So, Chris and I rented our house out for a year. The tenant’s lease has just ended and we have informed them that we’re not renewing. They are not too happy with this decision and the retired gentleman confronts my husband and our agent on the front lawn with a baseball bat. BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER. I MEAN WORSE. IT GETS WORSE. Once the tenants have vacated the property, we are left with the aftermath. They managed to break, dirty, or otherwise destroy almost every square inch of the house. They violated multiple conditions of their lease including, but…

When Frack and I met, he owned a house that he had purchased at the tail end of 2005 – in other words, the height of the real-estate bubble. It was a pretty nice house, about 1800 sq ft with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It had an open floorplan in the kitchen/living area, and the master bedroom was a generous size with a walk-in closet. We spent a couple years putting some sweat equity in it – landscaping the backyard, painting walls, putting in new wood flooring, etc. However, no amount of sweat equity was going to make up…

I spent the past weekend in Vegas with my husband and some of my good friends. Although we had a fantastic time, I noticed a few changes from the Vegas of my early and mid twenties. I present to you: The Top 5 Signs You Are Getting Old(er) – The Sin City Edition The Casino employees stop having to verify your ID card’s authenticity with their supervisor. In fact, they stop carding you alltogether. During the cab ride, you don’t bother asking which casinos have the best mile-high margaritas or which after-hours clubs are the most happening. Instead, you discuss…

How to protect your hot tub awning from blowing over in a dust storm? Two words: Ratchet straps.

Because apparently the Warrior Dash wasn’t enough adventure for the month of May, Chris and I, along with 10 or so of our friends, signed up to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. This is the conversation that was had about two weeks before The Event. Co-worker: Oh, you guys are going skydiving out at that place in Jamul? Us: Yes, that’s the place! Co-worker: My buddy used to work at that place, I know it pretty well. Lots of people around here skydive there. In fact, do you know that older guy who works for one of our…

So at the beginning of May, Chris and I participated in the Warrior Dash, along with some good friends of ours. To put it mildly, none of us had really spent much time on those things that people typically do before running a race, like “training” and “eating healthy” or even “stretching.” Except Payson’s wife, who happened to do all three. We had a friendly bet amongst the four of us. It was girls against boys, and whoever lost had to cook a fancy dinner for the other two. The winners got to dictate the menu. Now, who won the…

My husband, for those who don’t know, grew up in Iowa. He was raised on a farm (really!) growing corn and hogs and plus this one lady wrote a great book about their library cat. And also, in case you didn’t know, my husband has a twin brother. My husband and his twin — Frick and Frack to you — have been farming corn since they were knee high to a grasshopper, or something like that: But now we live in southern California. And Frick has come out to live in California, too. So what did these two boys do?…