Yesterday I went home at noon because I had a home inspection scheduled for the buyer.  I was told by my realtor it should take a couple hours so I planned for that mentally. I grabbed Elsa and first took her over to the park to get a walk in, a good use of time.  However after that was complete I figured I would just hang in my truck until the inspector was done whom I was monitoring via my Ring cameras.  I waited and waited, dozing off in my truck several times.  When 4 o’clock hit I drove down to DD for coffee and texted my realtor letting her know he was still there.

She reached out to the buyers realtor who was also at the house.  She told me he was almost done but I could go back to the house at this point.  She did mention that the inspector saw evidence of termite damage in the attic which sent a wave of panic through me.  She described it as “minor” but any time the word termite is in a sentence it’s a bad thing.  I also told her I have had an annual subterranean termite treatment done since the house was built.  I was now anxious to get home to talk to this inspector before he left.

When I pulled in the driveway the guy was running the sprinkler system through tests.  I asked him about what he saw in the attic.  He said there was very minor signs of termite activity on one truss.  He didn’t see any evidence it was still active and the damage wasn’t anything that compromised the truss integrity but still should be spot treated.  I mentioned how I have had the house treated for termite prevention but he said this would be from dry wood termites which fly and don’t enter from the ground level.  He again said the damage was minimal but he just had to include it on his report.

The only other thing of note he mentioned was he saw evidence of heat distress on one wire going to the circuit breaker box.  He said it was the line going to the hot water heater.  This was a head scratcher but later I theorized at some point in time high current was inadvertently pumped through the circuit by either when a heating element in an old water heater failed or when I directly wired my generator to the breaker box after hurricane Wilma.  I am relatively sure it’s fine, but again he had to report it.  Otherwise he said the house seems pretty great which I was happy to hear.

I made last minute plans to go down and ride bike with Monique.  We had done this a couple of times before and it sounded like a good mental break for me from all of the house sale things that have been spinning around.  We actually headed out on the bikes with Susi and her boyfriend as well but they soon split off on their own route.  It was good to catch up with Monique. It was the first time we had a chance to talk one on one since before the holidays.  I got to hang with little Leilani for a bit as well which is always valuable time to me.

So the past couple days I have had friends of mine turn me onto something I never really did before, personality tests.  I have always found the Zodiac signs interesting and more recently another friend told me about the Chinese Zodiac which not only is based on your birth month but also the year.  The Fire Goat sign I fall under seems like a pretty accurate match for many of my traits.  However a personality test doesn’t care when you are born, instead you answer a number of questions honestly on a scale system where you either agree or disagree to varying degrees to the question being asked.  I am always interested in collecting data so I took both of these tests.  One is here and the other is here.

With the 16 Personalities site I was identified as a ISFJA Defender on Ennegram I am a type 2, a Giver.  When I read the breakdown of both tests they both more or less accurately described me with detail that I found both interesting and somewhat disturbing.  In a nutshell at my core I feel like the way to get people to like/love me is to give of myself, sometimes to my detriment.  I am so focused on doing for others yet I am normally uncomfortable receiving similar generosity.  There are pages of break down about my traits both good and bad, and again they seemed pretty spot on.

One thing I found interesting was how these traits can mutate based on if an individual is “healthy”, “average”, or “unhealthy” in terms of their emotional wellness.  I honestly can think of examples of me exhibiting all of the traits mentioned at one point or another.  It also mentioned how this type of personality has a very strong desire to have a partner to share life with which is something I have expressed repeatedly.  This hard wired desire is in constant conflict with my efforts to become a person that can be happy single, indefinitely.  It’s a real tug of war mentally.

I also looked at how certain combinations of personalities match up which again is very interesting.  I would be well served that before I embark on a perspective relationship with anyone I should have them take these tests to save both of us headaches down the road.  There are certain combos that just will not work.  These tests have helped to open my eyes even further to why I do what I do in certain situations, to my detriment unfortunately at times.  I am hoping this awareness helps me in the future take a more balanced and healthy approach in a relationship.

One other thing that came up was how if a type 2 is not in a relationship they can seek getting that approval or validation in other ways.  This instantly tied into my thoughts about my sharing on social media recently.  I give content, I get “likes” or positive comments.  It still all feeds the same beast.

With my house scenario I always imagined that I would move all or most of the equity I get out of the sale of my house and apply it to the new house, for two reasons.  First I want to minimize the size of my mortgage since I am edging towards retirement.  Second my thought was anything I applied towards the purchase of a new home would be exempt from capital gains taxes.  Yesterday I got clarification on that from my accountant.

The maximum that can be exempt from capital gains on the sale of a home is 250K, period.  When my accountant first told me that I was disappointed but then she gave me more information.  She said that you can deduct the cost of any major improvements you made to the property while you owned it.  So things like the pool, the roof, the windows and the solar system can all come off the top so in the end my tax exposure should not be too bad.  It also means the scenarios I was thinking about where I need to apply every penny of equity to “recast” my mortgage once I am allowed to (150 days after closing), was not really valid.

Instead I will be able to set aside money for whatever improvements I want to do first without worrying about tax ramifications.  I was thinking I should put all the equity on the new mortgage and then pull out a HELOC to cover the renovations.  This will be a much simpler course to follow.

Yesterday at lunch I played singles pickleball which I was hesitant to do.  I was hesitant because I had plans to play my second week of volleyball last night.  Pickleball, especially the singles variety can be pretty punishing on my knees with all the stop and go that is involved.  I tried to not go all out while playing.  My knees were a bit sore but not debilitating.  When I got home I popped two more Advil grabbed my gear and headed to the sand courts at Fleischman Park.

I played 4’s and then 3’s for the full two hours.  I would say I played slightly better than last week which is all I can hope for at this point, incremental improvement.  I had more decent plays but am still struggling for consistency in areas like bumping and setting.  One thing surprisingly that I am not struggling with is serving.  In two weeks of play I have not hit a single serve out or into the net.  I actually am now serving confidently and had multiple games where I ran 5,6,or 7 points in a row on my serve which felt good.

The other good news is despite playing pickleball at lunch my body seemed to hold up ok.  Yep I am sore today but it isn’t the “shit I tore something” sort of pain.  It’s the type of soreness that should become less and less prevalent if I keep committing to play weekly. As of now that is my intent. Anything that gets me out into the world and engaging with people in a positive manner is good for me.

Today I work a half day as I need to go run home and grab Elsa.  They are doing a building inspection of my place, just like I had done to the place I am buying.  They are usually pretty detailed in the inspection so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.  When I got a quote to address the things the inspection mentioned on the house I am buying of 4K I requested the buyers offer that credit off the price of the house.  They refused which meant I could back out of the sale if I wanted to. (I didn’t)  I would probably have done the same thing if I was in their position.

On my way home last night I again stopped at Don’s place to hang with him and Lucky for a bit. We talked about the Super Bowl, the sale of my house, the purchase of my new house and some other topics that revolve around life in general.  I also got a picture yesterday from Ali of Sadie’s remains that she arranged.  In addition to ashes she had a paw and nose print done.  For whatever reason I am not real keen on keeping ashes but I know it means a lot to Ali.  Seeing the picture brought a tear to my eye.

Last night was busy.  I had a couple orders for the 3D store to pack and ship, a rarity nowadays.  I also pulled out my old home documents again trying to find certain things that are being asked for by the title company.  I am certain I kept anything and everything home purchase related but I can’t find an elevation survey in my collection.  You have to figure this stuff is all more than 20 years old.  My realtor said it isn’t the end of the world if I can’t find it.  I also had to re-sign the sales contract to include a clause where I am taking my nifty Samsung washer/dryer with me and placing the units from the house I am buying in their place.

By the time I was done with everything it was almost 8:30 and I was hungry. I threw another Trader Joe’s pasta dish in the microwave and ate the entire bag for dinner, again.  It seems pigging out is paying dividends.  I was just under 177lbs last night on the scale.

Today is Valentine’s Day, yay.  It’s been two full years since I have celebrated the day in a conventional manner.  Hmm now that I think about it, it really has been three years when I recall the sequence of events from Valentine’s Day 2020. Enjoy your day with your special someone.

As I mentioned Friday I had 3 offers on the sale of my house.  During the day the potential buyers submitted their “highest/best” offers as requested.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw them.  Two of them were 5K OVER my listing price.  After comparing the two I signed off on one of them which has a mortgage rate tie in that is likely to be satisfied, so bam, my house was tentatively sold after being on the market for something like 4 or 5 days.  The one thing I did request in my counter was changing their proposed settle date two weeks later.  By doing this is it should allow me a 10 day period after closing on my new place to make the magic happen, moving my life 22 miles closer to my office.  I was happy about the sale of course but not ecstatic, something I will talk about more later.

I got requests for more showings on Friday for Saturday.  I asked my realtor if I should accept them.  She said it cant hurt as they could potentially wind up being back up offers.  I shrugged my shoulders and hit the ACCEPT button on both, one was Saturday morning and the other Saturday afternoon.  In between the showings I took my Sherman S out for a long ride from the house to North Collier Park and back.  I have not done that route in a couple years at least.  The primary intent was to gauge the comfort of the new pedals I installed on the Sherman last weekend.  During the ride I talked about the house transaction and a number of other things.

On Saturday night I started watching Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime.  I have had a number of people recommend the series to me since it launched and I just never got around to it.  I really like it so far, it almost reminds me of 24 in some ways or Homeland.

My Sunday was super, super lazy.  It may have been the laziest day I have allowed myself to have in many, many months. I binge watched something like 5 or 6 Jack Ryan episodes.  Since I have now become a short timer at my house it has shifted my perspective.  For the last 21 years I had a revolving list of things that could/should be done at the house because I was going to be living there for a long, long time.  Now that that time is finite, the list of must do’s sooner or later has dissolved for the most part.  Part of this has also been due to a marked change in me where I sort of just don’t give a damn about a lot of things that I once did.

In some ways it ties in with my embrace of change in the last year.  Things that once were a substantive part of my reality either are or will be gone.  To make that mental shift has required me to deaden certain parts of my reality.  The end result of this has been my saying in a lot more situations, “I don’t give a f…”  In some ways it is freeing and in other regards it’s sort of sad, if I’m being honest.

Ali, Shugs, and Ferdie showed up for our small and cozy Super Bowl celebration. It was the first time they have seen the painted and depersonalized version of the house.  The visual impact on both of them was significant  Ali went out of her way to make my mom’s chocolate cake, complete with EAGLES written on the top of it.  It had been probably 10 years since I had her version of the cake and she again did a great job with it.  It was so good I got a second piece.  My contribution to the “party” was making two Costco pizzas and providing chips, salsa, pretzels and alcohol. I drank maybe four or five beers along with some wine that was shared with both of them.

The game was exciting and close.  The Eagles defense really had no answers though for the Chiefs who did not punt a single time in the second half.  They couldn’t even register a sack on Mahomes, despite being the team with the most sacks in the league this year.  The way the game ended was pretty disappointing where a penalty was called that allowed the Chiefs to run the clock down to basically zero before kicking the game winning field goal.  Technically it was defensive holding but there are far more egregious violations where the flag would stay in the ref’s pocket.  It changed the potential outcome of the game.  You never want a ref’s call to do that, especially in the last two minutes of the Super Bowl.

Of course I was disappointed in the result but I was not devastated or distraught like I would have been in prior years.  I think the lack of having F’s to give was in play here as well.  It was a great season and I think the team has a bright future, I’m good with that.

I thanked Ali and Shugs for making the long drive to hang with me for the game.  It will likely be the last time the house will be used for entertainment.  There are a lot of lasts coming up, along with a lot of firsts.  I’ll try to focus more on the latter.

I have always considered myself for the most part to not have an addictive personality. I never smoked, only occasionally drink and never was interested in other drug use.  I eat reasonably (except when bulking), exercise routinely and try to make good choices. Although I don’t think I am an addict by nature, I think there have certainly been periods of my life when I exhibited addictive behaviors.  To me an addictive behavior is doing something repeatedly you know in the big picture is not good for you.

One example I can think of is all the time I spent with video games throughout my life.  There are certainly examples of playing games addictively, the most recent example being World of Warcraft the first couple years after it came out in the mid-2000’s.  I think addiction to technology is a real thing that I certainly have slipped in and out of during my life.  One other thing that I think I had become addicted to were relationships.

I have spent so much of my time since I was 17 years old in long term relationships at times I have felt like I don’t know how to function comfortably without being in one.  I think in it’s own way it is an addiction which could be good or bad, depending on who the partner is you are dealing with.  I have felt myself feeling like an addict where I am knowingly doing or thinking things that I know in the big picture or long term are not good for me. My inner sergeant eventually will grab me by the neck and scream enough until the course or behavior has been corrected.  It is an important thing to “maintain your frame” as a human being which basically means sticking by your core boundaries. If these boundaries are violated by others or even yourself, action must be taken.

Once again yesterday I had to leave work early to grab Elsa for another showing.  This time we filled up the Tacoma as well as grabbing coffee while we wasted time.  As usual I used my Ring cameras to let me know what was going on.  This man spent a TON of time at the house so I was pretty certain we would get an offer from him.  When I talked to my realtor later she confirmed that his agent said they would be submitting an offer.  The showing from this morning also submitted an offer although it was on a variety of contract that I wasn’t interested in.  So out of the five showings I have had, four offers have/will be made which is a good thing for me.  My realtor is supposed to let all four possible buyers know that they should submit their “best/highest” offer by 5PM today.  I would love to get a full asking price offer without any weird contingencies.

By the time I got back home and ate dinner it was obviously dark.  I sat down and played a bit of WoW, something I have been trying to do here and there as time allows. After playing maybe an hour I got a weird impulse to work on an EUC project I started over the weekend.  The new pedals I got for my Sherman S have removable front and rear angle pieces that were yellow.  I wanted them to be orange, one of my two favorite colors.

This was an odd impulse because it was already dark but I am determined you know.  I decided to take everything I needed out to the chicken coop area.  The bright flood light I have out there should be enough lighting.  I brought out a bag of zip ties so I could hang each piece while I shot it with orange spray paint.  I’m sure it looked ridiculous if the neighbors were watching.  I let the pieces hung out there overnight.  I am hoping I can come home tonight and reattach the parts to the pedals.  I think it should look sharp.

This weekend is the Super Bowl where my Eagles will take on the Chiefs.  Over the years I have hosted a number of Super Bowl parties with my significant others.  There were times when I had a dozen or more people in the house.  With this being a special season since the Birds are in I really wanted to watch the game with other people but throwing a party was out of the question.  The house is not party ready in it’s stripped down state and my brain is not in conventional party mentality by any stretch of the imagination.

I did however ask Ali if her and Shugs would like to watch the game with me.  They were both present during the Eagles first Super Bowl win in 2018 when I DID have a party. I was happy to hear that they would come to watch the game with me.  It will be a small and cozy celebration of hopefully the Eagles second championship.

Yesterday was kind of crazy with a series of three showing requests coming in.  One of them I was luckily able to reschedule so all three of the showings were in close proximity to each other.  Because any showing requires me getting Elsa out of the house it’s going to require a fire drill for each and every showing unless it’s on a weekend.  Yesterday I flew out of work around 3, quickly fed Elsa, picked up the house and headed out.

Elsa and I grabbed coffee and then went to visit Gladys’s family for several hours which was really nice.  I had not seen them since before the holidays so it was great to catch up and hang out.  Of course I got to spend a lot of time with sweet Leilani who has had her third birthday come and go since I saw her last, which made me a little sad.  I used my Ring cameras to monitor the activity at the house, it was weird seeing people roaming your home.

The last showing cleared out around 7PM so Elsa and I said our goodbye’s and pushed back towards the homestead.  I quickly made my dinner and ate it in front of the computer, something that is happening more frequently.  I wound up having an unexpected 90 minute plus conversation with my buddy Troy last night.  We basically never talk on the phone so it was unusual but welcomed at the same time.  As much as I hate to admit it, there is something to be gained by voice communication that electronic communication can not replicate. We covered many topics.

This morning I got to sleep in a little bit since there was another showing at 9:15.  Elsa and I piled in the truck shortly after 9AM to go grab coffee and hang out.  My Ring cameras were once again my friend, letting me know they arrived late and left a little bit late as well.  I got a call from realtor this morning telling me that two of the three buyers from last night actually submitted offers.  The bottom line price they offered is something I would agree to but the terms of the agreement on both of them are not ideal for different reasons.  I expect to make a counter offer on both however with the amount of interest that is going on, I am not very apt to give a ton away unnecessarily.  I JUST got another showing request for this afternoon.  The fire drill continues.

When my house went live on the market I got an email instructing me to sign up for some service that is used to receive and confirm showing requests. I signed up, no problem.  So yesterday about 1PM I get an email and text message saying that someone wants to do a showing at 1:50PM that I needed to confirm, WTF??  My level of WTF went up way more when a couple minutes later I get a text/email saying the appointment was now CONFIRMED. What the hell?

So I immediately try reaching out to my realtor and her assistant.  I get a hold of the assistant. I asked her how this appointment got confirmed without me doing anything?  She said she confirmed it.  Now I was angry.  I told the realtor when I filled out the questionnaire regarding listing availability that I needed a minimum of 4 hour notice.  Sandra, the assistant, said she sees that.  I also reminded her that I work downtown, the house isn’t picked up and I need to get my dog out before a showing.  I asked her why she would confirm a showing without contacting me. She didn’t answer that question.

So she said she could reschedule the appointment but that it was important to not outright decline any showing requests, which makes sense.  If a request comes in that I can’t honor I will contact her and she will reschedule.  So as of now I have two showings scheduled for this evening and another one tomorrow morning.  It is of course not convenient but it’s a good problem to have, the more interest the better.

Last night after work I got to play organized volleyball for a solid two hours.  Most of the players were pretty novice in their skills but to be honest with as rusty as I am, I looked pretty unskilled at times as well.  There were a handful of old men, much older men out there, one was 77 and another was 80.  It was amazing they were even out there.  We had 9-10 people so we played a combo of 5 on 5 and 4 on 5 which was fine for me.  This was basically an experiment.  I wanted to see how my body would react to playing sand volleyball at this point in time.

My play was ok at best, I made a lot of errors but also was able to make some decent plays as well.  I at least didn’t hit one serve out or into the net all night.  As expected trying to jump out of the sand is sort of a joke but would get better with time.  I had the expected ouch moments when my body wound up in odd positions, primarily my knees.  Overall I liked everyone in the group and I was glad I got out there.  I am walking around today sore but not limping so I take that as a win.  My short term plan is to try to get out there every Tuesday night to see if I can progress towards at least a small semblance of what I used to be on the court, which was never spectacular in the first place.

My Unisom arrived on Monday.  I have switched over to using it instead of Nyquil.  I’m happy to report that it seems equally effective in allowing me to sleep solidly through the night.  Even if I have to get up to pee in the middle of the night, which quite often would result in not being able to go back to sleep in the past, I can now fall back to sleep quickly.  It’s like all of those thoughts that were running wild in my brain are instead shoved into a closet, out of sight and out of mind, at least until I wake up.

I arrived at home last night with a For Sale sign in the yard marking my home officially being on the market.  It felt a bit strange to be sure but I have had a lot of exposure to strange and different situations recently so the impact was somewhat dulled.  It will be interesting to see what sort of interest may or may not be out there.  I need to make an effort to keep the house on the tidy side more or less at all times in case a request for a showing pops up.

I celebrated the house for sale sign with a quick calisthenics session in the bar park.  I once again pushed to get 20 pull ups.  I also got on the parallel bars and knocked out a set of 20 dips, another feat I had not accomplished in quite awhile.  It feels good to be pushing my limits again.

One thing that has become quite apparent is my living expenses are going to increase dramatically with this move.  I have become somewhat spoiled in my current situation where my primary mortgage is paid off, leaving me only a HELOC loan to worry about.  The mortgage payment on the new home is going to be huge in comparison although once equity from the sale of my house is applied the impact will soften significantly but still overall, my monthly nut will wind up being bigger.  I can swing it of course but it will require yet another mental shift in where my dollars go since now ancillary spending is something I never think about.

Tonight I have plans to go play some sand volleyball with a group I found on Meetup.  I have absolutely no clue how viable playing volleyball will be on my 55 year old body but if you don’t try you never know the answer.  The collection of friends and memories I gathered over my roughly 10 years of serious playing both in PA and Florida are very dear to me.  It would be awesome to start a new set of volleyball memories down here with a group of good people.  Advil will be a core part of this experiment.

So I recently made a significant change to access to the blog, making a user require to register if they want to access the content instead of it being available anonymously.  This change was made after thinking about why I share what I do and the impact it potentially has on both myself and others.  That thought process has expanded further into my thinking about why I share as much as I do in social media in general.  Is it because I am seeking approval from others, is it for adulation, is it to make my life seem more interesting or better than it actually is? The answer if I am being honest with myself is, maybe.

Like many things, sharing on social media has become a reflex reaction that I don’t even think about.  When I took the picture above my first impulse was to post it to social media, but I stopped myself.  Do I need to post large chunks of my day to day existence online to feel worthy, viable or sufficient? Of course not yet that is what I have conditioned myself to do.  The end result of this thought shift is going to be making a concerted effort to drastically reduce what I put on social media.  Even the blog itself will see further impact.

My normal routine has always been to put links to the most recent blog entry on Facebook, announcing it’s availability.  Again it was just what I have always done for a decade and a half.  That practice has come to an end as well.  If you want to read the blog you are welcome to do so but you will have to pull it, it will no longer be pushed.

So far 2023 has been all about change and self examination/analysis.  Just because certain things have been a certain way for a very long time does not mean they should continue to be that way indefinitely.  If you miss me on social media and wondering what the hell is going on, reach out and I’ll tell you.

Like I mentioned yesterday, since I have resolved to change my living arrangements of the last 21 years I have needed to have a significant change in my mental perspective about things. I have always been a sentimental person, I attach memories to things and because of that sometimes I may feel like disposing of the thing is akin to tossing away the memory. An example from the weekend occurred out in the yard.  When my mom moved out of her place in Naples Park I was given a small variety of pine tree she had in a pot.  I took this tree and plopped it in the yard probably 15 years ago.

The tree has never done well and I don’t think it has grown more than a foot during that time period.  It looked out of place and sickly but I let it be because it was at my mom’s place.  I felt like getting rid of it would somehow be disrespectful of my mom.  Well as I was going around the yard Saturday removing things that were either dead or unattractive this pine tree was cut to the ground with my loppers.  Mom wouldn’t care, I am assured of that.  It was just another mental chain I had thrown around myself.

To do the work I have done the last 6 weeks has required me to rewire this portion of my brain and focus on the feeling of lightness associated with having less “stuff”.  Walking around the house with a fraction of what was in there a month ago is something I have adjusted to. I need to keep this process going.  Sometimes subtraction is actually addition in the end, it just doesn’t always feel that way in the moment.