This year is flying by

I keep thinking that I will be able to do a blog post on Sunday's, but between church, fixing lunch, and football Sunday just seems to disappear!  So, instead here it is on Tuesday and it's been two weeks since my last post.  Good grief.

I have pretty much fallen into a schedule - sorta - but I don't get real upset if the schedule gets messed up some.  For the last couple of weeks Monday is laundry day - wash, fold/hang, put away.  Tuesday is clean house day (that will change starting this week - as we are getting a housekeeper coming in every two weeks - can you say YIPPEE!!!!!) Wednesday I volunteer at one of the gift shops here at the village.  Thursday is meal planning and grocery shopping day.  Friday is do what ever Dan wants to do.  Saturday is college football and we're back to Sunday which is Church, lunch, and football.  Now, there are other activities that get thrown into the mix and if you could see our schedule for the next two months you would see that the schedule might be out the window!

Last week on Tuesday. I had fasting labs.  It is so simple to get labs done here - I get out of bed about 7:30, get dressed, take the golf cart down to the Medical Center and boom 15 minutes later I'm back home drinking my cup of coffee.  Easy Peasy! 

Wednesday morning I volunteered at the gift shop.

Thursday afternoon was the Membership Council meeting - I had been nominated to be the assistant Secretary (not a big deal), well after the meeting one of the members of the nominating committee called and asked if I would be "The" Secretary instead of Assistant.  After discussing with Dan I agreed and tonight is the annual meeting where the votes will be taken and new officers will be sworn in.

Friday morning Dan and I went up to Valdosta to Sam's and picked up a few things - can you really buy a "few" things at Sam's???  Anyway, our main reason for going was to get Halloween Candy - they had great prices and we picked up enough for the kids that Trick or Treated Saturday night as well as having some to take to the day care center here at the Village (Wee Care).

Saturday early voting started so Dan and I went down and voted.  I will not talk about our votes but so much is on the line this year.  I'll leave it at that.

Saturday evening we went down to Carol and Neil's house for sloppy joes and to hand out candy to the little ones.  We sat out on the porch and there were so many cute, cute outfits.  Some were extremely creative (a snow blizzard) and some were the typical gory "walking dead" things.  All the children were extremely polite and would not take any candy out of the bowls on the table until we told them they could.  I was also impressed with the number of parents that also dressed up to take their children out.  We have a very large number of kids come out since we live in such a rural area - this is the only real development - so the kids come in by the truck and trailer load.  A set amount of time is published - this year from 6 to 8 - and it is amazing how the community sticks to the schedule.  Anyway, it was fun seeing all the little ones. 

Dan is also working on the fireplace.  When he built the mantle on the fireplace right after we moved back in the house we knew that it was temporary.  We didn't build the shelves that we wanted at that time and just used some black IKEA shelves that we had. 

This picture was taken right after we moved and had things "somewhat" put away.



Then, while cleaning out things in the garage, we came across these moose wall sconces.  These had not been hung since we lived in the "big" house in North Carolina (about 10 years ago).  I told Dan that either we hang them or we get rid of them.  Well, Dan hung them in the family room and we liked the look - the only problem was we didn't have electrical boxes to wire them.  So, they were just decorative.  But, we already knew that we (meaning Dan) was going to redo the fireplace mantle and Dan figured out how to wire them through the new mantle since we did have an electrical plug installed in the mantle when the remodeling was being done.

So, last week we made a trip to Lowe's and got the lumber and Dan started to tear the fireplace mantle apart.  As he was working we were making changes - which lead to him completely taking everything down.

You can see in this picture that he has installed the first electrical box and run the wiring for it.  This wire will run inside the mantle and will be wired with a switch on the outside on the right.  When we first worked on the fireplace we had them install a plug on the top so I could decorate for Christmas.  This was very useful in the new design.

Sunday Dan had the sconces successfully wired and on.  Yeah!


Today the bookshelves are being constructed. 

 Dan is even making the shelves adjustable - the bottom shelf and the middle shelf will be fixed and then there will be two (or three) adjustable shelves.

 He is doing all the construction outside in the garage/driveway and then bringing the prefabbed parts in and installing them.  I think he is going to paint the shelves outside, but the mantle itself will be painted in the house.

I am aware and thankful every day that Dan is so talented when it comes to woodworking.  If there is something that I would like built I know that Dan can make it come to life.

Yesterday we attended the Christmas Program information meeting - we are doing a live re-enactment of Jesus's birth outside with a village, market place, animals, etc.  The program will be presented three nights - Dan will be one of the Kings and I will be a merchant woman.  It should be interesting and fun - and we certainly hope that we will be able to be a blessing to everyone who attends.

Since tonight is the Annual Membership meeting where the new officers will be installed I have supper in the crock pot - a new chicken enchilada soup recipe that I saw on Facebook.  I hope it tastes as good as it smells!

Well, that pretty much catches you up on everything- but I have to leave you with a picture of the girls dressed for Trick or Treating - my lovely Lorelai was dressed as Rainbow Dash (a My Little Pony - and her favorite) and my adorable Adalyn was dress as My Little Kitty.  They were both so cute and I wish I could have been there to go with them.  Precious!

Hopefully, I'll talk to you soon!

This year is flying by

I keep thinking that I will be able to do a blog post on Sunday's, but between church, fixing lunch, and football Sunday just seems to disappear!  So, instead here it is on Tuesday and it's been two weeks since my last post.  Good grief.

I have pretty much fallen into a schedule - sorta - but I don't get real upset if the schedule gets messed up some.  For the last couple of weeks Monday is laundry day - wash, fold/hang, put away.  Tuesday is clean house day (that will change starting this week - as we are getting a housekeeper coming in every two weeks - can you say YIPPEE!!!!!) Wednesday I volunteer at one of the gift shops here at the village.  Thursday is meal planning and grocery shopping day.  Friday is do what ever Dan wants to do.  Saturday is college football and we're back to Sunday which is Church, lunch, and football.  Now, there are other activities that get thrown into the mix and if you could see our schedule for the next two months you would see that the schedule might be out the window!

Last week on Tuesday. I had fasting labs.  It is so simple to get labs done here - I get out of bed about 7:30, get dressed, take the golf cart down to the Medical Center and boom 15 minutes later I'm back home drinking my cup of coffee.  Easy Peasy! 

Wednesday morning I volunteered at the gift shop.

Thursday afternoon was the Membership Council meeting - I had been nominated to be the assistant Secretary (not a big deal), well after the meeting one of the members of the nominating committee called and asked if I would be "The" Secretary instead of Assistant.  After discussing with Dan I agreed and tonight is the annual meeting where the votes will be taken and new officers will be sworn in.

Friday morning Dan and I went up to Valdosta to Sam's and picked up a few things - can you really buy a "few" things at Sam's???  Anyway, our main reason for going was to get Halloween Candy - they had great prices and we picked up enough for the kids that Trick or Treated Saturday night as well as having some to take to the day care center here at the Village (Wee Care).

Saturday early voting started so Dan and I went down and voted.  I will not talk about our votes but so much is on the line this year.  I'll leave it at that.

Dan is also working on the fireplace.  When he built the mantle on the fireplace right after we moved back in the house we knew that it was temporary.  We didn't build the shelves that we wanted at that time and just used some black IKEA shelves that we had. 

This picture was taken right after we moved and had things "somewhat" put away.



Then, while cleaning out things in the garage, we came across these moose wall sconces.  These had not been hung since we lived in the "big" house in North Carolina (about 10 years ago).  I told Dan that either we hang them or we get rid of them.  Well, Dan hung them in the family room and we liked the look - the only problem was we didn't have electrical boxes to wire them.  So, they were just decorative.  But, we already knew that we (meaning Dan) was going to redo the fireplace mantle and Dan figured out how to wire them through the new mantle since we did have an electrical plug installed in the mantle when the remodeling was being done.

So, last week we made a trip to Lowe's and got the lumber and Dan started to tear the fireplace mantle apart.  As he was working we were making changes - which lead to him completely taking everything down.

You can see in this picture that he has installed the first electrical box and run the wiring for it.  This wire will run inside the mantle and will be wired with a switch on the outside on the right.  When we first worked on the fireplace we had them install a plug on the top so I could decorate for Christmas.  This was very useful in the new design.

Sunday Dan had the sconces successfully wired and on.  Yeah!


Today the bookshelves are being constructed. 

 Dan is even making the shelves adjustable - the bottom shelf and the middle shelf will be fixed and then there will be two (or three) adjustable shelves.

 He is doing all the construction outside in the garage/driveway and then bringing the prefabbed parts in and installing them.  I think he is going to paint the shelves outside, but the mantle itself will be painted in the house.

I am aware and thankful every day that Dan is so talented when it comes to woodworking.  If there is something that I would like built I know that Dan can make it come to life.

Yesterday we attended the Christmas Program information meeting - we are doing a live re-enactment of Jesus's birth outside with a village, market place, animals, etc.  The program will be presented three nights - Dan will be one of the Kings and I will be a merchant woman.  It should be interesting and fun - and we certainly hope that we will be able to be a blessing to everyone who attends.

Since tonight is the Annual Membership meeting where the new officers will be installed I have supper in the crock pot - a new chicken enchilada soup recipe that I saw on Facebook.  I hope it tastes as good as it smells!

Well, that pretty much catches you up on everything- but I have to leave you with a picture of the girls dressed for Trick or Treating - my lovely Lorelai was dressed as Rainbow Dash (a My Little Pony - and her favorite) and my adorable Adalyn was dress as My Little Kitty.  They were both so cute and I wish I could have been there to go with them.  Precious!

Hopefully, I'll talk to you soon!

Changes

  On Friday I said that Dan was working on a couple of projects that I hoped I'd be able to share today.  Well, I can!  Dan worked really hard all day Saturday and got the project finished, painted, and installed.  Then I spent Saturday evening doing my thing - you know, the pretty stuff.

Let's go back and look at the pictures of the family room on Friday.

Do you notice anything with the windows?  No???  Well, you wouldn't.  They were very unfinished.

Now, let's look at today.

 See the shelves???  Yep, Dan built the shelves for me this weekend and I think they look pretty awesome.

We have ordered some curtains that we hope will be in this week that will change this area even more.  I think it will be the finishing touch for these windows.  Anyway, I am so happy with the shelves.  I still need to "tweak" the left side of the shelf on the picture above.  Not real happy with the way it looks - but I'll work on it. 

Plus, we were able to get rid of another box from the garage!  Yes!!!!

We also worked on one other area.

Back to Friday's pictures.

 This is the breakfast nook/coffee bar area.  I'm sure you were wondering about that big blank wall staring at you.  Well, I knew what I wanted there the whole time and we were able to install them Friday.

I had always envisioned big chunky floating shelves here.  Dan kept trying to figure out how he was going to create my idea.  Well, I was looking in the IKEA catalogue to show him the shelves and we discovered we could order the shelves that I liked cheaper than it would cost Dan for the lumber - not counting his time.  So - what does it look like?? 

 Here they are!

Now, if Dan had made them they might be a little bit thicker - but I think they look awesome.

  

Here's a close up for you.

The faux pine cone is just a space saver for now - I am going to do a chalkboard there but I just needed something to fill the space for a little while.  Almost everything else on the shelves are antiques.  The lantern on the top shelf was Dan's grandfathers, the bowl on the bottom shelf I got at an auction when we lived in North Carolina - it is filled with antique butter molds and I have my antique coffee mill that I also got at an auction.  Then there is my antique dough bowl in the corner.  Things are starting to take shape.

What else did we do last week?  Monday night I watched the Bachelorette on TV - this is probably the one show that Dan and I don't watch together.  I go into the bedroom on Monday night and watch it while Dan watches something else in the family room.  I think this week might be the final episode, but I'm not sure.  I like the girl this time and I wish her the best. 

Tuesday we went to an ice cream social here in the Village for the residents of River Woods (the private home owners).  I don't know if I have ever said what all is here in the Village as far a housing is concerned.  We have apartments that are rentals (duplexes, some triplexes, two HUD apartment "high rises" - one is three stories and the other is five - , and a few rental houses), there is a mobile home park (the residents there own their mobile home, but rent the lot), an assisted living facility, and a nursing home along with the private home "subdivision" called River Woods which is where we live.  Here in River Woods we own our house and land - we can sell whenever we want or we can leave our home to our family upon our deaths (you just have to be at least 55 to live here).

Wednesday we went to the grocery store and Lowes to pick up a few things - like the lumber for Dan to make my shelves.  We also got a couple of plants and planters for that area by the garage door.

Here they are before I got them planted.

There is one on each side of the garage door.

Thursday we had our friends Bud and Joyce down for dinner - nothing fancy - baked spaghetti, salad, and bread.

Friday we worked on the shelves.

Saturday I did laundry while Dan worked on the family room shelves.

Then came Sunday -

Actually I guess the first clue was Saturday - I had gone online to set up some E-payments and I noticed a deduction that I didn't know what it was - just a very small amount, but it just looked fishy.  Of course, our bank is not open on the weekend, so I wrote everything down and told Dan I would go to the bank Monday and check on it.  Well, Sunday I get a phone call from the fraud alert system at our bank about "suspicious" activity.  I call and sure enough someone had cloned my debit card and was using it in Orlando.  None of the hits were large amounts but they cancelled my card and told me to go to the bank today to get a new card and "dispute" the debits so we could get our money back.  I was at the bank this morning by 9:30, we have our money back, and I have a new debit card (this one has the chip in it - the old one didn't).  I really don't understand how the cloning of the card works - they didn't have my card- but they were using it as a "charge" card so you didn't need to have the pin, but it still is deducted from our checking account.  We have no idea how or where this happened - I  NEVER use the debit card online - but it happened at some store.  We usually only shop with it at WalMart, Lowes, or the local Village grocer so we are somewhat at a loss of how, but anyway now we have to decide if we want to continue to use the debit card or start using a credit card and paying it off every time we use it.  With the chip in the debit card it might be okay - I don't know - we'll have to make a decision on that.  I'm just thankful that I noticed it and the fraud alert team were on the ball and cancelled the card before any big charges were made.

Well, that just about does it.  Three posts in less than a week.  A new record!  Hopefully, I can continue to post regularly but I don't know what I'll write about.  We'll see! 

Have a great day!