A scant few days after my beloved Fluffy (see below) succumbed to cancer and crossed that Great Divide, the County informed me that they had yet another Great Divide ready for crossing — and this one was for me: Yes, they informed me that they would be starting foreclosure proceedings against me in early November. Something to do with the endless, endless, ENDLESS property taxes that have dogged me since the moment I moved in here!

(Just a head’s up, gang: When you’re thinking about buying a home and you look at that MLS figure that tells you  the amount of property taxes that were paid that year, make sure you look deeper and determine the amount of taxes that were actually owed. HUGE difference in some cases, i.e., mine.)

Anyway. I have held on long enough. $37,000 worth of property taxes and 10 years later, I’m done with it. I cannot cough up $8,000 more. I am so ready to move on!

So I basically told the County, “Okey-doke,” and then promptly closed the book on this long, arduous, and mostly unpleasant 10-year passage of my life…

YESTERDAY I sold my house, as-is, to some local re-habbers who will put the $30K of needed repairs into the house and then just rent it out and wait for the bulldozers to come, as they most definitely will. One of these days.

But what a relief! Finally. I will be downsizing to a much more affordable house with a fraction of the property taxes. I will finally have my life back. I can travel when I want (or need) to. I can do things like take days off, and turn down projects that don’t thrill me. I can focus on what makes me happy again and not simply struggle to keep a leaking roof over my head.

One lovely thing, though: the re-habbers actually really love my sweet little house.  And I know they will bring it back up to its potential before they rent it out. I’m happy that they will take good care of it.

Oh, I meant to update you eons ago, but my writing projects (yes, that’s plural now!) and the production company in L.A. are yielding some incredibly exciting stuff for me; and the NY stage project is proceeding full-speed ahead. So all I need to do now is pack up everything I own, including 9 unsuspecting cats, 8 of whom were born here, and sally forth into a new era of my long, flabbergasting life!!

Ahoy, maties! Onward into that New Frontier! Thanks for visiting, gang! See ya’ real soon!