- The big one has got to be internet. We could get something like 150 gigs from Mediacom in Carbondale for like $35 per month, extra fifty gigs for $10 if we needed it. Now I have to take Verizon because it's the only one that serves my house besides Hughes net. First, Verizon. I signed up for 30 gigs at $130, I thought: doable, usually it's another $10/month to get up to the next plan level so if I needed 40 gigs, it would go up to $140...first month, we're over, so I'm going in to up my plan, but I'm told my rates were 'special' when I signed up, and now my plan's regular price is $225, and the next step up (to 40 gigs) is $300. Nope, not going to happen, but we're going over every month and having to pay $15/gig overage. Hughes Net I can get something like 20 gigs for $130, no overage fee if I go over but it's slower, then I can get more gigs if I'm surfing between 2-8AM or something. Possibly good but I still need Verizon for the phone so I don't know. There are simply no other options that I know of. I just feel like I'm getting robbed.
- Recycling: I have to take my recycle-ables to Carbondale or somewhere else as yet unknown to me. In Carbondale it was curbside, $18/month.
- City water. We have a cistern so it's not a big deal, hubby takes a giant tank on a trailer and fills it up at the water company in town. He's got the equipment for it but we're using a lot of water, so he's having to fill it quite a bit.
- We pay something like a zillion dollars for satellite cable, probably could get a better deal without all the movie channels, but what fun is that??
- I don't want to think about police or ambulance because thankfully we haven't needed it yet, knock on wood, etc.
- Luckily, my husband has a bunch of machinery that can handle snowplowing for the entire region basically and dumping rocks on our muddy driveway. He has been busy!
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Things I can't get out in the country
We've been living out on the land since October, I'm loving it. I mean it's not exactly the way we want it yet but I don't know, there's just something about it I love. Anyway I just wanted to make a quick list of things we can't get out there that kind of irritates me just a little, and some other things that are just...different...
Detour
I wrote this last September and forgot to post it: So it turns out no one wants to move the house we found! It's big, first of all, there's a big hill, all kinds of foresty turns along the way, which will make the move difficult. Finally, there's a bad frame, like a washboard instead of straight, which they thought at the time might make it stronger but in fact makes it weaker. So not only will it cost us a fortune to move the house, but there's no guarantee that once it's there that it will fit back together. After 2 months of looking for someone to move it, we gave up!
So, we visited some more places with houses, one Steven liked in Cape. Went to Benton, KY! I had already been up north. I'm nonplussed by the options.
Finally, since Steven says it's my decision, I decide on the Cape house.
So, we visited some more places with houses, one Steven liked in Cape. Went to Benton, KY! I had already been up north. I'm nonplussed by the options.
Finally, since Steven says it's my decision, I decide on the Cape house.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Progress
Yes, another capital letter: Progress! It has been a long dark dank tunnel to get here but I see the light. Like Tunnel Hill. Scary.
Oh the dilemma: Louis needs to get into whatever public school, we need to sell the house, we need to build the new house in the meantime, while somehow managing to afford it all...Do we just buy a house in Goreville and do that, or put Louis in Unity Point until we move? Give up the Oasis idea and enjoy a nice close-knit rural neighborhood? I don't want Louis to have to shift schools more than once, he's already having to deal with a new house and a new school. And how do we make it work financially? Everything we look at will require another loan. Very unattractive when that's what we're trying to escape. Building the house will take x amount of time. After everything else that's going on in our lives this past year, it has been extremely crazy figuring this out.
So my best idea is find a cheap temporary housing alternative to put on the land so that we can get Louis into the school that he needs to be in, the one that's corresponding to the land we own, right down the road from his Papa, where we plan to live from now on, we move out there and then it's easier to sell the Carbondale house, because that's been very unpleasant on all measures, 'nother story. Easier said than done! A single-wide trailer, all electricity appliances etc. ready to go, or manufactured home or whatever you want to name it, there's an alternative. We found one for 15k. Not optimal but livable, hideous on the outside but I like the pricetag. No loan required. And I left a deposit but they never got it! So we're back at the starting line.
Like weeks to go, I'm looking on Craigslist every day, visiting manufactured home places, kind of ruling out the house in Goreville option, 70k for a new single wide. Drive up to Mt. Vernon, 28k for a refurbished old single wide, 50k for just OK double wide. I'm becoming an expert! Looking up Amish cabins, yuurts, pole barns, whatever. Then I follow up a lead from Dorothy, I had texted the guy but never heard back, then called him at work one day. Yep, still available, we can come look at it Saturday at 1pm. The whole fandamily is in attendance.
It's a big box with all kinds of space, in good condition, and only 20k! We are on it like ticks on a dog's ear, as Steven would say. He already says we're going to buy it to the guy (Gary) while we're still there, very unusual for him. Steven and him are chatting it up, he's a local guy, not a realtor, 'makes' guns on the side, whatever that means. Owns a wildly successful bed and breakfast in Anna and just wants to clear off the house and build a workshop. The kids are running around picking out their rooms, or at least Louis is; they have seen the alternatives. High fives all around.
So today I signed a little makeshift agreement and give a $500 deposit, and it's done. There is much more to do: we have to actually move the house to our property now. Cheapest quote so far is $8000 and he can't manage it until after Labor day, but Gary says that's highway robbery. So I'll be making some phone calls. I told Gary, after a long discussion about the potential for a big cabin business out our way, that we're having him and his family and Dorothy and hers over for dinner to celebrate soon.
Other stuff needs to be done, assuming we get the house moved in one piece. New carpet, major cleaning and extermination of the resident rodents, and somehow ridding the place of the hideous wallpaper in a few of the rooms. Manageable! I am so relieved. We went out to the property yesterday to start to measure and figure out where it would go, which way it would face, etc. I think I will have the kitchen windows face the view, kind of uncertain but fairly sure. We are thinking now, if this house is not a totally awful hidden disease, we will just shift it over to the basement whenever we get it built. How can we complain if we have a fine house for 20k??
I mean I trust the guy who sold it to us but you never know. I wouldn't mind not having to worry about the house itself, but possibly other things we want or want to do like vacations, endless pools, etc.!
Oh the dilemma: Louis needs to get into whatever public school, we need to sell the house, we need to build the new house in the meantime, while somehow managing to afford it all...Do we just buy a house in Goreville and do that, or put Louis in Unity Point until we move? Give up the Oasis idea and enjoy a nice close-knit rural neighborhood? I don't want Louis to have to shift schools more than once, he's already having to deal with a new house and a new school. And how do we make it work financially? Everything we look at will require another loan. Very unattractive when that's what we're trying to escape. Building the house will take x amount of time. After everything else that's going on in our lives this past year, it has been extremely crazy figuring this out.
So my best idea is find a cheap temporary housing alternative to put on the land so that we can get Louis into the school that he needs to be in, the one that's corresponding to the land we own, right down the road from his Papa, where we plan to live from now on, we move out there and then it's easier to sell the Carbondale house, because that's been very unpleasant on all measures, 'nother story. Easier said than done! A single-wide trailer, all electricity appliances etc. ready to go, or manufactured home or whatever you want to name it, there's an alternative. We found one for 15k. Not optimal but livable, hideous on the outside but I like the pricetag. No loan required. And I left a deposit but they never got it! So we're back at the starting line.
Like weeks to go, I'm looking on Craigslist every day, visiting manufactured home places, kind of ruling out the house in Goreville option, 70k for a new single wide. Drive up to Mt. Vernon, 28k for a refurbished old single wide, 50k for just OK double wide. I'm becoming an expert! Looking up Amish cabins, yuurts, pole barns, whatever. Then I follow up a lead from Dorothy, I had texted the guy but never heard back, then called him at work one day. Yep, still available, we can come look at it Saturday at 1pm. The whole fandamily is in attendance.
It's a big box with all kinds of space, in good condition, and only 20k! We are on it like ticks on a dog's ear, as Steven would say. He already says we're going to buy it to the guy (Gary) while we're still there, very unusual for him. Steven and him are chatting it up, he's a local guy, not a realtor, 'makes' guns on the side, whatever that means. Owns a wildly successful bed and breakfast in Anna and just wants to clear off the house and build a workshop. The kids are running around picking out their rooms, or at least Louis is; they have seen the alternatives. High fives all around.
So today I signed a little makeshift agreement and give a $500 deposit, and it's done. There is much more to do: we have to actually move the house to our property now. Cheapest quote so far is $8000 and he can't manage it until after Labor day, but Gary says that's highway robbery. So I'll be making some phone calls. I told Gary, after a long discussion about the potential for a big cabin business out our way, that we're having him and his family and Dorothy and hers over for dinner to celebrate soon.
Other stuff needs to be done, assuming we get the house moved in one piece. New carpet, major cleaning and extermination of the resident rodents, and somehow ridding the place of the hideous wallpaper in a few of the rooms. Manageable! I am so relieved. We went out to the property yesterday to start to measure and figure out where it would go, which way it would face, etc. I think I will have the kitchen windows face the view, kind of uncertain but fairly sure. We are thinking now, if this house is not a totally awful hidden disease, we will just shift it over to the basement whenever we get it built. How can we complain if we have a fine house for 20k??
I mean I trust the guy who sold it to us but you never know. I wouldn't mind not having to worry about the house itself, but possibly other things we want or want to do like vacations, endless pools, etc.!
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
The Big Move: To the Oasis
I am attempting to make myself love the big move from my conveniently located home close to the village to our as-yet non-existing oasis out in the country. Steven says it's only 20 minutes, but for me it's more like a half hour. That's OK, I'm looking forward to the quiet and isolation, and looking forward to making our own little oasis just the way I want it. Yep, it's our Oasis, with a capital O, that's what I'm going with. Here's the definition of Oasis:
o·a·sis
[oh-ey-sis] Show IPA
noun, plural o·a·ses [oh-ey-seez] Show IPA .
1.
a small fertile or green area in a desert region, usually having a spring or well.
2.
something serving as a refuge, relief, or pleasant change from what is usual, annoying, difficult, etc.: The library was an oasis of calm in the hectic city.
Yep, that's it! I have a feeling that I'll be glad to have done it. I want to make it functional, and minimalistically luxurious. I don't have a ton of money to spend, but I also don't want to have to spend a ton to maintain it. I want and indoor pool greenhouse, and I want it safe from tornadoes! Is that so much to ask? I think not.
We're going to be down the road from the zip line one way, and the winery the other. I hope there won't be too much traffic.:)
Monday, February 18, 2013
Illinois should do the patent box!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/18/us-tax-contest-europe-idUSBRE91H07B20130218
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Obama Doesn’t Need Congress for These Climate Fixes
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Google News: The Secret to Fixing Bad Schools
Everything has a solution.
Amy McMorrow Hunter amymac@gmail.com
Browse all of today's headlines on Google News
Thursday, April 19, 2012
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