Moving parts

During my lunch break in the class I was teaching yesterday I called Mama to check in on her. It is a standard contact we make daily. She was with one of her stylists and her mentor as the two of them were getting some valuable one-on-one instruction. We chatted for a couple minutes as Mama tried to think of something she needed to tell me. She remembered just as we were saying goodbye. She had promised our evening to Red and Joanna Shaw. Red, a former coworker and long time Santa Clause, had been trying to get together with us for dinner for a few weeks and we had not been able to work out the timing. So, as Mama and Joanna talked, they settled on that evening. Mama figured that it was easier to just go ahead and make the dinner date for that day so we would be sure to make it. So, we did. We met at Yesterday’s in Bridgeport and had a delightful time together.

Red and I both had liver for dinner and Joanna threatened to not kiss him for several days because she hated the smell of liver. Whether she followed through on that or not I do not know, but Mama and I got a good laugh out of it. The liver was very good. I will not hesitate to have it again should Mama and I go back to the restaurant. Red and I kept commenting to each other through the meal just how good it was, and Joanna kept telling us to change the subject. We also talked through a range of topics, mostly social and religious. Red, who did a tour of duty in Vietnam years ago was deeply affected by the fiasco in Afghanistan. The comparisons being drawn by the media between the two hasty, disastrous retreats was enough to stir a lot of long buried memories in Red. He mentioned that the VA is seeing a noticeable resurgence in requests for counseling and treatment because of the renewing of those memories in older veterans. A sad, unnoticed consequence of deadly debacle now in progress.  Not only in the country of Afghanistan, but in our government’s response to the danger many American lives are now exposed to. So, Mama and I had a busy, although pleasant evening.

Meanwhile, our realtor has really gotten in gear and has negotiated the sale of our second property in Lawton. We signed papers on Wednesday and got them back to him. The buyer signed the contract Thursday and we have now received that contract from him as well. Glenn got the contact to the title company yesterday so we should be able to close on the sale by the end of next week. That will be a financial and emotional load off our plate. We will not make any profit off the sale. It is a more-or-less a transfer of title, but the proceeds will cover the mortgage on the house and allow us to dump the property at cost. Tax wise it is a very good solution for us. We lose nothing but we make nothing. Mama and I could have elected to renovate the property, but we did not want to get caught in another year-long remodeling project to make the slim profit we would have realized in the sale of the property when that work was completed. Hopefully, the buyer has the time and money to remodel, market and sell the house. Hopefully, the market is still up for that sale. We elected to take or losses and move on.

At the same time, Mama is dealing with a huge uptick in her business. She has been invited to a fair that is going on for the next ten days. A stylist several levels above her in Color Street is a regular attendee of the fair but she is not able to find other stylists to help her at the fair this year. This is the type of direct contact that will allow Mama to sell from her physical inventory and recoup some of the money that is tied up in that inventory. It will cost Mama a small fee as she helps pay for the booth she will be helping in, but the hope is that the volume of sales will more than compensate for that cost. Fortunately, the fair takes place only in the evening during the week; however, tomorrow is an all-day affair. Mama will be at the booth for about six hours of the day tomorrow so we will get to see how well this works out for her and her upline. Obviously, it is a good opportunity because her upline sets up at this fair every year.

Along with all that, a friend of ours is working on designs for the mini-houses Mama and I have been looking at building and setting up as rental properties. That is the foundation of getting into that market. Having a set design allows us to calculate the cost of labor and materials as well as the timeframe for completion of each unit. Those are the numbers I will need to present to the bank for financing the project.

We have a lot going on right now and it is fun to see small glimpses of progress.