Lauri Ann's New Life

When you live in Northern California for so many years, as I did, you hear a lot of things about different parts of Southern California. "San Diego is beautiful." "There's nothing like shopping on Rodeo Drive." Everyone knows the part of Los Angeles that you go through to get to Disneyland.

Something I always heard about Palm Springs (or Palm Desert where we are) is that it's hotter than Haites down here. We ended up moving down here the first week of February last year. I figured moving down here early in the year we would acclimate to the heat as the weather warmed up. Nobody ever mentioned "wind chill factor" in relation to the desert temperatures. We just about froze to death for the first 2 months we were here. Come the end of April, it started warming up. I'm thinking this is just going to be one of those "hot" weeks like we used to get up North, you know, when nature teases you that summer's here but then at the end of the week the real weather is back.

Instead, the hot weather persisted and proceeded to get hotter. This is the beginning of May! That is when the word "unseasonably" started popping up a lot. The weatherman was saying it was "unseasonably hot". Then it was "unseasonably hot and humid". My neighbors were saying "Oh it's not usually like this". Leave it to us to get so lucky. LOL.

I never realized what an effect humidity had on heat until moving to the "dry" desert. It didn't take me long to get used to no humidity. My sinuses were doing better, the 100 degree heat only felt like 80, maybe. When there's humidity in the air, all of a sudden 100 degrees feels like 120.

Another gentleman I met here in our community told me when I first met him, "We have a couple of months of really hot weather, but then we have just beautiful winters." Well Honey, it's winter now and what I'm hearing from the weatherman is "temperatures are 'unseasonably' low this week" (and the week before that). My ray of hope is "temperatures will rise over the next couple of days. It will be 33 degrees, not quite reaching freezing temps."

As usual, I guess "beautiful winters" are in the eye of the beholder.

Lovin' this "low-maintenance" yard, or at least Tom is. LOL. Driving by a golf course the day before yesterday, (they are everywhere down here), we were talking about what it must cost for water here in the desert to keep these greens green. I can't even imagine. On this one course you could tell someone was trying to cut the bill because there were already a few brown spots.

For as much as I was freezing for awhile when we first got here, it's plenty warm now! We, My Friends, are having a "heat wave". Imagine that! They've been telling us for a week now it was going to be 105 degrees everyday for about a week. Now I guess the day has come and it will be 105 today and for all of next week. While I do have to admit I'm able to take the heat here better without the humidity (0), 105 is pretty darn hot! I am wishing I was nocturnal, or wondering how I could get that way. LOL. Yet for as hot as it gets here during the day, I get up in the middle of the night and go out on the patio, and the wind is blowing to the point one might need a sweater. It is the strangest thing. Then by the time I get up in the morning, about 4:30 or 5:00 am, the wind has already completely subsided and you would never even know it had been through there. It's probably the craziest thing I've ever experienced weather-wise.

I wonder who got the bright idea to just plop a house in the middle of the desert anyway? Obviously they must not have known about "Death Valley" or it would have given them pause, I would think. I have learned that the Ford Thunderbird was actually named after a failed dude ranch turned country club just outside of Palm Springs named Thunderbird Country Club, one of the oldest in the area.       

It's Mother's Day and Sunday today, and I still haven't totally decided on a church home yet. It's interesting as you drive down one of the main drags here, most of the churches are two totally different denominations sharing a parking lot. That seems so odd to me. You think each church is figuring on catching and converting the over flow of the other? I guess it could happen. "Oh Honey, our church is full, but since we're here I've never been to an Episcopalian Church before. Why don't we go see what it's all about?" LOL. Personally I will be skipping church today, sorry to say, as I want to get a couple of things done before it gets just way too hot. Luckily, just because I'm missing church doesn't mean I have to miss time with God.

Bear, the black cat is getting along pretty well here. I do have to worry about him also in the heat so when it gets to about 90, I lock him in. I still don't let him out at night or too early in the morning because now, instead of raccoons, according to an article in the paper, we have to worry about skunks.

If you had been following along before now, then you know we had to leave Capitola. I will tell you, I love mobile home living, but never again unless you own the land underneath it also. I owned that mobile since my late husband died in 1995 and in the end, it wasn't worth two cents. I don't mean the actual value, like a dollar price, (although it wasn't worth 2 cents that way either) but the way these lawyers are able to help park owners cheat people out of their homes is amazing. With the park owner of the Surf and Sand, because so many people in there are older and really low income, it seems impossible to stop him whether he does things legally or illegally. I can't tell you how much money was pooled together to try and stop him, how many of us begged the City for some kind of help, and all of it was to no avail.

But now, we have gone the complete opposite as far as scenery is concerned. Oh, we're once again living in a mobile/manufactured home, but the land is part of the deal, along with the Homeowner's Association. What I mean is the "culture shock" of going from living by the ocean, to living in the desert.

In one way when you drive through here, there is so much flat desert land and it seems so vast. No green. Then you go through another part and it's all beautiful, green golf courses, and homes like Beverly Hills. I look behind the homes across the street and see beautiful mountain tops with snow on them. The couple of plants we have in the rocks out in front of our house I wasn't even sure if I'm supposed to water or not. LOL.

And I can't believe I actually love it here! I don't know why. You spend time in the forest, you spend time near the ocean, and you just drink in the beauty. You can't help but love it. I drive by brown and sand, and more sand, and I have to look it up on "google" to find out what is to love here. LOL. For some reason I just do.

Besides feeling like a cat with 9 lives, I also feel like the Clampetts, who just picked up and moved everything to Beverly Hills (except they had money. LOL). I need to put a big "shout out" to my girlfriend Shirley in Capitola, and Tom's son Scott, who made it possible for us to do this. This is twice now Scott has been there for us when it came to moving from place to place. God Bless him. We owe you big time, Son. LOL. And Shirley, cocktail hour is definitely missing something here without you. Haven't even found a good bar yet.LOL. God Bless you Sweetheart.

Looking Down to Capitola Village

It's no wonder people hate to leave here. This picture was taken New Year's Day. The sun is out. People are walking their dogs. The temp is almost 70. The water is like glass, disappointing only the surfers. I walk my mother in her wheelchair along the cliff to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery.  We like to sit out there and drink up the sunshine, watch the people from afar, and every once in awhile see a beautiful classic car go by.

Just a few days before Christmas, the scene we came home to was this-
The workers are stripping out the asbestos before getting ready to demolish the two mobile homes across the street. The blue one on the left should have been gone a long time ago. The one on the right affected me much more than I would have figured. The family there used to bring their little kids on holidays etc. and they would at times join my kids when they were little for fireworks in the middle of the street, etc. That mobile had been passed down in the family, and now all it is is an empty lot and a memory. Mr. Reed, the park owner, had taken that mobile home by a Warehouse Lien Sale after raising the rent there by 400%. He demolished 3 mobile homes in here that week. Can everyone say "Merry Christmas"?

Empty Lots and Their Idea of a Brillo Pad

Since we quit working on our place when we realized we wouldn't be able to stay here, I figure this will be the fate of our home also.

So now we are looking frantically for a place to go. Money is short due to having to pay the increased rent all these months so we could stay here as long as we have. I'm looking for other possibilities around this area, and then have also been looking in SoCal or Vegas. Once again I turn my attention to Craig's List. LOL. Brokers have all kinds of listings on there, but more importantly to me, there are people who are trying to sell their homes themselves who are a little more open to negotiations than a broker might be. After going through all we've been through over the last 2, going on 3 yrs., for the first time in my life I am looking for something secure. I have decided we are all too old to have to be doing major moves every year. I just don't have the energy anymore, and we don't travel as light as we did when we were in our 20's. LOL.

Playdough Tools

Even though we have discontinued work on our mobile home due to the upcoming move, I am still a huge fan of Craig's List.

Here in Santa Cruz, California, the unemployment rate is 6.1% compared to the national average of 5.8%. If you ask me, both figures are low compared to actuality. There are many people that don't get counted in those statistics, such as people who have already used all their benefits, but still can't find work. People such as myself that were 'self-employed' and businesses went under or closed, so they have no benefits. I'm sure here is not any different than many other parts of the country going through the same things.

As I scroll through the "Wanted" category of Criag's List, I come upon families after families that are asking for help for Christmas. These are usually parents looking for a way to bring Christmas to their children. Of course you always run across a person or two that are putting things on their just to try their luck, but many of the requests are sincere.

When I see some of the requests, even though I can't help financially, I do respond with places people can go for help, or ideas that may help them in their requests. One such post I came across was from a father in the area who was asking for another family that he might exchange gently used toys with. As he said, "gently used to you would be new to my kids". A lot of these families have barely money to eat on, let alone by Christmas gifts for their children.

One post I came across was from a woman with 3 children who didn't know where to turn. She had been to the Salvation Army who told her they already had done their Christmas sign-ups. Another charity that is popular in this area does gifts only for foster children, so there is no "getting on the list". I suggested a few charities I know about where she may find help, and then suggested the 'toy exchange' idea in her area. She and her husband are working on it. I happen to know in her area unemployment runs rampant. Hopefully this will help families that are too late for their children "to get on the list".

Little Tyke Table

Last post I showed you the new door and window that replaced that trashy looking tarp on the front of our home office. Yesterday, Nick called me to let me know he had 3 pints of paint to finish it. Today I will be calling him to let him know the paint won't be necessary. We are losing our home and will be out of here by the end of January.  Thank goodness we didn't spend a ton of money to fix up this place!

We had a pretty good case against the park owner for denying us tenancy, but now that the City has done away with all rent control leaving the park owner to charge what ever he chooses for space rent, there is no point in even fighting any longer. He has raised our rent over 300% and according to my lawyer, could raise it again every 90 days. I'll tell you, I just want to live in peace for a change. I don't know how these people who have been fighting with him for the last decade have lasted. Many of them didn't. And it's getting worse here everyday.

We've had quite a few just walk away from their homes. A couple people have died in the past. Their surviving family members swear it was the stress from the park that finally did in their loved ones. There are a couple now that have cancer and feel they don't have the strength to fight cancer and the park owner both, so they are walking away.

I have never known the old adage "there's no justice for the poor" as it has appeared in the mobile home park. The park owner and his lawyers have and are breaking laws at every turn, but there appears to be no way to stop him. People are either too intimidated to fight, afraid they will lose their leases, or they can't afford to fight the deep pockets of the park owner. His lawyers are known for inundating their opponents in paperwork until their opponents break. They are doing it to whole cities, what chance do little, low income, elderly people have? Not much I'm afraid.

I'll still be carrying on with the blog, but maybe with a little different angle and more tips. I'm not sure. We'll just have to see what direction God takes us. LOL

Start

Replacing the Tarp

We are now walking through a front door we got from Craig's List. To the left is what we started with. Talk about looking like "trailer trash", but it had to do until it became a top priority. I think the day it became a top priority was when my neighbor said how trashy our place looked, and she hadn't even been down to see it. When I responded she said "Well, that's what everyone tells me". I had just assumed everyone would understand rebuilding this place doesn't happen over night, but evidently I was wrong. LOL. For appearances sake, the outside is more important than the inside.

It also needed to take top priority as we are still fighting the park owner for tenancy, and expect to be going to court any day now. I surely don't want him to be able to use the fact that we are an "eye-sore" to work against us.

Primered, Ready for Paint

My whole point about this blog is how you can rebuild on a shoestring budget doing it from sites like Craig's List and Freecycle. I have to say that in our journey, we have met an angel or two. One is a guy named Nick Meltzer. We originally met him when we were selling the dessert flagstone in front of the porch. Come to find out he has all kinds of salvage stuff he sells very reasonably. We've been able to call on him more than once for things we needed. We got both the door and the window from him. The door is a solid core door, (very heavy) complete with deadbolt, door knob and all. Needless to say, he also has some primer and paint, which I'm waiting to see what he has now. In the meantime, Tom found a small can of white primer, and painted that on this last  weekend. (It actually looked a lot better before the primer, aye?)

We'll be painting the fence around the porch white, but I'm thinking about possibly introducing a 3rd color around the door and the window. The mobile is a very light gray siding with white trim. I was thinking about a teal maybe, for the door and the trim around the window, or do you think we should just paint it white? I'm open to suggestions.