December 2 to February 12
Wow, it’s been a while since I posted on the blog. (people were emailing me to see if I was alright)
We have just been wrapped up in house stuff and routine medical & dental visits. You know, life….
I’ll attempt a recap:
Neighbors: As far as we can tell the neighbor on one side of us is a single woman. She is moving in at the same time and Greg met her. The house on the other side of us looked like someone moved in, but we have never seen anyone there. As we were moving in a lady came over and introduced herself. She said that she actually lives in Del Webb Tradition, and health conditions prompted her to buy the house next to us for her son. (though he doesn’t live there either) So, she said no one would probably live there. (Jim & Jennifer, she reminds us of Susan; and Susan if you’re reading, she has your demeanor)
Furniture: Finally got a coffee table that was acceptable after 4 tries. The first one came obviously repaired. The second one has lots of small holes in the marble. The third one came cracked. I sent that one back with them and kept the holey one. So, I have “high hopes” for the 4th one. The matching end tables are fine. WTF? I was ready to go take the one on the showroom floor since it’s perfect.
We also had issues with one of the 2 den chairs. (swivel recliners with ottomans) One had 2 right arms so it wouldn’t go together. Then, there was a bent rod and knob on the same chair. We had already reported missing hardware. They said, instead of sending all the parts, let’s just send a new chair and said they would assemble them. The guys who brought could not get it together. (Greg put them together himself). Finally, they took parts from the new chair and put them on our old chair and they took the “new” one back minus parts. It worked.
Got the accent rug for the master which is ok. Greg got the headboard installed. (a series of padded wall panels that span the bed and the nightstands.) Still need a chair & table for in there, but I haven’t found anything that makes me want to buy it.
They finally sent the dresser for the master. Not sure if it was lost or fell of the truck, but it took weeks.
Got the accent rug for the den and all the rest of the furniture is done in there.
The kitchen is together. Just need to stock the pantry as I find things I don’t have.
I finally found counter stools that go with the décor and was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box and they were nicer than I expected. (and match really well)
The table for the entryway was hideous. I really liked the photo online. Greg started to unwrap it and asked if I ordered one with a wooden top. I said I did, but the rest is metal. He said come look at it. It was UGLY. It was a dark unfinished wood full of knot holes and I thought, if the rest of the table is pretty we could sand it down & varnish it and make it pretty. The body was supposed to be metal leaves in various colors. They weren’t pretty either. Very dull and just not as nice as the photo. So, we wrapped it back up to return to Wayfair.
It's the only thing I’ve had to return so that’s pretty good odds.
The new one I ordered is growing on me and I’m sure once I get some stuff to set on it, it will look fine.
Last week we shopped for the guest bedroom nightstands, dresser and headboard. It will be delivered next week. While we were shopping, we noticed that they had a new design for the dining room set we got. Oddly, the one we have won’t allow 2 side chairs to be pushed in. The base gets in the way. It’s a long table so it’s meant to have 6 chairs around it. I’d hoped since it was a new design, it was because people complained, and they would exchange ours. (ours cost more) But, they said no, and we’d have to order a new table. Since the one we have is pretty useless, we ordered the new design. It comes tomorrow and my hope is that one of the delivery guys will personally want the old one and just take it away. But, that’s not likely to happen and we will donate it.
So, I am down to just needing things for the walls and to decorate tables etc. I still need to order the rug for the guest bedroom, but will wait until the painting is done.
I feel like I’m learning to cook all over again. I haven’t done any real cooking since we left Panama and I’m also adjusting to cooking with gas. It seems to bake things hotter, so I am adjusting. I also bought a pizza stone and pizza peel to make some thin & crispy home-made pizzas. That’s been a learning experience as well. Makes a great pizza though and I’ll get it perfected with some practice.
I still keep finding things I need for the kitchen every time I go to make something.
We went to our first social thing last week. It was “Singo”. Like Bingo only they play oldies songs and you find the name of the song instead of calling numbers. It was a lot of fun and we met one couple that sat with us and then another came to join the table for the second part.
Funny story about the second couple. On the Cruise Critic Roll Call for the World Cruise 2021, there is a lady from Stuart (which is very close to us) and she emailed me. Then, I get another email from her later that said “What you didn't know at Sing-o the other night -- your table mates, are the friends I mentioned that bought up by you. We were together last night and she was saying how nice the people were -- just general stuff and I mentioned how I met a virtual gal who recently moved in and that you had an interesting retirement -- mentioned Panama -- and 2 + 2 and it was you ...................” So, not just close to us, but in this development. Their house is a year away from being finished, so it will be a while before they are back.
Once we get more organized here, we will start socializing more, but there still is a lot to be done and I took a break from decorating to work on tours for Belarus and for the WC. I finally have all but a couple of the tours finished.
I was having the most trouble finding a solution for displaying my way too many travel magnets, but I think I finally found something that will work. I’ll find out in a couple of days. I also have 3 textiles that I want to attach to artists canvas to use on the walls. One was the batik that I bought on Komodo Island, one is the “sacred” cloth I wore to visit the sacred Banyan Tree in Madagascar and the other one I bought in Morocco in the village of Chefchaouen. I have another embroidered cloth that is smaller that I bought in Madagascar that I will put in a frame.
So, lots of little things to still get to make it “homey”. I just need to get out there and shop!
We have been spending the last few weeks having warranty work done. So, that requires us to be home to let them in. Just lots of little things really. The most major annoyance was the air in the pipes so that every time you turned on a faucet or in the shower, it was explosive. The whole neighborhood is getting some new part for our gas water heaters since we all have air in the pipes. The water heaters have a metal thingy in them that doesn’t react well with Port St Lucie’s water. There are 2 choices of metal thingies for water heaters and both are good, just occasionally certain water does not react well with one. It worked like a charm. So, now they need to come repair the hole that guy put in the wall
Really the only thing we wished we had done differently with the house is to have it painted before we moved in. I wanted white walls (using color for everything else) so I figured we were good to go. However, the paint job is terrible. Very thin and missing areas. It never entered my mind they wouldn't paint with semi-gloss in the bathrooms. Just regular thin white paint. So, room by room we will paint with some decent satin paint that is washable and then use semi-gloss for the bathrooms. I say “we” and I normally enjoy painting, but Greg will do it all this time.
We are pleased with our house and the neighborhood. The sports complex and the social center should be done in the fall.
Our pond doesn’t have a gator. We have a pair of Pied-billed Grebes now and we get some Limpkins besides our usual herons. Occasionally, we watch Osprey dive for fish. Last week on our daily walk on the paseo, it was like the movie The Birds. Hundreds of Robins were migrating to go North and they were in the trees, on the ground and the sky was black with them. Noisy too!
We are in the process of getting our Russian & Belarus visas. Way more questions than either China or India. Other than that, we have everything else booked for the Golden Eagle train trip and our pre and post add-ons.
I was working with a company for our overland in Bali on the WC 2021, but due to the Coronavirus they said it would be a couple of weeks before they could continue our discussions. Lots of their travelers need assistance. A friend of mine emailed me that she is on the Holland America ship that is sailing around waiting for someplace to let them disembark. I don’t think anyone is sick on their ship, but no one wants to let them in. Flying home once they get off could also be a problem.
We are adjusting to life where apps on our phone controls our garage door opener, alarm system, video doorbell and the appliances all sing a happy song when they are done.
A phone app controls the iRobot Roomba and the iRobot Braava jet Mop. It took several uses for it to learn and map the house. Now that they are “trained”, we can ask them to just do a certain room or let it do it all. All in all they are pretty nice and work well.
Quick update on the dining table. Love the new one. It also is a bit slimmer and less bulky, and the chairs now fit. I called House of Hope to donate the other one, but the lady and the guy that came to repair the drywall in the garage around the repaired water heater were discussing it (in Spanish) and she asked if we were by any chance selling it. Greg told her she could have it. So, they plan on coming tomorrow to pick it up. I’m just glad someone else can enjoy it. House of Hope still hasn’t returned my call, so we’ll have to tell them it has already been “donated”. Oh, and the stainless steel boards will work very well for my magnets. We’ll see if I need to order any more.
Still no photos, one of these days I’ll find the time…..
Happy Valentines Day!
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