Yesterday I got a link from my realtor for the pictures/video they shot of my house for the listing. I could hardly believe it was my place. Between the staging, lighting and color grading of the photos it made my house look amazing if I do say so myself. I was really blown away. I can only hope that perspective buyers have a similar feeling when they see it.
I took a minute or two to just think about how much of a transformation that the house has been put through in a little more than a month. The sweat, financial and emotional equity I have invested during that time period has been high, I am hoping to reap some benefits from all of that work sooner rather than later. If you want to see all of the pics/video click here.
I talked last week I believe about how my strength has been feeling better which seems to coincide with bulking efforts. I also talked about how I have been feeling some of that old fire from 10-12 years ago that was fueled by emotion, a powerful tool in my mental tool bag. Yesterday on the way home a challenge popped into my head, I wanted to do 20 pull ups in one set.
I have not done a 20 pull up set in at least year, maybe more. When I am doing my daily set of pull ups at the gym I usually tap out at 16. To get to a number like 20 requires me to endure more discomfort than I have been willing to deal with for awhile. You have to hold in dead hang position for the last several reps while your grip is weakening from being on the bar for a long time, it’s not fun. Up until last night I had not found myself in the mental mind frame to extend myself to get to the end.
So I grabbed my backyard bar with a bit of anger in my grip, knocked out the first 15 reps continuously and then got the last 5 with increasingly longer dead hangs on the bar in between. Grinding out that 20th rep was tough but great at the same time. I dropped off the bar with a FU attitude, even though I had no one specifically to be mad at. Flipping that switch felt good and I plan to weld it to the ON position for the foreseeable future.
For the first time in a long time my weekend is not overshadowed by things that need to be done for house prep although there are a small collection of related to do’s I will be working on. I plan to finally see Black Panther 2 this weekend. I never got out to see it in theaters (havent been to a theater in months) but it comes out on Disney + this weekend so that will be cool to finally catch. With no football this weekend I hope to do whatever else I damn well feel like.
Yesterday morning I met my realtor and building inspector at the new house to go over anything noteworthy from his report. Luckily anything he came up with was minor and things that I could likely address myself if needed. It was nice to get a second visit to the place to further reassure that I feel good about my decision to move forward with this purchase. I think I will be happy there. It took 7 minutes to get there from my office, amazing.
The cleaning crew finished up my house mid-morning. They had a total of four women busting the work out. When I got home is it was sort of amazing. My home has never been so clean. It makes me much more open to the idea of maybe having them come into my new place once a month to get things sparkling.
During the afternoon the photographer for the realtor was at the house taking a ton of photos in preparation for officially listing the house for sale in a few days. I occasionally checked in on the Ring camera to see how things were going. I knew that part of this process would include them rearranging or totally removing things for the pictures to optimize the visual appeal. What I did not expect was that nothing that was moved or put away would be put back. I spent a good portion of the evening playing hide and seek, trying to find certain things that were moved or hidden. I am still hunting for a few things. I am looking forward to seeing how the pictures turn out.
Last night on the way home from work I stopped at Sport Clips to get a fresh skin fade haircut applied. I had my fourth different stylist, this time a Filipino woman named Sue. She was very high energy and talkative. With her accent I had to really try to focus when listening to her. At one point she asked me if I was married and had kids, I told her I was/did not. I asked her if she was married, she said she was, for 20 years. Well that seemed to open the flood gates. She started telling me all sorts of things. Not only was she married for 20 years but she is married to man that is 30 years older than her. When she told me this my only reply was, wow.
She indicated that she was less than thrilled with being married and was looking forward to not being that way. I asked how old her husband was now, she said he was in his 70’s, meaning she was in her 40’s. She kept going, telling me how they separated for a few months and she went on three dates via Tinder but did not have a good experience. It required next to no input from me to keep the flow going. She told me several times how lucky I was to not be married and how she won’t ever get married again. It sounded like a blissful relationship, not. It made for an entertaining hair cut at least. I’ll be back in another 5-6 weeks.
Last night I got home and was resolved to finish up my range test on the Sherman S. I knew this was going to run into the night. I cruised my local area, not wanting to get caught running out of gas far from home. Dusk is a bad time to ride as the gnats come out, I got a bunch of them in my eyes, it was very annoying. I wound up putting another 16 miles on the wheel giving me a total of 69 miles with 4% battery remaining, a very strong performance. I said on the video that the Sherman S may be my favorite electric unicycle I have ever owned. I have owned a lot of them so that is a pretty strong statement.
After editing the video I buzzed around the house putting away a few more things to “depersonalize” the house in anticipation of pictures being taken today by the realtor. Having the house already minimized should make preparing for showings pretty easy.
Yesterday I officially initiated the purchase, the house I am buying now shows pending on Zillow. This was triggered by my wiring the initial deposit to the title company. It will be the first of many money outflows I will be experiencing over the next few weeks. This morning a cleaning crew showed up to do a deep clean. For what it costs I may try to have the same crew clean my new house once a month or so if I am happy with the result.
I meet with the home inspector today to go over anything he found with the property I am buying. I am crossing my fingers for a clean bill of health.
I have mentioned in here several times the weight loss I have experienced, starting late in 2021. It was significant enough that my medical provider sent me for a barrage of tests just to make sure there wasn’t anything nefarious going on. The tests did not reveal anything significant. That being said, several weeks ago I weighed myself at night, which is normally your heaviest part of the day and I was 169lbs. That’s nuts.
To me I haven’t been doing anything that much different. My breakfast and lunch is identical to what I was eating when I weighed 185-190lbs. My only guess is my dinners have been less caloric since I have been making them myself. I also have been burning more calories playing pickleball I suppose. So anyway I have been making a conscious effort to eat more, a lot more.
I have been getting these pasta meals from Trader Joe’s that supposedly have 4 servings in them, I now eat the entire bag myself, routinely. I am forcing myself to be gluttonous. When I was at the bar I downed a 10 inch pizza all by myself along with four or five beers. The change has started moving the scales a bit in the positive direction, last night I was 174lbs so I still have at least another 6 lbs to go until I feel “normal”.
Now of course my goal is to not just gain blubber, I am increasing my intensity at the gym accordingly. Yesterday I had my best set of numbers bench pressing on the Smith machine in many, many months. I am also trying to add core movements like squatting and even dead lifting back into the rotation to see how it goes. Of course the numbers for these movements are very light until I can establish a proven platform that allows me to increment without hurting myself.
So for the rest of 2023 bulking will be high on my priority list, a list which is getting bigger every day, ironically.
Last night on my way home from work I stopped at my buddy Don’s house for a bit. I just saw Don Sunday night but I wanted to stop and visit his dog Lucky who has had some health challenges lately. I have watched Lucky out at my house multiple times and I love the little guy. After a bark or two he remembered who I was and we settled in. It was a sweet visit. I sat on the floor for most of it which Lucky took advantage of several times, coming over to get rubbed and lay on me. He’s such a good boy.
Last night I took time sterilizing the house in advance of pictures being taken Wednesday afternoon for the real estate listing. Because the house is still in a pretty stripped down state after the painting project there isn’t that much that needs to be done to make it camera ready. I stuffed a few things in drawers and closets as well as moving several EUC’s back out to the storage shed. There are a few more things I need to tuck away tonight.
This is just the leading edge of a tidal wave of tasks and decisions that are going to begin hitting me rapid fire with both buying a new house and trying to sell my existing one. Tomorrow morning I have a crew coming in to the give the house a thorough cleaning prior to the pictures. They are arriving at 6:30am, that is not a typo. I also have been getting a steady stream of emails from the realtor of paperwork I need to go over or sign. Tomorrow the new place is also having the home inspection done. I will be meeting at the place with the inspector when he finishes up to go over any findings he has for me. I am hoping for a clean bill of health.
One of the other very important aspects of this deal is the mortgage, of course. I had another barrage of emails from the mortgage company I was working with. However yesterday I realized that all my focus has been on if they got me approved and close on time. I had not taken time to dig into numbers which obviously matter, a lot. Well when I did start digging I wasn’t thrilled. It’s been a very long time since I bought a house. When I started going through some of the closing cost figures it was a bit of shell shock. When I got the interest rate they were quoting me it was not great either, especially when I compared it to my credit union. Of course when you deal with a mortgage company you are also paying for the convenience of someone holding your hand through the entire process.
I called my credit union to get more details of possibly financing through them but their processing/approval timeline is slower and could jeopardize my closing date. I was talking to Ali during the day and she suggested I call the woman that handled both of her mortgages, she said she was great. I had nothing to lose so I made the call. One of the things that was freaking me out a bit was that between the down money and closing costs it was going to tax my cash reserves heavily, more so than I was comfortable with. When I was speaking with this woman I mentioned how I have a home equity line on my house but I did not want to pull money out towards the purchase of a new home because I thought it would be a no no as far as the mortgage application would go. She told me the exact opposite was true, she encouraged me to use the HELOC money to offset the down money on the house, people do it all the time. Hearing this took a big imaginary load off my back.
The call really was just sort of advice driven at first but towards the end she said if I wanted to send her cost summary from my existing mortgage company she would see if she could do any better for me. I really liked my interaction with Heather and told her I would send her the numbers. She got back to me a couple hours later that she could definitely do better. It was music to my ears and I plan to get the ball rolling with her shortly.
There are going to be a TON of hurdles like this for me to clear the next couple months. All I can do is keep jumping. As I have said recently, I am doing my best to focus on the goal instead of making myself mad thinking through all of the minutia. Do things that make you happy is a premise I have been focusing on more and more. Why would you want to do anything else?
I woke up relatively early yesterday after yet another night of shitty sleep. I’m not quite sure how to fix it, my brain is dwelling on things in a way that prevents me from getting appreciable sleep. It’s unhealthy for me physically and mentally.
With the early start I did a rare Sunday blog entry where I recapped the sequence of events from Saturday which resulted in me being the potential owner of a new house that could upend pretty everything that has been my reality for the last two decades plus. I talked about some of the struggles but to be honest I was only skimming the surface of some of the conflicting thoughts I have been dealing with.
After eating breakfast and paying my bills I got stuff together to head out on a range test on my new Sherman S. I have had hardly any time to enjoy my new wheel for obvious reasons. I picked a course that combined going to the DD that is 10 miles away and then rolling it right into a ride to Ave Maria. This wheel has a very large battery so I need a lot of road for a range test. I was carrying high speed for the vast majority of the ride from 25 to just under 40mph at times. Despite the high speed I still had 27% battery remaining after riding 54 miles. At some point this week I am going to need to get back out on the wheel to burn up some more battery to give myself a final range number which I am expecting to be at least 70 miles. In the long video I shot I included an in depth discussion of the new house purchase, use the chapters to jump right to it, if interested.
When I got home I immediately worked on the long video edit. I finished it up just in time to shower and then head down to Brooks Burgers to watch the Eagles/SF game. My ex-boss and longtime friend Don met up with me there. I drank a number of beers and ate an entire 10 inch pizza myself as we watched the Eagles slowly pull away from the Niners. SF had pretty much everything that could go wrong, go wrong. Their QB hurt his arm early and then the backup got knocked out with a concussion, forcing the starter back in, but he basically couldn’t throw anymore so they had to almost exclusively run the ball, even when they were down 2+ scores. The Eagles took care of business and never took their foot off the Niners throat once they got ahead, a tendency a lot of prior Eagles teams lacked.
I saw the tail end of the Chiefs/Bengals game. It was an awful way for the Bengals to lose, giving up a 27 yard punt return and then a 15 yard personal foul when a Bengal defensive player shoved Mahomes when he was out of bounds, putting the Chiefs into easy game winning FG territory. The end result will be Andy Reid meeting up with his old team in the Super Bowl which will have countless story lines. I look forward to it.
I was so tired from the lack of sleep that when I laid on my bed to watch the game I almost immediately dozed off, not waking up until the final few minutes almost an hour later. However after showering and going back into bed I was immediately cursed with being unable to settle my mind.
Ever since I have been single in summer of 21, I found myself “liking” random motivational things that pop into my timeline on FB. By doing that my timeline is now flooded with them. Although it can get mildly annoying I do still find value in much of what is placed before my eyeballs. One of the statements that struck a chord with me last week was “Men settle where they find peace, not beauty.”
It is such a simple statement but so true, at least in my world. My happiest times have always been when I have felt at peace which can be fostered by stability, a loving relationship, unwavering trust/support and an over arching knowledge that everything was going to be ok. I am not at peace currently which is likely a driving force behind my sleep issues. I need to fix it.
During the day on Friday I got a notice from Zillow that a house I had looked at recently just had a 15k price drop. It was already in a range that I thought I could swing once I sold my house. The one thing that seemed negative to me was it was only 1400sq ft and change, over 25% smaller than my current home. Now the reality is I am looking for less so the price drop combined with the fantastic location close to work got me to consider it more.
After playing pickleball Friday at lunch I drove by the place. All I could do was look at the outside as it is still occupied but it was appealing. The neighborhood was filled with nothing but well maintained homes and the biggest plus of all was when I checked the distance to work it was less than two and a half miles. What a game changer that would be.
So once I got back to the office my wheels started turning, which is quite often dangerous. Up until this point the sequence of events in my head as far as my housing situation goes was sell my house, THEN buy another house, using the proceeds from the sale of my house to fund the majority of it. All of a sudden another scenario popped into my head, what if I bought another house while I still was in the process of trying to sell mine…
So I contacted the woman I am dealing with from the mortgage company. I was already pre-approved in the scenario of only getting a small mortgage with my house sale equity carrying the load. I asked her what about a scenario where I do a full conventional mortgage where I act like I don’t even have a house for sale, could I get approved to do that? The answer was yes. Now things get interesting.
Basically I could buy a house and then down the road a few months, assuming I can sell my place, use the equity to refinance the new place with the vast majority of it being paid off. I contacted my realtor to see if she would be able to arrange a showing of this house I was looking at. She did, for 10AM Saturday morning, right after she meets me at the house to go over a few things. I could hardly believe I was considering this drastic shift in strategy.
I was up early yesterday to get a couple things done before my scheduled meeting with the realtor at 8:30. She was coming over to see all of the changes/improvements at the house. She was impressed, the fresh paint on the inside and outside made a tremendous difference in the way the house presents, she loved it. We talked about the details of listing my house as well as how I wanted to try to list it a little higher than her initial recommendation. She said that was fine and if for some reason we aren’t getting many showings we can quickly adjust the price if needed. I signed the contract to get the house officially on the market. Before I knew it we had to get going to get to the showing of this new place.
The drive there took about 40 minutes. When we arrived my realtor commented on how cute the neighborhood is. She also mentioned how it was a big plus that the HOA fees in this area are very inexpensive, less than $300 a year. In some areas HOA fees can be nearly double that PER MONTH. The listing agent was at the house and had it all opened up. The place features huge triple door sliders in the main bedroom and living area that disappear into the wall which is very cool, allowing the house to open up into the large covered lanai area.
I did immediately feel that I was in a house significantly smaller than my own but overall I liked the vibe. The kitchen and both bathrooms are areas that I am going to want to update at some point but they are functional and clean. The TV situation in the main living space could take some creativity on my part. Right now they have a smaller set mounted in a corner, less than ideal. The family evidently has three kids based on the other bedrooms, I am sure they are looking for something bigger to support a family that size.
The covered lanai is a good size and is connected to a small back yard that is completely fenced in which would be great for Elsa. The lot is only a quarter acre, compared to the 2.73 acres I currently have. It would be enough maintenance to make me feel useful but nothing like I have now where it can make me feel like I am drowning.
When I walked into the garage I met a mountain of boxes and things as the family has clearly been preparing to get out of there. It’s a two car garage which should fit my needs. The place was not perfect but it checked a lot of boxes and that location is a total game changer in regards to my day to day life. The listing agent said the sellers originally wanted to be out by the end of February. The fact that they dropped the price two weeks after listing it was another indicator they were highly motivated to sell.
I talked to my realtor about it and got her advice. She thought based on what she saw/feels, we could make an offer below the asking price that was already discounted 15K. Like I said I liked the place but did not a fall in love, most likely because the idea of having the renovations done was a bit of a negative. However the reality is the price point we were at was low enough that I could fund the renovations from the sale of my house. So I decided to place an offer, which felt a little surreal.
Within a couple hours I heard back that the sellers countered, offering half way between their ask and mine. I talked to the realtor and gave her one more counter telling her it was my last one. If they didn’t go for it I would move on, despite some of the positive things potentially about the place. I was sort of the mindset that if they say no, it wasn’t meant to be. Well they said yes.
So all that was left was for me to initial the revised offer paperwork electronically and send it in. My realtor sent it to me and there it sat, for most of the day. I started to question pretty much anything and everything. There were things I wished I asked while I was there that I neglected to do, probably because it was the first house I went through. I found out through communication with my realtor that the place has no impact windows or storm shutters which sort of surprised me. Granted the home went through Hurricane Ian without damage but still I was a bit surprised by that. Of course that is something I can always address myself down the road. I also didn’t give thought that homes in that area require flood insurance, not a huge additional expense but just another thing to consider.
I felt almost frozen, unable to commit to uprooting my life, especially without first having my house sold. It was the sole thing on my mind for most of last night as I walked around the house continuing to replace switch and receptacle covers. I then had another phone conversation with the realtor and talked through some of my concerns. I apologized for taking up her time on a Saturday evening but she was very understanding. By the end of the call I finally felt ok about signing and sent back the official counter offer which will set the ball in motion.
There are a number of hoops that have to still be gone through like a building inspection and a number of other things that could derail the sale. But, things are moving forward. One of the big pluses in this scenario is at allows me to only move once instead of the possibility of me having to secure temporary living arrangements if my place sold and I could not secure something else in a timeline that works. As I mentioned, the price of this new place is at a point where I will be able to pay off a huge portion of it when I sell my house but also be able to have funds set aside to foot the bill for a lot of reno. A negative is this is going to apply significant financial pressure to me until my house is sold. The location of this house is going to be simply amazing in how it will change my reality, combined with far less to do/maintain that is home related. So yea, that was my Saturday.
Today I plan to head out early for a long range test on my Sherman S and then decide where I want to watch the Eagles playoff game, either here or at a bar. It will be a nice distraction from the mental marathon I have been running the last couple days.
Oh yea, I streamed Friday night and finally got around to installing and shooting a video on the new floor mats I was sent for free from a vendor months ago.
This week I have felt stronger at the gym than I have in a number of months. My intensity and focus feels better as well. I attribute it to a few things.
First off I mentioned how I have been forcing myself to eat more. For so many years when I was hovering between the 185-190 pound range I always talked about how ideally I would like to drop 5 or so pounds to get closer to 180lbs. Now I have the opposite issue, I am trying to gain 5 or 6lbs to get back to 180, it’s kind of bizarre. The additional calories could be helping fuel my workouts.
Second, this week I started wearing my air pods to the gym. Yes the same air pods that went through the washer and dryer in California. Playing the Linkin Park channel while working out does something that feels akin to rotating the intensity dial a couple clicks. When my buddy Rich and I used to have our bench press workouts in the basement of my Wernersville townhouse back in the 90’s it was always with a CD of hard driving, angry music. There is a reason for it.
Finally, I have been feeling a little bit of that fire that is fueled by emotion. Back in the early 2010’s I had a lot of that fuel. It’s hard to describe but it is very powerful when harnessed correctly. There is definitely some of that flowing through me nowadays and I plan to put it to good use. It’s the type of scenario where I feel like I am waiting for someone to tell me I can’t do something and then proving them wrong, again and again and again. Depending what sort of tangent you have to me in your life it can be a good or bad thing.
Last night after work I put my handyman skills to work, fixing a cabinet door that fell off and replacing a tub spout. Although as I have gotten older I have had more inclination to just pay someone else to do repairs/upgrades if they go past a certain complexity or time allowance, if I am motivated I can take on a lot of things.
I had a less than ideal start to my day. I woke up to no internet in the house which makes my “smart” home very, very dumb quickly. It appeared to be a widespread outage. Then when I was ready to hop in the shower the water valve just spun in my hand. Apparently between last night and this morning something let loose which again was less than ideal. I will need to try to address/fix that tonight. I used to have that same type of fixture on the tub and I had to replace it several years back so I know it is in my wheelhouse.
The cherry on top of my shit show was a horrible commute into work that took 75 minutes. Ever since the new year traffic has been increasingly terrible, giving me even more reason to want to relocate my life to a destination much closer to work. I mean this morning it took me almost 10 minutes JUST to make the first turn off my street leaving a few minutes before 7AM. It’s nuts.
Speaking of new destinations, the other day Zillow sent me a new listing for a house that on paper at least seemed almost perfect. It was maybe 5 miles from the office, mostly updated, about 1700 sq feet with a nice little fenced in yard which would be great for Elsa. The price was also something I could totally work with. In the span of an hour I got a follow up email from Zillow saying the property was already under contract. It will be interesting to see how many times this pattern repeats itself as my search begins.
Yesterday I was talking to my buddy at work. He told me how he was being offered a couple thousand dollars for a pickleball related domain name he registered awhile ago. He actually registered a handful of names with the intent of possibly doing something with them down the road, he had no clue someone would want to buy one of them. The conversation with him got the gears in my head going.
In pickleball if you shut somebody out it is called getting “pickled”. It’s something you want to avoid having happen to you but it’s kind of fun when you do it to someone else. I hopped on GoDaddy and just for the heck of it checked to see if pickledyou.com or pickledu.com were available, they both were. In the span of 5 minutes I had claimed them both.
I then set up a simple web page on one of my other hosted sites as a landing point for the domain. At this point all I have on there are a list of recent “pickles” just for fun. I’m not quite sure what the eventual site will be, if anything at all. Maybe I’ll get a buyout offer as well down the road. In addition I added a fourth channel to my YouTube account, named Pickled You. On there I have the two pickleball videos I currently have. I think it would be interesting to do a satirical, comical spin of the sport in addition to more footage of play. Again, we will see what happens down the road. With the explosion in popularity of pickleball it certainly can’t hurt to roll the dice. Feel free to be one of my ground level subscribers to the channel. 🙂
Last night I was looking forward to a night with absolutely no attention paid to anything house related, I just wanted to chill. I made my dinner and then enjoyed it while watching the new HBO series, The Last of Us which features Pedro Pascal, the actor that plays the Mandalorian. The series is a new spin on a zombie apocalypse. I watched the first two episodes that have been released and am hooked. It seems like a great series as long as images of creepy fungus zombie don’t keep you up at night.
One space in the house that really feels refreshed in the house since the painting is the master bedroom. It just feels good in there. Since this picture was taken I put two matching 100 watt equivalent Hue smart bulbs in there which makes the space feel even warmer and brighter. The combination of improvements made over the last few weeks really make a difference.
Even though I am pleased with my space yesterday I still made arrangements to have my realtor come out so we can get the ball officially rolling on listing it for sale. She has seen pictures of the improvements and seems to like them. I want to talk to her more about potentially listing the house for more than the range she initially mentioned for a few reasons.
When she did the initial presentation she showed other homes in the area to determine a suitable price range. A common mindset potential home sellers fall into is they look at other current listings around them and use them to gauge their home’s worth. However what is really crucial are the homes that have actually sold as those sale prices are what actually dictate the market, not prices that sellers HOPE to get. I understand that completely, but….
When my range was established it was prior to thousands of dollars of painting and other smaller improvements. I also don’t think that the value of a full house solar system was being factored in at all, something no houses for sale in my area have. From a realtor perspective it is to your advantage to have a client price a house very attractively to get it turned over quickly but for a seller that is my position where the need to sell is not pressing, I think I would like to ask for more.
I think I mentioned this realtor is someone I know from the running club. She also was the realtor when Ali sold her townhouse. During that transaction she recommended Ali list her house for almost 100k less than Ali wanted to. Ali insisted on the higher asking price and in the end she netted 50k more than the realtors suggestion. Granted the market was more aggressive then but still I am selling my house to benefit me first and nobody else.
I plan to have a good discussion with the realtor on Saturday where I will express my thoughts and see what she has to say about it. With the opening of the new county park only a mile from my house and other conveniences being put in place over the last several years I think I can stretch a little bit and still find a suitable buyer, someone with a family that appreciates the opportunity a property like mine offers.
Yesterday I got a link from my realtor for the pictures/video they shot of my house for the listing. I could hardly believe it was my place. Between the staging, lighting and color grading of the photos it made my house look amazing if I do say so myself. I was really blown away. I can only hope that perspective buyers have a similar feeling when they see it.
