I could tell from the moment I awakened this morning, it was going to be a a better week, so I headed out early with just that mindset. I smile to myself sometimes while driving to work when seeing few if any vehicles on the road, and then remembering what it’s like coming home with the throngs of cars on the highways, and for whatever the reason, our general driving public has become more aggressive, as well as careless with their driving since the pandemic arrived, and I’m not liking it one bit.
My first duty of the day, was to deliver three full bags of cucumbers to a needy cause which will certainly be put to good use. I did have a nice chat about gardening with the woman who carried them in, and from the sounds of it, she’s very much into growing everything she can to help keep her young family happy and healthy. She did mention her now growing Armenian cucumbers because they’re considered the most mild, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that in spite of them tasting like cucumbers, they’re still part of the melon family. Just out of curiosity, I’ll have to plant a hill of them next year, just so I can say I tried them.
There was one more stop I had to make to drop off another small sack of them to a dear one who sent me the kindest thank you note saying how much her family enjoyed the last ones I gifted her. I’m just happy they’re being put to use and not going to waste, because the pickle variety has fulfilled my needs with supplying me with the number of quarts of Kosher dill pickles I wanted, and the remaining British I’m continuing to eat on a daily basis, but the numbers that keep coming on their vines, I’d be turning cucumber green in attempts to eat all those many. I’ve never in my life seen them so healthy and productive. Several people asked me how it is I can grow them like that, and my knee-jerk response always is, “It’s a four letter word spelling L O V E.” Too funny.
I have two closings coming up this week which are pretty much under control other than getting the final numbers from the closing companies and then doing our final walk-thru beforehand. I can say it’s been a very productive month of August, and ever-grateful for it.
My car was scheduled for servicing, so I spent another good hour waiting for it have its oil changed and windshield wipers replaced. They did find that my shock absorbers needed replacing, so they went ahead and ordered them and then scheduled another visit. It’s an older model, but for what it’s worth, I can’t even begin to complain because it’s been a workhorse. As we all know, in-town driving is the hardest on vehicles.
I had a nice visit with my dear friend this morning, and not surprised to hear the gnats have been bothering her as much as they’ve been me. As chance would have it, another person mentioned the same thing this afternoon. I thought it was sort of creepy-cool when she mentioned a similar thing I’d noticed only a day or two earlier, and that being the way in which the birds are now acting. They seem to be flocking far sooner than normal, which is making the both of us think we’re going to have a hard winter ahead. This past winter was enough to send me reeling because of those tornados we had in December and then the arctic vortexes. Let’s hope and pray that doesn’t happen again.
I had an early afternoon pre-listing appointment at a home I’d never been in before, and after getting a good look at it, I told the sellers that it would likely be purchased by either an investor, or a “flipper” because of the neighborhood it’s in which will be the big selling point. It’ll likely be listed in the high $30K’s or low $40K’s, and at that price, anyone with foresight, would see the upside potential. I didn’t stay out in the back yard very long because of those swarming gnats. They just don’t seem to wanna stop.
My last appointment of the day, was to show a new listing that came on this past Friday. The buyer who was out of town the weekend, called me Saturday to schedule a showing for this evening. Well, I’d been later alerted on Saturday afternoon, there already being two offers on it.
The showing went well, but I couldn’t help agreeing with the buyer that there wouldn’t be any snap decision-making being done today, and since the cut-off time was an hour later, I wouldn’t be writing an offer, which was fine by me because this rushing into purchases makes for ill feelings later on. I’m really not it this “Buy it now!” mania that’s affecting our market. Unfortunately, there’s gonna be a correction, so let’s hope it isn’t going to be a big one.
I just read today where China is having a monstrous problem with their housing market to where people are now refusing to make their mortgages payments. The more I read, the more I was shocked to see how brittle their financial markets are to where it’s far more exposed to a collapse than one would ever think. Another huge problem, is their so-called “Belt and Road Initiative” which they talked all those emerging market countries into building so they can more easily ship their inferior products to Europe, but unfortunately, those countries are now bellying-up on their payments to China. And finally, most countries have turned their backs on Putin and his war with Ukraine, while China’s still holding hands with him which isn’t setting at all well with those nations. Xi may have his own crisis with his people and their financial markets. It would be another Divine Intervention if he’d be forced to watch his perfect communist plan imploding before his eyes, and some sort of democratic nation emerging from the ashes, and of course without him at the helm. Wouldn’t that be something to write home about?
Tonight’s One-liner is: As you get older and wiser, you realize that when people are given anything without having to earn it (unless they’re physically or mentally utterly incapable of earning anything), they become ungrateful, lazy and less happy.
