This is the Itzl Alert Network.
(Itzl is the name of the dog in the picture.)
We publish a diary here every day,
just before midnight.
This group is here for us to check in with each other,
to let people know we are alive,
and doing OK.
We welcome every member of IAN to write diaries for the group.
Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say.
If you would like to write a diary, let us know in a comment.
This is our regular schedule:
Monday: Crimson Quillfeather, alternating with ZenTrainer,
Tuesday: ejoanna,
Wednesday: Pam from Calif
Thursday: art ah zen,
Friday: FloridaSNMOM,
Saturday: bigjacbigjacbigjac,
Sunday: loggersbrat
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network,
please leave a comment asking to join,
or send us a message asking to join.
We'd love to have you.
The bigger our network,
the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
Okay, the mention of cancer was, essentially, click bait.
True, I’m having a biopsy on Monday, to see if I have prostate cancer, since I am old, male, and my PSA blood test numbers are rising each year, almost doubled between last year and this year.
But the actual physical exam (the urologist’s finger up my butt hole) showed nothing unusual, and I tend to not get sick, so I seem to have a robust autoimmune system, and I read somewhere that the autoimmune system must fail in some way for you to get cancer. Maybe that’s an old wive’s tale. But even if the biopsy shows cancer, I will treat it like a bad tooth. Except with each of my many bad teeth I’ve had removed, the simple pulling of the tooth was the fix. With cancer, I’ve heard it might be surgery to remove the cancerous tissue, or radiation to kill it, or chemo to kill it, or some combination. But the doctors and researchers are getting better and better results all the time, so I still feel that even if I do have cancer, I can treat it like a bad tooth. Fix it, and go on living my life.
I need to help my wife, and her brothers, and bring the money into our home to pay the bills. And I plan to start posting YouTube videos soon, in which I will explain the whole universe, and make more sense than any other YouTube channel.
These two video clips express how I feel about me having cancer:
Now to the real news:
My wife and I are moving.
We are moving out of the house we’ve lived in for five years, nearly our entire marriage, and into a much better house.
I’ve told all of you here about the house we live in now. It has no metal drip edge and it has no eaves, so the water seeps into the walls in some places. When some of you so kindly and generously sent us money to catch up on the house payments and electricity, I mentioned we might need to ask for more money, later, to repair the edges of the roof, and replace all the windows, which all have rotten wooden frames.
I also wrote here, on another occasion, about my wife’s other brother, who just:
bought a house
got married
had a new baby.
Tiny added detail: just before they bought the house, my brother was fired from his regular full time job. He has been working at various temporary jobs since:
His wife works two jobs: she leaves the house at 4 AM, to get to her job as a supervisor at UPS. She uses a breast pump, first, to set aside some breast milk in the fridge. When she gets back, in the early afternoon, she might breast feed the baby, and pump some more milk to put aside. Then she goes to the YMCA, where she is a lifeguard, and a children’s swimming class instructor.
My wife and I come to their house at about 5 AM, when her brother is getting out of bed. He gets dressed and out the door, to another temporary job. His latest job is working to install big solar panels, and the conduit for the wires. His temporary job before that was involving wind turbines. Lots of jobs, here in Kansas, in wind and solar. The wind blows here nearly all the time, and most days are sunny days here.
Anyway, my wife and I are the baby sitters for the new baby, until the wife gets home. At that time, if we feel up to it, we can keep the baby with us at the house until the man of the house comes home, or the new mom can take her baby with her to her YMCA workplace.
Anyway,
since my Tonia and I have been sleeping, some of our sleep time, in her brother’s guest bedroom, on a new mattress, and the house is full off food, since the new mom finds time to hit the free food spots between jobs, and we are welcome to eat anything there…..
I am trying to say we feel better at their house than we do at our house.
And we are welcome at their house any time.
And the uncle and the cousin and the other brother, who live here with us, have stopped paying us any money to help with the house payments and utility payments.
So we are moving to the newly purchased house with the temp job brother and the new mom and the new baby and the new mattress.
The new mattress is great.
And we can baby sit, without driving three miles first.
But the best part is, we are not welcome to stay for years and years.
All four of us agree, Tonia and I should save up money for about two years, and use that money to buy a house of our own.
A house of our own.
I wrote it all down, and it looks like we might be able to save about $9,000 between June of this year, when we move in, and December of 2018.
Then we can look for a house in January of 2019, and do all the closing details and get moved in by March 31, 2019.
And, by lucky coincidence, Mike, the owner of this rotten house, recently said he wants to move back into his house. He almost did, last month, but he chickened out. Now, since Tonia and I are moving out, Mike and his wife can use the master bedroom, which has it’s own bathroom.
So, here is our timeline:
Within the next week or so, we give Mike notice we are moving out of his house.
Before June first, we get some items moved into the nicer house, and other items moved into the back bedroom, used for storage when no one is living in it. We plan to give Mike $20 per month storage fee.
Save money until January, 2019.
Buy a house and move in.
Thanks for reading.