Paige Conner Totaro

Plan Your AdventureLet me plan your adventureTipsHow to avoid jet lag and get a good night’s sleep! This morning I went for a walk on the beach at my mom’s river house, where I’ve been staying while waiting to close (or not close) on my own river house a few miles away. Most days, I spend a few minutes on the ever smaller beach (thanks, climate change!) looking for the smoothest, roundest, clearest stones to add to my water fountain. Later, when I arrive at the house to meet the guy who is going to install my internet, I try to remember that I do not believe in these sort of signs when I spot an enormous red and black insect making its way under my deck.

There are no records at the court house, or the health department, to show that any work had ever been performed on any septic system at the house. So should I buy this place, knowing that I will have to sink a lot of money into not only a new seawall, which I knew about from the beginning, but also at some point in the probably not so distant future, a new septic system? In the meantime, my excellent realtor, who is really working hard to earn her commission on this one, is trying to make sure that if the system really does fail, I can put in a new system on my property. So of course the engineer said he can’t guarantee that I could put in a new system, because of rules about how far the septic needs to be from the neighbors’ wells.

I’ll be just down the street from my sister and her kids, and not far from my mom’s river house where I spent summers growing up, and where I still go whenever I can. Excited at the prospect of fixing up a house and having my own place on the water, after years of sleeping on the pull-out sofa at my mom’s river house. My realtor called me one day to tell me that when she arrived at the house to put a lockbox on for the contractors, there were neighbors poking around asking her what she knew about the house. A few days later, my sister was walking around the property and ran into another neighbor – the neighbor who had already told the owners on the street that he would like to buy their houses if they ever wanted to sell – who asked if she knew whether the house was on the market.

Chicago-based Brickworld, which regularly hosts LEGO Expos throughout the Midwest, is offering a variety of online options to engage, encourage and inspire LEGO fans and their families at home during COVID-19 lockdowns, including the Brickworld LEGO Virtual Con, how-to video demonstrations and a Make-A-Wish fundraiser. The Brickworld LEGO Virtual Con will be held on Saturday, April 18, from 12 noon-6 p.m. ET. Viewers can also ask questions of participating builders, visit vendors to browse and purchase a variety of products, and join different display rooms, including a Great Ball Contraption (one of the hosts is in Australia), the Jurassic Roller Coaster, a large amusement park with moving rides, a giant transparent castle, some massive spaceships, and Elvendale, the land of elves and dragons, which will include a tutorial on how to build LEGO fish. Part of the Brickworld Virtual Con is Super Robo Rally, a super-sized programming game using one-foot tall LEGO robots on a 19×30-foot board made entirely of LEGO baseplates and bricks.