Looking for the Right House--Next Move, First Steps!

After living all over the world in a few various places, you have to ask yourself just where is home?

Sit down and think about what you want, what makes you happy.

 

For me, being from PA, the northeast, it's what I grew up with and what I also have fond memories of and what I want to surround myself with. Now I could very well live in many states and enjoy the nuances of each of them, but something keeps calling me back to PA. Although, after searching the past year or so and finding out all I have, I began to set my sights to Maine.

 

Yep, the frozen cold tundra of the Northern Woods. You might see that show on tv now, North Woods Law that showcases the game wardens up there in Maine, sort of like their version of COPS.

It has taught me a bit about Maine watching that show.

 

I began my search on Zillow.com. If you are not familiar with that site, it's very user friendly and does not take long to figure it out. You can have an account for free and save homes you like, create searches for what you are looking for and Zillow will even email you as often as you want with new listings or on the weekend it gives you a whole bunch of suggested property that fits your criteria. It's really brilliant! Has pictures and prices and all kind of information.

It is not, however, the most accurate nor up-to-date as say realtor.com or trulia.com although I suspect trulia is along the same lines as Zillow whereas realtor.com is a bit more current.

 

I wanted a good bit of land at first and even tried Land Watch but then after going to that Log and Timber show in PA, I was leary about buying land to develop. What if the land is not able to be developed? We'd be stuck with the land. Then all those trees that would be cut for a log cabin too? Yikes! Plus it would take a while. So, I began the hunt to find the right kind of property with an established house. Not too close to people, no one on top of you but not too far away from civilization.

 

I found that I could get a lot more for my money in Maine. Maine is the more repressed state in the US and many people have left it to move to other areas when some of the industries tapped out or boomed in other places. Still, many people do vacation in Maine in the summer, escaping the heat of their regular homes and having camps or cabins in the woods usually near a resort or such.

 

The property taxes are cheaper and there is a state sales tax in Maine. Still you could get a lot more property for your money there than in PA. Granted, yes, the winters are going to be harsher, colder, more snow and last longer, but the trade off from what I could see was worth it.

 

I had looked at several properties starting last fall and had narrowed it down to a few. Contacted my bank who offered a service to help you purchase a home and they sent us off to a realtor in Maine. This realtor contacted us and got on their 'portal' which is a real estate site with listings that are current and contain a lot more information than any of the other sites I mentioned above. It was great! Took me a while to get it figured out and to be able to maneuver myself through it. But once I did, it was fantastic. Then now and then, when a new listing came up, they would email it to me. Awesome!

 

I had passed up this one property that noted that they were part of an association, later it came up again and I looked more closely at it and found out it was not a Home Owner's Association as I had dealt with in Texas, but a Road Association instead. This is where the people along the private road got together and share the expenses of having it plowed and maintained. This is brilliant! Loved it and changed my whole attitude about it.

 

So the first step, was to contact the realtor to ask what questions I might have about the property and I was also able to find out they had 2 other people look at it just recently! OH NOOO!! The more I looked at this property, the more I liked it and wanted it. So I made arrangements with the realtor for a showing that very weekend (last weekend!) and flew up!

 

I got there before the realtor and waited for them to show up and once they did, we went to the door and the owners were there. I was told they would be and many times, most times, the owners were not but we were glad they would be to help answer the questions we had. They were a very nice elderly couple and showed us all around the house and we chatted for a while and they showed us how things worked and what they had done and added to the property and showed us the garage and everything. It was great! I fell more in love with it from the moment I got out of my car to have the wind whispering with the tall pine in greeting and welcome to the lovely home itself! I didn't get to look over the whole of the land down to the stream because there was still some snow back there and I didn't want to go traipsing off as it was a bit brisk out.

 

After that, we signed papers with the realtors to be assigned to them so they would become our realtors and represent us. Now you have to be careful here because if they are the seller's agent too, they could have a conflict of interest. In this case, the sellers had a different realtor than I did, so that worked out well.

 

Then, we had to take some time to think about the property and if that is what we wanted? Good question. I fell in love with the land and all the things I could do with it. But it is a big, huge, scary step! This is to be IT! The last one. The forever home. Oh boy is that a very scary step!

 

We took some time to think about it. Mull over pros and cons and sleep on it a couple nights. The more time went by, the more I wanted it however. Yes it is scary, but nothing ventured, nothing gained they say!

 

So then...the next step....was the bid! 

Looking for the Right House ---A Look at Delaware and brief glance to PA

We needed a quick place to land temporarily in Delaware as I wanted to spend some time with my uncle as well as be a bit closer to Maine than Texas was for my daughter.

So we chose the AFB here in Delaware, Dover AFB as they were renting to retirees due to the downsizing of the military and not having enough active duty to fill the homes. The rent was cheaper than what we were paying in Texas for our house payment. I was able to get a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath and 1 car garage on the corner towards the back of the housing area. I loved the location as it had a big yard that I could fill with my cemetery during Halloween.

Before even signing the rental agreement, I made sure they were going to be ok with what I was going to do not only out on the lawn, but also inside the garage for Halloween. They were excited to see this and eagerly welcomed us! I was so happy! Even more to not have to trim or mow the lawn nor weed the garden. WOW!

Luckily, our neighbors over the course of 2 years have been nice and quiet. Last year we had the big haunt for the 2nd time and it was even more fantastic than the first year.

Housing office was very friendly and accepting as well. As we signed the lease however for another year, our 2nd, we had been told at first that if we were to buy a house and had a year lease, they would be willing to work with us. But going in to sign for the 1 year, it was a completely different story, so sad, too bad. :( That was not good.

Having a tree in the yard and noticing that it had issues of something feasting on it, I went to the housing office to talk to them about it. They indicated they had the same issue with trees in the back of their building and the lawn maintenance didn't do anything about it, just let the trees die and then just planted new ones. I found this so incredibly sad that I was determined to help my tree. So I got some soaking liquid and spray and tried to save my tree. So far, it has not died. I will do the same again for it here soon and when the leaves come out.

We got told about the trash cans again. When you could put them down at the road for trash day and by what time you had to bring them in. This was not convenient at all and we just continued to do the same as we had before as it was close enough to the time at the very least the same days.

Last  year during October when I had just finished putting up the entire cemetery fence, the housing office told me I would have to take it down due to the bad storm coming our way. I was like nooooo cause it took us so long and we had secured it quite well having learned from the high winds in Texas. They still said they were about to send out an email about taking down anything outside. But the email I got said to secure or remove and luckily the hurricane did not come near enough to us. It would have been such a pain to have to remove that fencing tho' I would have if the storm had come this way.

Then came the inspections. It started out as annual inspections, checking your fire extinguisher, the smoke alarms and radon I believe it is. That's fine. Then they wrote us a letter to say they were going to do quarterly ones instead of annual. The letters of notice for this were papers taped to the garage door which we ended up missing a lot of those.
This was a pain and very intrusive to where they said they could enter the apt with just giving us notice and whether we liked it or not basically. This really bothered me. 48 hour notice for this was a piece of paper taped to my garage?

So now, I am at the point where my 1 year lease is up again. Last year the rent price dropped if we agreed to another year lease or it would go up if we did month to month so we signed another year as we were not quite ready to move yet as we had not yet found property in PA that we wanted.  By then, we were changing our mind for PA and looking to Maine.

This year, we got a nice letter saying how much they enjoyed us here in the base housing community but to sign a new 1 year lease, our rent would be increasing by $250. That was on the letter that was attached. In the email, it was stated it was to be even higher of an increase and yet even more if we wanted a month to month or a 7-9 month. This made no sense to us.

I wrote the housing office and got no reply as to the discrepancy in prices and then called only to leave a message and they are to call me back, which did not happen yet. :(

The pest issues here as far as ants were bad the first year. Their reply was to have someone come out only when needed. My answer was to have someone come out quarterly like the service I had in Texas. But as we didn't want to go that route, we got some ant bait ourselves and applied it around the house and have not had any ants since then.

I am getting tiny little roach like kinda bugs they are the size of the head of a pin however so not sure what they are exactly.

Of course spiders too now and then.

The other issue they have here is mold. So I am very vigilant about running the fan in the bathroom for a long while after a shower.

Inside the place, they had put laminate floors and this shag kind of dark rust carpet for the stairs and upstairs. They left the old cheapo tile linoleum stuff in the dining room and stuff in the kitchen. It is not nice tho' they thought it was all so pretty in the fake hardwood floors but laminate scratches super easy just moving furniture or a box around even. It's bad. Of course the carpets having cats is never a good idea.

The other issue I have about this place is the a/c unit. Several times it has frozen up on us. It has taken maintenance a while to fix it and yet still no one has given us a booklet on how to use the complex a/c and heating control panel. So we are forever toying with that to get the temperature just right. There is only one intake in the house, in the dining room and no filter on it. No filter on any of the outputs either. There is only one filter, locked up outside that we do not have the key for that sits in front of the unit itself. We have to ask maintenance to come out and change it if we want it done else they say they change it every quarter but when we moved in, it had not been changed since March and he thought it looked just fine and so never changed it. I finally broke down and got a very nice expensive filter for them to put in there instead of the cheapo ones they always use.

We keep sneezing in this house and my cats began to have asthma attacks. We believe it is allergies here in Delaware as well as the poor a/c unit here in the apt itself. Dust is horrible.

It has been nice however to hear TAPS play each night at 10 pm and then to hear reveille play in the morning at 7 am and retreat played at 5 pm. Going back to our days in the military brings a proud smile.

Also nice to have a gate guard to know we are secure but the bad thing is that any visitors or guests you have to go and sign them in at the visitor center with their driver's license and registration with them there as well. It's a huge task just for a visiting relative. :( More of a hassle.

Nice to be near the base for appts or going to the commissary or base exchange however, they charge a surcharge that goes to the military whereas there is no sales tax in Delaware so it's cheaper in Walmarts downtown.

And although Delaware has no state sales tax, they do have personal income tax and I was told that the food here is a bit more expensive to make up for that fact of not having a sales tax. Property taxes are also cheap here I've been told.
Every state will get you one way or the other however.

I didn't want to live here due to all the tourists and yes, humidity and it's crowded and it was the woods and mountains that beckon to me.

I had come here to be able to be closer to PA and take my time to look there for land and/or a home to move to. But the problem with PA is that it is becoming one big sand mound septic system. That's ashame. Plus it's expensive and you don't get much for your money in PA. It was hard to let go of PA and look to another state as I am from Pennsylvania. But I will not do that to the land, rip it up and drop a bunch of crap sand and muck onto it. I applaud the EPA in not wanting the waste to hit the water table, but their solution is not good for the land itself, you kill the land, the trees..the soil...no. Absolutely not!

We had gone to a Log and Timber show in PA as we had wanted a log home built for us if we found the right land. This was huge and a great education if you are looking for a log home, you will learn a lot! I will probably make a blog post about that later on. But if you get a chance to go, do so if you are thinking of getting a log home. Lots of vendors there and classes and you will get a lot of information on it. Just be sure you don't sign up for anything or else you will be bugged to death via phone all the time saying you won some trip or other and just have to sit thru their presentation and blah blah blah.

Unfortunately, it scared us away from it. Not only financially but how involved and how long it would take for us to move. The longer we've been here in DE, the more antsy we became to move.
After looking in two areas in PA and finding out about the septic systems, on top of my daughter having a car accident last year, that did it.


So I began to look to Maine....

Looking for the Right Home ---A Look Back at Texas

Now, I already had gone over about the place we had in Texas where we made the mistake of buying into a community with a Home Owner's Association. You can read about that experience here:

http://weirdnwonderfulnwackytips.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-buying-new-home-community-or-not.html

Having lived all over the world with being in the Air Force, gave us a lot of insight into different types of homes.

To look back at the Texas home, it was nice and big! It was a lovely home, a bit too big for our needs but it was really grand to be able to have a house built for you and with everything inside it that YOU pick out, down to the grout color even in the tiled floors! Can't beat that!

The mistakes here were:

A)Getting wall to wall carpet. Bad mistake when you have cats.

B)Choosing to live in a community with a home owners association that got to dictate to you how many pets and what types you could have, when you could have your trash cans out and how quick you had to be to get them in. When you could have your holiday decorations out and how quick you had to be to take them down. To keep your trees trimmed like truffula trees in Dr. Seuss' story The Lorax. Just on and on it went to the list of things you had to do, not of least was the dues you paid which were expensive like over $300 semi-annually. YIKES! Making you buy passes for your guests if they wanted to go to the community pool. Or that you had to keep up this wooden fence including painting it by a certain time or you'd be fined. Had to ask permission as to working on your garden or any major changes to it. If you didn't weed, you could be fined. The list just goes on and on really.

C)Even choosing Texas to begin with as it is so hot and humid that we were miserable in the summer time.

Now all that said, I love Texas, I do. I love many people who are Texans that live there. But although I spent 8 years there, I am not a Texan. My hero died at the Alamo, and I love and adore San Antonio but yea, I am a northern girl who enjoys the cooler weather and all four seasons and does not like humidity at all.

Texas however was fun. I got my own personal home haunt going that got bigger and bigger there each year. Met a lot of great people.

We had hail, so that the roof was pitted slightly but not enough to where I had to replace it although we sure did get bothered by a lot of roofing companies trying to tell you it needed it just after one hail storm.

We had two a/c units, one for downstairs and one for upstairs. This could have been expensive.

When we went to sell the place, unfortunately the people who were to buy it, lived in our community. They had an inspector come in and try to tell us we had to replace the roof and found this itty bitty scratch and this other one and all this little nitnoid things. It was as if they wanted us to fix it all so that they could move into a perfectly new house?! DOH! It was 8 years old, it was going to have dings here or there. We didn't even have little kids nor dogs in there but yea, the cats but they were fixed and declawed although that did not stop them from having accidents on the carpet. That was the bad thing.

So looking back, I would not ever buy into a community again. Not with a home owner's association and not to where you had neighbors so close to you like that. My neighbors were very nice however, so I got lucky.

I also didn't have any problems with anything being stolen, so again, I got lucky.

It was hard to be there for that many years when you've been in the military and used to moving every 4 years. 8 years was a long time.

We quickly did move however to take our daughter up to Maine and we landed in Delaware on an Air Force Base....

Looking for the Right New Home --Mobile homes

I thought I would blog about the experiences as I have them with buying a new home.

 

A look back however at some of the homes I've bought in the past.

 

We had purchased land before in Vermont, 11.4 acres and had a double wide put on it along with a detached 2 car garage.

 

We had decided to put the double wide atop the first hill on the property, about 1000 feet up. We had gone to one of those mobile sales parks where you can look inside all of them and pick out what you like and then go and order it. These are filled with all sorts of very creative ideas and I so enjoyed looking through all the different homes.

 

We found the land in the north western part of Vermont and went about getting it developed. It was scary at one point because they had to dig fairly deep to get the water for the well. The bad thing was for our neighbor, whose water pressure had dropped significantly because our well was up higher.

 

Warning there, if you buy a piece of land and it is lower than someone else, that may very well interfere with your own water pressure.

 

Also we had made the mistake of buying this in Vermont in the winter time and with a delivery date in Feb-March. This was at the height of the mud-season as the snow began to thaw and so it was very difficult to get the double wide up there, half by half as there were deep ruts in the mud on the drive that was cut.

 

Next mistake was in getting the double wide to begin with. Although aesthetically, it was gorgeous, structurally it was a nightmare. Cracker Jack walls were so thin! It was not put together well at all. Nothing solid about it and it was not long before we had leaks and mice. The leaks through the casement of the windows was so bad, I had gotten my son's marble-works toy and devised a set up for the water that was dripping so badly to be diverted down to the floor in a couple pots. This was from the ice backing up under the shingles and creating a dam. What would happen is that the sun would melt the snow, then at night it would freeze, becoming ice. More snow, or when it melted a bit more, it hit the dam and began to seep up under the shingles and then find its way through the window frames. This happened the very first winter. The mice came in as well looking to get warm, following the plumbing pipes and gnawing holes in the cardboard Cracker Jack walls. We had just gotten a kitten but he was only wanting to swat the mice to make them squeak and not kill them.

 

The one good thing was to have heating electrical tape that kept the pipes warm from freezing. This, however did not help the next owners that bought this place after us when Vermont had its coldest and most snowiest winters of all and the pipes froze and burst. 

 

But huge mistake was to have a double wide in Vermont at all for there is no pitch to the roof. So the 2 1/2 feet of wet snow remained on the roof and I was up there with either a shovel or paying someone with a snowblower to get it off due to the weight of the snow. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

The other bad thing was the long drive. It was not paved. Mistake. It was all mud and just a bit of rock but not enough. So when it snowed, there was pretty much no way we were going to get the car up the drive. So we would have to park at the bottom, walk up to the garage and get the sleds and bring them down and take out all the perishable grocery items and load the sleds up and drag them back up to the house.
The good thing about this was the ride back down and one that my kids loved to sled down the hill from the doorstep, 1000 feet down at top speed to catch the bus. They'd leave their sleds there in the morning and in the afternoon bring them back up. Bad thing was to make sure you didn't hit the spot that was mushy from the septic or the liquid manure that the farmer would deposit on the field there that we owned. We had let him do so as he was hay-baling that field to feed his cows and it saved us from having to mow it.

 

Luckily, we were able to sell the place, albeit at a loss and got out of there.

 

Even the shower rod ripped right out of the wall and anything heavy I tried to hang just fell down as there was nothing to secure it, not even anchors worked! It was all hollow.

 

Inside, it was gorgeous. Beautiful ivy wall paper in the kitchen and handwriting of poetry wall paper in the master bath and there was also a sky light over the garden tub. I kept waiting for that to leak but it didn't. The shower stall was very skinny. We had a faux stone fireplace that was just gorgeous in the living room, but I say faux for I couldn't believe it was real although it felt that way. The fireplace itself worked, wood burning. That was about it however. Had a laundry room very small but that was it. Pretty colors but that's all it was, dressing up a cardboard box with pretty paper. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths.

 

Now granted, it was quick, cheap and easy so we could land quickly after we retired from the Air Force, but it was a huge mistake. We should have gone with a log cabin kit instead. It would have been more durable.

 

The garage was sound, it was very nice. Tons of room and they even gave us extra power which was awesome, tho' at the time I wasn't utilizing it.

 

So if you want one of these mobile homes, double wides, it's best to keep them in the south where there is not a lot snow. And be sure you get them built more solid than what we did.

 

This was a big mistake and one I will not ever repeat.

Care Credit

As much as I have fussed about other credit card companies and banks, I want to give a huge thumbs up to Care Credit who not that long ago was taken over by Synchrony Bank.

Care Credit was owned at one time by GE Capital.

Some people have asked me what is Care Credit?
Well, I first came upon this with our dental office and I ended up with two accounts. One of them I used for the dental procedures that were just too expensive for me to afford any other way. The other account I ended up getting with them, was used mostly for pet visits as at the time, I had 5, yes, count them 5 cats! Talk about the cat lady!
But I am down to 3 as my daughter took 2 of them, thank goodness.

Care Credit is a credit card that is distinctly used for medical, dental and pet care bills. Once you go over a couple hundred dollars or more, they will give you interest free for a few months! I've had it go to like a year depending on the amount being charged and sometimes 6 months! WOW!
NO INTEREST until that date. BUT!
Yes, there is always a -but-, you have to pay off that amount charged and given a promotional credit by the due date or you WILL pay for the interest that is accumulated and held off until that date. If you are able to pay it off by that date, you don't pay ANY interest! Gotta love that! Just have to make sure you do pay it by that date and you are golden.

What is also nice about Care Credit is that when you make a payment, if you have a balance that does not have a promotional credit to it for some of it and yet some is under that special no interest for 'x' amount of time, your payment can go all for that promotional credit. If it doesn't, you can call them up and ask them to change it so it does. :)

I ended up with another Care Credit with them when I had a leak in the kitchen and the local plumber had us apply for it. I also had one other when we ordered an elliptical machine.
Again with promotional credits, no interest until the next year!

I have to say aside from USAA, Care Credit is a favorite credit card company for being so kind as to offer that 0% interest. And it's not just when you open up the card, it's anytime you charge a large amount. :)

So, THANK YOU Care Credit and thank you Synchrony Bank for not changing that practice when you took them over!

Awesome!

Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol (Spoiler Alert)

Well hello William Broad! 

 Billy Idol

Billy Idol recently came out with a book entitled: "Dancing With Myself".

I just had to get it and was very interested in reading it.

To back up a bit and share some background of me before I give my opinion on Billy's book...
I used to be a huge, avid reader as I was growing up. I went through so many paperbacks from historical romance to horror. I would just lose myself in the story and became part of it in my mind. It was wonderful! 
As I got older, I began to have a busy life, kids, career...and then the fatal blow to my reading enjoyment was the internet. Here is where I made some of my own stories in my head come to life with real interactions with others and I left the stack of books that I had accumulated to collect dust.
I kept on collecting books there for a while and eventually, that stopped too.

A few times I would try to get back into reading but my eyesight seemed to be not as good and a few times it would hurt to try to read the small print. So I left it go as I was lost in the internet. 

Over the years, I kept picking up books now and then, ones I would start to read, or I'd skim through them. I wanted to read them, just the hours and days kept slipping away from me and I never seemed to be able to finish them or keep up with them. Too much time would slip by and then I would forget where I was or even if I bookmarked the page, I wouldn't remember what all I had read before and would have to go back a few chapters until something sounded familiar.

Not good.

This past year, I came across a few books that were released that ignited my desire again to want to read. Namely, a lot of Pagan books by authors who I had met and I was intrigued and wanted to hear their voices in my head as I read. They are wonderful but I couldn't seem to keep the new routine going in reading no matter how interesting their books are. It wasn't the subject matter, but it was me and the addiction to the internet and playing a few games each night before I went to bed. Not to mention having a video projection going on in my room and I would have to stay up with it and wasn't getting proper sleep so I would be exhausted by the time I did get to sleep.

Billy Idol's book was no different than the other ones I had purchased. I was excited to read it and picked it up and read a couple chapters in between Halloween and Xmas video projections but I had to put it down again until the video projections/holidays were over.

I have a nice stack now there at my bedside, waiting for me and the one on top is Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself". 

I am about a decade younger than Billy, but I grew up listening to some of the same music as he had, the old country music. My dad wouldn't let us have any rock and roll in the house if he could help it. He barely tolerated my older half sisters listening to Al Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, or Queen as it was and I am sure they listened to that mostly when he was away at work. I had nothing but country records in my room and it wasn't until I was on a school bus or got my own transistor radio that he won for us kids down the shore that I actually could listen to something other than the classic country that I loved, while away from the house. I heard Eagles and Beach Boys and all the greats back then in the 70s. No way would I have been able to listen to anything really heavier than that.
Once I got into junior and high school, I was exposed then to more rock and roll beyond Elvis. It was the Cars with their Candy-O album that really sent my head in a whirl. Friends were listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, and Molly Hatchet to name but a few. There was this big rivalry in fact between Pink Floyd and another band, I forget now who it was. We also listened to Journey and Styx. I heard of Billy Idol in passing, some of his songs had come out but the bus was always filled with the other stuff mostly. Yet I kept getting drawn to Billy's music.

I went into the AF and when I met the man who I would end up marrying at a young age of 19, he had invited me over to his room to 'see his VCR'. Yea, I know it sounds like come and see my tapestries! But I did and that's when I first saw MTV. WOW! Here was the music I had heard being played and performed by the artist themselves in these really cool videos! That's when I first saw Billy Idol. His "Eyes Without A Face" video captured my attention.

 Each time it came on, I had to turn that volume right on up and sing with him, eyes glued to his every move, his every look, just mesmerized by his big blue eyes and his bleach blonde hair and his crazy outfits, the snarl and sneer and curling lip, heck even the fist pump. The women in the background smacking their behinds was hot! I loved it all! He was amazing! IS! I always felt he could have sang more ballads and love songs with how his wonderful voice sounded in this song. I was in love!

I loved his other videos too, "Flesh For Fantasy" struck a chord and of course he had so many great hits, "Mony Mony", "Dancing With Myself", "Rebel Yell", "White Wedding", and "Hot in the City". To this day I like to play his "Dead Next Door" for Halloween.  His music was amazing! I knew my father would be just groaning away to know how much I loved Billy's music. But it was freeing and sexual and expressive and I loved it all. I didn't really know many other Billy fans. The songs were played on the radio a lot and they were catchy tunes that just got you hoppin and boppin and wanting to get out there and dance and be wild and crazy!

I got stuck on those songs and all the music from the 80s. I slipped back to the 70s and 60s and heck, I even began listening to 50s and 40s! I couldn't take much of the 90s though and that's why I just remained listening to what is now considered the classics. I didn't care for the techno music, nor much heavy metal. I always said that Billy Idol was as heavy metal as I got and yes, I knew he was really punk rock. That's as far as I went. So I ignored most of the music that came out in the early 2000s and even to this day, not much I really like. I saw myself becoming more like my parents in staying back listening to the good ol' oldies. I even went back and listened and enjoyed some old radio programs and big band and classical music and an old boyfriend even had me listening to a few opera pieces. So I never realized or knew that Billy went quiet for a while or that you just didn't hear much from him. I had my favorites, my classics from him and that's where I stayed, happy.

Insert internet again and years and years later, finally, after much prodding and bugging from friends, I got on Facebook. That opened up a huge world even more to me. I saw my daughter had liked Billy Idol's page and oh I was excited and quickly liked it too so I could follow and see what he was up to!

www.facebook.com/BillyIdol 

How many times over the years he would come to mind or I saw his videos or heard one of his many great songs that I'd sing along with!? I saw him talking of coming out with new music and I was like wow! Where have I been? But it seemed I began to follow him just in time. Not only was he coming out with a new cd, but he was coming out with this book, his first and all about his life! Oh wow! After listening to and watching his videos, this just had to be a really interesting book and one that I knew I would want and was anxious to read.

I wasn't sure what to expect as he said on Facebook that it was a pretty raw book that openly talked of his drug use and sexual adventures and hoped his fans would have his back. You have to love that kind of honesty. I guess I always kinda figured about the drug use for most rock and roll stars, heck most celebrities for that matter, sadly enough. But here he was, openly admitting to it all? Wow! Only Billy Idol would be that bold and in your face I thought. I know others have openly admitted and said, but it just felt like he just puts it all out there, like it or not. 
So when I began to read his book, I have to say I was just gurgling with delight and surprise to read of his childhood and in growing up. Such parallels to my own in music alone as to what he and I both were exposed to. I wanted to reach out and tell him, HEY! I understand that and wow! we have that in common. Sometimes I think I lived a unique childhood in being brought up with that old music, but I realized I am one amongst the many. I did know some had too and most rejected that music but here, I was reading this man who I had 'Idolized' in some ways, that I saw on the opposite end of the music spectrum and yet he liked and grew up with several of the same artists. Not only that but he talks of many things that I knew of too where he grew up and the times he went to NYC. I was just enthralled. 

Yet, as I mentioned, I had to put the book down with the video projections going on in my room. I tried to read a chapter a night until the holidays interrupted that. So finally, when the holidays ended, I was able to pick up his book again and this time, I was hooked and had to make myself put it down to get some sleep, but it was really hard as I wanted to read on and on. As I reached the end, I slowed again and I didn't want it to end now realizing I only had a few chapters left.

What is kinda funny and perhaps very naive, is that I always thought that when you were a star like on MTV or just in rock and roll with so many great hits, that you must have some good money. To read that was not the case so much with Billy as he was just becoming famous or known, yet his music was all over the place to me, how could he not? Perhaps the drugs, or the flying around, I imagine he must have had to pay for all of that too. Yet still, I would have thought he had more at the start of it back then in the early 80s at the very least. Later, he did it seems from some of the money he paid out for things, places he went and how successful the records became.

Reading of his girlfriend, Perri, just made me smile. I was so glad to read of him finding love. Although I had a feeling something was going to go wrong in their story, still I had hope that it would work out in the end. 

I couldn't help as I was reading of his timeline and where he was or what he was doing in any given year, to compare to my own life and wonder where I was at, at that moment. While he had returned to NYC, I was there in PA or just upstate NY perhaps camping or down the shore in Jersey. How close and such a world away in comparison.

Reading of his love for his kids just really made me smile. More of his songs come to mind as well that came after "Rebel Yell", like "Cradle of Love" and "Catch My Fall". How so little we realize as an audience how some of our favorite artists are hurting inside. What struggles they are going thru whether it is drug addiction with themselves or managers or just falling into temptation to things that they know is wrong or bad and yet, whatever it was caused them to not be able to help themselves.

There is so much in the world that we can find and experience that are natural highs. Ones that won't destroy our bodies, mind or spirit. It's not an easy road tho', that's for sure. But I believe that if we can do those things, if we can find them, that we can have an epiphany and a great realization comes over us and well, we just have a WOW moment and realize you don't need the drugs and booze.

Billy is quite candid tho' in detailing of his life, his addictions and adventures.

One part of his book that kinda threw me a little as I was reading was that he talks of his accident in the beginning and then goes back to the start when he was very young and then when you get to that part of his life with the accident, the chapter kind of jumped to it and I kept flipping the page to see if I missed something and then remembered the beginning where he talks of it and how it happened. I would have preferred he went over it again when you reached that point in the book.
To be critical of the book in that way and also there are a few typos or things that the editors didn't catch when printing, maybe misprint. I only catch that sort of nitnoid stuff because I am a writer and loved English class.

Finishing the book, I have to say that I am left with the feeling about Billy, well actually a single word. Courage. He's faced some pretty hard and harsh things in life. Held fast to his belief in his music and never afraid to try something new, even if some of those new things harmed him. I think a lot in life that is out there will do that to you, knock you down and pick you up, it's just a matter of us choosing in some degrees and helping ourselves to pick ourselves back up too.

Of course the drugs were the saddest part for me along with the love lost. The drugs really harmed him more than even physically, causing such damage to so many relationships. But the brightest spots of course are his children now grown! Wow! I could hear the pride in his words and feel his heart swell in talking of them. I still will hope for he and Perri. Maybe one day. I like how he thanks his band members throughout the book at times or managers, friends and there in the end to hear of his family and I was feeling tears fall down my cheeks as he talked of his parents, his dad especially.

I don't know a lot about music, how to write it, lyrics--writing I know, but not the music and yet reading of how he wrote it and everything he has done and gone thru that he shares of, really opens up my eyes to such a whole other world. 

This book was well written and it was like you were sitting down next to him and listening to him tell the tale, just chatting with you. I really enjoyed reading of the life of William Broad, Billy Idol. After listening to his music and then reading his book, I understand a whole lot more of the music and now, I want to go and get the cds of his other albums that I missed out on. And me missing out on them, wasn't so much indicative of Billy, but more of my own life and where I was at, at the time. I feel like I must have been sleeping. I look forward to hearing his other cds and I feel like I will be able to appreciate his music in a whole other way than I had before.

Thank you Billy! You are a true wonder and I wish you love, peace, and a long healthy life.

Think Geek!

From time to time, I run across a really neat site on the internet and I wanted to share this one! In fact, it has inspired me to go ahead and start a list of links off to the right of some sites that have some really cool items for sale!

This site has some really interesting and fun items like an R2D2 USB Car Charger, furry adventure slippers that look like big foot or animal slippers and even a robe that they call Technomancer and yes, even a lightsabre!

Just a lot of fun items!

So I'll be adding them and as I go along and dropping a quick little blerb here like this for the site to give you a heads up that I found something interesting. Feel free to drop me a line if you find one that you think might be interesting and I'll add it on too! :)

Enjoy!