No news still on the house front, but someone did leave a message yesterday asking if we had a lease agreement with the property. So that doesn’t sound too promising, and certainly not in favor of our landlord leaving us the property.

That narrows our situation down to two choices. Our rent is either going to spike, or we’re going to be told we have a certain amount of time to move out. I suppose a third choice would be that they let us stay here for a while at our current rent, but that is highly unlikely.

I suppose we’ll know something later today when my father calls them back. I told him to write down the time, date, name, and summary of every conversation he has about this. You just never know when you need to recount a conversation and I’m certainly not taking any chances or trusting anyone at this point.

I did look through my finances, and I’m not entirely sure how I’d be able to afford a house payment. At least not alone while having a car payment as well. My father could help some, but he’s still really in a big financial mixing pot right now, but I’ve been keeping track of his spending and printed out some reports at work today to give him so we can work on them together. He’s going to be doing his monthly bill payments this weekend, so he and I can sit down and add them to Microsoft Money together and give him an idea of what money he has to play with.

But as far as the house goes, I can do some planning until I have a solid answer as to what’s going to happen. Looking for houses to rent/land that can house all of our animals. Figuring out how I can reduce bills, even if it means settling for lesser quality service or even forgetting about gifts exchanges for the holidays. Since I started a “Christmas Fund” in February and have monthly deposits put into it so I’m not running around in November wondering what I’m going to do in order to purchase gifts. I could easily use that money towards some sort of mortgage.

I also plan to budget a lot of things. Making sure groceries stay at $200/month for the both of us, no purchasing of “wants” as far as books or clothes, paying off as much in outstanding debt (especially for my father) as possible, and as soon as possible. Maybe even re-evaluating insurance for my car, health, and term life.

To relieve tension at work, we have nerf wars throughout the day. I don’t have a nerf gun of my own yet, but have been using a co-workers at his discretion that I use it to shoot another co-worker over and over.

I have been nicknamed Calamity Jane.

Co-worker (3:57:40 PM): Just want you to know
Co-worker (3:57:52 PM): That if the office was attacked by zombies
Co-worker (3:58:08 PM): And we had to despirately search for weapons
Co-worker (3:58:19 PM): I’d nominate you for the first big gun we find
Me (3:58:30 PM): ha ha what?
Me (3:58:36 PM): My gun?
Co-worker (3:58:50 PM): ha yea
Co-worker (3:59:06 PM): or whatever we come across in the post-apocolyptic version of Frederick
Me (3:59:06 PM): My gun isn’t very powerful tho
Co-worker (3:59:24 PM): if it can take out a zombie, it’s good enough
Me (4:00:01 PM): I’m trying to decide if this is a compliment or a secret way of saying that my gun is going to be stolen
Co-worker (4:00:20 PM): LOL
Co-worker (4:00:23 PM): compliment
Co-worker (4:00:29 PM): to your pwning ability
Me (4:00:52 PM): ha ha, well don’t tell Robinson. He likes to underestimate me. Which is when I shoot him in the eye.
Co-worker (4:01:02 PM): hahaha
Co-worker (4:01:07 PM): okay
Co-worker (4:01:10 PM): it’s dl

I’ve really wanted to get started researching my Genealogy, with really no direction on how. I figure if I keep track of what I do on my journal, maybe it will help others interested in the same thing.

I had originally started filling out information on a new Web 2.0 flash website that came out (though the name escapes me now). But after thinking about it, I really didn’t want to publish my family history with a 3rd party service on the internet. I didn’t think it was very secure, and at the time it offered no export option so I could backup the information.

I recently ran across a free program from MyHeritage called The Family Tree Builder which I started using last night. It was slightly confusing at first, but I’ve gotten the hang of how to use it now, and have inputed over 50 people so far. I also save often because it did crash on me once, and I export a backup copy after any significant changes.

Then I started using Google on some names, and was actually able to find someone who has also done some research on my Maternal Grandmothers family, so I was able to get the names of my Great Grandparents on that side (I’ve always thought it weird that our Great Grandparents play such an insignificant roll in our lives).

There are a lot of sites that I ran across, such as ancestry.com and genealogy.org that are pay sites, that I just don’t feel like paying for right now. But genealogy.COM is free, and actually links you to various sites, including the Social Security number index. I actually found the social security number to my Great Grandfather who I never knew about until recently who gave up my grandfather for adoption when he was born. And he only recently died in 1991.

Familysearch.org is also a great resource (though you have to sign up for it) because it’s run by Latter Day Saints. Those of you unfamiliar with Mormons, they have the best ancestry database out there most likely, as genealogy is very important to Mormons. So if you know a Mormon, you might have some extra access to this kind of information. My cousin (and one of my best friends) is Mormon, along with her whole immediate family. So if I can talk her mother into giving me the information our that side of my family that she’s collected, I’ll be in fairly good shape.

My paternal grandparents, especially the grandmother, was one of 15 children, and her side of the family is ridiculously huge. I was able to contact two relatives whom I don’t think I’ve ever met and recently sent them emails to see if they have any information or know of anyone in the family that has also done this research.

My two next biggest steps are to talk with family members, even ones I haven’t seen since I was a kid, and to also find out what sort of local official buildings keep records on people and what I have to do to get some of that information.

No new updates on the home front. The funeral is tomorrow, and my father has been asked to be one of the casket carriers. To me that shows good favor on his part.

He did stop up and speak with one of the nephews today, who said that our landlord did have plans in mind for what he wanted to do with the three properties he owned (ours and the two other farms), but didn’t know what they were, or if they were actually put onto paper.

This could go many different ways, but I’m hoping that our landlord, considering how much he adored my father, would have kept that in mind when making a decision about what to do with this small piece of property, compared to his other two huge farms.

All this waiting is going to stress me out pretty bad I think, but I’ve resolved to stay focused and prepare for whatever outcome. I actually cried myself to sleep last night thinking about it, mainly because my father was talking about moving in with his brother and selling all of the animals. And I can’t imagine being separated from my father again with his health like it is. I don’t think I could forgive myself if something happened to him and I wasn’t there.

A co-worker commented today that I was exceptionally giddy today. I was giggling a lot at work, but what the hell else am I going to do? I almost stayed home, but I know if I did I would just brood on everything, and I needed to get out.

So in light of that, I’ve decided if we are given the option to buy, that I will indeed see what I can do about purchasing my first house. I wanted to wait till the mustang was paid off, but I’ll do what I gotta do. I’ve fought too hard to have my life fucked up now on some technicality.

So I’ve been going through my finances again with a fine-toothed comb, figuring out exactly how much I can afford. My father has a friend who buys properties and such, so I will be talking with her and see if I can work with her on financing a mortgage for this place. I’m going to need my dads help in this, so he’s going to have to listen to me when I go through his finances as well.

The title could be melodramatic.

As most know, my dad and I rent our home. I was born in this house, and besides a brief few years stint in the 80’s where my parents bought their own home till they were divorced, we’ve lived in this house since 1979. Granted several of those years I was married and living in Virginia, or in highschool and living with my mother.

We get a VERY GOOD price for living here. The 97 year old owner let us stay here very cheap as long a we did our own repairs. He had originally bought the house as a retirement place for him and his wife so they didn’t have to tend their 500 acre farm in New Windsor by themselves. We used to go over and play dominoes with them, they were a very old couple. The wife died sometime in the late 80’s I think.

But our landlord died this morning.

Now I’ve been churning thoughts in my head for years about what we’re going to do with this place. My father offered to buy it several years ago but the landlord wasn’t interested, something to do with taxes. I figured once I had my car paid off, I could attempt to buy it from him again and see what he said.

I also toiled with the idea of him possibly leaving it to us in his will. Simply because he adored my father and we’ve been here so long. Even when the neighbor called this morning to let us know, he said that our landlord thought the world of my dad.

So the potential options now are as follows:

• The landlord leaves us this place in his will
• The niece and nephew (he had no children) fight over the 500 acre farm and his fathers farm and let us keep this place
• The niece and nephew continue to allow us to live here for cheap rent
• The niece and nephew hike up the rent about 4 times what we pay now
• The niece and nephew make us move out and plow the house down and sell the property, which means we’ll have to get rid of all the animals

Needless to say I am scared shitless. We can’t afford more rent, and I can’t really afford to buy a place right now. I only hope that the niece and nephew are satisfied with the two farms to fight over and leave us be, or that our landlord was kind enough to leave it to us, considering my dad is a farmer just like him.

I think I’ll spend the evening in meditation and prayer.

I don’t know what the general consensus at work, but for the most part, I’m grateful that everyone there seems to not care, or it doesn’t bother them that I’m pagan. On co-worker and I even joke about what situations call for what animal sacrifices (a joke mind you, I don’t do that, well, we do go hunting and kill rabbits for eating, but dammit don’t argue with me on logistics). Such as two goats, a pig, and an anteater for a good day.

There are a few that I don’t talk to as much that I worry about, but as a whole I think they are pretty cool.

On another note, my boss and our accountant pulled me aside before the move because they were concerned about my knee in the new building. I had been using the elevator at work because of my torn ligament from February, but the new building was all stairs, and I was working on the second floor. My boss even made a comment to let her know anything they needed to do, if we needed to get some medical work done, buy some braces whatever. Because they really cared about me and adore me.

-That- made me feel good, to actually have bosses like that is wonderful. So far the stairs seem okay, so I’m going to try a couple weeks of just being careful. My knee has been getting better over time and that MSM vitamin has done wonders. I may take some Chondroitin later on, but I think the knee is always going to be somewhat sore. I don’t know how well ligaments recover, but in your knee where there’s always movement, it can’t be easy.

1 and 2.

Today is awesomely gorgeous (why couldn’t it have been this temperature yesterday?). I was actually chilly this morning when I woke up. But it’s such a blessed thing.

A glimpse of Autumn, hurrah.