The ceiling falls in!!!
So here's what happened: Me, Ryan and Kaci went out for my sister's wedding a the end of June. Kevin stayed at the castle. So while we were gone there was a big thunderstorm that dumped like 3 inches of rain in an hour on the castle which never happens. So the castle roof sprung several leaks - one up front through the one of a kind wood ceiling (yikes!), one in the turret skylight, and one right over my recliner in the back of the house. within a couple of hours, the one over my recliner had turned into a torrent!! water down the wall and a 2 ft x 2 ft section of ceiling came tumbling down. So, while I was in Santa Fe with my son and brother at a casino after the wedding, I got a panicked call from home.
So its not bad enough that the ceiling of my precious castle falls, but that I now have to deal with contractors! I'm convinced they are the devil incarnate - with a few exceptions. We also found out that there are really only two roofers in town that specialize in clay tile roofs so we had to wait on them to get around to it. One guy comes over and says that it will be $3600 to fix it and $15000 to do it right. Crap....we called the insurance company even though we were skeptical they'd pay. So the next guys come over and I'm expecting another several thousand dollar estimate, and they say that the flashing has just pulled away from the house and they can fix it in a couple hours for $275. So I guess the real cost to fix the issue is somewhere between $275 and $15000....did I mention I hate roofers? Its like financial Russian roulette. So needless to say we took the $275 bid and David (our favorite handy man of all time) is fixing the inside damage for a few hundred...so we feel like we squeaked by on that one.
Then....
There's always a 'then'....this week the air conditioner started making this noise like a screeching rat...great...more contractors......so we called a couple of air conditioning guys and no one could get to it for a few days...so I was getting ready to go buy deodorant in bulk when David said he knew a guy. I love when people know people....anyway he called Daniel and Daniel came over to check it out. The castle has an upstairs and a downstairs unit. Daniel said they are about 20 years old and we need to start budgeting for new ones.....to the tune of $4-$7,000 EACH....where are the Rolaids when you need them? But he was able to fix it for less than $500...Whew!! another financial mine field skated right through. BTW if any of you want David or Daniel's numbers, just email me. Good contractors are extremely hard to find!
On the writing front, we're zipping right along with numerous projects. Todd's radio spots start airing on 12 Canadian radio stations this week and his show starts next week. This bodes well for the launch of his book this fall. We finished up one book for Joe Vitale and will be starting the second one shortly so that's well on its way as well. We've been approached by the people behind 'Beyond the Secret' -the sequel to 'The Secret' to possibly do some work on the book version, we'll see if that works out.
On the investment front, the Milam property is for rent again. We went in and put in new carpet and painted so its looks like new again and we've been getting lots of calls so hopefully it will be rented by the first of the month. Also the restaurant in Thailand is moving forward and is on track to open October 1, the start of their busy tourist season. The cherry orchard in Australia is still waiting to get rolling so we'll see how that works out.
As usual there's too much going on in the summer for me to even sleep, so if you see the light on the castle at 4 am that's me burning the candle at both ends.
