Today, great niece Milena, married Carson Cross. I didn't go to the wedding. Originally, I would have been our of town at quilt camp, so had RSVP my regrets, but then the move... but I still didn't go as I have yet to move my clothes to Luck.
Glenn sent a nice photo.
Congratulations.
I ordered a cube-case unit, in black, to go in the dining room. I need some surface area to display photos and other memorabilia.
Today I assembled it. The instructions told me it would take 1 hour for 1 person and it took me right at 56 minutes, with only one mistake.
I like it well enough, that I already ordered another. The next one will go vertical, back in the corner. I'll get some cloth cubes to use for storage for some of the excess, seldom used, kitchen items. My kitchen has minimal cupboard space, so this will solve that problem.
That's my Grandpa Ansgar's rocker. I'm planning to have it refurbished, but in the meantime, we can see it now. (I also hung up the clock, it was driving me nuts not to have a clock on the wall.) P
I also auditioned that cube-case as a divider. I think it works and it gives me options for rearranging from time to time.
Cleaning out the closet in the guest room turned up a pair of forearm crutches that I had used while I recovered from having my ankle fused back in 2014.
Recently, I had started to use one of Dad's old canes once in a while, whenever my knee was really in 'ouch' mode. (This move has not been very kind to my knee.)
Anyway, I picked up one of those crutches and tried it out, and much to my surprise, it was exactly what I needed. It gives better support than a cane and really takes the pressure off my bad knee. I feel much more confident walking with the crutch and I can manage steps and curbs with ease. I had started avoiding going anywhere involving much of a walk. I was starting to fret about walking from the car into the school for ballgames, too. Now, I think I can start walking a bit for fitness. I ordered a good tip for it and I am in business. I can avoid that knee surgery a lot longer now.
The crutch for the win 🏆.
Since it was a pair, I'll keep one in the car all the time and one in the house.
🦾🩼🦾
Today was sunny and nice outside. I stayed home in Luck and unpacked a few things. It's a nice feeling to find homes for my things. And emptying boxes is gratifying ❤️.
SIL Lois & I had our first ☕️ party as neighbors.
Barley continues to amuse me as she settles in. The red chair that she never, ever laid on in RL, is now her go-to napping spot, every day.
I brought over her cat cabin and put it in the corner of the living room, behind her red chair. She seems to like it there. 🐈
I was on my way to run some errands before the carpet cleaners and they called to say that they were running an hour ahead, so I headed right to the house. I think that they we there about an hour. They did a great job. The carpets look great, they will show nice.
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| Main bedroom |
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| Guest room |
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| Sewing room |
Wow, what a difference.
While the cleaners were doing their work, I started in the laundry room & coat closet. I filled about hefty bag with coats that either do not fit, or I don't wear. I even gave up my blue Coors Light jacket, this was my 'ride or die' jacket for years. It was hard to let it go, but that coat is never going to fit me again. 😔
I remembered a seeing on FB someone was looking for a plus sized coat, I found her posting and she was still looking. I told her if she would take the whole bag, I would drop it off. On my way back to Luck, I made the delivery. Sometimes it is good to see up close how some folks are struggling, I drove away from there remembering how very lucky I am.
After the carpet guys left, I was sitting sorting through the junk in the laundry room and there was a knock on the door. It was the daughter of a man who lives at the end of my road. She said that she had always wanted to buy my house. But, now she lives in Maine. I offered to let her take a look, it was obvious that's why she stopped. She was very nice, we had a little visit and I got a break from my job. She was appreciative that I took the time.
I got my work done but forgot to take a photo, I took one using my Wyze camera one I was home.
Mostly empty, only the laundry room. & coat closet left to empty. Carpet cleaners come tomorrow, bedrooms are completely empty.
Well, it is a law of ?physics? You cannot jam 10 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag, and yet here I am trying.
I have unpacked a few essentials into the kitchen and bathroom and bedroom. I'm able to cook and carry out my daily routines.
Today, I moved all the but 2 of the tubs & boxes out of the dining room (into the sewing room) and I am wondering what do I need any of that stuff for? It's kitchen and living room stuff.
Grandpa's rocker fits fine, back in the corner. Grandma's cookie jar is on the table. Starting to look like a dining room now.
The sewing room is very far from looking like a sewing room, but I like having the boxes & totes out from under foot. And there is no rush to start sewing.
There will be much more being donated to thrift shops as I go through those totes and boxes.
🪡 🧵
The big deal for the past 2 days had been our cell phones. This will be long, I'll understand if you think, tldnr.
About a year ago, when Bruce wanted to switch to Spectrum Mobile, we went to the store in Eau Claire, and we were told then that he couldn't establish a mobile account with Spectrum without having a Spectrum Internet. In my little mind, that equated to, if you don't have Spectrum Internet, you cannot have Spectrum Mobile. Anyway, we added him to my family plan then. Laila has been on my cell phone plan for years.
Moving to Luck, I am no longer able to have Spectrum as my internet provider, Lakeland has a lock on this area.
So, once I decided to move over here, I thought that we would HAVE to migrate our cell phones to a new provider. The obvious choice was Verizon.
Because I wanted to try to do this when Laila was on fall break, I started the process this week. I called the Verizon sales department, was sold a plan and 3 'free' phones and told the switch would be easy, including maintaining our current phone numbers.
I had to call Spectrum to get pin # for each of our 3 current phones to allow the transfer. In the course of the conversation with that customer service rep, I mentioned that I would love to keep my Spectrum Mobile service. However, I'm not able to have Spectrum internet in my new home. The representative told me that's no problem, your monthly payment would just increase by ten dollars per phone. You must have a Spectrum internet account to initiate Spectrum Mobile service, but you do not have to have that account to continue your service. By this time, I thought I was too far into the process with Verizon to back out.
The phones arrived on Thursday. I needed to know which phone was assigned to Laila so I could ship it to her so I called Verizon. And from here on, it's a blur of being on hold for a long time, very marginal customer service and being told different answers to my questions by different service reps.
It all went really south when we started trying to teleport my phone number from Spectrum over to Verizon. This process is normally instantaneous, however, the relationship between Spectrum and Xfinity and Verizon is such, that it takes 48 to 72 hours and nothing happens on Saturday or Sunday.
There was a lot of confusion amongst the different Verizon customer service Reps about when I should activate the new phone, when/if would the disruption in service happen, and how it would go to transfer data from an old phone to a new phone. I had begun to wonder if it was too late to back out. The final straw was an agent who was asking me for my pin number, and I didn't understand him and he talked louder and louder. I finally understood the question, but I snapped. I let him have it and then decided, I was done. 2 hours on the phone on Friday night, mostly on hold; 2 hours on the phone on Saturday, mostly on hold. I was done!
I asked to cancel the porting of my number. Then I asked how to return the 3 new cell phones sitting on my table I was again transfered to another representative. The last rep I talked to was the nicest and most helpful. She suggested I return the phones to a corporate store to get the fastest resolution. She also told me that there was a $50 restock fee on any phones I had opened. I had opened 2 trying to discover which phone was assigned to Laila. Ugh.
So, at about 2:30pm I got in the car, with the 3 phones, and headed for the Verizon corporate store in Eau Claire, 93 miles each way. It took 5 minutes in the store and the deal was undone. Another 93 miles to drive back 🏡 to Luck. And $100 out the window. Ugh!
It was a complete failure in customer service on the part of Verizon.
I'm happy, Laila is happy & Bruce is happy that we can keep our Spectrum phones and just pay an extra $10 month.
📱 📲 ☎️ 📞 🤳 📱
One fun thing to end. I was packing up some trays out of the bathroom drawer and found an earring that I had lost years ago, way before Covid. I loved these little beaded earrings. I bought them from Sherry Anderson many years ago. I always looked for something similar at craft shows, I just liked the simple design.
Anyway, there on a plastic tray, under some other hair clips was the missing earring! I put it right into my pocket and forgot about it. That night, I was emptying my pockets and there was the earring. Today, I found it's mate, that I had hung on to all these years!
Yay for me. I'm delighted!
There are ups and downs, but...
Life is Good.
Gosh, a closet shelf can hold a lot of stuff. I'm very weary of all my 'stuff'. Casey and I did another 4 hours at the house yesterday and we still do not have it empty.
But, we are close. Or are we....
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| Dining room |
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| Bedroom |
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| Living Room |
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| Dining Room |
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| Sewing Room |
Tuesday is another day with Casey's help, we plan to get ready for the carpet cleaners.
Then, the photographer will come back and re-shoot photos for the listing.
Then, it would be nice to get a showing of two.
The garage is refilling. My job now will be to sort out all the stuff we have transfered to the garage.
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| Ugh! |
I've always called my in-car GPS "Miss Smartypants". While she has led me down a few rough gravel roads over the years, in general, she is quite reliable.
On Tuesday, I had a 2pm ortho appointment in Eau Claire, about 95 miles from Luck. I thought the fastest time was probably Hwy 48 to Hwy 53 through Rice Lake, but I asked Smartpants, just for grins. She recommended a path parallel to 53 but further West, which would bring me into the West side of EC, where my appointment was and also where First Choice Recycling is located.
I started out early planning to drop off a load off cords & Vcr Players & other assorted electronics for recycle.
I was in Hwy 53, in a 1-lane construction zone,when SP suggested I the an exit to County Road I, so I did.
It was a beautiful drive on County Roads I, V A, M, & N. This route followed the West side of the Red Cedar River through hills and valleys of farm land and beautiful stands of maple trees. I enjoyed no traffic, no road construction and beautiful fall leaves. It was a good reminder of why I moved back to Wisconsin some 17 years ago. I'll be back on this route with my camera along. On dry roads, this was a fun drive and I arrived in plenty of time to drop off my Recycling and check in for my appointment a little⁹ early.
As usual, my cortisone shot was welcome, now to rest the knee for a couple of days.
I took Hwy 53 back to Rice Lake on the way back to Luck. I stopped at my RL house to grab the mail and have eyes on the house. The trees in my yard are at peak colors.
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I thought that we could empty the house into the garage on Monday. One hour into the work, I could tell that that was not going to happen. It is amazing how much stuff is in a linen closet or under a sink. Or in walk in closet!!!!
Rather than stand over in Rice Lake and sort through clothes, I packed them all in moving bags to bring to Luck, and then I will weed them out here. So I wasn't folding them, I was just taking the hangers off the rod, and dropping the clothes into the bags. I think I filled about sixteen bags. No one on the face of this earth, short of Taylor Swift, needs that many clothes!
We made a lot of progress on monday and our plan now is to finish it on Friday, which means the house will be empty but there will be sorting out to do in the garage.The nearly completely empty walk in closet was a major milestone.
I'm taking the next two days off from packing.My body needs a break, and my brain kind of needs a break as well.
As I was thinking about moving, I had big ideas about how I could add storage to my apartment in the kitchen.
I had ordered a cabinet, which I thought would have four shelves and be quite tall, but today I put it together, and I am relieved that it is only two shelves. The assembly went fine. The instructional diagrams were easy to follow.
The kit included lots of extra hardware, a screw driver and a petite pair of work gloves.
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| Extra parts & pieces. |
Once assembled, I didn't really think it fit where I thought that I had wanted it.
I thought it would go on the dining room side of the fridge, but I was kind of needing a surface next to the open fridge door for a glass to sit on, for pouring milk. So, as it works out, this fits great just where I needed something. And, when I shoved the fridge over, to make a little more space, I found another electrical outlet, as a bonus!
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| Nope |
This inspired me to put a few things away in the kitchen. I started with the utensil drawers. I might move on to some of the other kitchen ware.
I'm between football games. Emptying the moving bags gives me a surge of inspiration.
Washed my first load of clothes today. The washer dryer set up is backwards, it's a good thing I only do a couple of loads each week. Something for my list ✔️ of things that could be better....in time.
The view from my patio is very nice.
Across 1st Street is a row of condominiums, SIL Lois's brother Harry lives there.
To my right (North) in our Johansen Avenue cul-de-sac, is Marilyn and a woman I haven't met yet, who feeds the birds (sweet).
I'm still recovering from yesterday, but I got my new fireplace set up in the living room. I'm really tickled with this purchase. It has 2 levels of heat or just the colored flames. I knew that I would miss my gas fireplace so found this unusual and perfect solution.
Lois's brother Harry stopped over too. He sat for a chat. He lives just across the street in a condominium. We have a nice neighborhood.
I'm very lucky.
Here's the nighttime view.
Home Sweet Home.
On Friday, I went over to my Rice Lake house to work on emptying the dresser drawers and side tables as I had a buyer for the bedroom set.
At 2pm a buyer came for the leather Lazy Boy. About 3pm, a young couple came for the dinette set.
About 5pm, 3 people showed up to get the bed room set. They finally left at 7pm. It was no easy deal to for all that furniture into the trailer that they brought, but they made it happen. It's a big milestone in my move to have all that gone. The bedroom set people also took the 8x8 rug from the living room. They had a small trailer and it took a long time before they figured out how to get the whole world works loaded up. Shades of The Beverly Hill Billy's, for sure.
I left Rice Lake in the dark, with a full car load of odds and ends, after a long day. I've driven that route a million times in the past 17 years, this should be my last night time trek. It was unlucky for one raccoon, who ran in front of me and did not give me braking distance. RIP 🦝
I'm happy to say, Barley & I are not leaving the house today.
Humans adapt to a new abode pretty easily, Cats... not so much.
Barley had a rough 24 hours... with the movers, the mostly empty house, the 1.5 hour car ride and then a new place to live. Cats are creatures of habit, even moving her cat box & food would have been a deal, but for Barley, everything changed, everything single thing in her world, except for me.
She 'meowed' the entire ride from Rice Lake to Luck, loudly, and with enthusiasm. Once we arrived in Luck, she spent the next 12 hours prowling, meowing and I could not settle her down. During the night, she was only quiet for short periods when she laid on the bed. Neither one of us got any real rest.
She kept going from window to window acting like she had never looked out a window before.
She always acted like she saw a band of ax 🪓 murders, headed our way.
But, finally, yesterday afternoon, she started to settle in. She found her normal spot on her blanket on the recliner and took a nap.
All is well.
Last night was much better, we both slept.
