Closed on Condo

Just to let you know that I closed yesterday on the Sugar Land Condo. There are a few things that need to be fixed before I can move in. Probably move will occur at the end of this month. I have not yet put the current house up for sale but will soon. I own too many places! Quite busy with all this. Exciting.

It must be a sign

We haven't seen the swan for a couple of weeks but I look out at the lake every morning to see if she has returned. Well, today when I looked, there were two swans! Apparently she has found a mate. I don't know if it is a marriage or a civil union but who cares. They look identical, but one might be a little bigger than the other. Anyway, it was great to see them.

Probate

Well, this morning I was at the Fort Bend County Court for probate of Sally's will. Most of the things were in trust, but the house is jointly owned and was not in trust. In Texas, homes are not usually joint ownership with right of survival, but just joint ownership. So half of the house is now in Sally's estate. I hope to sell the house anyway, so I don't know what this all means, but at least the probate has been done.

I am still doing a little negotiating with the seller of the Condo in Sugar Land, but that should be finished soon. Currently closing is the end of February, but I may try and move that up. There are a few things that need to be done before I could move in and the sooner I can get started on that, the better.

Doing things with Val is really good for me. We're off to see a movie this afternoon (King's speech).

Happy New Year!

I hope that you all (or as is said here "all y'all") had a great holiday and are looking forward to the new year. I know that for me, this next year will be better than the last one. Lorrie had a description of the year of the Tiger (2010) that predicted that it would be a tough year, but the year of the rabbit is predicted to be much better and time to take a deep breath and renew.

Craig and family have been here for the past week. They go back today. We all had a great time and the cousins as always have had a good week playing and getting reacquainted. We had a wonderful rib roast at Lorrie's on Christmas day and a New Year's eve party last night over at Lorrie's. John loves to set off fireworks, which are easily purchased here, and so we had a fireworks celebration last night. Someone had given Craig a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne which we popped last night also.

On Wednesday we went to Austin for a day and came back on Thursday. It's

hard to believe but I had never been to Austin--a really wonderful city. Lots of weird stuff there. We stayed at the Driskill, an old historic hotel that is reputed to have ghosts wandering the halls. We listened and looked, but didn't see anything. The last haunted hotel Sally and I stayed in was the Stanley hotel in Estes Park ("the Shining"--here's Johnny!) where we didn't see anything either. I may not have the right attitude. Anyway, here is a picture of the Driskill taken Wednesday night.

A major piece of news is that I have decided to try and sell our house and move to a condo. We have been eyeing some townhouses in Sugar Land situated on a lake and near a shopping area with many upscale shops, a Whole Foods Market, and great restaurants. There is a trail around the lake for long walks. So I put an offer on one of the units and yesterday it was accepted. The units are new and the one that is now mine was a foreclosure when the developer went bankrupt. They had been taken over by the bank and were being sold by the bank. Now to sell my house in Richmond.

Merry Christmas

For all my friends and family, I say thank you for all your kind thoughts, Christmas cards and support. Craig and family will be coming out on Christmas Day for a week. I can hardly wait. I did a (little) Christmas decorating--so I am getting into the Christmas spirit a little.

I have been going to a yoga class every Tues and Thurs with a great teacher. Lorrie joins me on some days. I just saw this picture and sent it to my yoga teacher who put it on her facebook page. I don't know much about facebook--need to see the movie I guess. But the guy was Time magazine's man of the year. I'm pretty out of touch.

For the last couple of weeks I have had the good fortune to find a woman friend who lives across the lake from me. She (Val) was a close friend of Sally's and likes the same sort of things that Sally liked. So it has been great to have

someone to have dinner with, go to the movies, and talk to. We went to our favorite park on Saturday--Brazos Bend. I blogged about this before when Sally and I went last Jan

uary (less than a year ago) and Sally felt pretty well and walked the whole 2 mile trail around a lake. We did the same trail. As always, we saw lots of stuff. I have never been there without seeing several alligators. Here is one of the ones we saw on Saturday--big guy. Lots of memories in that park.

Holidays

This has got to be one of the hardest times of the year for me. Someone told me that you have to go through a series of firsts when you lose someone. And this is the first holiday season. Fortunately, the whole family will be in Texas for Christmas. Craig, Kathie, Christopher, and Gavin are arriving on Christmas Day and will be here for a week. I think they will stay here with me, but we will have the Christmas dinner etc at Lorrie's. John has been planning fun things for everyone during this time. Thank goodness for family!!

I am still interested in the condo / townhouse area that I mentioned in the last note. I went back there this week to take another look. They are nice, but I think that were I to get serious, I would want an elevator in the unit. They are built with an elevator shaft, so I guess that is what a lot of people do as they get older. For now, taking the stairs would be good for me--like a stairmaster only real.

The swan is gone--at least for now. I don't know where she goes. I hope she comes back.

Interesting

After Thanksgiving I had a period of real sadness when I got home--kind of a relapse. It is still so hard to realize that Sally is really gone for good. But now I feel better--the swan appeared for a day and so that cheered me up. I am getting more busy doing consulting and that is good. It is fun thinking about problems and helping to come up with plans to address them.

Today, Lorrie and I went over to a new development in Sugar Land. It is a group of town homes that are in an area with lots of restaurants, a park like setting including a lake and a fitness club down the road. They were quite wonderful. They are new construction. There are a few bank foreclosures that were taken over by a real estate company and finished. So now I am thinking seriously about perhaps moving and simplifying my life. These are quite large places, bigger than I would really want, but they are in a great location. One potential problem is that they are three story homes so there are a lot of stairs. That is ok with me now, but who knows in the future. But the prices are pretty reasonable now and they might be a pretty good investment if the economy ever recovers. So that is something to think about.