For those who don't know me, I thought I'd clarify how we came to be in a position to have to fix up five houses in five years. It didn't exactly happen on purpose, at least not all of it.

Fixer number 1 was our own house that we used to live in. It was pretty dilapidated then and has needed constant attention the whole time we've owned it. We were really poor when we bought it. It was the only one we could afford. It wasn't financeable, which was good for us as we'd had a major hick-up in our employment and finances and couldn't qualify for a loan. We knew the owner would have to carry a contract so we made an offer with a 15 year payoff and she took it.

It has always been crucial to me to own the home I live in, partly because I want to be able to paint and plant, but also for security reasons. We'd had to move two other times on the whim of our landlords, who happened to be a friend in one case, and my dad in the other. It's hard to move a family of seven! Not wanting to do it again we bought the dumpiest house in town rather than be vulnerable to that.

Anyway, our financial stability increased, our credit improved, we'd been working on the house all along, and after ten years we decided to refinance. We needed the money to put on a new roof and pay off other debts we'd incurred fixing the plumbing and wiring and such.

About this time our neighbor, who was also my best friend, had decided to move. She'd tried to sell her house but there were no takers. She was going to give it back to the former owner who was carrying the contract. He was elderly and didn't want the house back. We traded our car to our neighbor and took over the loan.

That was fixer number 2. We put a lot of money and work into that home! About the time we were finishing, our daughter came to us with a family that was desperate for a place to live. My soft heartedness got the better of me, even though I knew they would not be able to pay full rent. They promised that their grown sons would soon be working and could help with the bills. Trusting, I erred on the side of optimism.

They lived there six months, disregarded every facet of our contract, and came up short on the rent every month. To top it off, I learned that the husband had bragged about suing every landlord he's ever had! When I learned that they were allowing other people to live there, all of them ex-convicts, I decided I'd had enough. To avoid a legal battle I served them an un-contestable 30 day notice.

As I should have expected, I never saw a dime of rent that month. What I did see was the whole lot of them walking home heavy laden with bags of booze... presumably for a party. I remember thinking at that moment...'I guess they wanted to go out with a bang'. I was very ill that day and didn't have the energy to give it another thought. I went to bed.

That evening I was awakened by a pounding at the door. It was the son, who said he needed to call 911...the HOUSE WAS ON FIRE! I gave him the phone then looked out the window toward the house. Sure enough, giant flames were reaching up through the laundry porch windows! I asked if everybody got out. He said they did.

The fire department was a stone's throw away. We could see them from the house! But it seemed like an eternity before they got there. During that time we realized that two people had gone back inside and not come back out! We called 911 again and all they could say was that they were on their way. In the time it took the fire department to get there the entire house was in flames! Two people died, my tenants that I was trying to evict.

An investigation followed. The fire marshal determined that the cause of the fire was arson. Turns out that one of the ex-cons that were living there without my consent was a known arsonist. It's not determined for certain, but it's my opinion that he started the fire in retaliation for the eviction. Because it originated in the laundry room, I think his intent was merely to do some damage, not burn the whole house down, let alone kill the people who took him in.

The house was insured in the name of the contract holder and for awhile there it was kind of iffy whether they would pay. Fortunately, they did... but not without deliberating for almost a year. In the mean time, we were left to make mortgage payments on a charred wreck with a whole lot of negative associations.

The payment went to the person who carried the contract on the house. He wanted to pay off the loan that he still had on the house and give us what was left over. It wasn't enough to build new, but it was enough to buy a used manufactured home and have it moved onto the lot, which we did. That was fixer number 3.

By this time we were pretty disgusted with living in town. The house fire was merely the icing on the cake of many unpleasant experiences we'd had there. Suffice it to say that drugs, theft, kid troubles, and people who generally don't care who they harm were a big part of our experience. We wanted to put some distance between us and all that.

So, when we happened upon a foreclosure three miles out of town with nothing but cows, pastures, trees, and mountains to be seen from every window. We made an offer. Never mind that the plumbing had frozen and shattered, and the roof that leaked had caused parts of the ceiling to fall down. It lay in a moldering heap on the floor. It was unlivable then, but the lot was worth more than what they were asking. We knew we could do something with it. That was fixer number 4.

That house, though just a manufactured home, was and is my favorite. I have never enjoyed living anywhere as much as I enjoyed living there. It had a huge master suite, a real dining room, and an expansive deck looking out over an eternity of green. I had found my peace.

Then my father-in-law passed away and we inherited the house we're in now, fixer number 5. If Hubby's mom, who lives about five miles away, hadn't been diagnosed with dementia, I doubt we would have uprooted ourselves to move to this place. Now that I've been dealing with it, though, I realize it was probably the only way to get this work done. Anyway, here we are... and it'd better be the last fixer I ever have to do!