Archive for the ‘House’ Category

For some time now our VCR (yes we still have one) had been acting up. A majority of the time it wouldn’t rewind (which was quite a pain) instead it would just shut down and turn off. I would have to try about 10 times before it finally would start rewinding. Then the last few days it would make a terrible racket where I thought it was going to blow up and it would shut down. After a few times of that happening I knew it would just be a matter of time when we would have to go shopping for a new one.

Thursday the kids and I watched a movie (VHS) from the library and stupid me didn’t stop it when it was done, instead I let it go all the way to the end since we went in the other room. By the time I went back into the living room to try and rewind it I noticed the VCR had turned off.. therefor knowing it tried rewinding and of course wouldn’t and kicked itself off. I turned it on and the loud racket started and off it went. So I tried it again and once again the loud rackets and off it went. I then hit eject and out popped the tape and low and behold some of the tape was out as well so it started chewing up the tape! Thankfully I was able to fix it, but I knew right then and there we would have to go shopping for a new one.

So when Paul woke up we got ready and off to Best Buy we went as we always feel like the employees there help us the best.  I do have to say when we walked into the store I started feeling so old as a majority of the stuff they sell I’m not 100% what they do.  (For example a Bluetooth headset… I know it’s for a bluetooth, but what does one of them do anyways?)   Thankfully an employee could tell we seemed a little lost and asked if she could help us.  She brought us back to the 2 VCR/DVD combo’s that they had that would for us and was able to answer any question that we had.  I’m sure we spent a little bit more there than had we of looked online or shopped around (where’s the iphone when you need one) but at least we got what we needed and were out the door within a few minutes versus spending all day trying to find one.

So far I’m pleased with the one we bought.  There are a couple things that I don’t love about it (for example it takes quite awhile for it to finally “load up” kinda like a computer before you can use it) but I do have to admit the pictures seem a lot better than the one we had before.  There were so many times that it was hard to see the movie because it was so dark… we don’t seem to be having that problem with this one anymore! 

Do you still have a VCR in your household?  Or are you one of the lucky ones that doesn’t have a ton of kids VHS tapes so you can have a dvd or blueray (even though I’m not quite sure what’s the difference between the two)?

Do you ever have one of those days where you wish you would of opened the blinds up to let the heat in instead of rushing out the door?  That’s what I’m feeling right now.   We were gone most of the day today and when we got home I noticed the thermostat said it was 63 degrees in here, while I  knew it was set at 65.   I didn’t think to much of it and just turned up the temperature and heard the heater kick on so I thought all was good. 

After hearing Katie goofing around in her room I thought I better go get things under control when I walked past the thermostat and noticed it still said 63 degrees so I told Paul and heard him go downstairs.   As I laid in bed with Katie I heard the furnace kick on and not even a minute later it kicked off again.  I knew it didn’t warm our house up that much (wouldn’t it be nice if it did) so I knew that wasn’t a good sign.    So I came back out to tell Paul and he went back downstairs to check it again and came back up and said this might be an expensive weekend for us since our furnace doesn’t want to ignite.    I guess his Dad is going to come over tomorrow and take a look at it, but whatever it is, we know it will cost more to repair than buying some furnace filters.   Oh how I wish it would be the same price, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.

So needless to say we will be putting some extra blankets on the kids beds tonight.  I’m just thankful that it’s not the middle of winter right now…. I keep telling myself, things could be worse.

This is just a friend reminder…

Along with changing your clocks today, don’t forget to change your batteries in your smoke detectors!   It’s a quick, simple, cheap things to do that might just save your families lives!   Taking those few precious minutes (depending on how many you  have) might just as well be worth it!

If you’ve never seen Aloha Friday then here is the run down from Island Life….

In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought on Fridays I would take it easy on posting too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.

If you would like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave the link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participates! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

Now on to my question of the week:

If you had the time, what area of your home would you re-organize?

What a fun question for me since that’s what I’ve been trying to do the last couple weeks.   A couple weeks ago we found another house that we liked and was debating if we really wanted to move or not.  Since it was leaning towards yes I looked around and saw my house in a different light.  If we were going to move, would I want to take all this stuff with us?  How would our house sell with all this stuff in it?  So I started decluttering and keeping on top of everything a little better.    The area I already worked on, but I think I would need to do it again would be the kids area.  I thought I did pretty good at it already, but I swear their toys are like rabbits and can multiply over night!

Oh… we did decide that right now isn’t the perfect time for us to move.  Instead we will just keep saving up so when the time does come we will have at least our full 20% down payment (if not more) to put down on it.

If you would like to read some more Aloha Friday questions or even participate, just visit An Island Life!

I think it’s kinda funny after posting the poem below I ended up going on a cleaning/decluttering spurt.  Of course the reason that happened was because Paul and I found another house that we both liked and could actually see ourselves moving into.   We were actually thinking of taking a tour of it and since we were getting that serious about it, I thought I better start trying to get our house in the selling order.  Since Paul was around to play/entertain the kids when need be (so they wouldn’t fight) I was able to go from one room to another.  All I can say is it’s amazing how  much you end up throwing away when  you think there is a chance you might be moving.

Then yesterday it all came to an end for my dream of moving.  Paul ended up taking that step back (at least one of us did) and like he said, we really aren’t in the position financially to buy a new house.  Yes, we are currently debt free but our nest egg isn’t back up to snuff and our truck is starting to get on it’s last leg.   So needless to say right now is the time we need to start saving, not going back into debt!   We did agree that maybe next year we can start looking again and who knows, maybe we will find something a little better with a little more acreage.    Nothing would be better than to find our dream house with enough acres where Paul could hunt.   Until then… I’ll just keep saving, dreaming and keeping the house ready to sell!

I’m not sure who this author is as I had bought this poem in a frame at a garage sale, but I would have to say it’s one of my favorites and wanted to share.

Excuse the House

Some houses try to hid the fact
that children shelter there,
Ours boats of it quite openly
The signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows,
Little smudges on the door
I should apologize, I guess
For toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children
and we played & laughed & read;
And if the doorbell doesn’t shine,
Their eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I’m forced to choose
The one job or the other;
I want to be a housewife
But first I’ll be a mother!

For quite sometime now our kitchen faucet had been leaking.  Honestly in the past 8 years when we had it installed it never worked perfect except the first month maybe.  For some reason we ended up having Visser Plumbing out for something and while they were here they ended up fixing the faucet as our sprayer wasn’t working.  It wasn’t all that long after they fixed it, the sprayer once again quit working and water would come up the faucet and get the counter all wet.  Every time I would do dishes I would have to put paper towel up there to soak it up.

Paul was so annoyed with it, he thought of not only getting  a new faucet but a sink as well as he no longer cared for the white sink as it always shows all the scratches.  While he was at the store looking at new faucets he started looking at sinks and didn’t realize there were so many different ones.  Not only do you have colored, stainless steel or copper kitchen sinks, but you also have a choice of 2 sinks, 1 huge sink and a splash sink or even one big sink and a smaller sink.  Since he wasn’t in the mood to figure that all out he decide to keep the same sink and just deal with finding a new faucet.  After getting one to find out it was junk he ended up returning it and got a different one somewhere else and installed it.  It looks a little different since we went from a white faucet to a stainless steel one, but at least it doesn’t leak!!  For us that’s what matters!

Now to get him to do some more of my honey to do list before he goes back to work on Wednesday.  Somehow I have a feeling that’s not going to happen.

Do you ever start dreaming about moving into a different house? Even though I like my house, there are quite a few days where I wish we could move into something with a little better of a lay out. When we bought this house I liked the open layout where the kitchen, dinning room and living room were all one big room with no dividers.   Now that we have lived here for 8 years I’m thinking differently.  I’m still thankful that we have the 3 bedrooms together on the main floor so when the kids yell for me in the middle of the night I might here them.   (I tend to sleep quite soundly)  I just wish the bathroom would of been between our bedroom and the living room as those two rooms share the same wall and with Paul working 3pm-1am, it makes it quite hard to keep the kids quiet in the morning so he can sleep. 

I ended up finding a house that has the floor plan I think I would like.  Granted it’s out in the country so we no longer would have city water and I’m sure would end up having to look at water softeners someday, but to be able to also have the piece and quiet of no neighbors nearby would be heavenly!    Thankfully our current neighbors are great neighbors, no loud parties at all hours of the night, they keep their yards up and they don’t let their kids run around like Indians where they get into trouble.   But there are just the days where I wish I could go outside with Kevin & Katie where we could enjoy the outdoor just the 3 of us by ourselves without all the other kids coming over to play or at least feel like we are being watched.

I don’t know if I feel that way just because I did grow up in the country and was used to having more privacy, but that’s one thing I still haven’t gotten used to.  Maybe someday we will end up finding our dream house in our price range where we wouldn’t have to take another mortgage out and it could be more an even swap for our house.   Hey… a girl can dream right??

Due to me living in Michigan (it could be 70 degree’s one day and then 20 degrees the next day) I’ve always waited until after Memorial day before I planted my flowers due to me not wanting to have to deal with covering them in case there was one last frost of the season. 

Last year one of the wholesale flower nurseries close to my house ended up having left overs and sold big beautiful flower baskets,  flats and you name it dirt cheap.  So this year I tried holding out, but ended up buying my flat of flowers for the flower boxes yesterday.  I did hold off buying the flowers to go in my chair (I have a wooden chair that the seat is missing so I can put one of those planters with mixed flowers in it) in hopes that they would have their sale as their flower baskets are over 1/2 the price of everyone else.

Well, today as I was coming home from the grocery store I noticed that they were starting to put a tent out by the road which gave me a clue that they were going to be selling them again today!  So I called my in-laws to give them a heads up and an hour later they called me and said they had just gotten back and bought $20 worth of flowers!  So I packed the kids up in the car and off we went.

They had so many beautiful flowers again this year!  I just wish I would of held off a day so I could of bought my flat of plants from them instead.  (Of course it helped their flats were 1/2 the price of what I spent yesterday)  What was really nice is the big pot of flowers I bought for my chair had the exact size planter I needed so I was able to just drop it right into my chair instead of having to transfer any flowers!

Needless to say I’m going to be writing on my calendar that I bought them today so I’ll remember to hold of buying any until I can go to their sale first!

Do you have your flowers planted yet?  Do you usually buy the same kind every year?  Or are you the type that always likes change?

I feel bad for Katie has her bedroom is by far the smallest one in the house.  For Christmas we had bought her a Ryan’s Room Dollhouse, but there honestly is no room for it in her bedroom so here it sits in the middle of the living room.

I’m really debating on getting rid of her dresser and building shelves in her closet that go all the way across so we could put her clothes on them instead.  Then maybe have a little basket on a shelf for all her socks & underwear.   I feel like then her room will feel a lot bigger and her doll house can go back in her room.  (As weird as it may sound, she played with it more when it was in there)

I talked to Paul about it and he said that would be fine, so now it’s just a matter of getting to the store to buy the materials needed to make it happen.

Do you or your kids have a small bedroom?  If so, what did you do to make it feel bigger?