Akasha’s Journey
A journey to have a good life again.
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Friday, April 26, 2024
The Best Cat 🐈⬛
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
My Goals
1. Finish my real estate class and pass the state and national exams. Out of the six classes in the state of Texas to become licensed in real estate, I am currently 24% done with the sixth and last one.
2. Continue to periodically pay the “accrued interest plus some” on my student loans so that they are “at least going down.”
3. Start a Wordpress blog with a theme. I also know that a while ago, I was blogging about missing people that might be alive still. Writing about each and every individual case isn’t for me. I’d rather do one huge post about why we shouldn’t give up hope that they might still be alive. In general
4. Distance myself/ lower contact with my mother. She is really really giving me a hard time lately, and so is one of her sisters. She is very active in church now and has those people. I deserve to not feel like I’m five years old again crying myself to sleep.
Monday, April 15, 2024
My mom met my in laws 😩 👵🏻
My mom spent the weekend up here in Waller with me. She met Kevin’s mother and stepfather and saw their 10 acre property where Kevin and I live in the guest house. My daughter Evita was also here.
I think it went really well. We all went out for Italian food. My mom was reunited with my cat Alex. Alex seemed mad at her. Does he think my mom abandoned him? Maybe. Maybe he doesn’t get that he’s not her cat. My mom also met my inlaws’ enormous dog Thomas and their roommate’s cat, Buck. She saw my garden which has a lot of sprouts.
I honestly didn’t think my mom would approve. She’s so critical and judgmental of everything I do. She criticizes everything I do, all my friends, everything I like, etc. Maybe because she’s a widow now, she’s more accepting of me and mellow. She is realizing that I’m all she has.
Kevin drove both my mother home and Evita back to her father on Sunday evening. We dropped off my mom first, then took Evita to her dad. I started expressing that I had a tension headache. Kevin said after we dropped Evita off, we’d go get some BC powder. Evita offered to give me what she calls “free pug therapy”. This means that when I drop her off at her dad’s, she goes and gets one of his three pugs and brings them to the car to visit me. She usually brings Olive. When she brought Olive to the car Sunday evening, Olive started sniffing Kevin because she’s never seen him. We were laughing hysterically because she snort-sniffs.
Later on, my mom sent me a nice text about what a nice weekend she had and she’s so glad to see where I live and meet the family.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Tricked 🤖
I joined a Facebook group called “Old People being tricked by AI.” Which makes fun of situations online where old people think AI images are real and believable.
Several times since then I have caught myself saying “oh wow look at that, that’s so cool” while scrolling, and then realizing it’s being posted by that group.
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Solar Eclipse 🌛🌞🌜
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Four Pics
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Living in Waller
Living with Kevin in the guest house on his parents’ 10 acre property is wonderful. The only negative is the driving. It’s a 65 mile drive one way to get to work for me. He drives all over the place anyway for his job, so he doesn’t care. He gets a car allowance.
I get mileage pay if I drive my 91 year old client anywhere or run errands for her while clocked in, but not for to and from work. I didn’t tell her or the office that I moved to Waller. She knows that my boyfriend moved out there, but she doesn’t know I went with him. If she knew, she’d assume that I’m leaving, and I’m not. I don’t want to.
For one thing, I still have to make the drive to fulfill my obligations to my daughter and my mom. If I got a caregiver job near Waller, I may not even be able to do the driving back and forth to do for them what I need to do for my daughter and mom. Evita is turning 17 in June, so I only have just over 14 months left until she’s 18 and don’t have to deal with custody arrangements anymore. My mom is self sufficient, but she can’t handle the vacuum or the trash.
I also still do retail audits on six apps as a side hustle. Being forced to drive so far gives me the opportunity to do more of them on the way two and from. My daily goal is one audit in the morning and one in the afternoon, at least. Sometimes I do more. Sometimes, if Kevin is home early, I just go home without doing any. Just so I can see him. I also have a lot of things to listen to. I listen to Travis Everette, who is a real estate instructor on YouTube. (His entire class, all lectures, are free on YouTube!) and several audiobooks. Right now, I’m just trying to finish all the audiobooks in my library that I never finished, except for the Bible which is 52 hours.
I’m also very devoted to my 91 year old client who will turn 92 next month. For one thing, she’s very nice to me. Kindness is worth a million bucks to me when it comes to elderly people. I’ve worked with some meanies. She’s also very generous and always lets me buy lunch on her card. I really want to stick with her until she dies. She doesn’t deserve to end up with a lazy or otherwise crappy person. There are a lot of crappy caregivers out there. Let them have the meanies.
Kevin’s stepfather is turning 87 this Thursday. He’s an avid Gardner. He has a ton of tomato plants. I asked permission to plant a garden, and they gave me waayyyy more area than I could have imagined! In one of the areas, there was a lot of weeds and a lot of trash including 144 nasty mason jars. I spent this weekend clearing that area out and starting seeds with my daughter. I also found over 50 pots that they said I could use. I have no idea what to put in over 50 pots!! Kevin spent the weekend clearing all the weeds and trash from the front and back patios of the guest house. The last time I had a garden was in 2010 when Evita was 3! Then Kevin’s stepfather took Evita aside and taught her how to re-pot tomato plants. He gave her two tomato plants to take back to her dad’s house. She also learned to drive the mule. The mule is a small vehicle, not an animal.
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Cow Cuddling 🐄 🐮
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Part Four
There are some TNR cats that Kevin decided he can’t bring. It seems like everyone in the complex feeds them, and they’re fine. They don’t want to be trapped, and Kevin is going to miss them, so he might go back to check on them.
As for what the investors are doing with the place, I’m not sure. In the row of five townhouses that it was in, two were vacant and two were being rented by young families with small kids. Kevin was baffled how you could rent a place out that had bad foundation problems and pipes. I said they probably just gave it all a temporary fix. Kevin didn’t think they could do that. Then a couple days before closing, the investor said he was sending “his building people” to check the place out. Kevin said they mentioned just slapping plywood up there on the ceiling and painting over it. I said yup, that’s probably what they’ll do. The doors that are off the hinges will just be temporarily fixed, and probably the pipes will be the biggest issue for them. I could be wrong. I think they’ll just paint over everything and rent it out for about $1500 a month. The foundation in a shared wall unit cannot really be fixed without messing up your neighbors’ foundation even more. All five owners have to be on board with fixing the whole building. On top of that, the HOA will give them hell, but the investors have a legal department that seems to know how to handle HOA’s. Maybe the investors want to eventually buy all four other units? In my real estate class, I know there are strict laws about approaching someone to ask if you can buy their house. I don’t remember the details- I’d have to look it over to be sure.
In the end, I don’t know what their plans with the place are. I’m glad Kevin got out of it. Not going to lie, I also like him treating me like a queen because I connected him with these people. And yes, I know that unlikely to last “forever”.
Everything is moved into the guest house now, and as we “put stuff up”, I’m starting to realize how much of a difficulty I’m finding it to live with a man again. Evita’s father was the only partner I ever lived with. We got married in 2004 and divorced in 2010. Of course my last relationship was long distance. I stayed with him while I was there, but of course we never lived together.
I’m finding myself extremely nervous about every little thing. I keep asking Kevin, can I put scotch tape with the bag clips, can I put my fridge magnets on the front of the fridge, can I put all our extra sundries in a plastic drawer unit because that’s what I always do, and so many other little bitty things. I kind of broke down when it was time for dinner and I heated up some vegetable croquets. I put them on a paper towel in the microwave and literally asked him if that was ok. I wondered, he might be “anti paper towel in the microwave” for God knows, whatever reason. Who knows. He seemed bewildered. “Yeah that’s fine”. He said. I asked if he wanted me to put it on a plate, but deep down I didn’t want to dirty a plate when we were so busy. He was like, either way is fine. He honestly didn’t care.
It’s because Evita’s father was so extremely nitpicky about every little thing. I seemed to have forgotten how I would do one little minor thing a certain way, and he’d correct me in a pissed off manner. It’s been 14 years, so I just didn’t remember- until I started assuming Kevin was the same way. Kevin is not. I just have to tell myself, they’re different people. Kevin isn’t anal. Now that my daughter is almost 17, I wonder if she goes through the same crap with her dad’s nitpickiness as I did when I was married to him. I thought to myself, when she moves out and gets her own place, she’ll probably be amazed at all the things she’s able to do without her dad there. I felt like that in 2010.
After the croquets in the microwave, I had to take a break. I went to Walmart and got a few things that we needed and just browsed the Easter stuff for a while to decompress. Off topic, but Walmart has cute clothes right now too.
Monday, February 26, 2024
Guest House 🏡
Monday, February 19, 2024
Part two
This post is part two of my boyfriend selling his townhouse to investors.
His mom and stepfather, who are in their 80’s, have a large piece of land in Waller, Tx which is about 60 miles northeast of Houston. Kevin is able to move into the guest house until he’s able to find a place more in town. He still works for the inventory company, so he has to go everywhere for his job. Still, Waller is a bit out of the way. But it’s nice for now. The guest house is extremely nice and cute. But more on that later.
When he called his mom to tell her he sold it, he had her on speakerphone. Her reaction sort of shook me. She said, “You sold the townhouse? I didn’t know it was on the market.” (It wasn’t “on the market” as in, the MLS.). As Kevin told her more. She continued to ask questions like, “Did you hire a realtor? Did you do the showings? Did you have open house?” When I heard her asking these questions, I started cringing. She…. Must not have any clue what condition the place was in.
Kevin confirmed that his stepfather knew about the foundation issue, but maybe his mom just didn’t care enough to retain the information. I have sort of noticed that she’s one of those people that will just hear what they want to hear, even if you are firm with the exact opposite information. So she was completely out of touch with what condition the town was in- but the upside to that is that she’s actually so out of touch that she thinks $50K is full price. When we showed her the pictures of the ceiling, she said, “Is that the garage?” Kevin had to explain no, that’s the master bedroom. That was her mom’s old bedroom. She replied, “So it’s the garage?”
I started having a memory of one of my cousins. My cousin Sam passed away two years ago at the age of 70 from brain cancer. His mom and my mom were sisters. My grandparents had 7 daughters and no surviving sons- and Sam was the first grandchild who was a boy. So of course, he was spoiled and no one he married would have been liked no matter who she was. He married his wife in 1981. I was only 3, so I don’t recall this, but at the time Sam had this fancy expensive car. Fancy for 1981. He sold it when he met his wife, and the narrative in my family was that “she made him sell it.” Why? Because she’s such an evil witch of course.
With Kevin’s mom being a little clueless about the state of his home, I began getting scared that they’d see me that way. That I “made him” sell his house, when that’s not what I did at all. I simply called the ugly house people, asked all the questions, didn’t give them Kevin’s personal information, because I was curious. Kevin shared with me that the townhouse was his “prison.” When I worked with him at the inventory service, the company often paid the employees to go out of town. Kevin always refused to go out of town, simply stating, “I don’t go out of town.” The excuse he gave was his cats. I remember asking him, “Why don’t you just have your parents come over and feed the cats?” And that was the only time I ever saw him get pissed off. He said, “They can’t!” In a snappy tone. I wasn’t sure why, as they both still drive and are both in very good health. But he told me the other day that the reason he quit traveling was because he was afraid he’d come home to a catastrophic event at the house. Either it would be fallen down “and they would blame him” or the pipes would break and “they would blame him” for flooding. So when he called the owner of the company to tell her he sold the townhouse he also told her that he was able to travel again. I’m sure she wondered what it had to do with it, but that’s ok.
I love seeing Kevin so relieved. I can’t imagine being in such fear all the time.
So I in no way “made him” sell it. I simply did the leg work that he was mentally unable to do because of the mental health issues this place caused him. And then called him and informed him that he could. He was so convinced that “no one would buy it.” He was only thinking of it in the sense of selling it for full price to an actual family. He chose to sell it. He never knew there were so many investors out there willing to buy anything. And now I’m aware of how many of them there are too- because my own social media and Google ads are inundated with them.
The “no one will” thing is something I’ve struggled with a lot myself. I grew up with a lot of harshness around all the things that “no one would ever” do with/for me. In my younger years, there was a lot of yelling that no one would ever hire me, no one would ever date me, no one would ever marry me, if I had a product to sell, no one would ever buy it, if I had a business to start no one would ever be a client, no one would rent to me, no one would sell to me, and the list goes on and on. My life would be this huge impossibility of never being able to do anything. As the years have gone on, I have realized more and more how untrue that all is. It’s to the point where it’s even causing me a mid life crisis, and I wonder how wealthy I would be now if I never believed all of that.
I wonder how many people out there are struggling with something because they assume “no one would”. When the person who would is just down the street or a phone call away.
Sunday, February 18, 2024
A Man With Dreams Needs a Woman With Vision
The townhouse has a very bad foundation. It’s so bad that the ceiling is coming down. This is actually a picture of the master bedroom. In the vanity area leading to the bathroom, he concocted that structure to prevent the ceiling from falling further.
But with me taking real estate class, I wanted more information. One morning, I picked up the phone and called the manager of the Houston office of we buy ugly houses dot com. We have all seen their ads. It says “we buy ugly houses” and has a little character that looks like Oscar the grouch. I told this guy everything that I knew. I asked him if it was possible for Kevin to sell it to an investor with the problems that come with liability from the neighbors and the HOA. This guy assured me that “these situations”were what they specialize in. I didn’t give him Kevin’s address, as Kevin didn’t even know I was calling yet. But I did tell him the name of the complex and the intersection. I asked the ugly house man, “Are you familiar with them?” He just said “yes.” I asked further, “Are they difficult to deal with?” He simply responded “Yes.” I then asked “Well with them and how difficult they are, would you still buy it?” He said that this is his company’s speciality. So with all those answers, I went to Kevin fully aware that he might be upset at me for calling without his knowledge.
But he wasn’t. He was actually shocked. He told me, “If he can take on all the liability, then I would give him this place for free.” I said, “OK but don’t tell him that. Let him offer you something.”
I sat with Kevin while we spoke with ugly house man on speakerphone. Kevin was so nervous he was shaking. At one point in the conversation, I started massaging the back of his neck for comfort. At the same time, ugly house man said something and Kevin responded, “Yeah I know babe.” We both then burst out laughing trying to conceal the laughter. With his nerves, and my neck massage, he had accidentally called ugly house man “babe.”
Anyway, ugly house man went to Kevin’s place the next day at noon, but I couldn’t be there because I was working. When I got off at 2:00, I saw a text from Kevin saying that ugly house man offered him $50K for the townhouse. He’s buying it as is, and Kevin never has to worry about these “liability issues” ever again, whether they are real or imagined.
Closing day is on February 26th, the day after his birthday. There are a couple options, but whatever he chooses, I’m going with him.
I’m going to do a part two of this post when I feel like it. Kevin is now treating me like a queen and humming wedding songs under his breath. He also said I deserve a diamond ring. I said it doesn’t have to be a diamond. So I think it’s safe to say that whenever he gets settled, I may be getting engaged. And that’s crazy to me. My old boyfriend was totally against marriage and I have a lot of ppl on my life who also are.
I know that places like we buy ugly houses dot com are controversial- I agree with the controversy, and will touch on that in part two. But for right now, for Kevin personally, all things considered, it’s the best option for him. This is a person I have fallen in love with, who has been riddled with demons over this situation. His mental health took a nosedive over it. Now, “because of me” he claims, because he would have never called ugly hoise ppl, he’s not only free of all his worries but being free of all his worries also comes with fifty thousand dollars.
Friday, February 9, 2024
Hilarious Movie
My 91 year old client wanted to rent a movie called “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” the other night. I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. I googled the movie during the movie (my ex husband used to hate me for doing that) and found out that it’s a true story. I remember the anchor Marvin Zindler from my early years living in Houston- while googling the movie I told my client, “omg that character is actually supposed to be a spoof on Marvin Zindler.” She nodded and laughed. It was an absolutely hilarious movie. I was dead. My favorite part was when the sheriff went to visit the governor of Texas to try and prevent the brothel from being closed down. The governor said all kinds of things about the place, and the “Madame” who was Dolly Parton’s character- but it was all dressed up with “I don’t know her first hand of course- I just heard.” Lolol.