We've been trying to sell our big screen TV for about a month now - thought we had it sold once - didn't happen so it was back on Craigs List once again. No action - no place to store the TV - what's the next step?
Glenn had a great idea - since he needs some help pouring concrete for the concrete driveway outside of the new garage AND help with starting the construction of the next garage (a single car garage that will hook onto the big garage) he suggested the bartering section - our TV for your labor!
SO I ran a description of the TV and how many hours labor we wanted and posted it about 7:30 on Tuesday morning - by 10:00 we had 4 inquiries on the ad - by 12:00 Glenn already had a guy hired! It was easy as pie - the TV will be gone soon and we have help for 3 days!
Since everyone around seems to be short on money these days, the barter section on Craigs List is getting quite the workout! I think it's wonderful! Wonder what I could trade to get my house cleaned?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
And The Work Never Ends!
My, has it really been an entire week since I've blogged? Just goes to show you how BUSY life gets!
I'm REALLY excited today! My sister Patty from Iowa is flying in tonight to stay for 4 days! She has wanted to come out and see our new place for a long time but somehow last summer, it just didn't happen! But Frontier was having one of their great sales and she got a great price from Omaha to Denver! Glenn and I will be heading up there after work today to pick her up!
We've known for a couple of weeks that she was coming and decided to work extra hard on the house to get some of those things done that just had NEVER gotten done! Last weekend was WORK WEEKEND!! We both worked at least 12 hours each day on things around the house - I concentrated on clear-coating the doors, trim and door frames on the main level of the house and also scraping paint off the lower level outside windows (which was there when we bought the place!) A lot of work - a lot of sore body parts!
Glenn has been working on cleaning up around the house, chopping wood for the winter, and tiling the backsplash in the kitchen! He finished up the tiling yesterday and oh my, it looks great! Today he will take a SUPER large trailer load to the dump! It won't hurt my feelings to NOT see that pile of junk anymore!
So I'm sure the question looming in your minds is this - are you DONE with the house yet? Of course not - is one EVER done???? But we're closer and that's all that counts!!
I'm REALLY excited today! My sister Patty from Iowa is flying in tonight to stay for 4 days! She has wanted to come out and see our new place for a long time but somehow last summer, it just didn't happen! But Frontier was having one of their great sales and she got a great price from Omaha to Denver! Glenn and I will be heading up there after work today to pick her up!
We've known for a couple of weeks that she was coming and decided to work extra hard on the house to get some of those things done that just had NEVER gotten done! Last weekend was WORK WEEKEND!! We both worked at least 12 hours each day on things around the house - I concentrated on clear-coating the doors, trim and door frames on the main level of the house and also scraping paint off the lower level outside windows (which was there when we bought the place!) A lot of work - a lot of sore body parts!
Glenn has been working on cleaning up around the house, chopping wood for the winter, and tiling the backsplash in the kitchen! He finished up the tiling yesterday and oh my, it looks great! Today he will take a SUPER large trailer load to the dump! It won't hurt my feelings to NOT see that pile of junk anymore!
So I'm sure the question looming in your minds is this - are you DONE with the house yet? Of course not - is one EVER done???? But we're closer and that's all that counts!!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes!
It started out as a typical evening - I was busy washing the windows (yes, it's fall, time to do the windows again!!) when it started snowing - not a lot, just a few flakes now and then.
We headed up to bed around 10:30, knowing that it might snow overnight and get a LOT colder! Around 1:30 am the smoke alarms started that horrible piercing sound - can you imagine being aroused from a dead sleep with every smoke alarm in the house going off?
Glenn and I jumped out of bed and he hit the light switch and we immediately could see (as we sleep in the loft) that the house was filled with smoke - not just a little bit, a whole lot! Glenn raced down 2 flights of stairs as somehow we both knew it wasn't a fire, but the new wood stove!
I threw on a robe and for some unknown reason, did NOT put slippers on (hence, the cold, cold feet an hour later) and raced down to the main floor and started opening windows and doors - the smoke started racing outside as soon as I opened the doors but alas, the raging blizzard outside, started coming in!
Glenn realized what had happened - the blizzard had created a downdraft and he had also put a huge log in the stove that he didn't realize was full of pitch and it was smoking like crazy! What a mess! The log was too big and hot to take out so just had to burn! He spent the next hour on the couch, watching the wood stove.
I ended up mopping the wood floor as about 1/2 hour after I had opened the deck door, we had about 1/4" of snow on it AND the couch AND the carpet! But I didn't mind the mopping and cleaning up, anything to get rid of that smoke smell!
I headed back up to bed but couldn't sleep as I had a raging headache and the smell in the loft was still bad - so I ended up sleeping with the window open all night!
The smoke smell was STILL in the house this morning so Glenn will air the house out again today! We ended up getting 5" of snow so it was a treacherous drive to work this morning! But as always, the snow is beautiful and the blessing of the day is our house didn't burn down!
We headed up to bed around 10:30, knowing that it might snow overnight and get a LOT colder! Around 1:30 am the smoke alarms started that horrible piercing sound - can you imagine being aroused from a dead sleep with every smoke alarm in the house going off?
Glenn and I jumped out of bed and he hit the light switch and we immediately could see (as we sleep in the loft) that the house was filled with smoke - not just a little bit, a whole lot! Glenn raced down 2 flights of stairs as somehow we both knew it wasn't a fire, but the new wood stove!
I threw on a robe and for some unknown reason, did NOT put slippers on (hence, the cold, cold feet an hour later) and raced down to the main floor and started opening windows and doors - the smoke started racing outside as soon as I opened the doors but alas, the raging blizzard outside, started coming in!
Glenn realized what had happened - the blizzard had created a downdraft and he had also put a huge log in the stove that he didn't realize was full of pitch and it was smoking like crazy! What a mess! The log was too big and hot to take out so just had to burn! He spent the next hour on the couch, watching the wood stove.
I ended up mopping the wood floor as about 1/2 hour after I had opened the deck door, we had about 1/4" of snow on it AND the couch AND the carpet! But I didn't mind the mopping and cleaning up, anything to get rid of that smoke smell!
I headed back up to bed but couldn't sleep as I had a raging headache and the smell in the loft was still bad - so I ended up sleeping with the window open all night!
The smoke smell was STILL in the house this morning so Glenn will air the house out again today! We ended up getting 5" of snow so it was a treacherous drive to work this morning! But as always, the snow is beautiful and the blessing of the day is our house didn't burn down!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Girls Weekend
It was a girls' weekend up at Jaime's house - a scrapbooking weekend - with lots of good food, wonderful music and best of all, great company! Scrapbooking with your 3 daughters is so much fun - talking and laughing and sharing ideas and just being together!
The little ones were around part of the time and that's always entertaining - but it's always nice to just have that quality time with the girls too!
Thanks Jaime for hosting a great weekend -we'll all look forward to the next one!
The little ones were around part of the time and that's always entertaining - but it's always nice to just have that quality time with the girls too!
Thanks Jaime for hosting a great weekend -we'll all look forward to the next one!
It's JUST Like Being At The Movies........
A big thank-you goes out to Robby for hooking up our surround sound system on Sunday!! WOW - does it ever sound great! All the little speakers are up and the DVD player is now hooked up and can you imagine being down to ONE remote to control everything! All thanks to Robby - he's the BEST when it comes to electronics!
Even American Furniture Warehouse came through today - yes, our entertainment center is now completely together and ready for use!
On the downside, it was time to check out Craigs List again as the washing machine was on its last leg! Glenn tried taking it apart today and decided that after 19 years of service, it was time to haul it to the junkyard and get another one - and since the dryer is that old too, we'll replace it at the same time!
Wonder if anyone will trade a washer and dryer for a big screen TV????
Even American Furniture Warehouse came through today - yes, our entertainment center is now completely together and ready for use!
On the downside, it was time to check out Craigs List again as the washing machine was on its last leg! Glenn tried taking it apart today and decided that after 19 years of service, it was time to haul it to the junkyard and get another one - and since the dryer is that old too, we'll replace it at the same time!
Wonder if anyone will trade a washer and dryer for a big screen TV????
Friday, October 17, 2008
Craigs List
What did we do before Craigs List? I had to stop and think about this for a while - I guess if we needed to advertise something to sell, we either had to call up our local newspaper and actually run an ad in the "For Sale" section or put up a sign at the local grocery store (which never worked anyway!) And if we were looking for something to buy???? Then it was scour the weekly paper or hit every garage sale in the area!
Now we're spoiled - with one click of the mouse, we can go to a specific category and scroll through hundreds and hundreds of items, find an item we want to look at (most of them have pictures posted), shoot a quick email to the person with any questions and then if we're still interested, set up a time to go see the item! And if we're not interested anymore, we haven't wasted any gas or a lot of time!
I've been checking Craigs List a LOT lately as there were several things we actually needed to buy and "used" was just fine with us! So in the last month we've acquired a huge,upright, almost new freezer, a wonderful wood stove for the basement, a large bookshelf to put in the storage room (for all the books that are STILL in boxes) and a desk for Glenn's office!
Now if someone would just buy the TV we have for sale on Craigs List, I would be VERY happy!
Now we're spoiled - with one click of the mouse, we can go to a specific category and scroll through hundreds and hundreds of items, find an item we want to look at (most of them have pictures posted), shoot a quick email to the person with any questions and then if we're still interested, set up a time to go see the item! And if we're not interested anymore, we haven't wasted any gas or a lot of time!
I've been checking Craigs List a LOT lately as there were several things we actually needed to buy and "used" was just fine with us! So in the last month we've acquired a huge,upright, almost new freezer, a wonderful wood stove for the basement, a large bookshelf to put in the storage room (for all the books that are STILL in boxes) and a desk for Glenn's office!
Now if someone would just buy the TV we have for sale on Craigs List, I would be VERY happy!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Continuing Saga......
I really am still around! This darn cough/cold/congestion has really put a damper on my life but I think I'm almost healthy again!
I was excited yesterday as Glenn was going to ONCE AGAIN pick up our box of column shelves to complete our entertainment center! If you recall in a previous blog, I told you our story of picking up the 3 boxes and the one box was damaged - so another was ordered and this one had mold all over the side of it - so another one was ordered which I picked up last Friday night - there was NO damage on it, hooray, but they sent 2 left sides instead of a left and a right! By this time you can about imagine how we felt - believe me, I wasn't very nice when I called customer service last Saturday. I got the standard answer, yes, we will order you another shipment and you can pick it up on Tuesday and we're sorry but we'll give you a gas credit - this time I got them up to $20!
So Glenn gets down to the place and lo and behold, there was NO DAMAGE to the box as there wasn't EVEN A BOX!!! The guy forgot to have it delivered from Denver! All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't the customer service rep working! I don't think it probably was a very pretty sight!
Our new box is to be DELIVERED to our doorstep next Monday - anybody want to take bets?
I was excited yesterday as Glenn was going to ONCE AGAIN pick up our box of column shelves to complete our entertainment center! If you recall in a previous blog, I told you our story of picking up the 3 boxes and the one box was damaged - so another was ordered and this one had mold all over the side of it - so another one was ordered which I picked up last Friday night - there was NO damage on it, hooray, but they sent 2 left sides instead of a left and a right! By this time you can about imagine how we felt - believe me, I wasn't very nice when I called customer service last Saturday. I got the standard answer, yes, we will order you another shipment and you can pick it up on Tuesday and we're sorry but we'll give you a gas credit - this time I got them up to $20!
So Glenn gets down to the place and lo and behold, there was NO DAMAGE to the box as there wasn't EVEN A BOX!!! The guy forgot to have it delivered from Denver! All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't the customer service rep working! I don't think it probably was a very pretty sight!
Our new box is to be DELIVERED to our doorstep next Monday - anybody want to take bets?
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Hiking in the Aspens
Just ONE more blog on the aspens and I promise I will stop!!
Jessi, Gary and Evan came down for part of the weekend and we hiked Mueller State Park on Sat. morning! The weather was perfect - cool - but great for hiking! And the aspens were gorgeous - it was peak weekend - and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed to hike!
Jessi, Gary and Evan came down for part of the weekend and we hiked Mueller State Park on Sat. morning! The weather was perfect - cool - but great for hiking! And the aspens were gorgeous - it was peak weekend - and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed to hike!
Little Evan rode most of the way in Dad's backpack but loved playing in the leaves, once he got out! And 7 month pregnant Jessi did awesome on the hike except for the last bit - it was all uphill at that point and her and I opted to stay until the guys hiked back in and brought the car around to the highway. A great day in the mountains!
My Guys!
Officially, the basement was finished last week!! Inspection was on Thursday and went through without a hitch! HOORAY! Sure, there are a few odds and ends left to do and Hans will finish up this weekend, but we could actually put the furniture where it needed to be and unpack the new entertainment center and TV!
Lance and Hans
Our new entertainment center came in 3 boxes - and darn it if one of the boxes didn't have a broken shelf in it! So I called and they would have another box shipped from Denver and we could pick it up on Sunday - no problem. Sunday comes and we head to Co. Springs to pick it up, this time deciding to OPEN the box while we are there to make sure it's OK - that was a good choice - the box must have sat in some water at one point because the side of the shelf was all moldy - YUCK!!! Once again they called to have yet another box shipped down and we can pick it up anytime - except Glenn is too busy to pick it up right now! We complained about making a special trip down and they gave us a $10.00 gas credit - I'm not sure that would even cover the gas it took but I guess it was better than nothing!
Glenn has worked diligently to TRY and hook up the dish and the new TV and the new surround sound system - I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad!! The dish and the TV are now hooked up and we're very happy with it all - now we need son-in-law Robby to come down and hook up the surround sound - it's just a little too technical for us old folks!
Lance and Hans
Our new entertainment center came in 3 boxes - and darn it if one of the boxes didn't have a broken shelf in it! So I called and they would have another box shipped from Denver and we could pick it up on Sunday - no problem. Sunday comes and we head to Co. Springs to pick it up, this time deciding to OPEN the box while we are there to make sure it's OK - that was a good choice - the box must have sat in some water at one point because the side of the shelf was all moldy - YUCK!!! Once again they called to have yet another box shipped down and we can pick it up anytime - except Glenn is too busy to pick it up right now! We complained about making a special trip down and they gave us a $10.00 gas credit - I'm not sure that would even cover the gas it took but I guess it was better than nothing!
Glenn has worked diligently to TRY and hook up the dish and the new TV and the new surround sound system - I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad!! The dish and the TV are now hooked up and we're very happy with it all - now we need son-in-law Robby to come down and hook up the surround sound - it's just a little too technical for us old folks!
In the meantime, we're enjoying our new lower level - I can't wait to unpack the boxes that have some decorations and get something put on the walls! It's been a LONG wait but now I can FINALLY do the final organizing of the house with everything in place!
Singin' The Blues
I'm home sick today - I must have whatever is going around - the chest that feels like there's 100# of weight on it, the cough that hurts and the throat that keeps telling me "don't swallow as it's just too painful"! I actually don't feel THAT bad but I have no voice, and it's a little tough to be at work having to answer the phone! So I had to call in for a sick day!
I really don't like to miss work - I would rather be there doing my day to day routine instead of being home KNOWING I should be relaxing - but that's something I don't do too well when I know it's a work day!
So in between reading, relaxing and dousing myself with vicks, I'm doing a few things around the house that really couldn't be done until the basement was finished. I may even turn on the TV although I doubt it - I'm just not a TV watcher during the day!
Somehow I WILL make it through this day and I WILL be back at work tomorrow !
I really don't like to miss work - I would rather be there doing my day to day routine instead of being home KNOWING I should be relaxing - but that's something I don't do too well when I know it's a work day!
So in between reading, relaxing and dousing myself with vicks, I'm doing a few things around the house that really couldn't be done until the basement was finished. I may even turn on the TV although I doubt it - I'm just not a TV watcher during the day!
Somehow I WILL make it through this day and I WILL be back at work tomorrow !
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Aspen Colors
I headed to the hills after work today with my friend and we saw the most amazing aspen colors! True, a lot of the trees haven't even turned yet but what we did see was fantastic! I had a hard time just picking 3 pictures to post - what an amazing fall this has been!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)