weekend update

Good morning.
It was a busy weekend!
After work Saturday, we went for a walk. It was a beautiful sunny mild day. The color is well past peak, and the leaves are coming down. Sunday, we went to Muskegon to spend the day with Mom. My sister-in-law Ruth joined us.  I cut Mom's hair, cleaned her kitchen, took out trash and then took her to lunch and the 'club'. Stopped at the store on the way back to her apartment and got her groceries.
On Monday, it was time to get more leaves up. They're really coming down fast now, and a short time after I was done, it didn't look like I did anything. So Tuesday, I did it again.
I also spent time talking care of more stuff for our new home. Registered with the Association office and the HOA management company. Also contacted the head of the communities neighborhood watch. They have a very good neighborhood watch group. That may be one of the reasons for such low crime there.
We received a check from the escrow company for the difference we paid compared to what was needed at closing and also the deed, so I guess we really did buy a house!  :-)
. We also finally got our earnest money back from the first house. Our Realtor is having the locks changed and will mail us a key. 
And now, back to work for what looks like another busy week.

busy week.

Good morning.
It's been a very busy week in the Salon, and I'm booked today also.
I came home from work yesterday, and the new owners of the mo-ho came by to pick it up and I gave him a thorough walk-through showing the many interesting aspects of owning a motor home. 
I felt a little teary when the mo-ho pulled out of the driveway for the last time.   :-(
I'm really going to miss our trips in it.
But, we have our new home in Vegas to help fill in the void.
I'll just have to take lots of pics when we go out since I won't have it sitting right next to our house as the mo-ho did.
I finally got all the utilities transferred and set up auto pay.
Once I get the welcome packet from the association, I'll set up auto pay for the monthly and quarterly fees also. We also have house ins. and I submitted a change of address so any correspondence that might go there, will come here instead. This weekend we'll get a home warranty too.
Many of our customers seem more excited about our house then we do. We feel more relieved than anything since this whole process has dragged on for nearly 7 months. The whole idea of buying a home back in March as apposed to when we retire was to get a really nice place for a really good price. We are fortunate that we were still able to after 7 months,  because new listings now are nearly $20,000 more than what we paid for this home.
But we're very pleased, as this home, when built 8 years ago, sold for nearly $100,000 more than what we paid for it. And with projected increases in property values out there, it should appreciate considerably more than the estimated $4000 a year it'll cost us to maintain it.  :-)   Plus, we'll have a vacation home to use also!  :-)
And we had a visitor earlier this week......

You might have to click on the pic to see it better, but our Great Blue Heron that visits us from time to time was walking across the back yard toward the pond. It must have been in the creek that's on our property line on the opposite side of the yard. They sure are big birds!
Now time for me to get to work!

Bought a house, sold a house.

Good morning! We have a house! At least, that's what our Realtor told us yesterday evening. :-)
It was a busy day yesterday, as our Realtor had to send the forms back to the escrow company twice for corrections.  The first time she found several errors and the second time I found one. Nothing major, but you want every figure absolutely correct, right?
Then we ran to the bank to wire the money. The good thing was all the signing of the papers was done by DocuSign. Didn't need to go to any one's office. Did everything from my puter. It was so easy, it was kind of scary. But nice since we're 2800 miles from Vegas and didn't have to go out there.  :-)
And here's a few pics....

The patio faces east, so nice morning sun and afternoon shade.

Living room.

Kitchen with dining area in front.

Laundry closet.

Master bath with walk-in closet. A walk-in shower is across from toilet.

View back toward the kitchen and front door. Garage is through the door in the kitchen

And floor plan. Nice, compact, 1200 sq ft. 2 bedroom, 2 bath home. Perfect for retirement.
We hope to go out sometime in November to get the place painted and some stuff in it. We plan on using it for vacations until we actually retire in 1-3 years.
Our realtor will over see getting repairs done and the floors and carpets power cleaned.  She's been great throughout this whole process.
And we do have our other house sold. (I mean our motor home).  The new owners stopped by Monday afternoon with a check, and we signed over the title. They were still working on finding a place to store it as they don't have a set-up at their house like we do. They plan on picking up the mo-ho Fri. or Saturday.
So, a whirlwind weekend. Bought a home and sold a home.
And unfortunately, now back to work for what looks to be a very busy week. 

good news and maybe good news

Good morning.
It's been a busy weekend!
Friday night, the stylist who wanted the mo-ho info for her husband called while they were out to dinner with friends and their friends were interested in the motor  home and wanted to come by Saturday after work to look at it.
So after work Saturday, I ran home to get it 'showroom ready'.  :-)
They arrived, checked it all out, and I took them on a test drive. They were real interested and we agreed on a price. They said it would take a few days to get the money together.

So, it appears we have the mo-ho sold. I won't say yes for sure until I have the check in hand.   :-)

And....... we got the estimate for all the needed repairs on the house in Vegas. It wasn't bad, so we're moving ahead with the sale. Closing will be tomorrow. We should get the e-mail with all the info and papers from the escrow company around noon today, then we have to go to the bank and wire the money, come home, docu-sign all the papers and e-mail them back. Tuesday the escrow company will make sure the title is clear, back taxes and such are up to date and distribute the funds and send us the title and keys. 

It'll be weird tomorrow, sitting here at home, knowing we own a house in Vegas, and really have nothing to show for it.

And, we've never even been in it!

Everything has been done over the internet. Now we feel comfortable doing this because we've actually been in a house there with the exact floor plan, so we do know what it looks like, and with all the pics our realtor took, we're anxious to get out there and see it in person. Which hopefully will be later next month.

So today will be busy as we also have to change over all the utilities and deal with association papers too.

And yesterday we worked on the yard.

Craig mowed while I cut down more flower beds. I'm just about 2/3 done. And I picked some flower still blooming.

Blueish purple Monkshood, and white Japanese Anemone. Even this late in the season still some flowers hanging on.
Now time for me to go.

quick post

Good morning.
The home inspection was done, and there is approximately 33 items in the report that need to be addressed. Most are minor things, but a few things need to be checked out further. So our Realtor is sending over a handyman she uses to evaluate and recommend. Should hear later today on that.
So far, one dealer didn't want to show our mo-ho, due to it being so late in the season and would probably end up setting on their lot all winter. Another one seems interested, but dragging their feet on a commitment.
So I think we'll park it until spring and try again.
One of our stylist wanted the mo-ho info to give to her husband. He has a knack for selling anything and she thinks he could sell ours. We'll see.
It's been crazy busy in the Salon and I'm booked today and tomorrow.
Now time to go.

update

Good morning from a wet, cool, Lansing MI.
Yep, more rain...   :-(
It seems to happen every fall, just as the colors are looking good, we get a week of wind and rain to ruin it.
Oh well.
I did manage to finish removing all of our 'stuff' from the mo-ho, inside and underside, and gave it a good interior cleaning. I still need to vacuum out the bays, if it ever gets dry enough.

I've e-mailed pictures and info to several consignment places hoping to find someone to sell it for us.
 This isn't the best time of year to try and sell a motor home, but if necessary, we can park it next to the garage for the winter, like we always do, and try again in the spring.
And finally some Las Vegas news......
The water was turned on yesterday. It would have been Monday, but that was a holiday. So the inspection is scheduled for today. Wish us luck!
 And I've got a very busy week in the Salon too. So I imagine everything will happen this week. We'll see!

a birthday weekend, and a few big decisions

Good morning from a wet, cold, Lansing MI.
Yep, it's raining.....again.
But to catch you up.....
It was another busy week in the Salon, and after work on Friday, Craig took me out for a birthday dinner.
Saturday evening he made me home made taco's.
Sunday, I cleaned the Salon, we went for a walk, and back home while Craig mowed the yard,  I winterized the mo-ho. Then Craig made me a batch of chili  (see, I get 3 days of birthday cheer!)
I've also begun emptying out the mo-ho. We've decided to sell it.   :-(
As much as we've enjoyed RVing, we've gone pretty much everywhere we can go on long weekend's, and further trips are not cost effective. And a motor home is an expensive toy. And we are missing our flying trips we use to take twice a year. So it's time for the next chapter. We enjoyed our boat when we had it, and we've enjoyed the last nine years with the mo-ho.
And I can't believe how much stuff I have in that motor home!
I brought in 6 storage bins full of stuff and I haven't even finished the kitchen yet! I can see I'll have a boat load of things for our yard sale next summer. And after I finish the inside, I still have all the storage bays to empty.
And another decision......
We plan on putting our house up for sale next year. We think trying to coordinate a home sale with an eventual cross country move, logistically would be next to impossible, so selling the house before then would take that out of the equation. And that's mainly not knowing how long it may take to sell our home. Our house sits in an industrial district, so we're not sure how many people, besides us, would like this home. I think we might have a better chance selling it for office use. That's what we'll need to talk to several realtors about.
And living in an apartment would free me up from yard work, mowing and shoveling snow. That would make it easier to take more trips.
And we continue to wait on Las Vegas.
We were suppose to have a home inspection a week ago last Friday, but it was canceled due to the water having been shut off to the house. And since the house is empty, it's a low priority to get it back on. Our realtor said last week the water dept. told her they backed up, but expected it to be on by Friday, but we haven't heard, so it probably wasn't. Maybe today.
Believe me, I'll post as soon as we know. One way or the other.
Okay, now we're caught up.

a rainbow, a Dark Tower, and a Norge

Good morning.
Here's a couple of pics I took yesterday afternoon of a pretty rainbow that appeared across the street.....

The 3 bright lights are the track lighting reflecting in the window that I took the picture through.
Have I mentioned how much rain we've had this year? A Lot!
But before it started to rain, I was able to get out and start the fall project of cutting all the perennials down. I finished one bed and half of another. My flower bed downsizing has really been nice for cutting down on yard work.   :-)
We finally got around to calling someone to come and seal our well we haven't used in years since we hooked up to city water. If we plan on selling the house, we should get that taken care of.
And in my continuing clean out of all the stuff I've accumulated in the many years, I've been going through a cupboard with stacks of board games. We use to play a lot of board games years ago, but with computers and tablets, not so much anymore.
We haven't played most of them  in years so I adding them to my yard sale pile.
Then I ran across this one.......

 Has anyone played this? It called Dark Tower. It's an electronic board game. According to e-bay, it was manufactured in 1981 and is currently selling for around $100. I don't think this will go in the yard sale pile. I'll save it and put it on e-bay later this winter.
I tell ya, every time I turn around, I'm finding more stuff to either throw out, or add to next years yard sale.
I'm amazed how much stuff one can accumulate in a less than 1000 sq ft home.   :-)
Add I thought I did a post on this, but couldn't find it, but a few weeks ago, I was thinning out my collection of cookbooks and adding them to my yard sale pile when I thought I'd ask my sister Linda if she wanted our Grannies old Norge Cookbook. It's been used so much I had to duck tape the binding.

It's from 1929, thick as an encyclopedia, and has such tantalizing recipes as Reindeer, boar, possum, along with recipes for tongue and brain.  :-\
Well, Linda was more than happy to have it so I boxed it yup and shipped it to her down in Louisiana. 
I'm anxious to see what her first meal out of it will be.   :-)
And that's my post for today.

catching up

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon.
It was a very busy week, and after work on Saturday, we headed over to Reno's for a late lunch and some football game watching.
We picked up the mo-ho last Tuesday. Didn't cost as much as we thought it would.
We also got our flu shots.
And as what is seeming to be the norm, I have no good news on our possible house in Vegas. The inspection scheduled fro Friday was cancelled as it was discovered that the water had been shut off to the house. It was a surprise to the listing agent and he promised to get it back on asap. Now I need to find out how long it was off, and if there's any issues with the landscaping since obviously the drip irrigation would not have been working during that time either.
I wonder if we'll ever get a home there the way things have been going. Maybe someone's trying to tell us Vegas is not the right choice. 
And our Realtor found tiles that look pretty close. They are a little lighter than the current ones, but she also said the floor is very dirty and when it's cleaned, she thinks it should be a good match.
So that's one more thing that will need to be done.
So the house is not a done deal yet. Not surprising with the way our luck has been going this summer right?
And now we're up to date.   :-)