Dru’s New World

Earlier this week I wrote about a very important Milestone in my older daughters life. Well I guess my younger daughter could not let the week go by without reaching her own little milestone.
Today was going to be a very busy day. I was going to get up and work on the Three bedroom apartment for awhile so the tenants can move in this week. The Electrician was going to come over and get some work done and my older daughter, Ashley, had a Soccer game for her indoor team. I was over in the Three Bedroom apartment while Ashley and one of her friends that lives in the building were at my apartment watching Jessie, my Youngest. I didn’t even have time to open the can of paint before Ashley came running into the apartment saying, “Jessie is hurt.”
I ran over and sure enough Jessie was sitting on the couch with Ashley’s friend holding a cold wet towel over her face. I pulled off the towel to see a nice little cut to the left of her left eye. From the blood on the towel and the drops of blood on Jessie’s pants I could tell this was not going to be fun. Of course, since the moms that live in the building were in the 3 bedroom helping me so they could get away from their kids and gossip about their husbands they came running in.
The one thing about me is I hate blood, when I was in the military I saw my share of blood and would prefer to never see it again, especially from one of my children. The cut really wasn’t that bad and the bleeding was very slow so I got a band-aid and just sat there and held Jessie while I asked for an explanation about the situation. There are 8 years difference in age between my girls and usually get along really well although Jessie does get annoying according to Ashley.
“Well, I was using the wrench to hammer in a nail on my bedroom wall. When I was done I lowered my arm and Jess came running to me at the same time. The wrench hit her.” Of course I know my daughter would not do anything like this on purpose and I also know that at 12 years old and has a lot to learn in life… Why would you use a wrench as a hammer?
So the Mom’s came in and looked at it and said, “Ohh that is not bad she will be fine.”
Jessie calmed down and started to play again so I got Ashley’s soccer stuff together and got ready to leave. We met Mima (my mother) and GG (my Grandmother) at the soccer game along with my girlfriend and her youngest daughter. The game was great and my daughter did great as the goalie in the first half. The Final score was 5-2 and we lost but only one goal was scored on Ashley.
After the game I noticed that the cut on Jessie was still bleeding a little. The band-aid was soaked. The three of us said our goodbyes to everyone and headed over to the nearest Urgent Care. While waiting in line Jessie started crying because she absolutely hates the Doctors office. One of the Nurses came up to us took a quick peek and told me, “we will not touch that here. She is going to need to be seen by a plastic surgeon.” She game me a cold compress and some gauze and we left for the emergency room.
This emergency room was great, almost everyone was great. The only person that I didn’t really care for was the one that took our information about insurance and stuff. I actually think that she was trying to make sure I didn’t hit Jessie or something and the fact that I had custody and she lived with me really confused her.
Anyway, after a two hour wait a Doctor, Nurse and some kid that was probably an intern or something because he was all of about 19 years old came in. Jessie is a very strong 4 year old when she is pissed. Now here the four of us are trying to hold this poor kid down while this strange guy is threading a needle. I would be kicking and screaming also. This 19 year old kid actually started signing to Jessie and they started sewing my daughters face.
Finally, after getting asked 3 times, “Mr. U are you OK?” The Doctor was finished with my daughters first stitches. I was so proud but because I was so pale the nurse made me sit down while she gathered up the paperwork. We left there and Jessie had her first set of stitches and me and my two daughters were doing high fives out the door.
I am so proud… I do know that there are going to be more stitches in the future but none of those are as important as the first time someone uses a needle to get your skin back together. To have your first set of stitches on your face is an honor, right there to display to the world.
Congrats Jessie…

I am a first time home buyer. Signing all the paperwork to take over this property was stressful enough. I am starting to realize since I decided on a Multi-Family I did not buy one house… I BOUGHT 4…

The First thing I want to explain to you all is I bought this house from a man that ownes a House Building Company. Though I am not a complete idiot I am realizing how ignorant I am. I have been living here for about a month now. This place is great and I love it but there are a lot of issues that I need to fix. The other day I had an electrician come though so I could get a new hot water heated hooked up to the electricity of the apartment it belongs to. I am not going to pay for the electricity for thier hot water. This Electrician did his walk though while my mother was here because I was at my Uncle Joe’s Funeral.
He told me that he would do it but he needs to explain what he is going to do before he starts working. So he came over this morning and I walked though with him. Now there are certain things that I look for in people I am trusting to do work for me. As an ex-Aircraft Mechanic I am used to having a job that puts other people in danger if I mess up. This contractor is going to be putting my daughter’s saftey in his hands. Beyond that there are 3 other Families that I feel I am responsible for. This Contractor made me believe that he understood that the saftey of these families and of course my daughter is my main concern.

We started in the Basement where the Hot Water Heater is this was scare number one… The current hot water heater is Propane, this is suppose to have a ventalation system that runs out of the house. There was nothing hooked up. Therefore the exhaust of this hot water heater is just blowing into the basement. Not that that isn’t bad enough but if you look directly above it there is a vent that goes into the apartment above the hot water heater, STRAIGHT INTO THE PEOPLE 18 month old babies room… I am just glad the people haven’t moved in yet.
So we leave the basement and he takes me to the stairwell he wants to run the wires to the second floor. I will be honest I didn’t look at this stairwell to much when I was looking at the building, no one ever uses it and I didn’t care how ungly it was, its all cosmetic work, right? Nope… He continued to show me wires that were tacked up the wall instead of placed into the wall. He also showed me that there were a lot of wires just hanging there without being capped, yes they are live…
As he showed me all of this he told me he wanted to run the new wires and get these old wire behind the wall. I love that idea. But he said, “But I want to tear the wall down.” of course I replied, “Why?”
He reached up with his finger and pressed on a spot in the wall paper, it ripped. All it was was wall paper, so he ripped a lot of wall paper off the walls. This wall was about to fall down anyway.
I think at this point he could see the stress level flying and was afraid I was going to pop a couple arteries. He stopped the Tour right there. He did tell me he wants to do all this work and go into the attic and terminate a couple of wires up there and secure a couple of lose wires above the ceiling tiles.

For some reason no one understands why I am so stressed…