular day job.  There's no way I'm going to scam anyone.

Between Mechanical Turk, Demand Studios and a little from my Mom for helping her out, I am saving between $500 to $1,000 a month.  That is awesome!  And if I was a real animal, I could save over $2,000, but the burnout factor would be too high.  Another one of my goals is savings.  I was hoping for $2,500 a year, but now I've managed to double-triple-quadruple that amount.  Very, very happy for that.  It's nice to always have money in my accounts.