The Notice

Many years ago, I started the habit of waking up in the morning and saying, “Good morning, God,” rather than my previous habit of, “Oh God. Mornin.” It was a very deliberate practice at first to offset my daily struggle with the melancholies.

Since then, after several rounds with Rhonda Byrne and The Secret on my iPod, I have adopted a new habit of simply saying, “Thank you,” when I wake in the morning. “Thank you,” as I roll outta bed, “Thank you,” in the bathroom, “Thank you,” as I make my morning tea and so on. Sometimes I break right into singing a sanskrit chant, “Danuvad Ananda,” meaning “blissful gratitude.” I must admit, sometimes I “fake it til I make it.” In the evening, as I crawl into bed (the protective sealed, hand-me-down king-size that lies unsupported on the floor), I often look around my mostly bare, yet comfy space and say aloud, “I am a lucky, lucky girl.” And it’s true. I am a lucky girl. I know that. It is either miracle or luck that has me still in my Home-Sweet-Tree House.

After living here for about 12 months, the burden of too much overhead and not enough income was more than I could juggle. Other properties I owned needed minor repairs (and fiscal attention) or I risked losing the chance to acquire desperately needed tenants. The mortgage to my home was 30 days late and it would be another two weeks before I would see any more money coming in. Terrified and still unfamiliar with what a foreclosure looks like, I called the bank. I thought for sure they would send an officer out within the hour to rip me from my home. Rather, the patient man, with a southern drawl explained that I still had another 30 days before I risked being reported to the credit bureaus. He asked when could I make the next payment and why was I late. The honest answer was not anything I could say out-loud. He wouldn’t understand that I had just sunk $1000 into an investment property to fix a leaky roof and an algae infested pool. Instead I told him the overdue payment would be made in two weeks and two days from the date and that I was between jobs. The gentle man, with a sweet twang in his voice thanked me for keeping the bank updated, said he was making a note on the account and told me to relax and enjoy the rest of my day.

After hanging up the phone, without any thought I broke into sobs of relief and gratitude. Slowly, I walked around the apartment with one hand on my heart and the other touching doors, appliances, furniture, mirrors and cabinets as I repeated the mantra, “Thank you,” over and over again through streaming tears.



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My productive times swing at seasons that my inner clock seems to invent; for blocks of months at a time I’m an early bird and others - a night owl. I was in night owl mode and my early morning, private Pilates clients were becoming few and far between.

It’s not often that I have unexpected visitors coming through the gated community to my door at 6:45 am. So when there was a rapping and pounding at the sleeping-unit-with- a-view, it took a few moments to identify the sound, verify that was indeed my door receiving the notification and to finally find my feet beneath me. Then the pounding stopped. Clumsily, I grabbed something to cover my slumber bareness and investigate. As I made it to my bedroom doorway, there was a terrible, high pitched knock, like someone beating my front door with a rock. Confused and half awake, I opened the door to a 5’ tall, dry faced wrench with long, greying, stringy hair and a rock in her grip. The heaving Napoleon quickly shoved a clip board and a pen into my hands. “Sign this,” was all she said. Before I could scold her with my morning breath, the miserable twat left me with my foreclosure documents for 105 2E. Was the rock REALLY necessary? I mean, really.

That morning; March 20, 2008, I forgot to say, “Thank you,” upon waking.

This morning, almost two years later all I can say is “Thank you, I am a lucky, lucky girl.”

Hand Me Downs

If it weren’t for hand-me-downs, my cute little “Tree House” condo would have nothing more than paint, poorly laid tile and my laptop. Tonight, I’m scrubbing down the latest addition to my hand-me-down collection, a king size bed. Nothing else, just the bed. Anything is better than that deflating air mattress I have been camping out on since my return home months ago.

Just less than one year ago, I did have a mattress and an apartment full of useful things, like tables, chairs, lamps and kitchen utensils. That was before I thought the deal on the condo was a sure thing. That was before I sold, donated or junked all contents of my home and left the country. My plan was never to come back. Not to the States, not to Florida and certainly not to 105 Royal Park Dr, Apartment 2E. The night before leaving for Morocco, an ex-boyfriend called and was in a pinch, he needed a place to stay. I mailed the key for him to a mutual friend, “You can stay there until the papers are signed or the property forecloses. Sorry, there’s nothing in there but dust bunnies. Enjoy!” When my relocation turned into a vacation and I came back to 105 2E, I was fortunate enough that my “tenant,” left behind an air mattress, a coffee mug and a 2 quart sauce pan. Good thing I never minded camping.

Considering its history, this king size bed is in manageable shape. It came from my girlfriend’s bungalow. Her ex-husband just returned the king mattress she left in his house, so now I am the proud owner of the bed that was once hers. She had it for only a few weeks, because before that – it was at Mango Rob’s house, a Fort Lauderdale landmark nicknamed the “Urban Hostel for Wayward International Wanderers.” We call him Mango Rob and his home the Mango House because any given day in the summer, you can gather 200 mangos, easily, from his property and trees. Mango Rob has lost track identifying all who have lived with him over the years and he swears that I was one of them. I am one of the few wanderers who have not. Yet. Wouldn’t that be an ironic resting place for this bed? And there is a chance it could still return to the nearly famous, always hopping, Mango House “estate.” We have talked about it more than once.

“Sooooo, Tara Shea, what’s going on with your apartment?” (that has been an ongoing question for …..well, longer than I care to admit). “I dunno, maybe I’ll just leave the keys on the counter and walk away from it all,” I jest. Sorta. “I still need a house-mate and fast,” he enunciates his words, “I’m leaving again in a few weeks and don’t know when I’ll be back. Really cheap re-ent,” he sings as a last temptation. Mango Rob no longer calls Fort Lauderdale home, it is his hometown, but home is now in Manila,or someplace in the Philippines. He has some golf company he invented that is thriving there and wants to make sure he has reliable tenants before returning to his new home across the pond. “Mango,” I take a deep breath, “it could be next week, or next year. Or maybe some unknown benefactor of mine will drop dead leaving me a fortune and I can save the Tree House. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. In the meantime, you can’t beat the rent I’m paying.”

My condo/Tree House, sits in a quiet, gated community. Except for when the trains scream by, then it can get embarrassing, especially while on the phone with a client. Must sound like I’m living on the tracks in the ghetto from their end. This place has been a refuge from my “pioneering” days in a less desirable part of town. Investors were speculating that property in Progresso Park was going to be the new Wilton Manors, it only needed a couple more years for transition. My residency in that fruitless investment lasted only a year and a half. I’ll take the rumble of the train tracks blowing into my open apartment versus barred and barricaded windows any night. From my sliding glass door, the Tree House overlooks a canal that surrounds the apartment complex, on the other side is John Easterlin Park. It’s a lush county park, that was even more robust before hurricane Wilma. Despite the park’s loss of green, my back yard is home to fish, turtles, blue herons, white egrets, mischievous raccoons and tons of iguanas. I wasn’t living in 2E yet when Wilma ripped through here, but the neighbors say that John Easterlin’s foliage completely buffered the sounds of passing trains and traffic from the I-95 overpass. While looking for a (safer) place to live, I cockily informed my agent, who at the time was also my investment partner, “Don’t even bother showing me places west of I-95. I don’t live west of I-95 unless it’s also west of the Mississippi.” Three weeks after moving into my new Tree House, I’m heading east to run some errands and finally take notice of the overpass. Calculating the map in my head, I ask myself, “Wonder…. what that… is for….DAMN!” Of course, it could only be 95. That was not the first or last time Daniel Howards “yeah, yeah’d” me.

Even though I’m technically west of I-95, I love my Tree House, this is my little piece of solitude. Sometimes, too much solitude. It’s off the beaten path and nobody can just “swing by.” Three and half years ago, I moved in here with the intention of a house-warming/never-gonna-get-married party. That has yet to happen. Instead, 16 months after moving in, I had a Pizza, Painting, Potion Party. It was my birthday and I wanted these gawd awful beige walls with the 1980’s something, white stripes covered. So I bought a bunch of pizzas and paint, brewed this Ayurvedic concoction that is known to give a good buzz and invited all my friends to help. In two days, my living room was two-toned, perky green and my kitchen a very sunny, almost obnoxious yellow. It’s so freakin happy and took some getting used to. Now, over two years later, I still have yet to finish the base boards. At this point, though, I never know how much longer I will be here, so I hesitate to put effort or money into the condo.

The first project ever done was removal of the popcorn. What an icky job. But now my cement ceilings are smooth as a baby’s butt. And I love waking up to the turquoise blue ceiling in my bedroom. Below the dreamy ceiling are chocolate brown walls; the darkest brown I could get and still have low VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) in the paint. All the paint I have used is low VOC. There is so much I want to do here and just as much that needs to be done. The garbage disposal took a dump and has started to separate from the sink. I have a bucket in place to catch the constant leak. A copper (yessss, copper) pipe leading to the dishwasher snapped and I had to close the line. Why? Because getting started on that project I realized someone who knows just enough plumbing to be dangerous made a big confusing mess of ALL the plumbing under my sinks. The air conditioning is gurgling and showing signs of leakage, all the windows and doors need to be replaced, there’s no window treatments on the sliding glass doors that takes all your body weight to open, the tile in the bathroom is falling off, the tub faucet runs hot on the cold and cold on the hot and is nearly impossible to manage with slippery, soapy hands…. I could continue and even throw in a bit of a whine, but that’s not gonna get things done. Instead, I’ll just camp out here on my newly freshened and protection sealed, hand-me-down, king size mattress and sleep in the bed I made until circumstances change. And it has to change. It can’t go on like this for much longer.

It Started With a Plan

There was a plan. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. My family warned that I was moving too fast. They didn’t trust my judgement nor my agent’s intentions. And they were right. What goes up must come down. I got started in the South Florida real estate boom at the very beginning of the end. Only most of us, even the most shrewd, didn’t know it at the time.

My portfolio reads something like this: a discharge for bankruptcy, foreclosure on two properties, one house signed over to the second lien holder on a Quit Claim Deed, another condo in limbo with the banks, and my home, my sweet, comfy condo is in foreclosure. Let it never be said that I have not worked my ass off trying to find ways to make this better, but the tide has been stronger than me. I am learning when to muscle through and when to surrender. I have learned that there are no shortcuts, no one is going to do it for me unless there is huge gain for themselves and I have no business playing in a game where I don’t understand the rules. These past 5 years has been the most nerve wrecking, uncertain , informative and laborious ride of crests and valley’s I have yet known.

The journey has also been nearly incredulous. Humorous, at times even. And I can certainly say, “If I only knew then....,” and really mean it. Maybe my accounts will touch someone who is going through something similar and they will feel a little less dispirited. Or possibly someone considering a first-time-home purchase will gain new insight. Some of this stuff might get a little technical and confusing, and that’s the point. It has been technical and confusing. I still don’t understand all of what I am facing and working through. Don’t be intimidated or enchanted by the fast, confident dialogue and multi syllable jargon. Because that is how I was hooked and dragged to my financial ruins. No, I am not deflecting responsibility. I take full responsibility of my naivete and misplaced judgements. And I do so without regret. Much. I do so without much regret. These entries are of a little leaguer having the guts (or ignorance) to step up to the plate for the first time and swing without the T. True, odds are stacked against the Little Sport considering she’s facing the Big Boys and it’s a home game for them. But I always figured, I’ll never know how hard I can hit until I try.

So, where to begin?

Let me start here. Now. 12:53 am, in the comfort of my home, listening to white noise from the freeway in the distance. Counting my blessings for my cozy, (albeit, inflatable) bed, a refrigerator stocked with food, a few dollars in my pocket and a new Apple laptop (on loan until I pay it off from work). I’m not alone as I sit in my “home office.” I’m in the company of Foreclosure and he has hung around for sometime already. He’s like the Grim Reaper, hovering, waiting for the soul of my little nest. But even he can’t spoil the charm or take away the mojo of apartment 105 2E and I won’t give up without a fight. This sweet space can still become Home to a deserving buyer who scoops it up at a steal of a price in Short Sale. My hope, is that someone else can experience the comfort of this 800 square foot box, breathe new life into it - fix up the kitchen, bathrooms and replace the front door. For now, this place is still mine and it has been my refuge through the disappointments of failed relationships, a crash pad from the struggles of single handedly managing 5 investment properties (okay, maybe not single handed, but almost...you’ll see), an artist’s loft through design school, a home office for several attempted businesses, studio space for a budding hula hoop practice (may the skid marks be immortalized on the walls and ceiling) and my sanctuary where I have encountered parts of myself that may not have had the chance to surface anyplace but here.

And here I am, on the precipice again of another foreclosure deadline. I am grateful for the home I have today and excited by the uncertainty of tomorrow.