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Finishing up some big projects, kinda.
Aug. 16th, 2025 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI let it go too long again and now my brain feels overstuffed.
I again was waiting for things to finish, and again they were slow. But: 1) I have a signed P&S on the new rental condo I last mentioned on June 26! That was a long road and I expected to get there on Monday. We do have it though -- just waiting for my deposit to clear -- and 2) I've also submitted my completed Thursday crossword puzzle to the NYT for possible publication. Those were both several-week processes, and I'm breathing a sign of relief over those. I did one more thing of Emotional Resonance and Finishing Up, which one could easily say I'd been putting off for years, by stepping down as admin of a Facebook group that used to be a big deal in my life.
I also had coffee with the seller of this condo; as I suspected he's going to barely break even on this house-flipping endeavor of his, though he says he learned a great deal. It's very clear that he and I will not fight, now that the hard bargaining is over. While I think we have differing politics, we are/were both managers who know how to do both budgeting and paperwork. He will continue to own Unit 1 for a while (he's renting it out for a year), there are a couple of offers on Unit 2 but I don't know whether the prospective buyers plan to occupy or rent out, and I of course will be the not-so-absentee landlady of Unit 3. What I actually kinda like about this: he has an incentive to sell Unit 2 to people who are sensible. And that is good for me, too.
There are other things that happened, including a fascinating afternoon in which a professional dog trainer visited Blue-Green Street and taught the adults how to teach the dogs about things. I've never spoken dog very well, and I was laser-focused on what this guy said about what dogs perceive when people do things. Forget "what is it like to be a bat"; there is enough of the alien in our very own households. So now I have learned what to do with Dog #1 barks anxiously at the window (yelling is really not enough and may even be received positively; there should be verbal reassurance but there there MUST be a PHYSICAL redirect, within seconds). I also know how to take the puppy outside, get her to pee (on leash, now, then allow off leash), how to reinforce her coming to her name, and how to ignore her when she's crated. I will never be a dog person, but I'm around the place enough that minimal competence is already a huge confidence booster. I feel less at the mercy of something I don't understand.
Speaking of that house, btw, all my research into HVAC has paid off. The tenants' central A/C is working again and also has been made more robust, thanks to my research, and all under extended warranty too! It is pleasing. All our tenants need new leases, so that's another thing. It is, in general, hard to keep up with maintenance of things... which is a lot of why I'm a minimalist in the first place, so one could definitely ask why I seem to be collecting houses. (I think there's a coherent answer, but not one I can articulate quickly today, and three is definitely going to be enough.)
I've been quite social this week, but most of it was 1:1. Now I'm invited to a larger game event I feel some trepidation about, but I'm sure it will be fine. Off to work out a bit and then go. I didn't get around to discussing the larger shift I hope I'm going through, from large-ish projects to less of that but more daily discipline; so that can wait, maybe for a post that's more about workouts.
I again was waiting for things to finish, and again they were slow. But: 1) I have a signed P&S on the new rental condo I last mentioned on June 26! That was a long road and I expected to get there on Monday. We do have it though -- just waiting for my deposit to clear -- and 2) I've also submitted my completed Thursday crossword puzzle to the NYT for possible publication. Those were both several-week processes, and I'm breathing a sign of relief over those. I did one more thing of Emotional Resonance and Finishing Up, which one could easily say I'd been putting off for years, by stepping down as admin of a Facebook group that used to be a big deal in my life.
I also had coffee with the seller of this condo; as I suspected he's going to barely break even on this house-flipping endeavor of his, though he says he learned a great deal. It's very clear that he and I will not fight, now that the hard bargaining is over. While I think we have differing politics, we are/were both managers who know how to do both budgeting and paperwork. He will continue to own Unit 1 for a while (he's renting it out for a year), there are a couple of offers on Unit 2 but I don't know whether the prospective buyers plan to occupy or rent out, and I of course will be the not-so-absentee landlady of Unit 3. What I actually kinda like about this: he has an incentive to sell Unit 2 to people who are sensible. And that is good for me, too.
There are other things that happened, including a fascinating afternoon in which a professional dog trainer visited Blue-Green Street and taught the adults how to teach the dogs about things. I've never spoken dog very well, and I was laser-focused on what this guy said about what dogs perceive when people do things. Forget "what is it like to be a bat"; there is enough of the alien in our very own households. So now I have learned what to do with Dog #1 barks anxiously at the window (yelling is really not enough and may even be received positively; there should be verbal reassurance but there there MUST be a PHYSICAL redirect, within seconds). I also know how to take the puppy outside, get her to pee (on leash, now, then allow off leash), how to reinforce her coming to her name, and how to ignore her when she's crated. I will never be a dog person, but I'm around the place enough that minimal competence is already a huge confidence booster. I feel less at the mercy of something I don't understand.
Speaking of that house, btw, all my research into HVAC has paid off. The tenants' central A/C is working again and also has been made more robust, thanks to my research, and all under extended warranty too! It is pleasing. All our tenants need new leases, so that's another thing. It is, in general, hard to keep up with maintenance of things... which is a lot of why I'm a minimalist in the first place, so one could definitely ask why I seem to be collecting houses. (I think there's a coherent answer, but not one I can articulate quickly today, and three is definitely going to be enough.)
I've been quite social this week, but most of it was 1:1. Now I'm invited to a larger game event I feel some trepidation about, but I'm sure it will be fine. Off to work out a bit and then go. I didn't get around to discussing the larger shift I hope I'm going through, from large-ish projects to less of that but more daily discipline; so that can wait, maybe for a post that's more about workouts.
