House problems continue

I hate to bum anyone out, but the water damage at the house is worse than originally thought. It looks now like the entire wood floor (about 2000 sq. ft.) will need to be replaced. On the bright side, there will be an entirely new floor and new finish so that will make the house look better for a sale. Also, the drywall and ceiling repairs are all complete. So I hope we can now get started on the floor (takes at least two weeks to get the special wood that we used).

Everything at the condo is nearly done, hooray. This has take longer than I expected also, but it is worth it.

Off to China and Tibet in about a week and a half. Exciting.

Finally things coming together

It seems like everything is finally falling into place. The water damage in the house is about ready to be repaired after the insurance company approved the estimate. So I hope that by the end of this month, it will be repaired. The estate sale is now delayed until early May. Then it will be trying to get the house in shape to put on market.

The condo finally has TV, a phone

(281-491-7982), DSL and a security system. Pretty much everything is done. I'm hoping to have my life back (famous line from BP CEO) pretty soon. Walked along the lake in front of the condo and saw this yellow crowned night heron--he just came almost up to us. I had a bird app on the iPhone and played the

sound and I think the bird thought I might be a good mate.

I head to China for a couple of weeks beginning the last day of this month. I am going with Judy and Joel and it should be exciting.

Some slow progress

I finally have the bids and the insurance company assessment of the damages so I can now get started on the repairs. At least there is light at the end of the long tunnel. I hope they can get started right away so that we can move forward with the sale.

Also, I now finally have TV. I don't think I commented too much about this, but it has been another minor ordeal to get it. Comcast came out almost two months ago to install cable but they first needed to pull a cable from their distribution box to the house. In the process they broke the string they were using to pull the cable through the conduit and at that point they were stymied. At least four guys came out with supervisors and they said they couldn't do anything to supply service to the house. I mean this is Comcast that has enormous resources and they can't figure out what to do!! This is their business for God's sake. So I called the contractor who has been doing some work here and he came out and we pulled another string by using my shopvac and sucking it through the conduit--took 5 minutes. We then bought a lot of cable and pulled it through--no problem. All in all, maybe an hour including going to get the cable. If we had had the cable, like Comcast, it would have taken total maybe 20 minutes. And Comcast couldn't do it. I wish I could go with another provider, but ATT doesn't service this area with U-verse (some sort of deal with Comcast I am told). And DirecTV couldn't figure out how to connect the dish to the cable on the roof. So I'm stuck with Comcast, but at least I can now watch the news.

So things are gradually happening, and that gives me hope that someday I can get back to a normal life. By the way, my new address is:

1356 Lake Pointe Parkway

Sugar Land, TX 77478

Cell: 281-414 2426 (Unchanged)

Landline: 281-491-7982 (New)

Email: alannies@gmail.com (unchanged)

There is room here for guests so please visit.