baby drama

Actually, baby and drama. I'm the oldest of 10 grandkids in my generation of the family, and until yesterday I was the only one with kids. I have a cousin Ben who lives here in Greenville and is about 9 months younger than me. Yesterday his wife gave birth to a son, their first kid. they're calling him Barrett Fincher, 7 lbs 11 oz. we're going to visit in the hospital today, so I'll try and get a picture. I'm going to call him Barry just to make Ben cringe. Ben is a lawyer.

It is going to be so nice not to be the only one at family holidays with babies anymore. I mean sure, mine are cute. but they have no other kids to play with. So little Barry will grow up knowing his cousins, and that's a really cool thing. I like it, and i'm incredibly happy for Ben and Elaine.

The mountain house is what has the drama. It is rented, the terms are all worked out, and everything is setup. But when these people saw the house, they walked into a burst plumbing pipe with an inch of standing water over the entire house. So some water remediation people came in. We've filed a claim with the homeowners insurance. So this weekend Morgan is going with us up there to get all of the furniture moved out. We've got to have the place cleared. Then next week, Lowe's is coming in to replace all of the carpet and vinyl flooring. they don't know that they can get out there next week, but the tenant is moving in march 1st. so they have to get in there next week. This is all happening very fast.

I'm just glad the dayum thing is rented. We're getting $700 per month for it, before management fees (12%), which is not exactly enough to cover the $850 mortgage payment. but it all helps. at least I won't be responsible for the electric bill anymore ($200 per month while vacant over the winter) . So this house that I have not set foot in since july 4th has just been bleeding me dry. Renting is not as good as selling, but I will take it. And I really hope all of this drama with the flooring pans out to not cost me an arm and a leg. If insurance pays up quickly and everything times out right we could pull off a little miracle here.

the training plan is starting to come together, the spreadsheet is filling up nicely. The running part lends itself to a FIRST plan. Some hills, speedwork, tempo runs, 3 runs including a long run every week. that's about what I was wanting to do. So I'm glad to see it all coming together. Tomorrow starts the assessments with the Tri Power program. I'm looking forward to it.

Finally, this is why we bought that mountain house in the first place. It is a few miles from Appalachian State University, my alma mater. We had season football tickets, and went up for all the games. Bigun used to ask when we could go back up there, she liked hanging out on the huge couch and playing outside in the snow and cooler weather. This is before Evil Genius was born. It's at 4800 ft elevation, and gets snow all winter long. One year we were up there for St Patrick's day and got a foot of snow. Here in Greenville we have gotten 3 inches of snow in the last 5 years. The kids love it. Here's a pic of the deck and snow from that St Patty's day:

And this is the view from the large deck on a sunny day:

Yep. i could stare at those hills all day long. it's an amazing view. have a great day!