It's been a very busy summer so far. Mom's operation & recovery consumed the months of May & June. Then we started hunting for a condo for Matt Miller and a house for Johnny. We were successful in finding a great deal on a condo for Matt and after a lot of painting and a few repairs he's ready to move in this week. We haven't had as good of luck with finding a DECENT house for Johnny. We've been looking at one foreclosed home after another and if you've never experienced it, let me tell you, it's shocking to see how people can live. Total trash! We realize that there will be a lot of work involved when buying a foreclosed home, but most of the places we've seen would need to be totally gutted. And every basement has been leaky - and we all remember my experiences with a leaky basement - a nightmare! Whenever our realtor sends over a new listing, we try to go see it right away because it's very competitive and if you find something that's halfway decent, you better be prepared to make an offer immediately. I've been telling Johnny not to get discouraged because I read in the Kiplinger Letter that the $8,000 or 10% purchase price incentive from the federal government will most likely be extended for another year.
I just got back yesterday from a visit with Barb in Nashville. Janet & I drove through torrential downpours Wednesday night and even though I haven't been down there for about five years, I had a sense of deja vu because I remember driving to Nashville many times in rain storms and even a snowstorm once. It was great to be back in big sister's neck of the woods and see how she's redecorated her house. She gave us a tour Thursday and she saved her "favorite" room for last. Needless to say, we ended up spending about 2 hours in her scrapbooking room looking at stuff, getting lessons and talking. The weather wasn't so great so we didn't spend any time at the pool on Thursday. We did get some pool time in Friday and decided to surprise Barb's friends and crash their pool party, too. It was fun. We did some scrapbooking at her dining room table because she didn't think her scrapbooking room would be comfortable for us since she has so much stuff and little room for working. Throughout the weekend we kept track of how many times we had to run upstairs to her scrapbooking room to get things. Between the three of us we climbed those stairs 42 (or so) times. Oh well, I guess we got some exercise! We also had fun playing Barb's new (antique) game Park and Shop. She said she remembered playing it at the Beckman's when she was a kid (hence the antiqueness) and it was always her favorite. Since I won both games (which really came down to the wire both times) I have to say it's my favorite game, too. Makes me feel a little better after all the times Barb creamed me in Scrabble! When I got home yesterday, my car was pretty dirty with bug guts from the trip. I had to take it in to the dealer this morning because there was a recall for something and when they got done they brought it out totally clean. They washed it! I was one happy camper.
The rest of the summer is going to be busy with a shower, bachelorette party, two weddings and a scrapbook retreat. Barb, Janet & me also have a cousins scrapbook retreat in October at Kentucky Lake. We went last year with cousin Judy and worked feverishly. I thought it was great because Barb had all the layouts planned and we finished a complete scrapbook. The only problem this year is that I've heard that the only "cousin" may not go. Come on Judy, please, please come along with us. We really enjoyed your company last year. Besides, if you don't come along we'll have to change the name to "cousinless scrapbook retreat".