Visits and meetings

The other day I was telling dd about friend wanting to come for a visit and she brought up that she and her dh needed to get over here for a visit. I said Yes you do! We haven't seen them since the end of last October. Usually their visits seem to be from us saying hey, when are you coming over next? But we haven't done that this year yet.....I decided to just keep my mouth shut and see how long it would be. I also usually get to make at least one visit over there each year (for work) and stay with them, but not in 2020. I'm hoping in December we are back to that office meeting and I can go visit them, too.

Then I said, throwing this idea out there....it would be great if she could come the weekend before we go to Texas, then take our dog home with her to babysit while we are gone. Then the weekend after we get back we can pull a page out of neighbors playbook, like they do with their son's dogs, and each drive halfway to meet up and get our dog back. She called yesterday and said that would work and it's actually going to be even a little better visit (for me anyway, haha). She's just going to come over by herself on the Wednesday and stay still Sunday morning. That way we can have several days with her and time to go see my mom, while still having some time for ourselves with her. She said she will probably have to work Thursday, so she will bring her work laptop and she can work from here that day. But, at least she'll be here. I'll just work Thursday, too, and we can be office buddies, LOL.

Her dh can't come because he will be at his parents for a few days that week, helping his dad, who is having his other hip replaced. Not really sure why he has to be there. I totally get why he took time off the first time, because his mom had to work and they wanted someone with him while she was at work, but she retired 6 months ago.

Last night we went to a community meeting regarding adding a rural volunteer fire station out in our area. At this time we may or may not fall into their 5 mile area. We are literally right on the cusp, depending where exactly they end up putting the station and the water source. Letters went out to all the residents in the area, about the meeting. Except in typical ineptness, none went out to those of us who might or might not be in it. The only reason we found out about it was through Mr. Neighbor, who heard about it through his job. All 3 of us homeowners on our street went to the meeting. We practically represented more than the people who actually live within the 5 miles showed up. A lot of things have to work out and align for this to happen, but they are working on it. Mostly they are going to need volunteer fire fighters, of course. Our young neighbor did sign up to volunteer. Of course, if we are in the 5 mile area, our property taxes will go up to fund this. But they are saying our insurance should go down, as we will be considered in a better rated area. Young neighbor wife did some calling to her insurance company (same one we use) and they told her she should be able to save a couple hundred a year, offsetting the $100 a year or so property tax increase. We'll see. It doesn't sound like something that is going to happen overnight, that's for sure. In the local newspaper article last week it said the property tax increase would be 1.6%. Last night the fire chief was now saying 2.6%. I'm sure when all is said and done it will be higher.

Just before we left I group texted the neighbors asking if anyone wanted to ride with us there (5 miles, haha) and young neighbor said he was driving himself so he could get out of there as soon as it was done and not get stuck talking to people. I replied "ie...(my)DH! LOL". Then Mr Neighbor replied he was driving himself, too. Annnnddd sure enough, dh and I were the very last to leave! Because he has to talk and talk. First we talked to the town fire chief. Then we talked to the lady who is the county fire warden for quite awhile. Then we (and by we I mean dh, haha) talked to the guy who is our state rep in the state capital. Anyway, it was good to get to know some more people in our area. We had heard of all these people, but never met. The lady who is the fire warden lives next to where we had the meeting. She said oh, I drive by your house all the time, watched while you were building, it's so beautiful, every time I drove by I wanted to see what the inside looks like. We both said stop by any time, LOL. She seemed really nice.

Towards the end of when we were chatting with her, her dh showed up. More chatting. I was thinking to myself she looks to be in her mid 60's, but he looks much younger (I knew it's her 2nd marriage), more like our age, or maybe a couple years older. When we got home, dh made the same comment, that her husband looks quite a bit younger than her. Well, snoopy me looked them up on Facebook. His page shows his birthdate. He is 69! Zaba search shows she is 66, just what I thought. Boy, he does not look 69 at all, LOL. We know her son, who did some work for us when we built, and he's got to be around 40 or so (turns out he's 45) so figured she was mid 60's.

Our automatic gate was having some problems last time we left. We usually wait to make sure it closes up behind us, but we did not (last Sunday) and then when we were trying to get it to close it started sounding an alarm, which was pretty loud and annoying. DH got it to stop and it would work ok, then he'd try it out and it wouldn't. Yesterday he thinks he figured out that with all our recent big rain we had the wood on the gate swelled up just enough and when the gate was opening it was actually hitting on the bracket and not quite opening all the way, so then it wasn't shutting because it thought there is an obstacle or something. He did some adjusting and testing and that seemed to fix it. When we left for the meeting we waited to make sure it shut ok and it did.