and away he goes

Good morning.
After a beautiful Sat. Sun. and Monday, I awoke to rain this morning.
With our mo-ho trip cancelled, we made it a free weekend, meaning not a lot was done.   :-)
Since we couldn't leave Friday afternoon for our trip, we headed out to Reno's for sun, food and drinks.
later, I took all the food and clothes out of the mo-ho.
yesterday morning, they came and towed it to the service dealer.

They first sent out this puny truck and the driver quickly decided to call a bigger one.

They got the mo-ho hooked up, and drove it away.

We then went down and signed the work order. Since we probably won't take another trip this season, we had them do an oil change and service the generator.
Then we ran to the bank to wire the $1000 earnest money to the escrow companies. We also received the HOA documents to go over. More than 600 pages in 4 PDF files! Went over  most of them yesterday until our eyes were going cross-eyed. It took just over 2 hours this morning but I finished the last group . Some interesting stuff, but not much more than we expected.
The inspection is to be this week, and we should also hear about the floor tiles.
I did manage to do some cutting back in the flower beds, and we did get the yard mowed.
That's it for now.

Going no where :-((

F\/(K!!!!!!!!
Got home from work Friday afternoon, changed clothes......hopped in the mo-ho for a weekend trip.......Put the mo-ho in gear to slowly pull out of the area next to the garage and the brake pedal was very squishy. Put the mo-ho in park and pumped the brakes and no firmness. Had Craig step on the brakes as I lay underneath the mo-ho and fluid squirted out of a metal line. We obviously have a leak in the break line.    :-(
Soooo, no trip this weekend.    :-(

We have a house!....maybe.....kind of.......pretty sure!

Good morning.
Well, it looks like we have a home in Las Vegas!
We haven't had closing yet, but it looks like a done deal.
The bank accepted our offer and barring an unacceptable inspection, we should close in a couple of weeks.
Here's a pic.....

It's identical to the one we'd been waiting 6 months to buy. But the Fannie May negotiator wouldn't budge on the assessed price. The main difference with this house is a couple of positives and a couple of negatives.
The pluses.....Nice stonework on the columns and corners of the garage. And Cherry cabinets in the kitchen instead of Maple.
Negatives.....15 cracked tiles running through the living room into the kitchen. Our realtor is still looking to see if we can get replacements. The company that installed them went out of business during the great recession. She was able to identify the tile and now is looking to see if other companies still have some. If we have to, we can tear out all of them and replace with new. The cost would still be less than what we saved buying this house over the other.
The back yard is smaller than the first house. I'll miss the extra space, but it's not a deal breaker.
So, when we have closing, I'll post so interior pics.
This thing went so fast compared to the first house. We put in the offer late Tuesday, they accepted it Thursday, and next week we'll have the inspection.
So there you have it. After six l-o-n-g months finally a house!

this is depressing

Good morning.
Just a quick post before I run off to work. The weekend was a mess!
We received a phone call from our realtor in Las Vegas.
The reason this whole process has been taking so long is the agent assigned to this short sale  won't budge on the assessed price despite repeated  rebuttals from the listing agent. Soooo, we upped our offer a bit, but I don't think it will be enough. Craig won't go one penny higher since there are other homes for sale in our price range. Unfortunately, I don't like any of them. And, if Fannie May had gotten to our offer nearly 6 months ago, Our price would have been good. Of course prices go up over 6 months! That's why we started this way back in April!  Gezzz!
We did however put an offer on one that's pretty close to the other. Ironically, it is owned by Fannie May. Apparently when Fannie forecloses on a home, they list it, and after 2 month's the price goes down. This continues until the home is sold. This one started at $172,000, and 2 days ago dropped to $147,500. Less than we offered the exact same house they now want $180,000 for.  :-\
Our realtor wants the listing agent to point that out when submitting our new offer.
So we now have 2 offers pending. Should hear today. Maybe.
One problem with the new one is there are what appears to be a long crack through a number of tiles in the pics she sent us. I'll have to find out more about that.
Anyway, that's the reason for my absence. I had to download 25 pages of documents, print them out, sign and initial every page, scan them and e-mail them back to her. Whew!
But I'll leave you with a pic.....

You may need to click on the pic to see it well enough, but there's a Great Blue Heron right in the middle of the pond. Was there about 2 hours frog hunting.
Now I gotta go!

I think I'm liking eggplant again.

Good morning.
It's been a long week in the Salon. I've worked late Wed. and Thur. but today and tomorrow should be normal.
Here's a pic from our Tuesday dinner that I was planning on posting Wed. morning, but was in a hurry to get to work....

Grilled pork cutlets with rice and grilled eggplant. I haven't eaten much eggplant over the years as the only way I seemed to like it was fried. But I've found a new liking for these. Grilled with a roasted tomato pesto sprinkled with fat free feta cheese. Pretty good!
And the area where we took out the stump and reseeded a week ago is starting to green up nicely despite the much cooler temps than normal.
So just a short post today. Now time to go.

is it too big?

Good morning.
Well, Our flat panel LCD TV we bought a number of years ago, suddenly yesterday, had no sound.  :-(
So, we decided to go out and get a new one.

After doing some research online, we went to Best Buy and picked up this RCA 39 inch LED TV.
It replaces a 32 inch we had there and I must say, I like it! Bigger is better right?  :-)
And what's amazing is it weights about half of the old 32 inch and the frame around the picture is almost non-existent.
Now, I didn't want to just throw out the old one. I mean, the picture was great! Just no sound.
So...............
I decide to try and use it......

And sure enough, I was able to make it my new computer monitor!
My desk angles in the corner so I was able to use a couple of speaker stands destined for my yard sale and put the TV on top of them. So it actually sits behind the desk giving me more desk space and putting it back far enough so I'm not on top of it.
I know it looks awful large, but the best part is now I don't need to wear reading glasses!
And since my puter has separate speakers, I'm good!.
And yes, the picture on my homepage is of the house we want to buy in Vegas. And no, no news yet. But then, it's only been 170 days.   :-\  Not that I'm counting. 
In other news......
It's been to damn cold! And too damn wet!
We've actually had the furnace on for a few nights as temps have gotten down in the low 40's.
Also, my Sunday garage cleaning out project went extremely well. I hauled 12 garbage bags of crap to our work dumpster. I now have a lot of space to start my garage sale storing, as this winter, I'm doing some massive downsizing indoors. I've really gotten in to the less is better mode. It's very freeing having a lot less 'stuff'!
And in other news....
Craig's blood tests came back very well. Thanks to all the walking we've been doing, all his readings relating to being pre-diabetic are all back in the normal range. Good job Craig! Unfortunately, his Cholesterol has gotten higher. Along with mine. So we need to try and do a better job cutting back on out meat eating. We do like our meat! Probably those Saturday afternoons at Reno's hasn't helped either.  :-)
So with the good overall test results, Craig is determined to keep up the walking. We'll see how he does this winter.
And for a change, I've had quite a bit to blog about. This must be the longest post I've done in a while.
And now, time to get going.

a million tiny red bugs.....but no, not bed bugs.

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon......yet again.
It was a busy week,and I'm happy for my weekend.  :-)
On my tall Rubecia, I've got this.....

Tiny red aphids. You can see a lady bug on one of the leaves, but I think she's outnumbered. I don't like to spray in the garden, so I'll let nature take it's course. Maybe the lone lady bug will signal for reinforcements.   :-)
And a few more pics of the garden....

My little Sedum garden coming into full bloom.

And my new grass path through the side flower bed. A lot less weeding!

After our coffee and Sunday paper, we'll go for a walk, do some shopping, and later I'm going to tackle the garage. I'm going to give it a real good cleaning. I plan on filling a few trash bags. I need to make room for a garage sale pile of a lot of things in the house I want to get rid of next spring.
Now time to go.

the weekend in review.

Good morning.
Another weekend over and back to work.  :-\
Didn't get much accomplished even though it was probably the nicest weekend we've had all summer. Sunny and in the mid 70's. Finally a weekend with out rain for all or part of it. I managed some weeks ago to injure my right shoulder so when I lift my arm a certain way, it's painful. I'm trying to take it easy so it will hopefully heal.
I did manage, for the most part, to sift the shredded stump from the soil where they finally ground up the stump. Added some top soil and seeded it.

 We were going to wait until spring, but Craig didn't want to look at dirt all fall. So depending on how much it settles, I may need to re-add some more soil in the spring and reseed it again. No big deal.
And I did some general cleaning in the house and weeding in the yard.
And here's a couple of yard pics....

It's hard to believe it's almost the middle of September all ready. It's been so cool and wet this year, I'm still waiting for summer to start. We never even hit 90 once.  :-\
Oh well. It'll be nice and hot once we move to Vegas. If that ever happens. We still don't have a house, and it's now been nearly 5 1/2 months. It's crazy how long this is taking. I'm just saying, if your in a hurry to move, don't consider a short sale. At least we have the time, but all this uncertainty has left us in a sort of limbo all summer.
And now, it's back to work.

expensive bulbs

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon. My usual Sunday morning routine.
It was a very busy week in the Salon. And for an end of week treat, we went over to Reno's to enjoy the mild 72 degree day and a late lunch.
We also have an electrician working on the Salon's lighting.

As you can see in the top pic, we have 2x2 panel lights in the Salon that currently use these fatter ubend light bulbs.
Well, as with the 60 watt incandescent bulbs, these are being discontinued also and being replaced with these skinny ubend bulbs.
The skinny bulbs use less energy but produce more light.






So, because of that, the ballasts in each panel won't light the new bulbs so we have to have all the ballasts changed.  :-\
Fortunately, the new ballasts will light both lamps so we can use up our existing inventory of bulbs before investing in the new ones since each bulb costs about $9.
So that means 24 new ballasts at $20 a piece and $50 an hour labor to install.
And eventually, 48 new skinny ubend bulbs.
On the new home front.........
no news..........
still waiting.......
On the old home front........
It's been a very rainy summer, and that means a lot of mowing. We finally got the stump in the front yard ground down and I spent a good amount of time leveling the pile of dirt out. We'll let it sit until spring to settle, then put some top soil over it and reseed it.
And that's all I've got to say for now.

our Labor Day trip

Good afternoon.
I swear, I'm getting lazier doing posts, and even lazier taking pics.
Anyway, we just returned from our 4th trip of the summer, which by the way is nearly over, that took us to Maumee Bay State Park.  It's on lake Erie, just east of Toledo. We arrived Friday afternoon, set up and enjoyed cocktails while watching people arrive.
On Saturday, we headed into downtown Toledo where they have a really nice farmers market, where we picked up some peppers, onions, and zucchini to go with dinner, and an eggplant for the following nights dinner. After the farmers market, we hit the Libby outlet mall for some new cocktail glasses and then it was a few blocks away to Tony Packo's and a couple of delicious Hungarian Chili Dogs for lunch.  :-)
After that, we went across the river to the new Great Lakes Museum.
I did remember to take a couple of pics there.  :-)

Craig in front of a very cool bridge that we came in on on our way to the campground.

And me in front of a big freighter moored next to the museum you can tour.
The museum was very interesting and worth the $8 admission.
On Sunday, after our coffee walk and breakfast, we headed over to the Hollywood Casino on the south side of Toledo. We were there just over 2 hours and left about $6 up.   :-)
Then we headed out to the suburbs to Kohl's with $10 off coupons burning a hole in my pocket.
Craig was unable to find shoes he liked, and the same with new sheets for the bed, so we left, coupons in hand with no purchase.
Back at the campground we fixed dinner of chicken thighs on the grill and tried a new dish. Grilled eggplant. It was very tasty and easy. Slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch slabs, soak them in salt water for an hour. Dry and brush with olive oil and grill 5 minutes a side until nice grill makes appear. serve with a nice tomato pesto and crumbled fat free feta cheese. Yummy!
This morning, we broke camp and made it back to Lansing. The mo-ho preformed as expected. It was a good trip!   :-)