Moments in My Life

Finally we finished cleaning up all the trash we had in the old house.  The inside of the house is ‘quite’ empty now.  We only have some stuff in the garage for donation.  This morning, I upload the MLS and our home in Gardena is in the market for for sale as of today.  I haven’t received any call yet.  It might be a slower market than a few months ago. 

Before the summer arrived, there was first time home buyer’s credit of up to $8500 for new homeowner.  The program has came to an end right before the summer started.  And I read that the real estate market is slower now than before.  Hubby is planning to have the home in the market for 3 months and if we don’t get ‘the’ offer, we might just put the house out as a rental.  But hopefully we will be able to sell it. 

We’ll be moving to a new neighborhood in a few weeks!  The escrow transaction is coming to an end and we should get our keys before end of this week.  The seller will do the termite after the close of escrow as the seller’s agent couldn’t get them there sooner and our interest rate lock is goin to expire on the 29th.  So we decided to close escrow on 28th to make sure everything get done before the 29th.

This is a big adventure to us as it is a new county and new city to both of us.  I’ve move several times while living in LA.  My previous experience include living in San Pedro, Whittier and Gardena.  And for my Hubby, he has been in Gardena all his life.  This is his first big move.  We are looking forward to it. 

The house we are moving is slightly smaller than our current house with only 2 bedrooms instead of 3.  It will have about 1200sqft while our current house is 1350sqft.  But I like the neighborhood and the private side yard.  With our current house, our front yard and backyard is not really private at all.  The houses behind us is two storeys and they are able to oversee our backyard.  The schools in our new place have very high rating.  The city was selected for one of the safest city in America and one of the best to bring up family.

There will be a few minor work to be done before we really move in.  Now the headache part … is to pack the stuff I have here.  I’ve collected so much junks and stuff within the last 10 years.  I still remember how empty this house was when we first move in in Sep 2000.

A section of our front yard fence had a wood wagon wheel on it.  But it was breaking apart under our bright and strong sun in Southern California.  It doesn’t look good if we plan to sell our home in the next few months.  So I called up several fence companies to get estimates. 

The first company whom came out told me the whole fence has to be replaced because the bottom part was rusty, no point in replacing just the few vertical metal.  He suggested to do the new fence in wood since it will be more economical that way.  He said his charge is $250 to replace the fence with cedar wood.

The second company I called didn’t show up at the schedule appointment and we rescheduled for the next day.  So the third company, Gonzales Iron Work (from Gardena 310-538-5593) came out and looked at the fence.  He said to replaced the whole fence plus labor would be $295.  But I had to wait till the second company give me the quote before I decide.

When the second company came out the next day, he looked at the fence and asked me how much the other companies had quoted to replace it, I told him $280.  And he was laughing at me.  He said if I found that cheap, I should let the other company do the job.  Because he said he knows ‘no one’ will replace that fence for such a low price.  I told him, “Yes, there is!”  He said for him to do the job, he will charge $600-$700.  He left.  I immediately called Gonzales Iron Work and gave them the job.  It was Friday afternoon.  I asked them how many days they need to do the job, the owner said a few days (may be 3-4).  The owner came out on Friday evening to let my Hubby sign the contract and said he would stop by on Saturday morning to remove the fence to use as template.  The owner didn’t even ask for deposit for the job.  

 The next morning around 9am, they were already here removing the fence.  That’s timely!  I told Brandon that the fence would be back up there around Wednesday.  He likes to see people working so I was hoping that he will get to see them putting the fence up. 

On Sunday morning we went to Camarillo Outlet mall and came back around 1pm.  And guess what?  When we turned into our street, Hubby said to me that the new fence was up already.  I was surprised!  But it was there, painted too to match our existing fence color.  Although the color is a bit off but close enough.  That’s really fast work and the quality is good too.

I will definitely recommend Gonzales Iron Work from Gardena to anyone that needs to get a new fence.  It is people like this that I love to do business with.  Work done on timely manner.

I forgot to take a picture of the old fence but I managed to go out this morning to take the picture of the new fence.

Probably most stay-at-home mom without helper/s will have immeasurable chores at home, like myself.  These chores go in cycle.  There are some daily and weekly chores that will have to attend to on regular basis.  I enjoy some of them but not all. 

My chores include but not limited to laundry (myself, Brandon’s, towels, bedsheets, mats, etc), planning and buying the groceries, cooking, taking Brandon to the bathroom, give him bath in the evening, filling up the water bottles with filtered water and organizing & cleaning rooms/shelves/cabinets (once in a blue moon). 

My hubby and I share chores like washing the dishes (we don’t use the dishwasher), vacuuming & mopping floor, yard work and paying bills. 

He has his own chores too, such as washing the cars, washing the master bathroom, sweeping the backyard, trimming the grass on side of the front yard and doing his own laundry.

How I wish there is more than just 24 hours in a day so I can fit and get more things done.  There are many items of my to-do list which I had wanted to get done with but can’t find the time to do.  Things like cleaning up the study table (dusty), organizing the files, bills and statements, puting away Brandon’s smaller sizes clothes, organizing underneath the bed with proper storage boxes, listing some of the pregnancy books and some other items for sale on ebay, cleaning the coat closet and so much more. 

We bought our Pre Lit Christmas Tree from Lowe’s on Saturday evening. Then on Sunday afternoon, we put it up near the dining/kitchen area and decorated it. Why didn’t we put it in our living room since?  Because we don’t spend as much time over there as we do in the dining/kitchen area. I am glad we put it where we did and now we see it all the time.

Brandon has been enjoying our Christmas tree a lot. In the morning when he wakes up, he wants the see the Christmas tree lighted and I turn it on for him everyday since the tree had LED light bulbs, it won’t be using too much energy. I remember reading the box saying it cost approximately $1 to light the tree for the whole season.

Now that we have our tree up, we need to decorate other part of the house too. I am planning to buy a pot of Poinsettia for the living room and slightly dress it up a little bit with some Christmas items to be inviting to guests. I might be planning a small mommy and me gathering for some friends we met at the parenting class from Torrance Adult School next week. It will be a pot-luck style gathering. I might bake some cupcakes if I have the time. I love the smell of fresh bake cake/cookies in the house.

It is not a sight you want to see or experience when you have sewage backup to your backyard. It happens every few years at our home because the roots from the trees get into sewage pipe from the house to the street. We won’t know that had happened until I smell the problem as we don’t always go out to the backyard. In that scenario, we will not be able to use the bathroom or kitchen sink at all until the problem it fixed or else our backyard will have a pool of sh*ts. We won’t want that to spill into our swimming pool. But luckily, the service we use to clear the root problem can come the same day within a few hours and we get to use the bathroom afterward.

My ultimate dream home would have a nice professional front yard and back yard landscaping. It would also have at least 4 bedrooms, a study den and three bathrooms. I would prefer to have one storey floor plan but with the limited land we have in Los Angeles, I might have to go up to get the square footage I want. I think somewhere around 2000sqft of living space would be enough for my family. The house would have a three cars garage and nine feet high ceiling. All the appliances in the kitchen would be stainless steel with a subzero refrigerator. I would prefer the kitchen to have an open concept to the dining room and family room.

All these ideas I have are just my dreams. Until one day I eventually own a piece of land, I can hire Schumacher Homes for building the property. The best thing with this builder, I can view all their floor plans online free. Hopefully by that time, Schumacher Homes will have expanded to provide home building services for us in Los Angeles.

Spring is my favorite time of the year. We are now in the Fall Season and in a month or two, we will be in the Winter time. Lucky for us in Los Angeles, our Winter doesn’t last too long and the weather is considered as mild comparing to some other parts in United States.

After Winter, Spring will arrive. To me, Spring is like a gift from Mother Earth to us after a gloomy, cold and dark winter. We will see beautiful flowers sprouting and birds come out from hibernating and most importantly we will have longer day time then too. Remember, our Daylight Saving Time has been moved forward since 2006 and for this coming year, we have to change our clock one hour forward on Mar 8th, 2009.

I hope I will be able to find time to plant some spring bulbs before winter comes. My backyard is so bare and empty. I need to add colors to it by having more flowers, plants and birdfeeders. I have in mind to plant tulips, daffodils, bonsai and some spring annuals in planters and pots. That will bring some color to my backyard. As for the birdfeeders, I saw this Garden Song® Hibiscus™ Hummingbird Feeder which I like. This colorful piece can be placed on a flat surface and be an inviting spot for hummingbirds to my backyard.

I just can’t wait for spring to come and enjoy the nicest time of the year.

Picture credit: Copyright © birdfeeders.com

We received many sales/survey calls each day. And they usually call when I was preparing the dinner. I just hate it to answer the phone when my hands were all dirty and wet. My house phone is actually not listed in the directory, supposedly. But somehow they got my numbers. Sometimes these marketing agencies will also call my cellphone which will cost me my minute if I answer and I have to answer it even though the number doesn’t look familiar because it might be someone calling enquiring about my real estate listing.

Next time I have to remember to note down the numbers and enter them at Phone Number Reporting. At this website, you can view a list of sales or marketing phone numbers provided by other people. You need to help to enter all the numbers you know that are sales or marketing based so you can help the others to avoid the calls too.

Crumbs here. Crumbs there. Crumbs everywhere. If you have toddler, you might agree with me. We constantly find crumbs everywhere. Cookies crumbs, bread crumbs, Cheerio crumbs and much more. And with all these crumbs around, they attract ants and other pest as well. I basically have to vacuum the floor everytime I see and find the culprit to this problem so I get to the crumbs before the ants do.

I have been dealing with this pest problem since a while back. I find ants are the biggest problem we have.  With a toddler at home, I tried the natural way to clear them off rather than using the insecticide. I usually tried to trace the ant trails to the nest but it doesn’t always work as the trails sometimes lead to the wall or down the floor.  So they will return again once they found more crumbs around the house.

My MIL actually suggested for me to hire one of the pest control people to help solving my problem with ants. But what type of exterminating approach would they use against the pest? Most probably they use poison. I would prefer to hire an exterminator that uses natural green approach to get rid of the pest. I personally think this is the better pest management than the prior method. That is why we hired the pest control company that uses orange oil to treat our termite problem earlier this month.