mo-ho's new look

Good morning.
Here's the results of the grill project....
Above, you can see the grill with the left side missing, but the right side still in.
Surprisingly, the right side came our real easy. I was expecting the screws to be all rusted tight, but they came right out! :-)
We settled on using a screen door guard we found at Menard's. They had a bronze color that blended very nicely with the mo-ho.
I decided to attach the cutout screen material to the mo-ho by drilling small holes around the edge of the fiberglass opening, and securing it with wire.

Here's the finished left side...
And the right side before, and after.


It doesn't show up real good in this pic, but the screen looks great! Just click on the pic for a larger, better view. And I never liked the looks of the other grill sections anyway. :-)
Now we'll look to see if we can find a flexible bronze trim to give it a more finished look. And that may not be so easy. We'll see.
And would you believe it all took less than 2 hours for this project. :-)
And with that, another weekend over, and looks to be another busy week in the Salon.

the bug bit again

Good morning.
Another beautiful day yesterday, and I started off washing the mo-ho so it would have time to dry so I could wax it later. Then I showered, woke Craig up, made us coffee, and off we went. First the usual, bank, post office, then it was over to Walmart. We needed a new trash container for the salon ans saw the perfect one here. Stainless steel, with a step opening lid. It replaces an old white plastic thing we should have gotten rid of years ago.
Then we hit the salvage yard. Now that was quite the experience! Walking through a field of old and newer smashed cars in varying degrees of being slowly disassembled by whoever needed whatever parts from them. And here we were, looking to rip some cars face off. :-)
But, none was found that we thought we would be able to modify to fit. Sooo, we've decided on another grid type sheet we saw the other day. I'll try to remember to take pics of the process.
Back home, Craig mowed the yard and did laundry, while I did more waxing on the mo-ho.
Later, as Craig started dinner, I got the cleaning bug. First, it was the patio doors.
Craig thought it was cute to take a picture of me washing the windows. It was in reference to when I wash a Salon customers hair, I ask them to take their glasses off because I don't do windows. Now he says he has proof I do. Ha ha, very funny.
Anyway, I didn't stop there. I hit the bathroom next, followed by the vacuum.
Craig made a tasty dinner of glazed pork chops, fried rice, and broccoli.
Today, we'll get that grid sheet for the mo-ho. And now that it's getting daylight, I'm going out to finish waxing the mo-ho.

morning chatter

Good morning.
It's been a busy weekend so far.
My sister in Havelock NC made it through Irene. Lost power for several hours, but no damage.
Sunday of course, I cleaned the salon.
Back home, I woke up Craig, made us coffee, and read the paper. Then we hit the area big box home improvement stores, looking for something that might work for the grill. We did find some decorative punched metal sheets that may work. We've decided to hit the local auto salvage yards this morning. We've seen some plastic truck grills that we think would look better. I'll let you know.
Also I washed and waxed Craig's Honda Accord. Everything's waxed now except one more section of the mo-ho. Will try to get that done today.
We also vacuumed and cleaned the inside of all 3 cars.
After the busy day, we relaxed on the deck while I cooked a turkey breast on the grill with baked potatoes and corn on the cob.
And while I let Craig sleep a little longer this morning, I'm off to clean all the car windows......

TGIF

Good morning, and a happy TGIF for those of you who are almost done with the work week.
I finally got the toilet fixed! I had to try 4 different flapper thingies before I got one that sealed properly.
Still no luck with the mo-ho grill thing. Only 1 salvage yard has e-mailed me back so far and no luck there. This weekend, we'll try John's suggestion of checking with local auto stores for aftermarket grills we may be able to use.
And after a slow Wednesday, the phone started ringing Thursday, and I'm completely booked for the rest of the week.
So I'm off to get ready for another day in the Salon.
Have a great weekend!

off to work, again

Good morning.
Just a quick post before I run off to work.
Another beautiful day yesterday! And I spent a good part of it indoors. I cleaned the inside of the mo-ho and restocked it. But I spent a good part of the day working on the house toilet. It was leaking. Craig thought it was the inlet valve thingy, so we went out and bought a replacement. After all that work, it's still leaking. At least it's not leaking on the floor, but you can hear dripping. I'm now thinking it's the flapper thingy not sealing tight when it closes. I'll get another one of those and try that. If that doesn't work, that will mean taking the tank off the toilet to replace the drain assembly. Oh well, it's always something right?
And as I run off to the salon for another work week, here's a couple of current yard pics.....

trip #8, they're going fast!

Good morning.
The beach pic in the previous post was from Hoffmaster State park. Just a few miles south of Muskegon.
We did just a short 2 niter there. My Mom's birthday is coming up, and I spent Sunday with her. So we went up on Saturday after work, and came home on Monday. I cut her hair, did a few chores for her and took her to Applebee's for lunch followed by the VFW. We had a nice day. Later back at the campground, Craig and I went down to the beach. They had just put up the red flag, but the swimmers didn't seem to care. The waves were pretty high, but without a lifeguard on the beach, people still went into the water. It was nice to relax, sit in the sun, and people watch.
Monday morning, we packed up, dumped, and made it back home safely.
The one incident I mentioned yesterday was on the way to Muskegon. Our mo-ho has a 3 piece front grill. The passenger side section has been loose every since we bought the mo-ho back in 2005. I had wired it in place, and it did okay until this trip. We were going down the highway through a section of rough road, when we heard this noise as if we had run over something, except we hadn't seen anything on the road. We drove until the next exit, pulled off, and got out to see.....
We'd lost that passenger section of grill.
We decided it wasn't worth the time to go back and search for it. It was several miles, and we weren't sure exactly when it happened.
Well, on the way home, we decided to loop around and drive back down that stretch and see if we could possibly find it.
It was a nine mile loop back, and we didn't see a thing. We saw a lot of stuff,but not the grill piece. It might have tumbled down the bank into tall grass, or someone may have seen it on the side of the road and stopped to get it.
Anyway, back home, I e-mailed Newmar to see if it was possible to get a replacement. They promptly e-mailed back, and I'd have to order the entire front grill, and it would cost $509.00 plus shipping. For some reason, even though the entire front bumper cap is fiberglass, these grill pieces are heavy metal. Shipping will be expensive.
Craig said we'll think about it. He has other ideas that may work. I'm not so sure, but we'll see. :-)
Now, I'm going out to clean up the mo-ho for the next trip before I need to get Craig up at 8 for his 9am physical.

another trip

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from our latest weekend trip.
here's a pic of the beautiful beach. Can you guess where we're at? hehehe
We did have a nearly major incident, but got lucky.
Details tomorrow morning!

a so-so week

Good morning.
I've been a lazy poster.
Also, I've been very busy.
Tuesday was another beautiful day, and I spent the most of it waxing the mo-ho. I got the front, back, and half of one side done.
Wednesday and Thursday, I went in to the Salon early, and stayed late. It's been a very busy week. Today, I start at 8am and am done around 3pm, so not bad today. And tomorrow doesn't look to bad either.
Other than that, not much to report. It's been a normal so-so week.
So have a great weekend!

A new chicken dish

Good morning.
Sunday was a complete wash-out. It was a constant drizzly rainy day. I got nothing done. I sat the entire day on my puter. Reading blogs, playing games, surfing the net.
Craig cooked a pork roast with onions, carrots, and potatoes, so the house smelled good. :-)
Monday was much better. Sunny and mild. I accomplished a lot! Washed the mo-ho, Kia and Pt, polished the mo-ho wheels, cleaned the mo-ho windows and polished the bike tire rims and added air to the tires.
Didn't do a thing in the yard. I'm over it. Now that the wedding pics are done, it can coast until fall when it'll be cutting back time.
Here's a late summer pic of the main garden....
The Zinnia's add a nice touch of color, since most late summer flowers are yellow.
For dinner, we tried something new........

Wanchai spicy garlic chicken. We've cooked chicken just about every which way you can, so we're always looking for something new. This was an easy and very tasty meal! It came with everything but the chicken. We cut up 2 boneless chicken breasts, and added some steamed broccoli. I highly recommend it!
And now, it's just about daylight, so I'm off to do some mo-ho waxing.....

That was it?

Good morning.
Sorry for my later than usual post. I got up this morning, and no Internet. :-(
So I called tech support, registered the problem, and went in to clean the Salon. Upon returning, still no Internet, so I went out and polished the mo-ho tires.
I survived the big wedding party on Saturday. Ended up doing 5 up-dos. Was exhausted when I got home. With all the rain we've gotten this month, it's not only nice and green in the yard, but a bumper crop of skeeters. The wedding was at 4pm, I figured they'd be at the house around 5-5:30 for the yard pics. I went out at 5 with 2 cans of yard guard to see if I could keep the skeeters at bay. At 5:15 no wedding party yet, but a massive down pour. We figured with the rain, they'd probably skip the outdoor pics and head to the reception. Around 6:15, a half dozen cars pulled into the driveway. The weather had cleared and they left the reception, which was right across the street, to get her out door pics. My yard guard had been long washed away. They ran to the arbor where some pics were taken. I took a couple myself...

The bride and her bridesmaids.

The bride and groom.
With my lush thick greenery, the skeeters were all over them. Arms flailing around trying to keep them at bay.It was a losing battle, and the photographer convinced her to go back to the reception. They were in the yard all of maybe 5 minutes. Just a few arbor pics. None taken anywhere else.
I spent all summer working on the yard, for 5 minutes of pics.......Oh well.

It's Friday

Good morning.

Yesterday was one of my busiest in a long time, and today looks like another one. Of course, it doesn't help taking Wednesday off from our last trip. Also it doesn't help that I've marked off most of Saturday for the big wedding. So that leaves me just 2 days to do 4 days worth of people, and I've already pushed some customers into next week.
The early August rains have helped to keep the grass nice and green for the back yard wedding pics. But now they're talking rain for Saturday. We'll see.
Not much else to say, so have a great weekend!

the train museum, car show, medeivel times, and trip #7

Good morning.
Sorry for the late post, but I got up late, cleaned the Salon, and was time to get Craig up.

Our trip took us all the way to Union Illinois. A small town northwest of Chicago. Me met our friends from Wisconsin, Tom and Dean. The reason for this destination was correctly guessed by mark, The Illinois Train Museum. The largest collection of train and train related stuff in the country. Dean is quite the train buff, and was eager to go here.
Instead of leaving our usual Friday afternoon, we decided to leave bright and early sat Morning. We thought the traffic around Chicago wouldn't be as bad Saturday late morning, as it might late Friday afternoon. We were right! A fairly easy drive, about 6 hours. Stopped halfway for a little lunch and a road break. I drove the entire way, and it went smoothly. We arrived, set up and visited with Tom and Dean whom arrived the day earlier.
That evening we had tickets to the Medieval Times dinner show.
The pics aren't very good due to the low light, and me not being very camera savvy. :-)

It was a very entertaining show! Decent food and plenty of it. The horses were beautiful, and the 2 hour show was fun. The crowd was 'divided' amongst 6 knights who battled through various challenges. Of course, our knight was defeated. :-(
Sunday morning, Dean fixed us breakfast, and then it was off to the main attraction, The Illinois Train Museum.
This place was ginormous! An amazing collection of engines, cars and accessories of the by-gone eras.
Craig was trying to get me to take a picture. It wasn't suppose to be of him...:-)

The sleeping cars were so tight and cramped, it was impossible to get pics of them.

Of course, Craig was much more interested in the massive car show they had there that weekend.
So, we wandered around, looked at a bunch of stuff, decided we'd seen way more trains than we cared to so we left Tom and Dean to take in everything else while we left and went and got the Sunday paper and some groceries.
Back at the campsite, we relaxed with afternoon beverages and read the paper. When Tom and dean returned, they decided to cook some of the Koegel Hotdogs we brought from Michigan. They can't get them in Wisconsin. They served them with a tasty homemade chili sauce and corn on the cob. It was good.
Monday was a shopping day for Tom and Dean. They live in a very small town in the middle of no where, so shopping is limited. They were here to get their shopping fix.
Dean once again fixed us breakfast and then we parted, them heading toward IKEA, us toward Elgin, Ill and the casino. ;-)
This trip, Craig won, and I lost. We really need to get on the same winning page here. ;-)
Then to an RV dealer we saw off the highway. Always fun to look at new mo-hos. ;-)
Fortunately, we didn't see any we had to have. :-)
Then, it was lunch and an outlet mall. We didn't find anything there to spend money on either. :-)
Back at the mo-ho, we loaded the car, and did some site prep for an early Tuesday morning departure, which was a good thing since a series of storms moved through the area through out the afternoon. During the rain, I played on the puter and Craig read the paper.
Tom and Dean returned later and they had found some good buys.
For dinner, they cooked a delicious beef roast which they cut into strips and served on buns.
We watched a movie together and headed to bed.
Tuesday morning, I finished breaking camp, and we said our good-byes. I tried to dump at our site, but the macerator pump whined weird and wouldn't pump. Craig thought something might be plugging it and we should try to dump at the dump station. I had doubts, but at the dump station, it worked fine.
The drive home was even easier than coming. Not nearly as much traffic. We stopped for a late breakfast at one of the service centers and returned home around 3pm. We got there safe, returned home safe, and everything functioned properly.
It was another good trip!
And if your interested in the rest of the so-so pics click here for Medieval times, and here for the train museum.

another trip

Good afternoon.
Yep! My lack of posting means we were on another weekend trip.
here's a couple of pics of the places we went. Any guesses? :-)

More about the trip in the morning....

always check your bills

Good morning.
It's been a crazy busy week in the Salon. The phone ringing off the hook.
There was one major issue I had to deal with. We have a 4yard dumpster we share with another tenant. I discovered we were paying double what he was. It appeared at some point way back last year, our rate doubled, and some how Craig didn't catch it. I called and got a totally clueless person who seemed completely unable to grasp what I was saying. He didn't seem to think our rate was out of line. I said , "you mean to tell me it costs $100 a month for every other week pick-up?" He said he'd have an account manager review the account and call me back. I hung up. I was steaming. They weren't going to get away with this! I waited, no call. The next day, for added ammo, I called a competitor, and discovered what I had already thought. The amount the other tenant was paying was more in line to what I should be paying. I called back to give them one more chance to correct their mistake before I cancelled and went with the other company.
This time, I actually got someone with a few brains. She looked through my account, agreed there had been a mistake, said she would discuss this matter with a supervisor, and would call me back first thing in the morning. She even gave me her direct phone #.
Well, the next morning came, and sure enough, she called me back. She apologized for the mix-up, credited our account $150.00, and reduced our monthly payment by 2/3. and eliminated a couple of other fees. She said this new rated would be locked in for 3 years, and to call her direct if there were any changes. She asked if this was satisfactory. I said I was pleased with the response, and thanked her for her time.
So now, our rate is $24.30 a month, instead of $76.52, quite the difference.
So once again, it's all about talking to the right person.
Have a great weekend!

What to do, what to do...

Good morning.
The weather has gotten back to 'normal' for this time of year. Highs forecast for the low 80's this week. :-)
We did receive an inch of rain overnight, so the grass should be nice and green for the wedding pics in a week and a half.
On the water heater front..... The tech came and accessed the situation. Couldn't understand why we were getting exhaust into the house. Everything looked just right. All he could suggest was maybe running another 6 inch pipe into the area with the other one to bring in more fresh air. He didn't think a power vent water heater would fix the issue. We'd have to go with a totally closed system like the furnace is. Would cost a couple thousand bucks. This just gets better and better right?
So I said we'd think about it. And we better think fast because later in the afternoon, it was spewing exhaust into the house again! The CO2 detector read a high of 127. A sustained level of 150 or more could be deadly. Fortunately we got the level back down to 0 in about an hour.
The rest of the day was maintenance stuff. One of the rug pieces on the mo-ho steps came off and I had to get some more sticky Velcro to reattach it. I also recharged the dump battery, and cleaned the mo-ho windshield. And of course, more weeding. :-)
And now, it's back to work for what looks to be another busy week!

yard, water heater, and the IRS

Good morning.

The week ended very busy. :-)
And the heat wave is back. 90 yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Sunday, I of course, cleaned the Salon, and spent the rest of the entire day working in the yard. This time of year, there's a lot of dead-heading to do. We also burned a pile of branches. Trying to keep up the looks of the yard for the up-coming wedding pics to be taken on the 13th.
For dinner we had tasty pork cutlets with a peach glaze, baked potato and grilled zucchini. Did you know, you can use almost any type of jam or preserve to baste meat with? Try it sometime, they're really good!
Anyway, this morning we've got someone coming out to assess our water heater situation. I'm thinking we'll have to bite the bullet and go with a power vent water heater. That well set us back nearly a grand. Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
In other news....
Friday when I got home, got the mail, I see a letter from the IRS. That's never a good thing unless it's a refund check. But this wasn't. It was a bill stating I owed $887.22 from last year. With all ready added penalties and interest, $992. 57. Okay, this couldn't be right. I got a refund this year! When Craig got home, I had him look it over. He got upset. It doesn't take much to set him off, and a letter from the IRS would easily do it. He dug up last years return and remembered we received a letter in April stating we miscalculated our self-employment tax. They corrected it, and would correct the amount of refund we'd receive. How much was the miscalculation? $887.22. That's right, now they say I owe it back! But Craig went back through the return, and he did miscalculate the tax, and we were due that extra money! So I said I'd call and get it all straightened out, He immediately went for a cocktail, knowing this wouldn't be that easy. I called the 800 number, went through the many menus until I found the one that would let me speak to a live person. The recording said I'd be waiting more than 15 minutes. I waited.................10..................15...................20........................25.........then a real live person picked up, and asked, "how may I help you today". I explained the April letter, and the one I'd just received. She said that didn't sound right to her either. She took down the specifics, name, SS number, address and such to make sure she knew to whom she was speaking, asked me to hold a couple of minutes while she went through my return. She came back on to say I didn't owe a thing. Someone must have reviewed my return and mistook that April notice as a tax, not a refund. Anyway, she corrected it, said I'd receive another letter stating so, as was there anything else she could do for me today. I thanked her for her time, said all was good, and hung up. I was amazed and shocked how easy and quickly it was resolved.
Sometimes things do work out the way they should. :-)