another weekly post.

Good morning.
Well, it's been another week since I last posted. Maybe this will be my new routine.
It was another okay work week. My customer base seems to have stabilized for the time being. I'm at about 65% of what I was a couple of years ago. Craig is at about 50%.
The 2 new stylists have made up rent wise for some of the difference.
I cleaned the Salon as usual yesterday and it was such a nice day, we went for a long walk. Ended up at Reno's where they had the doors open. Sat and ate popcorn and had a drink enjoying our first really warm day. I believe it got to 72. Walked back home to smell dinner was almost ready. We made corned beef in the crock pot. We had enough left over for another meal and we took a plate over to a friend who lives by herself and doesn't cook much. She texted me later how much she enjoyed it.
It really is great corned beef. The recipe is here.
Today, Craig, myself, the prospective buyer and her husband are meeting with our attorney. He wants to go over some things about the sale, and has offered to mediate a new lease for her. We've already sent the certified letter to the landlord. Her getting an agreeable lease is the next step.
Once that's done, our lawyer will write up the sale agreement.
Once the sale is complete, Craig wants to trade in my Kia for a new car.
This is what he's looking at right now....

The new Jeep Renegade Latitude in Omaha Orange.
Gets pretty good gas millage, and isn't a large SUV.
Of course, we still haven't test drove it yet, but it has gotten very good reviews. And it came out in 2015, so all the bugs should have been worked out by now.
Well, I think that's all for now.

another post

Good morning.
It's been a week since my last post. Let's see, what's been going on.......
Well, the work week was okay. Not real busy, but not real slow either.
Craig is still trying to get used to his new position as a floater. That means he works at whatever station that's available on the particular day he works. He doesn't have  one station anymore now that we have 2 additional stylists working there.  We have 9 stylists, and just 7 stations. Make's for a very busy few days each week.
On Saturday, we met with our lawyer to start the process of selling our Salon. We have a buyer, and we've already met with them and gone over the books to show our expenses and profit margin. Next step is to send a certified letter to the management company informing them that we will not be renewing our lease, and that we have a buyer interested in continuing the least arrangements. Then, the prospective buyer needs to secure an acceptable lease with the landlord before the sale can be completed.
Although we are not moving for a while yet, Craig wants this next part of the process done. We'll rent from the new owner until we are finally ready to move.
Yesterday, after cleaning the Salon, we headed over to Muskegon to spend some time with my Mom.
Gave her a haircut, took out her trash, and took her to lunch at Red Lobster. She had been lucky with the pull-tabs a few weeks before, so she treated us to lunch. Then over to the VFW for a couple of drinks and more pull-tabs. No luck this time.
And Craig had to refill another prescription. He has Humana for his prescription coverage. It was real easy. didn't even have to call his doctor for a prescription, Humana handles it all. He just went online, filled out a little form, and Humana took care of contacting his doctor and filling the scrip and shipping it.
Well, that's my latest news,.

surprise! a post!

Good morning. Yes, I'm still here. I just have been a bit busy and forgot about my blog. :-)
The work week went pretty good. Craig and I are adjusting to our new working arraignment. 
Yesterday, we met with a stylist from our Salon to talk about the sale of our Salon. After going over all the figures, it looks like we are going to move forward. Our next step is to have our lawyer write up a sales agreement and for her to get an LLC.
Here's a few more pics from our day trip to the Hoover Dam when we were out in Vegas....

This graphic was on the floor at one of the entrances to the bathrooms.

This memorial was built to commemorate the building and completion of the dam.

The dam was considered to be an engineering marvel when completed in 1935.

These reliefs are on one of the towers as you cross the dam.
The entire structure has a very art deco feel to it.
With our spring-like weather, we've been out walking. Feels good to be outside again.
Also, we've had some turnover in our apartment building the last couple of months. 3 move outs and 2 move ins. We've also been online car looking. Planning on trading in the Kia for a new car once spring is here to stay. Craig likes the new Jeep Renegade, although he hasn't test drove it yet. We're still just looking.  :-)
And that's all I know right now.

Hoover Dam

Good afternoon.
Another post from our trip to Vegas.
One day, we drove down to Hoover Dam. It's just a short hour drive from the northern end of the valley to the dam.  We stopped at an overlook for Lake Mead on the way. The dam is father right around the corner of the mountain from what you can see.

Lake Mead is enormous! Here's a pic from the new bridge.....Looking back at the dam.

This is an overflow area when the water gets to high. That has only happened once since the dam was built.
And that was in 1986

The overflow tunnel. To get an idea of the size, that little bridge over the top of it is a two lane road that we crossed over with our car.

The 'white' rock on the mountain sides is actually what they call 'the bathtub ring'.
That's where the highest water level was, and how much the lake has dropped during this last drought.

I surprised Craig for this pic. I said "Craig!" he turned around and I snapped the pic. You can see he wasn't very happy about it.   :-)
This pic was taken on top of the dam.

And here's a pic of the new bridge from the top of the dam. All the trucks now use this bridge. Cars can still cross over the dam, but they are subject to inspection.
I'm happy to say we brought back some nice weather. It took a few days to arrive, but today reached 69!   :-) Should be warmer than normal all week!

and more on our recent trip

Good afternoon.
Well, I cleaned the Salon this morning. I went in late as I over slept. Which is unusual for me but I must have been a tired boy after working 11 hours Friday and 9 hours Saturday.  Glad for my weekend.  :-)
Now back in Vegas......
I ordered a couple of desks for Craig and I. The ones we have in the apartment are pretty cheap, and we wanted nicer ones for there.
I ordered them from Walmart.com and had them shipped site to store. That gave us a bigger window for pick-up after we got out there.
Here's a pick of the first one before I put it together.....

Parts all over the place.

And when assembled.....

A nice spacious desk!

I had to add a drawer for the keyboard and mouse. The drawers on the right is the night stand for the bed which I can use for extra storage since this is a spare bedroom. I apparently forgot to take a pic of the second desk, so that will have to wait until our next trip.
One night Craig wanted his delicious short-cut chili. It calls for a box of Chili Hamburger Helper, a can of chili beans, a can of diced tomatoes and a can of black olives.
Unfortunately we discovered we didn't have a can opener. So, I got creative and used tin snips....

Not pretty, but they worked.   :-)
We did go out the next day and bought a cheap can opener.
We also found these cute geckos that Craig would like to put on our wall outside. For now, I put them on the kitchen wall until we get approval from our HOA architectural review committee.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll post about our trip to Hoover Dam.
Bye for now..

about our recent trip

Good afternoon.
I've just returned home from work. Didn't work long. I usually take the day off after we get back from a trip, but I had a lot of voice mail messages when I went in to clean this morning. Sooo, I decided to do a few people today.
Weather here is a lot different from Las Vegas. Lot's of snow here and highs only in the low 20's. There, we had sunshine and  temps right around 80.
We had good flights there and back as for the times and connections, but the actually flights weren't very enjoyable. The flight from Detroit to Vegas, I had to sit next to a man who had to be at  least 300 lbs. And anyone who's flown knows those seats aren't built for any one near that size. Fortunately, I had an isle seat so a lot of me was out there. He tried his best to stay as much as possible in his 'space' but he was just too big to be contained. I would have requested another seat, but the plane was full. But I managed and survived the 4 hour flight.   :-/
Back wasn't quite as bad, although the lady next to me was at least 200 lbs.
But the important part of the trip was we arrived safe, and returned safe, so it was a good trip.
While we were there, we had some electrical work done.
We had added a swag light over the kitchen sink, as the 6 spots in the ceiling weren't close enough to the sink. I didn't like having a cord go from the light, up to the ceiling, over to the wall, and down to a plug. I decided I wanted it 'hard wired' with a wall switch which I thought would look better.

And I think it does. We also had the light/exhaust fan in the master bath by the shower separated with another switch added so I don't have the exhaust on while I shower if i don't want to. I can't seeing using the exhaust fan when the average humidity there is 20 %. I think our home could use a little extra humidity.
We also had an outlet added to the walk-in closet. Thinking we might put a small freezer there when we move out there. But after talking to neighbors, we might just put it in the garage. We'll think about that.
Then I got the idea to put a pendant light in the front entry area.  We did this ourselves. The area had a spot like the kitchen, but with 10ft ceilings, seemed too empty. Went out, bought a conversion kit for the light, a pendant and lamp shade. Here's the before and after....

We went with a white shade with a herringbone pattern. I think it looks pretty good!

We also picked up and assembled 2 desks and took a day trip to the dam. I'll post more about that later this weekend when I get time. But I'm working a full long day tomorrow and Sat.
More to come later....

back again

Good morning.
We returned from a week in Las Vegas yesterday evening.
I'll post about it when I get some time, but right now, I'm off to work.