Fall Challenge

[rosarugosa]

I've never done these, I always tell people I don't make plans, and they think I'm kidding, it's a huge downside in the wrong places, for instance, the company I worked for went bankrupt, and I had a bunch of job interviews. In those, they always ask about your current and future aspirations, your plans and goals, and dreams, and I always told the truth, like I often do, I don't make plans, I have things that I once asked for, or thought about, and often they come to me without even realizing, only after I think: Wait, I once asked for this. It's like a star alignment that originates something else, in my case is an alignment of opportunities and situations and open a door to something I thought about before. I'm on a job right now, got it by lying on that question, by the way. But let's see:

• Spend more time outside when I'm not working. I found a cool park near the place I work, now I go there every lunch and spend an hour eating my sandwich. It has a granitic table, five or six old trees in front, under those trees someone planted orchids, it's a nice refuge from work, where I can be alone, hearing the birds.
• I started following the Mediterranean diet, it's the diet every dietician recommends in Portugal. I've been fasting my whole life, eating twice a day, I lose weight if I eat small portions throughout the day. I plan on keeping it going and eventually lose weight, my health is okay according to the doctors, but being overweight it's a huge stigma, on finding relationships, on many levels.
• Get the Cuban cigars out of my head. I have a tendency to smoke a cigar every Friday, it's so relaxing. My grandfather used to smoke Monte Cristo's, he'd offer everyone a cigar when he went somewhere, dinners, when someone went by his house, I liked to see him smoking, he looked so much like those Italian mobsters from the 50s and 60s.

John: During my last couple of years working, one of the best things in my world was discovering how therapeutic it was for me to take a lunchtime walk in the Boston Public Garden. It was like a mini-vacation in the middle of my workday, and it had the added benefit of keeping me out of the stores.

[Portuguese John Here]

John: During my last couple of years working, one of the best things in my world was discovering how therapeutic it was for me to take a lunchtime walk in the Boston Public Garden. It was like a mini-vacation in the middle of my workday, and it had the added benefit of keeping me out of the stores.

People that strictly separate the working week from the weekend often find working unbearable, they dislike the job, they dislike everything and experience sadness and anguish on Sunday's afternoons, times such as these.

I believe the secret is either:

1. Loving what you do, and that is often difficult because most people just don't have a special interest
2. Learning to make the best out of everything, make a play out of work, don't take it seriously, don't think too much
3. Find little escapes in the beginning and throughout the working day. In the morning before going to work, it can be a walk when everyone is sleeping in a city and see the sun rising, I heard a story of a man that sat in a park bench every single morning and people went there just to talk with him. If you live in the countryside it can be a walk and hearing the first birds chirping, and also throughout the working day, and the best ones are often at lunchtime, finding a spot where you can be by yourself for a full hour and then finish the work and go home, and before going home, also do something, the day has 24 hours, eight you are sleeping, eight you are working, and there's eight missing, those eight are often neglected with the burden of the those yet to come.

[Yppej]

Screen time is down.
Cancelled my physical with my PCP but have not found a maskfree doctor and doubt I will.
The Free State Project did not send me any open houses for my county of interest for this past weekend, when they try to entice people with the nice fall foliage. I have started researching towns on my own. So far I have identified 32 that:

1. Have city water and city sewer in at least part of the community
2. Have average housing prices at or below where I live now
3. Do not have any hate groups (none on my list had this - no places to eliminate - so nice to know)

Trying to get more detail on city water/sewer from the public utility commission as some places it appears these utilities are maybe only for specific customers, not regular residents. For instance, I see a plant in Rindge, NH but it appears to only service Franklin Pierce College.

At some point I would like to travel to all these communities and get a better sense of what they are like.

[iris lilies]

I’m curious to know why city water and sewage systems are on your must-have list.


Believe me I understand septic systems can be a problem and I guess I wouldn’t want one either If I had a choice, but it would not be a dealbreaker for me. They do require attention and maintenance, but honestly since this was the year where we spent money, lots of money, digging up sewer systems in my city places, it’s 6 of one/half a dozen of the other.

In order to sell our city house there we had to dig up the 30 year old sewer system that cost $18,000. We split the cost with the buyers.

My condo is currently undergoing six weeks of sewer replacement and that job is costing $150,000 plus, but my own share is a measly $2000.

my friends have them they’re not impossible to deal with. Where I live currently in Hermann, my side of the street is on the city systems and across the street they have septic systems. I will say that our neighbor across the street talked to us a couple years ago about the possibility of bringing city system through our yard and across the street and over to his house because he was having septic back up problems, but he has four daughters and they have a ton of friends, and that was Stressing their system. I think now that his daughters have gone to college and their friends are less likely to end up there is a big group they’re probably dealing with it OK. Another house on that side of the street had some sort of mysterious septic problems that kept it from selling for a long time, But I suspect someone did not want to spend the money to fix the problem.

[Yppej]

I’m curious to know why city water and sewage systems are on your must-have list.


Believe me I understand septic systems can be a problem and I guess I wouldn’t want one either If I had a choice, but it would not be a dealbreaker for me. They do require attention and maintenance, but honestly since this was the year where we spent money, lots of money, digging up sewer systems in my city places, it’s 6 of one/half a dozen of the other.

In order to sell our city house there we had to dig up the 30 year old sewer system that cost $18,000. We split the cost with the buyers.

My condo is currently undergoing six weeks of sewer replacement and that job is costing $150,000 plus, but my own share is a measly $2000.

my friends have them they’re not impossible to deal with. Where I live currently in Hermann, my side of the street is on the city systems and across the street they have septic systems. I will say that our neighbor across the street talked to us a couple years ago about the possibility of bringing city system through our yard and across the street and over to his house because he was having septic back up problems, but he has four daughters and they have a ton of friends, and that was Stressing their system. I think now that his daughters have gone to college and their friends are less likely to end up there is a big group they’re probably dealing with it OK. Another house on that side of the street had some sort of mysterious septic problems that kept it from selling for a long time, But I suspect someone did not want to spend the money to fix the problem.

I want to be prepared that my son can live with me if need be, and due to his OCD he uses a lot of water. It can take him five hours to take a shower, for instance. That would overwhelm a typical residential septic system, and the systems in New Hampshire are on the small side compared to Massachusetts.

Winnowed down my list a little more by ruling out places that do not have high speed internet available anywhere in the town limits.

Has anyone lived in an area without a paid fire department? Did you have to pay a lot in homeowners insurance premiums because you had a volunteer fire department?

[iris lilies]

About volunteer fire departments:

Yes most of the small towns I’ve lived in have “volunteer” fire departments. They don’t act much different from the fully paid guys from the perspective of average citizen. That’s a doubt affect insurance rate.

The thing that caused my friend to have a hard time getting insurance was when she had a log cabin out in the country, a few miles from a fire fighting department. I think she had to shop around quite a bit in order to find someone who would ensure that. It was a combination of woodstove/far away from firefighters.

But in Hermann we have even something stranger and that is non-tax supported fire department. Every household pays a fee of $50 per year. That is, households that use to pay it. If they do not pay, when there’s a fire, the cost to fight your fire is a few hundred dollars.

[rosarugosa]

I've cleaned and put away the fans, and we had already put away the A/Cs before I made my list.
We fixed the dripping faucet! It took a $15 repair kit, a couple of YouTube videos, and then the two of us spent about 15 minutes on it. A plumber would have cost well over $100, so we were pretty pleased with ourselves. Like our washing machine repair last year, it felt quite good to accomplish this on our own, and gives us more confidence to face the next challenge.

[catherine]

I want to be prepared that my son can live with me if need be, and due to his OCD he uses a lot of water. It can take him five hours to take a shower, for instance. That would overwhelm a typical residential septic system, and the systems in New Hampshire are on the small side compared to Massachusetts.

Winnowed down my list a little more by ruling out places that do not have high speed internet available anywhere in the town limits.

Has anyone lived in an area without a paid fire department? Did you have to pay a lot in homeowners insurance premiums because you had a volunteer fire department?

We have a strictly volunteer fire department, and our Rescue Squad ia volunteer also, although they are having a difficult time attracting volunteers so they have 2 part-time paid people. Those services come out of township budgets. My insurance company never asked about whether or not we have a paid or volunteer fire department--I don't think. But I think my home insurance rate is reasonable--$706/yr. I have no idea what other people pay, however.

[Tybee]

I have lived in three places with volunteer fire department and it had no impact on my insurance. Distance from the firehouse did play into whether I could get insured, however.

Yppej, I don't think you want to be on municipal water if someone takes 5 hour showers. We would never live again (if we could choose) on municipal water as the water bills are incredibly high. We are fine on well water. It dried out for a few days this summer, which was horrible, but we pay nothing for our water.

I don't think I could afford someone living with me with that kind of water consumption; I know it is a mental illness, but at some point you cannot provide these things anymore, economically speaking. You have to look out for your own economic survival when you are a parent of adult children.

[iris lilies]

We moved from an unmetered city water system to a metered water system. DH
now yells at me when I use too much water to water plants.

ugh. But 5 hour showers would not be taking place in my hoisehold.

Does anyone remember the young woman here on this forum who dumped her boyfriend for taking too long showers? Ok, that was the tip of the iceberg But it was a reason she gave for severing their relationship. She later moved to a Scandinavian country.