Our daughter bought us a new home after ours was destroyed by a hurricane. She sold it a year later.
Mercifully, our bed was under a portion of intact roof, so we could sleep dry. However, the ceiling had collapsed over the part of our home we designated as an office, and every time it rained, the tile floor morphed into a pond, so we often needed boots to walk around.
We tolerated this scourge for five months, until our daughter, Caroline, an international runway model and Yoga studio owner based in LA, called us with good news.
She said she'd been approved for a mortgage and wanted to buy us a new home, wherever we wanted.
We thought it was a good opportunity to be closer to our other two daughters in Washington D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, but we also wanted to stay in Florida. Ultimately, we decided to venture six hours northeast toward Jacksonville.
We moved into "The Palace"
Caroline found a home for $325,000 in a lovely neighborhood with a community pool, weight room, and bike paths.
We called it "The Palace" because it was so roomy and beautiful. The cherry on top was when Caroline called us and said, "Oh, and by the way, I'm having the sellers put on a brand new roof."
In early 2023, we sold our mobile home and immediately loaded up our moving truck and made our way to the house Caroline had bought for us.
During the first rainstorm in our new home, I couldn't help but think of how we'd gone from frenetically grabbing buckets when thunderstorms threatened our old roof, to enjoying the peaceful pitter-patter of raindrops on our new one.
We didn't stay long
We felt adventurous, traveling from southwest to northeast Florida.
We attended a Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp minor league baseball game, where I rescued an errant baseball. We took a day trip to the Jacksonville Zoo, laughing out loud at the Chimpanzees' acrobatic antics.
It wasn't all fun and games. We struggled to adapt to Jacksonville's chilly winter. We were also surprised that the new people we met were taciturn at best.
Anyone in our old neighborhood could be counted on for an impromptu, upbeat chat or would help you with any home maintenance in a heartbeat. We didn't feel the same about our new neighbors.
Right after Christmas, nine months after we moved in, Caroline's beloved cat got sick, and the vet bill was considerable. I realized she wasn't going to be able to afford it on top of paying the mortgage for the home she'd bought us, and the rent for her apartment in Santa Monica. My mind whispered, "Uh-oh."
The money we were able to contribute, $500 a month, was lower than her mortgage of over $2,000. She was a champion soul to give us this incredible gift, but it was taking a heavy toll on her.
We had to do something
We took money out of our small savings and contributed that. The cash was merely trying to empty the ocean with a thimble, though.
We asked her if she wanted us to help her sell the home, relieve her of that financial stranglehold. As a businesswoman and a go-getter, Caroline did not want to give up, though.
She decided to turn the house into an Airbnb, which would hopefully produce more income than what we were paying.
She flew from California, and together we all chipped in to help decorate and get the space ready for her potential guests.
Between Goodwill and Facebook Marketplace, Caroline accomplished a lot with very little cash. She found framed pictures to grace the walls, bought comfy outdoor furniture with a fire pit, and placed scented candles in every room.
We returned back down south
Meanwhile, we pursued our own mortgage for another mobile home back in southwestern Florida and moved back about 14 months after arriving in Jacksonville.
Ultimately, the money Caroline brought in for the Airbnb was not enough to cover the mortgage, but she was happy she'd tried.
We drove back up north to help her scrub, stage, and show the place, and she got a buyer within three months. She was happy to break even on her home sale.
It's such a shame these mortgages are so killer these days. It feels as if young buyers are like kayakers trying to paddle up a waterfall.
Despite the outcome, we will never, ever forget our daughter's caring largesse.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
How climate change is raising your grocery bill
A 300% spike in Australian lettuce prices. A 50% rise for European olive oil and 80% for U.S. vegetables. Researchers from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the European Central Bank have traced back those price jumps to extreme weather they say is linked to climate change. The group analyzed 16 weather events around the world between 2022 and 2024. Many were so unusual that a given region had experienced nothing like it prior to 2020, according to the analysis, which was published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters. 'Unprecedented conditions are set to become increasingly common across the world,' the study's authors said. 'At the same time, new records for extreme conditions will continue to be set, further from those to which agricultural production and economic systems are currently adapted.' Climate change brings with it higher temperatures and extreme rains, which can lower yields and make the crops that are harvested more expensive. British households' food bill, for instance, was about $484 more in 2022 and 2023 due to climate change, according to estimates by the nonprofit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. (ECIU staffer Tom Lancaster was a co-author of the new study.) Consumers globally say they are feeling the effects of climate change on their grocery bills, making food unaffordable for some and posing a challenge for central bankers trying to tame inflation. Here are a few of the price hikes the researchers identified: In 2022, California registered its driest three-year period ever recorded, leaving nearly a million acres of farm fields unplanted and producing initial crop revenue losses of nearly $2 billion that year alone. Arizona, which grows most of the country's winter lettuce supply, also saw reductions in the amount of water the state received from the Colorado River, due to a drought-related water shortage in the river basin. These conditions in two major U.S. agricultural states, paired with Hurricane Ian hitting Florida, contributed to a more than 80% hike in the country's vegetable prices compared with the previous year. A heat wave that warmed Asia last year to temperatures as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit was one of the disruptive weather events that led to vegetable prices in China rising more than 40% between June and September. Hot and dry conditions also left South Korean cabbages nearly 70% more expensive than the year prior, according to local media reports. Napa cabbage is commonly pickled into kimchi, a staple local dish, and the government has utilized national stocks to bolster supplies. Eastern Australia faced record-breaking extreme flooding in early 2022, which was soon estimated to be Australia's costliest ever flood and its fifth most costly disaster. A resulting lettuce shortage led shoppers to complain about prices of around $7.81 for a head of iceberg lettuce. The Guardian reported that was a more than 300% price increase. Fast food chain KFC even began substituting in cabbage in its burgers. Prices tend to respond as soon as one or two months after an instance of extreme heat or drought, said Max Kotz, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. He and the other authors also looked at how unusual weather events were for each region, based on the distribution of measures such as temperature over time. They found that heat, drought and floods were occurring at an increased intensity and frequency. El Niño, a climate pattern that occurred from 2023 to 2024, likely also influenced the extreme weather observed, the authors said. These kinds of food price shocks typically turn out to be short-term in nature, because high prices incentivize more production, which brings prices back down, said Andrew Stevenson, a senior climate analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. Products such as coffee and cattle are the exception, because they require certain conditions such as a tropical climate or large swathes of land for grazing that limit where they can be grown and bred. Coffee and cattle futures, contracts that represent near-term pricing in those markets, have marched up in price since 2020 — in contrast with futures for a crop such as corn that's more easily grown. New U.S. tariffs could further squeeze farmers abroad, Stevenson said. 'It puts producers in an uncomfortable position where the price of beef is too expensive to sell at home but not expensive enough to sell with a 50% tariff,' he added. Extreme weather is only expected to continue, and the study recommends that countries consider policies that will help consumers manage rising food prices. Ultimately, though, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and containing global warming will be key to reducing food price inflation risks, the authors said. Climate forecasts can also provide early warnings, and farms can implement adaptations such as irrigation, though both approaches have serious limitations. Court writes for Bloomberg.

Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business Insider
Our daughter bought us a new home after ours was destroyed by a hurricane. She sold it a year later.
On September 28th, 2022, Hurricane Ian confiscated half of our mobile home. We watched, spellbound, as that monster tore away a huge chunk of our living space. Mercifully, our bed was under a portion of intact roof, so we could sleep dry. However, the ceiling had collapsed over the part of our home we designated as an office, and every time it rained, the tile floor morphed into a pond, so we often needed boots to walk around. We tolerated this scourge for five months, until our daughter, Caroline, an international runway model and Yoga studio owner based in LA, called us with good news. She said she'd been approved for a mortgage and wanted to buy us a new home, wherever we wanted. We thought it was a good opportunity to be closer to our other two daughters in Washington D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, but we also wanted to stay in Florida. Ultimately, we decided to venture six hours northeast toward Jacksonville. We moved into "The Palace" Caroline found a home for $325,000 in a lovely neighborhood with a community pool, weight room, and bike paths. We called it "The Palace" because it was so roomy and beautiful. The cherry on top was when Caroline called us and said, "Oh, and by the way, I'm having the sellers put on a brand new roof." In early 2023, we sold our mobile home and immediately loaded up our moving truck and made our way to the house Caroline had bought for us. During the first rainstorm in our new home, I couldn't help but think of how we'd gone from frenetically grabbing buckets when thunderstorms threatened our old roof, to enjoying the peaceful pitter-patter of raindrops on our new one. We didn't stay long We felt adventurous, traveling from southwest to northeast Florida. We attended a Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp minor league baseball game, where I rescued an errant baseball. We took a day trip to the Jacksonville Zoo, laughing out loud at the Chimpanzees' acrobatic antics. It wasn't all fun and games. We struggled to adapt to Jacksonville's chilly winter. We were also surprised that the new people we met were taciturn at best. Anyone in our old neighborhood could be counted on for an impromptu, upbeat chat or would help you with any home maintenance in a heartbeat. We didn't feel the same about our new neighbors. Right after Christmas, nine months after we moved in, Caroline's beloved cat got sick, and the vet bill was considerable. I realized she wasn't going to be able to afford it on top of paying the mortgage for the home she'd bought us, and the rent for her apartment in Santa Monica. My mind whispered, "Uh-oh." The money we were able to contribute, $500 a month, was lower than her mortgage of over $2,000. She was a champion soul to give us this incredible gift, but it was taking a heavy toll on her. We had to do something We took money out of our small savings and contributed that. The cash was merely trying to empty the ocean with a thimble, though. We asked her if she wanted us to help her sell the home, relieve her of that financial stranglehold. As a businesswoman and a go-getter, Caroline did not want to give up, though. She decided to turn the house into an Airbnb, which would hopefully produce more income than what we were paying. She flew from California, and together we all chipped in to help decorate and get the space ready for her potential guests. Between Goodwill and Facebook Marketplace, Caroline accomplished a lot with very little cash. She found framed pictures to grace the walls, bought comfy outdoor furniture with a fire pit, and placed scented candles in every room. We returned back down south Meanwhile, we pursued our own mortgage for another mobile home back in southwestern Florida and moved back about 14 months after arriving in Jacksonville. Ultimately, the money Caroline brought in for the Airbnb was not enough to cover the mortgage, but she was happy she'd tried. We drove back up north to help her scrub, stage, and show the place, and she got a buyer within three months. She was happy to break even on her home sale. It's such a shame these mortgages are so killer these days. It feels as if young buyers are like kayakers trying to paddle up a waterfall. Despite the outcome, we will never, ever forget our daughter's caring largesse.

15-07-2025
A Florida county leads the way with a high-tech 911 system
NAPLES, Fla. -- When an emergency happens in Collier County, Florida, the 911 calls go to one of the most high-tech communications centers in the U.S., where callers can send text and video from the scene to dispatchers. Moving to what's known as an NG911 — or Next Generation 911 — system is a journey Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and Bob Finney, the county's director of communication, have been on for much of the past decade. It's a long way from Feb. 16, 1968, when Alabama's then-House Speaker Rankin Fite made the nation's very first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, on a bright red, rotary-style landline telephone. That ceremonial call came just 35 days after AT&T announced plans to use 911 as a nationwide emergency number. Today, most calls to 911 originate with cellphones, with dispatchers in upgraded centers using geo tracking to get accurate geographic locations from callers. But the response time in an emergency depends on the type of technology being used at any of the 6,000 emergency communications centers in the U.S. that receive 911 calls. There is no uniform emergency system in the U.S., so individual cities, counties, states or geographic regions are responsible for operating their own 911 call centers. While some states have fully updated to NG911 systems, others are still using legacy 911 systems that rely on antiquated equipment. 'We're just reminded in these last two weeks, with the flooding in Texas, just how important the work of 911 is,' said Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS, which provides infrastructure that passes critical data to emergency centers across the United States. The Collier County Sheriff's Office covers 911 calls from an area of about 2,030 square miles (5,258 square kilometers) that stretches from sandy beaches at the southernmost tip of the Gulf Coast on Florida's peninsula inland to the Everglades. It's a region that has been ravaged by hurricanes this century, including Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricanes Ian and Milton most recently. That's why Sheriff Rambosk wanted a high-tech emergency operations center. 'We just believe that when we can reduce the response time using technology, it will improve safety and survivability of those calling in,' said Rambosk, who has been sheriff since 2009. 'And that's really what we're all about, keeping people safe and rescuing them when they need it.' Today 61 full-time employees and three part-timers staff two emergency operations centers around the clock. They rely on data that RapidSOS collects from connected buildings, devices, vehicles and even smart watches to send first responders to emergency scenes. The baseline data is provide free of charge to all 911 centers, Martin said. As Hurricane Helene was tracking toward north Florida last September, forecasters were predicting it could hit Tallahassee as a major Category 3 storm. Officials in Leon County, which serves the state's Capitol and nearby counties on legacy 911 equipment, reached out to Collier County, some 430 miles (692 kilometers) to the southeast, to see if they could take over emergency calls if the storm knocked their center out. Helene moved to the east of Tallahassee, but Collier County was prepared to help if needed. "Because of the partnership with Rapid SOS, they were able to create a map to where not only did we see our own calls, but we could see exactly where the calls were coming in Tallahassee,' Finney said. Collier County has also partnered with Charleston, South Carolina, as a backup 911 center. Each region is fully prepared to take on 911 calls for the other in case their emergency system goes down for any reason. It's a similar story in North Carolina, where legislation in 2017 helped establish funding for a next generation 911 system, said Pokey Harris, who serves as president of the National Association of State 911 Administrators and executive director of the North Carolina 911 Board. Harris said Hurricane Helene provided validation for the upgraded system by being able to direct 911 calls from areas that were devastated by the storm to other parts of North Carolina that were not affected. 'During Helene, if a citizen could reach a dial tone, even though their local 911 center may have been impacted because of infrastructure devastation, another center somewhere in the state could answer their call,' Harris said. Next Generation 911 systems aren't cheap. 'There has been no federal funding for 911,' Martin, of RapidSOS said. 'It has been in various draft formats as long as I've been doing this and it's never gotten through Congress.' There is also no federal oversight of 911, he said. 'It's really quite remarkable how well 911 works despite those challenges," Martin said. 'I think it's a testament to the people of 911, not the technology.'