an apartment, finally!

Good morning.
Finally! We have an apartment!
One of the complexes we looked at was Plumtree Apartments. At the time they had no openings. They had 2 units that were in the application process. It was possible that one of them wouldn't make it and I put my name on them to be called if that happened. I wasn't crazy about one of the units as it was a 'garden' apt. You know, it sits half in the ground and half out. You look out your windows at grass level. You see peoples shoes walking by.  But we were getting a bit desperate. We need to move 2 weeks from next Monday.
Well, we got lucky! I received a call yesterday morning from the leasing agent. She said they had just received a move out notice for this weekend. And it was a one bedroom balcony unit! It would be ready to occupy around the 14th.  We want to move on the 17th! How fricken perfect is that!

What we like about this complex, is it's close to work, the price is good, and it's one of only 2 complexes with addition storage space in the laundry area. Now we have a place to store our cars snow tires!

Yes, we gave up having a washer/dryer in the unit. But they have them in each building, and since we have Monday and Tuesday off, it shouldn't be a problem doing laundry there. Also, we figure we can take laundry to work on Saturdays. We are usually the only ones working then.
The building above isn't the one our unit is in, but all the buildings look similar. We'll be on the middle floor.

So with that piece of the puzzle in place, things are looking good.   :-)
Now it's off to work.
Oh, an interesting bit of trivia.......
We lived at Plumtree Apts. 30 years ago. That is where we moved from when we bought our house.

no apartment yet

Good morning.
Well, it's Wed. so it's back to work.  :-(
it was a busy weekend with looking at apts. and working in the house and yard.
We had the appraisal yesterday, and our realtor said it would be a couple of days to get the results.
 We also looked at more apartments. We've now looked at everything on our side of town. The one I really like is really expensive, and the really cheap ones are really icky. So hopefully we'll find one in between.    :-)
We still have nearly 3 weeks. That's a lot of time isn't it?  :-/
But I've done a little more packing and thinning out. More weeding and deadheading, and everything looks like it's coming along well. Just need to find that special apartment.  :-)
And here's one of the last pics I'll probably be taking of our yard.....

After looking at apartments, I'm going to miss my house and yard. But life is a journey, and time to move on from this 30 year section of that journey. Our future is in Las Vegas, and this is just another part of the transition.
Now I'm off to work.

moving right along

Good morning.
It was a beautiful day yesterday, though a little humid.
I finished cleaning out the shed, did some deadheading and weeding, and emptied and cleaned out the little chest freezer we had in the laundry/pantry room.
We also went to Walmart to pick up a cheap bed frame to use in our apartment. And to make it even cheaper, I used $15 in eGift cards courtesy of My Coke Rewards.

The points add up and I've saved quite a bit of money over the last couple of years, just because I drink Coke.  :-)
The fancy bed frame we have isn't going to Vegas with us and the cheap one which is adjustable for any size bed will be much easier to get rid of.

This bed frame came in a 3 1/2 ft x 1 1/2 ft box. No tools to put it together. Unfold and snap the pieces together. Pretty neat!
I have another bed buyer coming over today. The first one never showed up or called.
Why do people answer ads on Craig's List and don't show up?
This has happened a few times now. Drives me nuts!
Anyway, today we look at more apartments. Wish us luck!
And thanks for all the suggestions. I don't want to rent a house because of the yard work and snow shoveling. Condos would be more expensive than apartments. I suggested to Craig we take the staff lounge and convert that to a studio, but he says he spends to much time at work already.   :-)
So we'll find an apartment, and it will be just fine.
I'll keep you posted.

tired

Good evening.
It ended up being  a fairly busy week in the salon, and after work today, we headed over to Reno's for cocktails and to enjoy the beautiful weather.
The person who wanted the bookcase came over and picked that up and spotted the throw pillows on the couch. I really liked those as they were bought them in Chicago and they are very unique. But ended up selling her those too as we won't need them in Vegas. A person also called about the king bed frame and is coming over tomorrow to look at it.
I had a message on my answering machine when I got home from work on Thursday. It was from my charge card company. There were suspicious charges they wanted to know about and I should call them right away.
Come to find out that earlier in the day there were 3 charges made in the Detroit area, and I said I made none of those. They froze my card and are issuing me a new one. I suspect it was due to  an e-mail I got about a month ago from one of our beauty suppliers stating their payment system was hacked and my information may have been stolen. Apparently it was. Fortunately, the 3 charges were each less that $50. And I'm not liable for any of them.
Also, the house inspection went well, and now there's an appraisal being done next Tuesday. If that goes well, I suspect a closing date will follow.
And Monday, we're looking at more apartments. We still aren't happy with any of the ones we've seen. All to much money for what you're getting. I like my house much better than any of them. But, it is going to be semi temporary, so I suppose we can put up with any of them for a year or two. We just have to decide on what we'll put up with and for how much. We have exactly 3 weeks to decide and move.
And with that, I'm going to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. Cleaning the Salon, and hopefully do a lot of yard work. I've neglected the yard this past month or so trying to get the house sale ready. I'd like the place to look good inside and out for the new owner.

Back to work to relax.

Good morning.
The last two days were busy, as we looked for an apartment, mowed the yard, patched and painted and started packing.
On an apartment....
It doesn't look like it will be Runaway Bay. since we looked there 4 weeks ago, the rent has gone up more than $50 a month. Their pricing policy seems to be all about supply and demand. The fewer apts. they have available, up the rent goes. So it looks like we've come down to 2 places. Tammany on the Ponds, and Water's Edge. We're not thrilled with any of them. The kitchens are tiny, and very little storage. But it's been 30 years since our last apt.  After looking at so many apartments, I realize how nice our little house is.  Oh well, it's only for about a year hopefully. We'll make our final decision on Friday. Should have the house inspection report by then.
With all the furniture sold or spoken for, I'm now starting to pack things. Some boxes are label Vegas, as we won't need any thing in those boxes until we move to Vegas.
And we've been on a resorting binge. Going back through closets and cupboards and thinning out more stuff. We have too much stuff to fit in that tiny apt.
Now it's back to work. Looking like a fairly light week. That would be nice so I can relax a little.  :-)

going, going, going!

Good morning.
It was a busy day yesterday, and very productive.   :-)
I posted the furniture that I had posted here on Craig's list, and not only did I sell most of that, I also sold a coffee table and 2 end tables.  A person who saw my listings was trying to help her daughter furnish a new apt. So she ended up buying as much as she could. I also had a Salon customer come over. Her son is closing on a house in a week, and because he's moving from an apt. has nothing for out side. She bought my snow blower, lawn mower, weed wacker and assorted shovels, rakes and garden tools. Then she came inside and thought her son would love the recliner and bought that too!
And through facebook, I sold the bookcase.  The blue leather furniture had already been spoken for, and I'll call her today to let her know she can pick it up.
So, all the big ticket items are gone, except the bed frame.
And here's a few pics of my rapidly emptying house....

The bookcase is being picked up next weekend. The recliner and outdoor stuff is being picked up when I'm done working in the yard. Just before closing around the 24th of August.

I also spent the day taking down artwork and pictures and patching and painting. I'd like the new owner to come in and have a fresh canvas to work with.
Oh, and click on the above pic. It looks to me like a sad face on the wall in the other room. But I have nothing on the walls. It must have been some reflection from the flash. Or the camera saw something I can't. Maybe the house is sad to see me go. Kind of freaky weird!
I've also started doing some packing. I've got stuff I want out in Vegas that I won't use here. I'm labeling the boxes Vegas and they will be stored for the final move.
I've made 2 early morning trips to Meijer's to pick up boxes. Early morning is a great time as that is when they're stocking. And I'm gonna  need a lot of boxes.  :-)
Today, it's trying to settle on an apt. We want our final yard sale 3 weeks from yesterday. Then a dumpster delivered to get rid of the rest. Then to move 3- 4 weeks from today. Closing is tentatively scheduled for 5 weeks from today. That would give me a few days to do a final cleaning of the house.
So, a busy month ahead. So I should get going.

Coldwell Banker discriminates

Good morning.

I've just returned from cleaning the Salon. It was filthy. But we did have a crazy busy week.

We signed the papers on Friday accepting one of the house offers, and the inspection is scheduled for next Thursday.

And if I were to sell another house in the future, I would not go with Coldwell Banker.

Why? Because of the process and they discriminate.

Now I really like our agent, but it ends there. It took 7 days to get a fricken sign in our front yard. A week was wasted not having the extra exposure. Then, if that wasn't bad enough, instead of getting a standard sign that most people get....

I got this puny little sign you can barely see flying down the road at 55mph.

Come to find out, if your property is listed for less than $150,000 you get the puny sign. Now don't you think that's just plain discrimination? Why shouldn't everyone get the same damn sign?
They're probably thinking...."well, we aren't going to make that much off you so this is all you deserve."
Fortunately, we priced it to move, and it did. Even without the sign. But it makes you wonder....what if?
 That behind us, we figure if the inspection goes okay, we have 3 weeks to find a place and move. We'll start that process first thing Monday.
Now time to get going.

going, going, gone?

Good morning.
It's been an insanely busy week in the Salon.
Add to that we haven't been able to go home right after work due to late home showings, and that makes for long days.
But, it appears to have been worth it as we have received 2 good offers on the house.   :-)

 These were the 2 showings and the feedback.  The first showing was very interested and really liked the house.
We meet with our Realtor this morning to settle on one and begin the closing process.
With each offer, they want closing by the end of August. So that means after the home inspection and appraisal is completed, and accepted, we'll need to hustle to find an apartment and get this house emptied. It looks to be an extremely hectic month ahead.
With that said, we want to get rid of more furniture.....

 A metal bed frame with brushed nickel finish that will support a king or queen mattress.

 A cherry dresser with 2 matching night stands.

 An oriental cabinet.

And a book case.
They will be going on Craig's list this weekend when I get some time.
If any readers are interested, send me an e-mail.
Now time to get ready for work.

clean, clean and more clean

Good morning.
It's a cool 55 out this morning after a fairly rainy weekend.
But I spent a good part of it cleaning. I think the house is as clean as it's been since we bought it 30 years ago.   :-)
We have 3 showings today and one scheduled for tomorrow. After several days of no activity at all, suddenly there are people who want to see the house.
And it's looking to be a very busy week in the Salon as I continue to try and play catch-up from out little vacation.
We did manage to mow Monday afternoon after it dried up a bit so the yard looks pretty good. I haven't spent as much time on maintaining the flower beds as I've spent sooo much time inside cleaning, thinning, and getting rid of stuff. I hauled another 2 bags into work yesterday.
But hopefully it will all pay off when we are ready to move. We'll see.
But now, time for me to get.

exhausted

Good morning.
Last Friday and Saturday were exhausting!
I worked 11 hours Friday, and 10 hours on Saturday.
I haven't worked that many hours in two days in a l-o-n-g time.
I must have been so tired, that when I went in on Sunday morning to clean the Salon, I discovered I had left the lights on Saturday when I closed up. How does one forget to turn off the lights?
Anyway, I got the Salon cleaned, and back home I didn't get a whole lot done. I did manage to clean out more stuff from the shed and garage. I have 3 large trash bags of stuff to take in this morning.
And here's another pic I took out in Vegas.....

If you look closely, you'll notice there aren't 3 palm trees in the pic, only 2.
The tall one is actually a cell tower. They add fake fronds to make them look less obvious. I've seen this all over the valley. They do look a little better, but it's still obvious they are cell towers.  :-)
And with that, time to get going.

MGM tower spa suite

Good morning.
As I said before, we spent the last night of our stay in Vegas at the MGM casino/resort, courtesy of the Facebook game, MyVegas Slots. Yep! we get free rooms thanks to playing this free game.   :-)
We also got free slot play, free drinks, and two free dinner buffet passes.
Now we did decide to do a little upgrade for $34.00.
 And this is what we got......

A nice large L shaped room, with a pretty nice view.

That's New York New York, Monte Carlo and Aria from left to right. The roof and the blue/green building in the lower half of the pic is all MGM property

Tropicana Blvd with Excalibur on the left.

Big white building, the old Tropicana, then Luxor the pyramid and Mandalay Bay. We're staying at Mandalay bay when we go back on our next trip.

And Craig bringing ice for drinks before we head out.
Our neighbor Ingrid dropped us off at the bus stop, and we took that down to Koval and Tropicana which is pretty much right behind the MGM, so not to far to walk. This resort is enormous! I think it's probably the largest on the strip. It must have taken me over 30 minutes to go from the room to a party store one block away and back. But that was okay as Craig had to wait for security to come and open the in-room safe.  It was locked when we checked in. Apparently the previous person/persons locked it before leaving. He opened it up to find half a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich in it. yuk!
So, we had a couple of cocktails enjoyed the view and headed down to the casino. Got our free drinks, free slot play, spent a little more and ate at the buffet.
Before we went to the bus stop, we stopped at our community center to use their free computer to print out our boarding passes. I discovered if I log in with my user name and password, since we've flown quite a few times now, we get TSA Pre-check. That means when we get to the airport, we get to go in a special shorter line and don't have to take off our shoes or belts.  Nice!  Now if I could just figure out how to get free seat upgrades on the plane.   :-)
This plane was the first we've been on that wasn't completely packed. Craig and I ended up in a row with 3 seats so we were nice and comfy with the extra room.
All our flights were on time and uneventful and we arrived back in Lansing  as scheduled.
It was another good trip.   :-)
But now, it's back to reality and work. Today I'm booked from 8am until 6:30pm.  And Saturday, 8am until 6pm.  :-(
They say, those who play must pay. At least, it's just two days.

a good Vegas trip

Good morning.
Another good trip to Vegas.   :-)
We left last Friday morning, flying out of Lansing, and transferring in Detroit. Arrived in Vegas on time, caught a cab to the bus stop, and rode the bus out to the community.  Our house is exactly a 1 mile walk from the bus stop. 18 minutes. It was 101 degrees. But we did just fine. It's a dry heat.   :-)
And that does make a difference. Yes, 101 is still very hot, and we were a bit moist when we got to the house. But we had water to drink and a power mister that really helped. And even though the house thermostat was set at 90, it actually felt quite refreshing when we went inside, compared to the outside.  We turned everything on, got the car started, and while the house cooled down, we went out for supplies.
We had 3 little issues with the house this trip.
1. The light and exhaust switch in the second bath didn't work.
2. The lock between the garage and house failed.
3. I discovered two major leaks in our drip irrigation system.
So, we got a new lock for the garage door, and I repaired the two leaks. The electric issue will have to wait until we have more time to get someone out there.
And despite the two major leaks, it looks like everything still got enough water. I even had to trim the Rosemary bushes out front that really had grown.

I forgot to take a before pic, so this is a partially done pic.  :-)

And here they are done.
We even had a thunderstorm while we were there.

Apparently July is monsoon season. That means little storms can pop up out of nowhere and produce heavy rain for several minutes, and then they're gone. We only got about a quarter of an inch in Aliante, but the strip got just over an inch.
We did add another thing to the house, a wall clock.

 

 I can see the time from either the kitchen or living room.

We also got the walk in closet painted, along with the laundry room and coat closet. So a fairly busy trip.

And while visiting one of the few neighbors that stay the summer, Ingrid, she insisted on giving us a ride back to the bus stop when we left. We accepted. 

Spent the last night of our trip at the MGM. A huge resort! And our nearly free room was great! I'll post more pics when I get a chance, but with just one day off before we go back to work, we have a lot to do today, and our realtor is coming out to put the lock box on our door as our listing goes live today. also.

Later!

we're back!

Good afternoon.
My absence must mean one thing.....we've just returned from Vegas!
Had a good trip. Will tell more when I have time,.
But here's a cute pic of the quails we have out there and their flock of babies.

up it goes!

Good morning.
It's been a busy week in the Salon.
And things look like they're heating up.....

 In las Vegas.
This is the graph from our smart meter in Vegas. As you can see, starting around the 13th of June, our electricity started to increase. We have the air set on 90. June 13th was the first day their temps hit 100. Since then, as the daytime temps continue to rise, and the evening temps don't drop as much, the electric usage has gone up considerably.
So either the air is working as expected, or we have a squatter living there.  :-)
We'll find out later this month.
In other news.......
I've gotten the bugs worked out of the new charge card terminal and it's preforming great.
We worked out the rest of the issues with the Realtor and signed the rest of the listing agreement.
So... over the next few weeks, I'll be posting more stuff for sale here, on Facebook and Craig's list.
Now time to get going.

getting ready to move on

Good morning.
It was a fairly busy weekend.
We met with the Realtor, and signed most of the papers to list our house. We're waiting to a response our lawyer had about 2 items, before we sign the rest.
We spent a good part of the day on Monday looking at apartments. We found this layout we both really liked....

Instead of a tunnel effect that most apartments seem to have, this one feels more like a house. Unfortunately, as we've found with every apartment complex we looked at, there are very few available apartments. Seems that our side of town has become very popular for renters. And since we have no idea how long it will take to sell our house, we are going to need a plan B and C if this apartment is no longer available when we are ready to move.

In other news.....

I've been re-going through closets and cabinets and such and have taken another 4 bag of 'stuff' out to the garage for a final sale when we have the house sold. Now we're down to asking....will we need/want this in Vegas? Even after our big sale a few weeks ago, I'm still finding more 'stuff' we can do without. I guess 30 years adds a lot of 'stuff' to a house.  :-)

And one thing we've decided to let go is a set of China.....

We have an 8 piece set. Got the starter set many, many years ago as a Christmas present from the Salon staff. We added to it to make it an 8 piece. I think we've used it maybe less that a dozen times over the years.  We don't entertain much and certainly not formally, so time for it to go.

We also added glasses, stemware, a salt and pepper shaker, and coasters that aren't part of the original set, but go nicely with it.

So if anyone is interested, let me know before I list it.
Now time to get to work. Looking to be a very busy week!