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Home improvements…
Submitted by: M. Kaplan, Jr.
North JerseyI am an English teacher and a licensed Realtor who is active in his community. I am a father of two small children who is happily married.
The old mantra goes, “Home is where the heart is…” This couldn’t be more true. My four bedroom fixer upper was to be a good investment for my wife and me. With the help of my father, the house became fixed up to the point of it being comfortable. There was still plenty more to do… like replace the ancient windows, repair the bathroom before the floor fell out beneath us, move the kitchen from 1959 to 2012, and put a roof on the house. My father and I did many projects in the house – that was until he was diagnosed with cancer. He died within weeks. It was during this sad and dark time that I began implementing what I had read three years earlier in The Secret. I first said to myself in August of 2010 that I would like $50,000 by October. I had no clue how this would manifest. Then I focused on a new roof, saying to myself that “I have a new roof.”
October came and I didn’t have any money. Shortly after, in December of 2010, a freak storm occurred and my neighbor’s tree fell on my house. To my amazement, my insurance company replaced the entire roof! I thought to myself, could this be The Secret in action? There was only one way to find out. I declared that I would have a completely updated house before the end of the year. The missing $50,000 still never came…
Time elapsed…. In August of 2011, while out for the day, my family and I came home to our house in the evening to a small, but damaging house fire. Apparently after Hurricane Irene, our sump pump shorted out and caught fire, spreading it to a dehumidifier that was draining into the sump pump. The dehumidifier’s freon canister exploded, spreading the fire to nearby items in the basement. The fire occurred at the right time. We called 911 upon our discovery and the fire was quickly extinguished by our local fire department. Although the house was structurally sound, the smoke damaged everything. Our insurance company repaired many of our damaged rooms. In October of 2011, we received a check for over $50,000. By February 2012, we moved into our newly renovated home – new windows, kitchen, and bath too.
In short, we are now focusing our attention on bigger and better things.