Part 4 1/2, not really a part of the gun story but still, a part of my life.

Blessings in disguise.

I have come to know blessings from things that also bring us grief. The 2007 crash caused so much suffering for everyone, and it was in our trials we found out who our friends were. We had some great help from our church friends, Wes and Cindy, Jeff and Betty, Pinmentells, Dave, and others. We left our home in the Ghetto (I never did talk about the shootings and gangs I had to deal with). Moving away was blessing number one. Blessing number two was not getting this first home in Clovis. We started looking for another house right away, and we were not going to reward the seller for their abundantly stupid thinking.

Did I miss something in the news? Did the new President (BO) say he was going to forgive people's bank loans? If that were true, I would have stayed in my CA home. I was the token Honkie, and I liked my neighbors, just not the crime, lack of jobs, the state's gun laws; ok, well, I hated everything except some people. Back to blessing number two, We started looking for a new (number two) home. We looked all over and could not find something nice and in a good part of town. The East side of the city was the excellent area, and the Northeast was the best. We did not look in those areas because the cost of homes was too high for my now -50% paycheck. I took a massive cut in pay to get a new job outside of California. Our Realtor found a home that fit our description. It was next to a large city park with soccer fields and baseball fields everywhere. No one was playing this time of the year. The home was a good size, and it had a big backyard with a large block wall to keep the dogs in. It came with a mother's cottage in the back yard too!

I thought the mother's cottage could be an excellent reloading room. What was the price? 165K, we offered them the asking 165k, the Realtor came back that another family was looking at it. They wanted the best offer from both parties. We offered 185k. We waited a day or two, they called us and said we did NOT get home... I was shocked and seriously hurt. What was the other parties' offer? She did not want to say. I pushed for that info, and it turned out their offer was 145k. Did I hear that correctly? Did they offer less than the asking price and get it? Yes, the number was correct. It turned out to be a home the Railroad bought from an employee relocated to a new area.

The new homeowner was a union member of the Railroad. Well, I guess that was cool. It sucked, but they took care of their own, something we don't see much of nowadays. Hind site this was a blessing (#2) as the ball field held hundreds or maybe thousands of people. There were ball games daily and nightly there. We could hear the games from miles away, and the trash that blew around after the games made a mess on people's yards and streets. It also turned out to be next to the town's low-income area, and the petty crime happened. We were back to looking at lots of homes. After the last blow, losing the house, I was less than excited and wanted to move. The place we were living in had some seriously white trash people living there. We started having our cars opened at night and stuff disappearing from our yard. I later found out boxes of property stolen from our garage. At the time, we did not know we were missing anything. We were still living out of our bags and kept most of the home packed up. It seemed like we looked and dozens of homes in not-so-nice areas, and every one of them was not anything on our want list. It was like whatever the opposite was from what we wanted, that was what they showed us.

Finally, our Realtor said she found a home in a nice area, we went to look at it, and again with a look of disgust on my face, what part of we want a yard do you not understand?

We walked out of that house, upset but almost willing to take it based on the location. We wanted to move into a place two months ago. As we were standing outside discussing if we wanted to buy something we did not like for the sake of getting something before someone took it, I looked two doors down at a corner home. It had a small for sale sign on it. I pointed at it and said, That is the house I want. She (the Realtor) looked at me and said Oh, Not Oh? But Oh. That is one of my home listings. Are you kidding me!? OH! I had a nice full head of hair until this point in my life. So I asked how much was it? And she replied the price just came down today. I believe it was 175k (10k More than the place we were standing at) the day before it was 265k; remember the screw job people were "trying" to do? I started to believe our Realtor was part of the screw.

blessings are real!

Not a lot to talk about, we offered $150k, and they countered at $165k. We took the deal. Ok, ok. I can't just do that. I know you want the details of buying a home. After the big "Oh" from our Realtor (Mrs. Korn), I started walking over to the house. Mrs. Korn said, wait, I need to contact them first. From the first home we bought, I learned that it is up to me if it is to be. I was not going to wait for this house to sell to another person who was willing to pay more, and I now believe Mrs. Korn is doing just that.

I walked over to the house and knocked on the door. A nice elderly lady came out. I explained what was going on and did not give El Korncob a chance to muddy up the waters first. She asked us if we could wait a few minutes for her to clean up. The house and yard looked beautiful. I don't believe for a second she had to clean up. Maybe she was on the phone talking to the cobbler? Sure enough, I see the Husker on her phone. I quickly walked over to her to prevent her from saying anything she did not want me to hear. It worked. We went into the home.

The rooms were big and open. The only thing wrong was the ceilings were low and had popcorn on them. Who cares? The front yard looked like a golf course. The backyard looks like a baseball field. It has a large laundry room and another room in the garage. Man stuff! I was thinking of myself. There were only three bedrooms, but they were big. Our girls can share a room and still have plenty of room to play. The bedroom for Matthew (our son), who was like four years old at the time, was almost 14' by 14.' we could put him and the game room items in there. "He loved it until the girls and friends of girls used it." We made the offer of $150k, and they countered the next day at $165K. We did not know that the husband had moved to another state to live because the Air Base had closed down. He moved with the jet fighter squadron to keep his job. He was an f16 mechanic, I believe. He and his wife had been living alone for some time. It was fate! Blessing number 3