Wayne's World

weekend recap

2012-02-01T06:46:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Well, the weekend ended as it began, I was in a de-cluttering frenzy. I cleaned out the medicine cabinet, under the sink, under the kitchen sink, the laundry room, the pantry, more drawers, and even got Craig caught up in it. When all was said and done, I had 7 garbage bags full of trash. :-)
In other news, I went to the doctor about my lump on my eye lid, and as I expected, he referred me to Lansing Ophthalmology where I have a 'consultation' next Monday. I already suspect what he'll say. I need it drained to make sure it's nothing, and he'll set up another appointment for that. That's how these doctors work. So I have to pay for 2 office appointments before anything is done. I couldn't go directly to Lansing Ophthalmology because my insurance says I need a referral. I guess that's to make sure it's necessary, but I was pretty sure, my doctor couldn't do anything about it. Oh well.
In other news......
I lost Internet connection yesterday afternoon. So I did the usual routine before calling tech support. Recycle the modem, recycle the router, restart the puter. Nothing changed, so a call to tech support. Surprisingly, I got a real person in just a couple of minutes. :-) She did the thing on her end to make sure my modem was getting a connection, then she had me recycle the modem and router in the reverse order. With no change, she had me disconnect the router and go directly from the modem to the puter. Bingo! My connection was back. So that means a bad router. I probably should have done that before I called. Anyway, so I'll need to get a new router this next weekend.
And I haven't heard anything yet on Craig's Honda. My mechanic knows it's not my primary car, so probably working on other more urgent stuff. No big deal, but curious as to what he finds.
And the weather has been unbelievable for this time of year. So far, only 2 storms with substantial snow. This week, the day temps are expected to be around 40. That's about 20 degrees warmer than normal. I'm loving it!
Of course, we still have all of February, and most of March, but so far, so good. :-)
And we had left-over turkey for dinner as an open faced sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of honey-ginger carrots. And for dinner tonight, more left-over turkey, and tomorrow, left-over mushroom lasagna. :-)
And finally, it's now time to go back to work. :-(
It's not looking real busy this week, but we'll see how the phone goes.....

I'm a productive de-clutterer

2012-01-30T16:43:00.002-05:00

Good afternoon.
It's been a productive couple of days.
I've filled 3 more garbage bags of stuff. :-)
I even got Craig in the de-cluttering mood. :-)
You just don't realize all the stuff that accumulates over time. Craig even found a box of floppy disks. None of our puters even have one any more.
In other news.....
We took Craig's Honda in for an inspection. The battery just isn't holding a charge. It's either a bad battery, a bad alternator, or a power drain. Still waiting for the mechanic to check it out and call.
And here's some pics I took yesterday that I'm sure you'll enjoy........

Yep! More snow. We got another 3 inches of it. It finally tapered off in the afternoon, and I was able to get out and clear the driveway. Believe it or not, it's suppose to get to 47 tomorrow. :-\ Crazy weather.
Tomorrow morning I'm going in to the doctor. I've got this lump thingy on my eye lid that won't go away. I thought it was a sty, but warm compresses aren't doing anything about it and I've had it now for around 3 months. It's gotten large enough that customers are commenting on it. So, even though I don't have insurance to cover office visits, I decided not to wait for my April physical, and get it checked out.
I'll let you know the results.
And I'm typing this as Craig is starting dinner. We're having Mushroom Lasagna. That delicious dish we tried a few weeks back. Can't wait!

not much

2012-01-29T07:59:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon. Again. :-)
Sorry for my lack of posts, there really hasn't been much to write about. Work ended up fairly busy this week. Nothing out of the ordinary to report.
We've had a dusting of snow every day now. Not enough to shovel, but enough to make the roads messy.
I stopped at the store on the way home from the Salon and picked up a few things to go with dinner today, so we won't have to go back out until tomorrow. We're having out 3rd turkey today. It'll be nice smelling it cooking all day. :-)
Today, I'll probably do some more de-cluttering. I've discovered a couple of other areas that need a good thinning.
And that's all I've got!

A different bug bit me

2012-01-25T06:41:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Our mild winter continues, as we should stay in the low 30's all week. :-)
I got in a de-clutter mood yesterday. Don't know where that came from, but I just started to go from shelve to shelve, drawer to drawer. I threw out a mess of old magazines, old catalogs, papers and such. Filled up 2 trash bags full. It's amazing how stuff tends to accumulate over time. It felt good to 'lighten up' on stuff. :-)
In other news.....
Craig always orders his checks from our credit union. I've tried to get him to order them somewhere else to save money, but he's been brainwashed into thinking they only will accept their checks. Well..... They finally raised the charges enough for him to say he's had it, and went online to find another check source. After some hunting, he settled on Walmart of all places. They had the easiest website to use, and were half the cost of what he'd been paying at the credit union. They came yesterday, and look just like the one's he'd been getting from the credit union. I wanted to say I told you so, but I was nice. :-) For a change. :-)
I also placed an online order for suckers. That's right, you heard me, suckers. Saf-t-pops to be specific.

We have a bowl of them on the front counter in the Salon. They were originally meant to be given to kids. But I swear, more adults take them than kids. Men especially. :-\ And every one seems to agree, these are the best! They come in cherry, strawberry, orange and blueberry. Each with a vanilla swirl through them. I have to order them direct from the factory. Spangler Candies. We use to order by the case because of the price, but it takes nearly a year to go through 1000 suckers, and the wrappers tended to stick more as they got older, so now I order a few bags of 120 at a time, so they stay 'fresher'. :-)
And with that, it's now time for another work week. Later!

our exciting life....

2012-01-24T06:48:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
We've had some crazy weather the past few days. Saturday, there was snow on the ground. Sunday was cold and windy. Woke up Monday morning to very unusual thunderstorms, rain, and a temp of 45. By the afternoon, all the snow was gone. :-) At least for now.
This morning, back to 31.
Didn't do much on Sunday. I spent a good part surfing the net. Booked another weekend RV trip. Craig made a really tender/tasty beef pot roast with carrots, onions, and mushrooms. Cooked it in one of those oven bags. Yummy!
Didn't do much on Monday either.. Our usual running around. Craig did make a big batch of chilli, and it was delish! Had plenty left over to freeze. :-)
I did some light cleaning, but spent a good part of the day playing on the puter.I did start up the mo-ho,and let it run a while to make sure the battery stays charged up. it has a small solar panel on the roof that's suppose to trickle charge it, but who knows how well that works. Anyway, it did start right up after sitting since late November.
And that's the extent of our exciting weekend so far. Today looks to be another ~~exciting~~ lazy day. :-)

not much

2012-01-22T07:49:00.001-05:00

Good morning. I've just returned from my usual Sunday morning ritual. That's right, cleaning the Salon. It was a mess!
Any who, not much to report. The work week ended busily, and we had a nice relaxing afternoon/evening where we had chicken cordon bleu for dinner, and watched a Hot in Cleveland marathon.
Today, Craig's making a pot roast for dinner, doing his usual laundry and bookwork, while I'll be surfing the net in search of more camping destinations to fill up our camping schedule.
And that's about it.....

brrr

2012-01-20T06:33:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
And a cold one at that! It's currently 2 out this morning, going for a high of only 18. brrrrr!!!
Wednesday and Thursday were fairly slow at the Salon, but I'm booked today and tomorrow.
We've had just a dusting of snow the last few days, but it's looking like we''l get up to 4 inches buy tomorrow. We'll see.
Not much else to say. Time to get ready for work..

Crabby Craig.

2012-01-18T08:14:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Sorry for the late post, but I went into the Salon to do a quick clean of the floors. The mall uses so much salt on the sidewalks, our floors get white spots all over. Not that I'm complaining. Don't want customers slipping and falling. :-)
We had another dusting of snow last night, and the temps are back in the teens to twenties.
Craig made a new tasty dish for dinner. He called it a variation of Shepard's pie. He used diced boneless chicken breasts, a bag of frozen mixed veggies,and sauteed onions and mushrooms. Mixed them together, put them in a casserole dish, mixed up 1 1/2 cups fat free milk, 3 eggs, 1 cup Bisquick, and poured it over the veggies. Cooked at 400 for 40 minutes. It was very good! :-)
Craig has been in a foul mood of late. Since winter settled in and he's all done with end of year stuff, he's just been crabby. I think it's probably that seasonal disorder thing. I should talk him into getting one of those lights. Or a new car. I think a light would be cheaper. :-)
Now time for work. it's looking slow this week. we'll see how the phone rings.

11 trips this year

2012-01-16T07:56:00.003-05:00

Good morning.
Craig and I sat down yesterday, and put together this years RV schedule. We were able to come up with 11 weekends we can take off from work. That's down slightly from the past few years, but still a nice number.
So I spent the bulk of the day yesterday, surfing the net, trying to match dates with destinations. So far we've booked 4 weekends, and have 5 other weekends set with destinations. That leaves just 2 weekends to go. I can't book all of them yet, as state parks only allow bookings up to 6 months in advance, and that's where we stay most of the time.
After putting together our RV schedule, Craig did his usual bookwork, laundry, and dinner, which was turkey rice casserole, with broccoli on the side.
This morning, I've just completed my work-out set. I know, I said Monday was my lazy day, but I'm feeling good, losing some weight, and wanted to kick it up a notch. Besides, you've got to work out when you feel like it, for the feeling can pass quickly sometimes. :-)
Now time to hit the shower.

another Sunday post

2012-01-15T08:36:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
The work week ended with us getting out early on Saturday. :-)
Got home and I fixed us beef and cheddar wraps for a late lunch. Spent the rest of the afternoon discussing possibly getting Craig a new Car. His PT Cruiser is 9 years old, and not looking it's best. He's had his sights on the Fiat 500. I think it looks like a girly car, but that's just my opinion. :-)

The North American international Car Show just started in Detroit, so maybe we'll go there and check some cars out.
Craig made us a tasty pizza for dinner, and we watched the New England Patriots cream the Denver Bronco's. (that's football for you non sport fans :-) )
And, this is the time of year, we start thinking about the summer's RV trips. We brought our appointment books home, and today, we'll go through and decide what weekends we can take off this year. Actually, yesterday, I booked to dates already that we knew we would be off. So, we now have something to look forward to that will help us get through the rest of the winter. And yes, the winter is here to stay. we've had a dusting of snow every day for the last few, and it was 17 out this morning when I went in to clean the Salon. brrrrrr
Now shower time and wake up Craig. :-)

you don't know what you're missin

2012-01-13T16:43:00.000-05:00

The pretty white snow clinging to everything. The crisp, refreshing, bone chilling temps. The slushy, slippery, drive to work. Seemingly endless weeks of it.
I just know you're all jealous of me. You are. You can say your not, but you really are!

Okay, so maybe not so much.
It took me 3 times as long to get to work this morning. There were cars backed up from a stop light way past my house, nearly 1/2 mile up the road. As usual, there was an accident. A side road connects to my road just before a train overpass. The over pass is always bad after a snowfall. People come around the corner to fast, lose control, and BAM! another accident. It took 10 minutes to just get past that. But I made it to work on time. The day was fairly busy, but short. Left at 1pm and did our weekend grocery shopping. Tonight it's spaghetti. Tomorrow, home made pizza. I got home and re-cleaned the driveway. Then took these stunning photos.
And I hear Craig coming in the door, so it must be nearly cocktail hour. :-)
Enjoy the pics. :-P

it's b a c k

2012-01-13T06:37:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Yep! Winter is back! Woke up to about 3 inches on the ground, and it's still coming down. I cleared the driveway, and brushed off Craig's car. I'll probably need to clear the driveway again when I get back from work.
And speaking of work, the Salon has been nice and steady this week. Craig's had enough breaks to finish up his year end book work, so he's in a happy place right now. :-)
We had a decent year. Business income was up slightly from the previous year. And we were able to stay on top of maintenance issues and was even able to afford to upgrade some of the furnishings.
We're also doing good on our 'diet' so far, with today another veggie meal, Spaghetti and salad. To make the meal more satisfying, we're adding diced Morning Star Farms Grillers ( they're a soy based meat substitute) to the sauce as a substitute for meatballs. I think the grillers taste most closely to real meat. :-)
So we're trying to eat 2 meatless meals a week, which isn't too had because we really like the Morning Star farms meatless selections. A little expensive, but we stock up when they're on sale.
I've also been doing good with my 3 day a week weights routine. We'll see how it holds up. :-)
Now time to get ready for work.
Have a great weekend!

We found a keeper

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Another weekend over, but it was a nice weekend. We kept the mild temps around 40. :-) This has been one of the mildest winters we've had in a while. And that's fine with me! :-) We've only had that one big dump in November where we had enough snow for me to clear the driveway. Any other snow we've had, has been just a dusting. That may change by Friday, as a system is coming through that might drop a few inches. We'll see.

Craig spent most of the weekend on the Business's books. He's got most everything done he needed to do. He's a happy camper. :-)
I stayed out of his way, and cleaned, vacuumed, and made a batch of turkey broth from the carcases of the first 2 turkeys we had.

I also placed an online order for Salon supplies and ran the generator on the mo-ho, and checked the water level in the house batteries.
We also tried a couple of new dishes. Monday, I had Craig try a dish called veggie noodle bake. It had a lot of veggies, some penne pasta, and assorted cheeses. Craig like the cheesy flavor, but was overall, unimpressed with the dish. Not a keeper. Tuesday, he tried another dish, Mushroom Lasagna. It was a hit! Here's a happy Craig fixing the dish....

Yes, at this point he'd had a couple of cocktails to make him more camera friendly. :-)

It was a bit more work than Craig likes to put into a meal, but he liked it sooo much, he said it's a keeper. :-) And we even had enough for leftovers!
And today, it's back to work. It's looking fairly busy this week.

Sunday post.

2012-01-08T08:11:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the salon.....again..... :-)
We've been having great weather for Michigan. :-) No snow, mid 30's to upper 30's, and even some sun! :-) It's been a very mild winter. So far.....
Both Craig and I had a short Saturday, so after work, we went downtown to the Lansing City Market.

They tore down the old one a few years ago so a developer could have river frontage for a new project he wants to build, and built this smaller new one next to it. I was against giving public owned river front property to a private developer, but I don't live in the city, so I had no say.
Anyway, we'd been there just once after it opened, and wasn't impressed. They had just 2 produce vendors, a bunch of bread and pastry vendors, and a bunch of what looked like craft vendors. But being a beautiful Saturday afternoon, we thought we'd give it another try. They have 2 tiny parking lots and nary a spot open, but we did find one. Went inside, it was fairly busy, but we still were unimpressed with the selection. Sooo, we headed back to our side of town, and to Horrocks.
Horrocks started out as a small produce market, and over the years has grown into a unique store offering a huge variety of produce, cheeses, meats, deli items, wine, etc. I had gotten a gift certificate for them, and was dying to spend it. :-)
They were of course very busy for a Saturday afternoon, but I had no problem amassing $50 worth of goodies.
Back home, while I played on the puter, Craig diced green onions, lettuce and tomatoes, for taco's for dinner. After dinner, I made up a batch of oven fried zucchini sticks.

They hit the spot! We didn't have any marinara sauce for dipping, so we tried lite creamy Caesar dressing. They were tasty!
We ejoyed them with a Hot in Cleveland marathon of the first 6 episodes of the 4th season.
And now, time for a shower, and wake up lazy bones. :-)

....

2012-01-06T06:02:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
Our mild winter continues. :-)
Since that rude November storm, we haven't had enough snow since to get out the shovel. :-)
It's suppose to hit 45 today before dropping back in the 30's. But then later next week, back near 40 again. That means another week of no snow. :-)
It could stay like this the rest of the winter, but I'm sure it won't. But it will, hopefully, make for a shorter winter. :-)
The Salon has been slow this week, with all our snow-birds having flown south for the winter. But I'm booked today, and working later than normal, so that will make up for a slower Wed. and Thur.
And with that, time to go.....

unbelievably warm

2012-01-04T07:06:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Craig had a nice birthday lunch at Logan's Road House. He had an 8 oz. sirloin with fries and skewered veggies, I had the 6oz sirloin with grilled shrimp, coleslaw, and skewered veggies. Everything was real tasty! They had even e-mailed me coupon for buy one get one free the day before, so a cheap birthday lunch. :-)
Craig spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing freecell on the puter. I did laundry for him, and made ham roll-ups for a light dinner.
Here's a pic of the new, lightweight, unbelievably warm, comforter.

When I first got it I was a bit disappointed. It's quite thin, only a couple inches thick. But I can't believe how warm it is! Let's just say, I'm pleasantly surprised. :-)
And now, another work week lies ahead. Looks to be fairly busy.

I need to get back in shape. Don't we all?

2012-01-03T08:17:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
I've just finished with my work-out. I'm back using my free weights. I started back up a couple of weeks ago. Nothing too extreme, just trying to tone and get rid of holiday fat. :-)
Here's a pic of my weight rack..

I have numerous weights with different sizes so I don't have to constantly switch plates for different muscle groups.

My collapsible weight bench.
I do a 3 day routine. Tuesday, chest and arms, Wednesday, shoulder and back, and Thursday, tummy and tush. :-) I don't work out Friday and Saturday, because I go to work so early. Sunday I clean the Salon, and Monday is my lazy day. :-)

Now just get rid of some fat from the tummy and hip areas, and I'll be looking decent. :-)
Craig's made good progress with the end of year stuff. All his totals balance, and he's done estimated taxes. He also funded my IRA, and reimbursed us for miscellaneous business expenses. I even helped by adding up millage from the pocket calendars we kept in the cars. We write down millage for anything business related, such as going to the bank for a deposit, and supply places. We get 51 cents per mile from last Jan. -June, and 55.5 cents per mile from July through Dec. It really adds up. Today, he's taking it easy. He'll do 1099's next weekend.
Today is Craig's 61st birthday, and we're going out to lunch at Logan's Roadhouse. He doesn't want to do anything to special.
And with that, it's time for my shower and wake him up.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T08:49:00.000-05:00

Good morning, and Happy New Year!
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon. I did an unusually thorough cleaning this week. I needed to burn some extra calories after our New Year's Eve pig-out. :-)
This year's pig-out extravaganza included little cheesy sausages, Digiorno's supreme pizza, hot and spicy wings, sweet Hawaiian onion Krunchers, and assorted chocolate miniatures. It was an afternoon/evening movie, munching, pig fest!
And now, with the start of a new year, we will get back to a more normal eating habit. :-)
Craig will spend the entire weekend working on end of year stuff. I will become as invisible to him as possible, so as not to disturb his progress. That means I'll do the laundry for him, and most likely lay low in my puter room, quietly playing games with headsets. :-)
We did make it through the entire holiday season with no snow. We've had fairly mild temps the last couple of weeks, with the temp this morning of 38, which is also our high for the day. The temps will be slowly falling through out the day, as colder weather moves in. Snow will develop tonight. We are under a winter weather advisory. My Mom, 90 miles west of Lansing, on the edge of lake Michigan, is under a winter storm warning as they're expecting over 11 inches of lake effect snow over the next couple of days. We might get a couple of inches her in Lansing. Fortunately for us, lake effect snow only goes about 60 miles inland. :-)
And Craig just got up, so time to go....

steady as she goes

2011-12-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
It's been a steady week at work. Kinda nice not being so busy. :-)
We've had fairly mild weather this week, so mostly rain. Should hold through the holiday weekend.
Liking the new fridge. It's so nice and clean inside!
I'm also liking the new comforter. It's really light weight, but very warm. I think I'm even sleeping better. :-)
I've got another steady day today and tomorrow, though tomorrow we close at 1pm for New Years Eve. Looking forward to a long, hopefully uneventful, weekend. :-)
Have a fun, safe holiday!

to answer a couple of questions....

2011-12-28T06:23:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Our mild temps have left, it snowed yesterday, just enough to coat the ground, and it's back in the 20's.
Glad it waited until after we got our new fridge delivered. ;-)
It was a pretty mundane day yesterday with us doing our usual Monday running around. back home, I got the new fridge stocked back up and the mo-ho fridge turned off. I like the new fridge. We seem to have most of the extra space in the freezer, which is good since we stock up on things when they're on sale.
The ice cube are larger too. Don't melt as fast in our drinks. :-)
To answer a couple of comments from previous posts.....
Garret said in my post about me having customers on Christmas Eve and Craig none, "So people don't like Craig as much as you?"
It's not that Garret, :-) It's mainly because I have a much larger clientele than Craig. I'm very good at multitasking, so I may have anywhere from 1 yo 4 customers going at a time, which means I may have a customer under the dryer drying, one with color processing while I'm cutting another. Craig will only work on one customer at a time. He's not good under pressure. :-) I do usually at least twice the number of customers during the day than him. And yes, that means I bring in twice the money he does. But that's okay, he does all the bookkeeping. I think I'm still ahead on that one. :-)
Arch guy commented, "so who runs the Salon when neither of you are there?"
No one needs to 'run' the Salon. Our staff is a group of independent stylists. Which means each stylist is a separate business. They each rent a station from us, the owners. We are not their bosses, just landlords. They each have a key to the salon. They set their own hours, prices, and have their own phone extension, and make they're own appointments. They use their own products and supplies. Their customers pay them for their services and the stylists are responsible for their own taxes and such. We basically have 7 individual businesses sharing common areas to make it more profitable for each person. Their rent includes common area supplies such as magazines, coffee, and such. It has worked well for 14 years now. Each stylist knows what to do to 'open' and 'close' the Salon.
Okay, I hope that clarifies a couple of things. :-) If you have more questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them.
Now, it's time for another work week. Not sure if it'll be busy or not. Can never tell about the week between Christmas and New Years. Right now, it's looking so-so. But that's okay, I have year end inventory to do. :-\

It fits like a glove

2011-12-27T05:09:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Well, we survived our Christmas without a fridge, at least in the house. :-) And fortunately, the weather was quite mild for Christmas, no snow and mid 30's, so trekking back and forth to the mo-ho was no big deal.
Monday morning, I prepared to receive our new fridge. I cleaned out the old one, disconnected the water line, and put down floor covers to protect the carpet. Then I needed to move the Honda out of the garage. The door to the garage is 3 ft wide, wider than the entry door, and a straight shot to the kitchen. Well, it was dead. It's only been sitting for a month. I didn't think the battery would go that soon. But called Northside towing, and sure enough, just a dead battery. He jumped it and I was good to go. After of course, a $50 fee.
I had Craig take it out on the highway to charge up the battery. The delivery guy said they'd be here between 1 and 3. I got the dolly, and with Craig's help, got the old fridge out to the garage. I figured the more I got done, the quicker the delivery would be. To our surprise, they arrived right at 1pm.
Now this fridge was 2 inches higher, and 2 inches wider than the old one, but I measured and figured it'd be tight, but would fit. They got the fridge in the kitchen, hooked up the water line and made sure it worked, and proceeded to put the fridge in place. It wouldn't go in. I hadn't realized, the upper cabinets apparently were a fraction of an inch farther right, than the lower cabinets. The delivery guy said removing the quarter round from the baseboard should do the trick. I got some tools, removed the quarter round, and sure enough, it slid right in. Fits like a glove as you can see in these pics.

Craig dug out the old paper work, and the old fridge was 21 cu ft. and the new one is 25 cu ft. Didn't really need more room, but this one was cheaper than the 21 cu ft they had at the store by over $150, so we went with the larger one. At least it fits. :-) Interestingly, Craig had in the old papers, the first fridge was bought in 2000, and cost more than this fridge. We also bought that one from Lowe's, and back then, they charged for delivery, and removal of the old one. This time, it was all included. :-)
I spent the rest of the afternoon, getting everything back to the way it was.
By dinner time, the freezer was already at 0 and making ice, but the fridge section was only at 55.
This morning, the fridge is at 40, so I can move the stuff from the mo-ho back. It'll be nice to have some order again. :-)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T07:58:00.002-05:00

Good morning, and Merry Christmas!
I've just returned from cleaning the salon. I know, it's Christmas, and I shouldn't be working, but Sunday is the best day to clean. :-)
Saturday ended on a light note with me getting out of the Salon early. We spent part of the afternoon appliance shopping, and the rest of the afternoon relaxing, and watching movies. We saw Chipwrecked with Alvin and the chipmunks, which Craig thought was good, I thought it was stupid boring. And we watched Aurthur Christmas, which we both liked. Had a light dinner of roast beef sandwiches and guacamole and chips. Wanted to make sure we're good and hungry for our turkey dinner on Christmas.
Normally, Craig and I don't exchange presents on Christmas. Haven't done that in quite a few years. But this year is different. This is what we got.....

Yep. A new refrigerator. Not because we wanted one, but because we had to get one. Craig had noticed a few days ago, the ice cubes weren't freezing solid. I figured the ice maker was going bad. Then we noticed some items in the freezer weren't frozen solid. I got the thermometers out of the mo-ho and discovered the freezer was only at about 33, and the fridge was at 55. Just a bit higher than the recommended 5 and 40.
I pulled out the fridge and vacuumed the back and underneath, hoping it was just dust clogging up the condenser. I went out and turned on the mo-ho fridge, and transferred the thawing turkey and and as much stuff as I could get into the small mo-ho fridge. I took out all the semi-frozen stuff and put it in our chest freezer. I waited overnight, and still no improvement. Soooo, on Christmas eve, we went out to Lowe's, who was having an appliance sale, lucky us, and bought another fridge. They have next day delivery, except, of course, on Christmas day, so it'll be delivered on Monday.
So today, we'll have to run back and forth to the mo-ho to fix our turkey dinner. At least we have the mo-ho here to help out. :-)
Now it's time to wake up Craig and get our Christmas day going!

Merry Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T05:56:00.000-05:00

Good morning. And a merry Christmas Eve.
It was another busy day in the Salon. Ended up working 2 hours longer than expected due to a few more phone calls. Don't want to turn a way customers near Christmas. :-)
After work, I went over to Meijer's for a few groceries for the weekend. Where did all these people come from? The place was packed! The store is never this busy the rest of the year! Don't these people eat the rest of the year! But I managed to work through the crowds, get what I needed, and to the check-outs. They had every one of there 30 + registers open, and they were 4-5 people deep. It took longer in the check-out lanes than shopping. But made it through, and made it home.
Now just one more short day today. With Christmas Eve on a Saturday, we never know how busy it might be, and this year, it's not busy at all. I've got just 2 customers this morning, so unless the phone starts ringing early, which I doubt it will, I'll be out of there by 10am. :-) Craig has no customers, so he'll probably still be sleeping when I get home. :-)
And with the very busy past 3 days, it'll still be a very good week money wise.
And with that, I'm off to get ready for work.

whew!

2011-12-23T06:44:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
Just a quickie this morning as I'm just about to run off to work.
Yesterday was just about the busiest day of the year for me. I started at 7:30am an and left work a 6:45pm. Just over 11 hours and 17 customers. I was exhausted when I got home, But a couple of glasses of sherry, and I slept like a rock. The holiday season has been generous to us this year. Lot's of Christmas tips/gifts. Looks like the best year in a while. The economy must be looking up. :-)
Today is another busy day, but a lot shorter. I start at 7:30 again, but have just 12 customer over a period of about 6 hours. It's feel like a half day compared to yesterday. :-)
And now, I've got to go.....

I don't know what got into me!

2011-12-21T06:33:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
Our temps have been mild for this time of year. Highs in the upper 30's to near 40. That means no snow. :-) They are expecting rain for the next couple of days. Remnants of the massive snow storm from the lower plains. Monday was a lazy day. Played on the puter, surfed and read blogs. Tuesday was another story. After grocery shopping for the week, I had printed out a 25% off coupon for Dennis Trailer Center that they e-mailed me. They were having an inventory reduction sale. I thought it would be a good time to stock up on lap sealant. With a couple of leaks this past year, I want to do a real good job of resealing the roof next spring. We stopped there on the way home.
Back home, I went on a cleaning frenzy! I Don't know what got into me, but I acted like I was on some mission. I spent hours going through the house. Cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, cabinets, the toaster oven, microwave oven, stove, floors, moved to the living room, dusted, vacuumed, picked up and put away a ton of stuff. Things sure get cluttered easily around here. Then the laundry room, TV room, put away piles of DVDs that were laying on the floor and TV stand. I just kept going and going! Maybe Craig slipped something into my coffee. :-)
After all that, I relaxed with a cocktail, admiring how nice the house looked. To bad it won't stay this way. I do tend to be more lazy than motivated. :-)
Craig made our spicy pork cutlets for dinner, with a slew of roasted veggies, that included potatoes, carrots, summer squash, onions, and peppers. It was good.
And now, it's time for another work week, although a shorter one. We work just a half day on Christmas Eve.

Christmas with Mom

2011-12-19T07:06:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
Yesterday after I got Craig up, I made us coffee, and we were off to Muskegon to see my Mom. This was to be my Christmas with her, as on Christmas day, she'll be spending it with one of my brothers in Holland. We arrived there a little before 10am. Did a few chores for her, cut her hair, and then it was to Braunn's for lunch. We haven't been to a Braunn's before and thought we'd try it. It's quite a large restaurant with a bar/lounge area and a dining area. All the walls have video screens along the top. Must of been a hundred screens. Well, maybe not a hundred, but a lot! There were even small screens at every table, although they were for lotto games like keno. We didn't play any. We all ordered their signature dish, the sizzling steaks. Mom had a 6 oz. sirloin, and Craig and I had the 8oz. I had steamed broccoli and a baked potato, Craig had his with fires and broccoli cheddar soup, and Mom had just a baked potato with hers. The steaks were moist and tender with just the right amount of seasonings.
After lunch, it was off to the club. (the VFW) It was fairly busy and we got a table for 5 as my brother Brian and his wife Ruth were to meet us there. They arrived shortly after us, and we had a nice afternoon visit. Then it was time to take Mom back to her apartment, with a stop first at the store to pick up a list of things she needed.
Back at the apartment, we said our goodbyes and headed back to Lansing. We arrived safe as the roads were nice and dry.
Today of course, is our usual running to the bank, P.O. and groceries. And right now, I've got to put in an internet order for Salon supplies, so see ya!

Sunday post

2011-12-18T07:17:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon, again. :-)
Our daytime temps are hovering around the mid 30's, so even though we've had a little snow, the streets are staying fairly clear.
And after 2 days in the Salon, the reviews are in. 90% of the customers like the new dryer chairs. :-)
The main downside is the seats are a couple of inches higher than the old ones, so customers with short legs end up dangling from the seats. And with the seats higher, the hood of the dryer isn't high enough for taller customers. I can fix both those issues with a small stool for the short customers, and I'll put wood 'lifts' under 2 of the hood units, so they'll be higher. All in all, happy with them. :-)
Saturday ended up my busiest day of the week, so when I got home, I relaxed and played on the puter. The comforter I'd been watching had come down in price some more. It was now down to $54 for a king. I had cashed in points from one of my credit cards for a Kohl's gift card. It was $50. So the final charge for the comforter, $7.42. I think that's a good buy. :-)
I couldn't figure out how to copy the pic of the comforter, so here's a link to it.
And Craig made tasty barbecue turkey sandwiches for dinner, and we watched the first 2 episodes of this seasons Hot in Cleveland I got off the net.
Now time for my shower and to get Craig up.

our new dryers

2011-12-15T17:19:00.000-05:00

Good evening.
I got out of work a bit earlier than usual, so I had some extra time to do a post. :-)
We didn't get our new dryer chairs on Wednesday as promised. The scheduled time for delivery came and went. I didn't think to take the freight companies number to work, so I couldn't call them to find out what was going on. I dug out the invoice from the company I ordered it form 5 weeks ago, to find my contact info was only my home phone #, so if they had trouble finding us, they couldn't get a hold of us. When i arrived home, sure enough, there was a message on my answering machine from them stating they couldn't find our address and to call them. I'm thinking, with bing maps on the Internet, and GPS devices, how can a shipping company not be able to locate an address?
So I called them back and fortunately they was someone still in the office. I gave them my business phone and simple directions to find the Salon. They said I'd receive the chairs today.
And they did arrive around noon. This big truck pulls up, a guy comes in and asks where we wanted them. I said right in the reception area would be fine. He said there was an indoor delivery fee. I just stood there looking at him thinking he's joking. He wasn't. I said put them outside the door. I didn't even ask him how much the fee was. I wasn't paying a dime since I already paid $140.00 for shipping to begin with. It ended out working fine. During my breaks, I opened each one and brought them inside, swapped the dryers out of the old chairs, and put the new chairs in place. Here's the before and after .....

The new dryer chairs are a bit larger, and more comfy. We're very happy with them. The rounded base sits farther under the seat, so they should get kicked less from peoples heels.
And to answer John's comment. We did look into having the swapped dryers reupholstered, but each quote came in nearly as high as new chairs. That was because of the extra labor involved. The old dryer chairs had separate pads on the arms, a separate back, the seat, and the base, which was getting scuffed and ripped and needed to be recovered also. It's a shame, because structurally, they were in good shape.
Anyway, that's done and behind us now.
And we gave the Salon staff a little Christmas happiness. Beside their weekly rent, (yes, our stylists are self employed, and rent their stations from us) there's a $4 a week fee that goes into a Salon fund. The money from there goes to pay for things everyone uses such as coffee supplies, magazines, shampoo for the back bar, laundry detergent, etc. This year, as the year comes to a close, we have to zero out the fund. We had enough surplus to let everyone get a weeks rent free.
And with that, I'm off to get me some dinner. Nothing fancy tonight. No leftovers from last weekend. So it's frozen dinners, which I actually like. :-)

and back to work I go

2011-12-14T05:57:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Well, yesterday was another day off, and another day I accomplished little. :-)
Mailed out a few Christmas cards, and spent a good part of the day loafing. :-)
I received a call from the freight company, stating our new dryer chairs are to be delivered today. They were supposed to be delivered next Monday. That would have been better, since we only have 2 people working on Mondays. But today, there will be 5, maybe 6 of us there. I'll have to figure out where to put them so it doesn't disrupt the Salon too much until I have time to work on them.
You see, we have 7 styling chairs and 4 dryer chairs. We have 2 styling chairs where the seats are cracking and need to be replaced. They don't make this style of chair anymore. 4 dryer chairs are cheaper to buy than 7 styling chairs. The dryer chairs have the same 'seat' that the styling chairs have. So I need to have time to 'swap' the seats from the dryer chairs to the styling chairs.

There's 4 bolts that hold the styling chair to it's base, and 2 bolts that hold the foot rest.
I'll figure it out somehow. :-)
I wanted to wait until after the busy holiday season, but Craig said we need to have them purchased before the end of the year for bookkeeping and tax purposes.
It'll work out. Somehow.
And that's all I've got for now. It's looking to be another busy week, so time to go...

a short post

2011-12-12T17:48:00.001-05:00

Good evening.
I know, an unusual evening post. :-)
I just finished a game on the puter, and dinner isn't ready yet, so I thought I'd do a quickie post. :-)
Sunday was an easy lazy day. I managed to clean the bathroom, but not much else. Craig did his usual bookwork and laundry. We ate ham steaks with boxed potatoes and butternut squash for dinner, while watching the movie Critters. I got the DVD from a customer who likes sci-fi. He knows we like sci-fi also, so he occasionally brings in movies for us. This was definitely a b movie if not a c movie. It was that bad. Right up there with attack of the killer tomatoes. But mildly entertaining.
There are 4 sequels altogether on the DVD's. Craig said watching the first one was enough. :-)
Today, I did a little more. I turned off the water to the outside faucets, put the Styrofoam thingies over the outside faucets, put the hose cart in the shed, spread moth balls around the tires of the mo-ho, and did a little more dusting. Craig thinks the moth balls help keep varmints away from the mo-ho. I don't argue, just do it. :-)
And Craig just called me for dinner, red beans and rice with chicken sausage and mushrooms and onions, so I gotta go!

another post

2011-12-11T07:34:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon, as per my usual Sunday morning routine.
Winter like weather has settled over mid Michigan. We had a dusting of snow a couple of nights ago, and the temps have been low 30's.
I ended my work week as one of this years busiest. The phone rang and rang, and I ended up working late Friday and Saturday. That's good because Craig just got the winter taxes, and he had not budgeted for them. That's not like Craig. He's always so good at having everything planned for. Must be he's slipping in his old age. :-) He will be 61 in a few weeks.
For dinner, he made home made wet burritos. They were yummy!
And while Craig gets his beauty rest, I'm off to read blogs and surf. :-)

Friday

2011-12-09T06:18:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I awoke to a fresh coating of snow on the ground. Should make for a fun drive to work this morning. :-\
The Salon has been very busy this week. The phones been ringing, I ended up completely booked, and I'm also working later than normal today.
I've also been sleeping real good. Not sure if I'm just completely tuckered from work, or it's the nice new flannel sheets. :-)
Not much else to report, and besides, it's time to get ready for work.

another weekend over

2011-12-07T06:50:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Yesterday was a fluff day for us. Pretty much stayed inside form the cloudy, windy, cold day.
I did manage to decorate our artificial Christmas tree.
I also did my yearly back-up of my bookmarks, pics, and other assorted stuff I didn't want to lose if my puter dies. That really saved my butt the last time my puter died. I had all my favorites saved to disc, so I didn't lose any of my sites or blogs. :-) It was soo easy setting up the new puter and just transferring my stuff back on.
If you don't back up, you should. :-)
And the weekend is over all ready! And I get a 3 day weekend! I don't know how you people survive on just 2. :-)
It looks to be another busy week in the Salon. That's good money wise, and makes the days go by faster also.
And since we only work 4 days, it doesn't make sense to take a 'lunch hour', so instead, I take snacks for us to munch on during the day between customers.

This week, we have bananas, celery, oranges, cottage cheese separated, canned salmon separated, and canned chicken. I know it looks like a lot, but it's for all 4 days. :-)
And speaking of work, it's time to get going!

sneaky stores and yard damage

2011-12-06T04:25:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Yesterday was a busy day.
We did our usual banking, P.O. and groceries, but also stopped at Kohl's. If you remember a few posts back, I ordered these sheets from Kohl's.com. They were on sale for 60% off and they sent me an e-mail for an additional 20% off plus free shipping. Well, yesterday, I had another e-mail for another 20% off, plus they had mailed me a card for $10 cash on anything in the store. I had my eye on a comforter, so we stopped in to take advantage of the good deal. Well, in the store, they were $89. I told Craig I was pretty sure they were only $69 online. So we decided to skip the comforter, and looked to see what to spend the $10 on. After much looking, I settled on some cozy 'wear around the house' socks for $10.80. Which of course ended up costing me zip with 20% off and the $10 card. A good buy. :-)
When we returned home, I checked online and indeed, they were $89. Now when I checked again this morning, they were $69. The 20% off sale ended Monday. So they jacked the price up for the sale. You really got to watch the prices! I remember many years ago when I was a kid working at Kmart, they would do the same thing. About 2 weeks before a sale, a price increase went into effect, so the 'sale' price ended up the old regular price. Sneaky stores!
Back home, with the snow gone for the time being, I went out to check on the yard. This is what I found....

A section in 2 different arborvitaes broke from the weight of that heavy snow storm we got last week.

Each one was a good 15 ft long, with this one also taking out a large Rose of Sharon bush.

So, I spent a good part of the afternoon, cleaning up the mess. Good thing we burned a couple of weeks ago because I've got another big pile now. Surprisingly, there was little other damage in the yard.
I spent the late afternoon on the puter, while Craig made a tasty beef stew for dinner.
Our short mild streak of weather is gone with the temp this morning of 30 and a high forecast of only 32. The rest of the week looks the same, but at least, no snow forecast. :-)
And while Craig sleeps this early morning, I'll exercise and surf. :-)

poor Craig

2011-12-04T07:42:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I"ve just returned from cleaning the Salon.
The last 2 days have been very mild. Low 40's. It's rained all night and into this morning, and almost all of the snow we got Tuesday night, is gone. :-)
We ended the salon week on a busy note, and the books for the next few weeks look to be busy also. It is the holiday season. ho ho ho.
For dinner, we had a delicious taco salad, and watched the movie, Our Idiot Brother. Not as good as I thought it would be.
I'm letting Craig sleep in today. He had a rough evening. His Spartans lost the big Ten Championship game. It was a heart breaker. They were so close to winning.
So while Craig sleeps in, I'll go to Sam,s Club for Salon supplies, and to another beauty supply business that's running a 20% off sale today only. Sam's opens at 10, the other place, 11. Craig should be up when I return. We'll see. :-)
Oh, and in response to more comments about the beautiful snow pic. I see most of the 'isn't it beautiful' comments are from you southern folk which probably almost never see the stuff. And yes, wet clingy snow does make for a beautiful winter wonder land picture. Only if you can just sit and look at it. For me, it's more work in the morning clearing the drive before I go to regular work, it's scary driving amongst people who don't respect the snow, and it's more work at the Salon having to clean the floors more often. And this will go on for the better part of 4 months. So no, I don't really care for the stuff. :-)

in response....

2011-12-01T06:21:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
This is what the back yard looked like when it finally got daylight yesterday before I left for work.

Lansing officially got 8 inches. Many trees were down, and 2 of our stylists and several customers lost power.
And in response to a few of the many comments I got......
Mike, yes, it is pretty, until you have to look at it for 4+ months.
Randy, I wish I could send this all down to you, we'll get plenty more.
Mark, I'd pack up and come, but there's this thing called bills. And to pay the bills, there this thing called work. So I'm kinda stuck here right now. But keep that invite open. :-)
Garret, yes, ick!

And now it's time for work. The phone's been ringing, and I'm pretty much booked the rest of the week. :-)

They were right, damn it!

2011-11-30T07:17:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Well, it's finally here. :-(

I spent 1 1/2 hours this morning clearing the driveway. Looks like we got the 6 inches they forecast.
We watched yesterday afternoon as it went from a day long rain, to sleet, and finally, snow. It'll take half an hour to thaw Craig's car before he goes to work.
I should be happy we got everything done outside before this happened, but snow starting in November makes for a long winter.
But we'll survive, we always seem to.
Now I'm off to work......

post #1190

2011-11-29T06:11:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Sunday was a total washout. Drizzly rain all day. So, I stayed inside and played. :-)
I did do a little cyber Monday shopping on Sunday. Kohl's was having a 2 day cyber Monday sale. They also sent me an e-mail for an additional 20% off everything, and free shipping, no minimum. I've been wanting to get new flannel sheets, and they had them 60% off. Regularly $128.00 on sale for $52.00. With my additional 20%, that brought them down to $41.60. Now I think Kohl's regular prices are ridiculous. $128.00 for sheets? But $41.00 I think was very decent. And free shipping!
Monday, which was cool but at least dry, after our usual banking, P.O. and groceries, we came home and burned. No, not the house, brush and branches. :-) I'm constantly picking up branches that come out of our 2 very old Chinese Elms, and we've collected quite a pile since early summer. I also cut down a good size Mock orange bush that was getting crowded out by a Little Leaf Linden tree, and a Crab Apple tree. I've also been wanting to cut down a couple of very large Juniper bushes.
I planted them many years ago on either side of a gate that leads to a storage area.

I trained them to grow together at the top, and they looked like an arbor over the gate, which you can see in this several year old pic I found. But over the years, as my Maple and a Sycamore tree have gotten larger, it's become too shady, and the bottoms of the junipers are dying off and looking bad. So, while we were burning up the other stuff, I cut down these too. I want to get a couple of large pots to put in their place, and plant inpatients in them next year.
And this morning, it's raining again, and is expected to rain all day, turning to snow this evening with an expected accumulation of nearly 6 inches. YUK! It's too early for snow! I hope they're wrong.
But, at least, I'm ready for it. Everything's done outside that we needed to do. I even powered up the snow blower to make sure it's ready.
Now I'm off to catch up on some blogs. It's a little too early to get Craig up yet. :-)

we're ready. bring it on!

2011-11-27T07:47:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon.....as usual.... :-)
I also stopped at Meijer for a few groceries and the Sunday paper.
Craig's cooking his quick ravioli lasagna today, so I picked up a few of the ingredients we didn't already have.
Yesterday, I got out of work at noon, came home, and changed the oil in the two mowers. We then maneuvered the mo-ho into his winter parking space between the garage and the fence.
We are now ready for when ever the snow comes. :-\
And since we were still stuffed from the thanksgiving dinners, we had a light dinner of roast beef sandwiches and watched the movie Harold and Kumar, escape from Guantanamo. It was very entertaining.
It is now 8am, and Craig wanted to sleep in a little, so I'm off to read blogs and do a little surfing......

thanksgiving meal #2

2011-11-26T05:35:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I had a busy, short day in the Salon yesterday. Started at 8am, and worked non-stop until 1pm.
With the mild sunny day, (temps in the upper 50's) I went home, changed clothes, and got to work outside. I cleaned and flushed the eaves-troughs, blew the rest of the leaves/debris out from along the garage, and did a final mowing. The yard is now ready for winter, and we can now move the mo-ho from the driveway, and into it's winter parking place along side of the garage.
I have another busy/short day today also, unless the phone starts ringing, and I should be done around noon. If so, I hope to take advantage of our last decent day, and change the oil in the mowers. Starting tomorrow, our daytime temps are forecast to plummet down into the 30's for the next week.
Also yesterday, we had another turkey dinner from leftovers, and it was every bit as good as the frist one. :-)
I then took the rest of the meat off the carcass, froze that for casseroles later and froze the carcass to be added to the one for Christmas and made into broth.
Now, time to get ready for my last workday this week.. :-)

It's just another work day for me.

2011-11-25T05:58:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
And happy Black Friday,
to those that partake in such nonsense. :-)
We had a very nice relaxing day,
even though our Detroit Lions sucked.
Our Turkey dinner turned out wonderful as usual.
I've had a couple of people ask how
we cook our turkey.
It's really simple.
Craig rinses the turkey, takes the giblets and
neck out of the cavity, rinses out the cavity,
cuts off the butt thingy,
folds the wings under, and lays it in a roasting pan.
We stuff the turkey with stuffing, using a stuffing bag.
It's a cheese cloth bag you put in the cavity first,
then the stuffing goes in the bag.
When the turkey's done,
you just pull out the
bag and mix it with the rest
of the stuffing we cooked on the side.
I then lightly spray the skin with

butter spray followed by seasonings.
I usually use garlic powder,
Mrs Dash onion and herb, and cumin.
Since we'll cook 4 turkeys this winter,
I'll do different spices each time.
The real secret to a moist turkey is
the foil tent.
I take 2 sheets of foil,
(we use the 18 in wide Reynolds wrap)
just about 6inches longer than the roasting pan.
Lay the sheets on top of each other
and fold 1/2 inch down along the entire length.
I do this 3 times. This gives you a super sheet.
Then fold the corners in.
Go in about 8 inches and down about 3.
Do that to both ends.
When you open the sheets up,
you'll have a dome.
Place that over the turkey and
seal the edges all the way around,
making sure the foil doesn't touch the skin.
Craig cooks his turkey an hour longer than
recommended. He likes his turkey
falling off the bone. :-)
I forgot to get a pic when we took it
out of the oven, but here's a pic of my dish.
And yes, I did have seconds! :-)
Craig also did a couple of new things this year.
His scalloped corn had crushed
wheat thin crackers and spinach.
It was real tasty.
He also added light cream cheese
to the mashed potatoes.
They were yummy also.
And today, we'll have leftover turkey dinner.
But now, it's time to get ready for work.
Yes, the salon is open today and tomorrow.
And I've got a fairly busy day today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T08:02:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from decorating the Salon for Christmas. I refuse to put out anything until after Thanksgiving. It took just under 2 hours. And since I was just a block from a Meijer store, I ran over there before heading home. They were running a Thanksgiving Day sale. I noticed in their ad, they had a 100 pack of blank DVD+R for $19.95, a very good deal. I use them to burn movies that I download from the net. I also picked up 4 two liter Coke for $.79, and of course the Sunday paper. Going by Best Buy, I noticed a whole row of tents along the front of the building. The paper said people started lining up on Wednesday to be the first in the door at 12am Friday. I like a good deal, but that's just crazy! Don't they know you can go online today and get the same deals?
I came home, diced up onions and celery for the stuffing, and had a few extra minutes to do this post before I shower and get Craig up.
Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving. We're going to eat, relax, watch football, and maybe, just maybe, do some work outside. We'll see! :-)
Well, it's almost 8:30. Time to shower and wake up lazy bones. He wants the Turkey in by 9:30.

and the winner is...

2011-11-23T04:48:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
We finally settled on a new dryer chair. Here's a pic with an actual dryer inserted in it....

I know most of you liked the ones with the chrome arms, but we decided on this one because the plastic arms won't tear like the vinyl covered chrome ones that we have right now. And the ribbed pattern matches our shampoo chairs.
We even got a good deal on the chairs. With shipping to the Salon, 4 chairs, $1071.00. That's with out the dryers. Those would be another $200.00 each, and we can swap them from the old dryer chairs to the new ones.
In other news......
I got virtual nothing accomplished outside this past weekend. Spent Sunday in Muskegon, and Monday and Tuesday was cold, windy, and I just haven't acclimated to the cold yet. So I stayed inside, and was pretty much a slug. I did get the dryers ordered, and I did do some cleaning, but it wasn't much. :-)
I've got an extremely busy day today at the Salon, since we are closed tomorow. But I'll get through thinking about the tasty turkey, and the day off. :-)
Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving!

a visit with Mom

2011-11-21T06:40:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
Sorry for my lack of a Sunday post. I cleaned the Salon in the morning, came home, showered, woke up Craig, fixed us coffee, and off to Muskegon we went to see my Mom. Spent the day with her. Took her to lunch at Applebee's, and the club for drinks and pull tabs. Didn't do to well with the pull tabs, but the place was busy, and Mom got to visit with people she doesn't see very often. She had a nice day, Stopped at a store for groceries on our way back to her apartment. Arrived back in Lansing in the early evening.
We had a good work week last week, and it will be nice to have a short week this week. I'm already looking forward to turkey and fixings. :-)
It's been windy and cold for a week now, but a slight, short warm-up is forecast for Thanksgiving Day. I may need to take advantage of it and finish up outside, as the average day time temps are quickly dropping. It is forecast for 53 on Thursday, where our 'normal' high should be 43. Our normal lows are already below freezing.
And that's all I got for now......

Friday quicky

2011-11-18T05:32:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
It looks like the cold weather is here to stay. :-(
25 out this morning, with a high forecast of only 43.
The Salon has been nice and steady this week, with me working a little later today than usual, and tomorrow looks solid too.
Tonight is Lansing's Silver Bells in the City, where they have an electric light parade, singing groups scattered around the downtown venues, the tree lighting in front of the capitol, and fireworks. Too bad it's going to be so cold. I'll come home from work, and stay warm inside. I'll watch highlights on the news. :-)
That's my quickie post for today, now time to get ready for work.....

mo-ho update

2011-11-16T05:13:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
We picked up the mo-ho yesterday afternoon. I also got a more thorough explanation of the problem. What exactly was wrong is this. Every time I run the motor home, the engine gets hot. When we stop, it cools down. The metal expands when hot, contracts when cools. Both Ford and Chevy used small bolts for the manifolds. They discovered over the years, that from the constant expansion and contraction, the bolts weren't strong enough and would begin to snap. When enough bolts snapped, the manifold cover would begin to warp, creating more stress, and popping more bolts. They then started to put larger bolts in the engines. Since it took years for the problem to surface, they never did a recall.
We had a total of 16 snapped bolts out of 20 between the 2 manifold covers. Took a total of 15 hours labor. To keep the cost near the estimate, they charged me cost on the materials and reduced the hourly fee from $79 to $65. Final bill, $2,110.90. He said he'd never seen so many broken bolts on one engine. I didn't tell him we'd been hearing that noise for the last 5 or 6 trips. We didn't take it in earlier, since it didn't seem to affect the driving. The noise wasn't much at first, but got more noticeable as time went on.We probably made a bad situation worse by continuing to drive it. I think we're lucky we didn't cause other issues.
He said, with the larger bolts, we shouldn't have an issue with it again. I hope he's right. Driving the mo-ho home, it sounded so smooth and quiet!
In other news, it was a fairly decent day, temp wise, so I got out and worked in the yard. Put up fencing around evergreens along the creek to try and protect them from hungry deer this winter. I also got on the roof, and brushed off the valleys. We have a very low roof line and the 2 north facing valleys fill up with leaves in the fall.
We also got our 4 turkeys. They went on sale this week. We'll have one for Thanksgiving, Christmas, early Feb. and mid March. I love the smell of turkey cooking all day. :-)
And now, it's back to work for what's looking to be a fairly busy week.

Alan Harper, Really?

2011-11-14T06:41:00.001-05:00

Good morning.

It was a real nice day yesterday. Cloudy, but mild. Got all the way up to 62. Made the most of it. Cut down the rest of the grasses, and got all the leaves blown/vacuumed/mowed. I also took up the portable deck and stored it in the garage.

We should only have one mowing left to be ready for winter.

In other news....

I've had at least 3 customers over the last several weeks, saying I look, and act, like Jon Cryer's Alan Harper in Two and a half Men. I don't see it, do you?

Then again, years ago, when I actually had a nice head of hair, I had many people who thought I looked like Jerry Seinfeld.
I didn't see that either.

Anyway, While I toiled in the yard, Craig did his usual laundry and bookwork, but also made a huge pot of delicious chili for dinner. :-)
It was a perfect day, as the rain held off until evening. Today, it's a lot of running around. Bank, Kohl's, Post office, and Meijer's. Turkey's went on sale this week, and we usually buy four. One for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, and the other 2 during the long winter. And for those poor souls that don't know what a Meijer is, they are just the best store for groceries, and everything else. Before there was Super Walmart, Walmart sent people to study Meijer, and they copied them. But they don't have the quality produce or products Meijer has.
Anyway, I've rambled on far to long today. Time to get Craig up. :-)

post #1180

2011-11-13T07:20:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
I've just returned form cleaning the Salon. The weather is very mild this morning. 53. I hope to get more leaves up today before afternoon rain sets in.
It was another busy week in the Salon, and it was good to come home a little early yesterday and relax. I had planned on doing a little work in the yard, but it never happened. :-)
We finished the day with home made nachos, and a movie.
Now, while Craig sleeps in, I'm going out and cutting down the rest of the grasses.

answers to your questions

2011-11-11T05:16:00.001-05:00

Good morning.
It's been a cold, cloudy, rainy, snowy, week. That's right, I said snow. Yuk!
At least, it was just a few flurries that didn't stick. But I had to scrap the frozen rain off my car before I came home last night.
And in response to a number of questions from my last post.....
Linda....."Does this mean repairs or a new engine?"
A new engine would cost way more than $2000.00. No, just repairs. 2 new manifolds.
Garret... "What's on the asparagus?"
Butter and Parmesan Cheese. It was yummy!
Mark..... "How many miles on the engine? It's a Ford V-10 right?"
We've got just over 40,000 miles. And yes, it's a Ford V-10. I've been reading the forums too, and apparently cracked manifolds are a fairly common issue. I'll talk to the tech about that.
Dean left a voice mail about possibly using an after market product.
I had already authorized the repairs. But now that I think about it. I probably should have just put the Banks system on it and not only solved the manifold issue, but also possibly increased the mpg and performance. I just don't think fast enough sometimes. :-)
I've got a long day today. Working later than usual. And a busy day Saturday.
So time to go...... :-)

an expensive weekend

2011-11-09T06:01:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
It's been a dreary wet couple of days.
We did take the motor home in for an oil change and generator service. We also wanted them to check out an odd noise. When in park, the engine sounds fine, but in gear, there's an odd sound I can't quite describe. Well, they found out it was cracked manifolds. And apparently some of the bolts were broken. He said it was fairly common on RV's. He went on to say something about heat, blah, blah, blah, and twisting, blah, blah, blah, possible 6 hours labor for drilling, blah, blah, blah, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't begin to understand. I know absolutely nothing about engines.
So, anyway, it'll be just under $2000.00. :-(
We almost made it through the entire season without a major repair. Almost. :-(
In other news, the weather broke long enough to find time to change the tires on Kia and Cruiser to their winter tires.
Here's a pic of the winter and summer tires. Can you tell which one is which?

Yep! the winter tire is on the left. See how much smoother looking the right tire is. That's to make them have less road resistance for better gas millage. But it makes them horrible in snow. No traction what-so-ever.

And here's a pic with the winter wheel on the front, and the summer wheel on the back. We got the winter tires with wheels so it's an easy change. And they're very similar to the other wheels.
And the rain brought down most of the leaves from the Maples. Now we just need the rest to come down from the Sycamore and Elms and we can do our final mowing. Maybe next weekend.
And for dinner, grilled chicken, potatoes and asparagus. Yum!

Now, it's another work week. Hope it's busy. I need money for the mo-ho repairs!

a productive day

2011-11-07T07:28:00.000-05:00

Good morning.
It was another beautiful day yesterday, and I took full advantage of it.
I blew/vacuumed/shredded a mess of leaves, then did a quick mowing of the lawn.
I took out the mo-ho dump battery, and trickle charged it. Then I ran the generator to get the gas stabilizer through the lines. Then I emptied the rest of the stuff out of the mo-ho for indoor storage. I also took out the portable gas grill, cleaned it and put it in the garage.
I also cut down most of the grasses and most of the fall perennials.
So it was a busy productive day. :-)
And to top it off, Craig made a tasty meatloaf. :-)

another weekend

2011-11-06T07:14:00.002-05:00

Good morning.
We finished another fairly busy week in the Salon. The weather has been very mild. Today it should hit 58.
I, of course, just returned from cleaning the Salon.
The yard is covered with leaves again. Looks to be about another week or so before they're all down. Taking the mo-ho in for an oil change and generator service tomorrow, so today, I'll finish getting the rest of the stuff out.
And I've got all the clocks here, and at work turned back.
And while I let Craig sleep in a little and take advantage of the extra hour of sleep, I'll do some surfing and blog reading.

tech tip # 453

2011-11-02T06:50:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Well, it was a beautiful day yesterday. Got up to 58. May not see many more of those. :-(
So I took advantage of it. After our running around, I blew leaves off the driveway, patio and deck. While Craig mowed up the leaves, (We don't rake. We have a mulching mower) I winterized the water system in the mo-ho.
First thing, open the low point drains to empty the lines of water. Then open the fresh water tank drains. Then drain the water heater. Open the panel, and take out the plug in the lower middle. Then go inside and turn off the in and our water lines to the water heater and open the bypass. Don't want to fill the water heater with antifreeze. :-)
Newmar adds a nice inlet tube for winterizing in one of the bays. Just close off the fresh water tanks, stick the tube in your gallon of antifreeze, and your ready to suck it into the water lines.
I use 4 gallons. I could probably get away with 3, but I want to make sure there's enough in the drains to fill the macerator pump.
Then it was as simple as going inside and opening each faucet to let the antifreeze fill all the lines and drain traps, including the kitchen bath, shower, toilet, and washing machine. And don't forget the outside shower.
After I finished that, I went up on the roof to find and fix a water leak in the shower. We had a leak earlier this year, but on the other side of the skylight. I thought I'd checked everything out then, but apparently not. I discovered, instead of doing just a visual check for cracks, I needed to do a physical check on the sealant. I found an edge of the sealant had a gap under the edge and I was able to pull it back to expose the edge of the skylight.
I actually found 3 areas like this. I removed the old caulk, cleaned and dried the areas, and reapplied new Dicor lap sealant. While I was up there, I checked the rest of the roof and found one other possible spot I also fixed.
And with that all done, we relaxed with cocktails and enjoyed our last day off.
And now, time to get ready for another work week.....

trip #13

2011-11-01T07:32:00.005-04:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon, as usual....
As I said yesterday, we've returned from our 13th, and last trip of the season. :-(
We went a short, just over an hour away, to Yankee Springs State Recreation area.
The campground sits on the edge of Gun lake.

We had a nice pull-through site, over-looking the lake, since the campground was fairly empty.
There were maybe 20 campers there in just under 200 sites. There were even 3 tenters, even though the nights got down around freezing. Now there's some dedicated campers! :-)
They had even closed the bath houses for the season, although they did bring in a couple of porta-potties. I'm assuming the tenters didn't bath then? ewww!
I'm wondering why they left the campground open without bath houses. Indiana Dunes State park is open all year, and they keep one bathhouse open all winter. hmm.
Anyway, we got there safe, and back home safe, so it was a good trip. :-) And we made it through the year, with only very minor issues. :-)
We arrived late Friday afternoon. We worked later than usual, since it was such a short drive. We arrived to find the water fill station closed for the season. They said water was available at the pump house behind site 34. We got to site 34 , and fortunately, it was empty so I backed the mo-ho into the site, as our 2 hoses weren't long enough from the road. Filled our tank, and drove around looking for the 'perfect' site. Settled into a nice pull-through with a view of the lake. Cooked kielbasas on the grill for dinner, and watched TV. Saturday morning, we drove just 6 miles to the Gun Lake casino. a fairly small one. Spent a few hours there and left about 20 up. :-) Then headed up the highway to Grand Rapids for lunch. Stopped at Tommy Brauns and had tasty burgers and watched our Sparty's get whipped. :-(
Then it was over to Midway Motor Homes. The dealer we bought our motor home from, had a new 2012 Thor Challenger with an interesting floor plan I wanted to check out. And no, we're not buying a new mo-ho. Unless one of my readers wants to get us an early Christmas present. ;-)
So, here's a link if you want to check it out. 2012 Thor Challenger.
It's a gas, 37ft. 3 slides. It actually was quite nice, other than the too busy graphics on the outside. It is different from most motor homes in that it has actual 'rooms'. Not a big open space. I liked it. It felt like a cozy cottage. And with a king bed too!
Then it was back to the campground, and a roaring campfire, watching the sun set.
Sunday, we awoke to rain, so no hiking/biking that day. So since we were ahead, we went back to the casino. Spent a good part of the day there, breaking for a tasty lunch , at one of their restaurants. Left down about 25. Not bad for the time we spent. :-)
Got back to the campground to find only 4 of us left there. 1 tenter, 1 travel trailer, 1 fifth-wheel, and us. The rain had stopped, so we took a walk around and took these pics. Fixed chicken on the grill, and pared that with potato salad we'd bought earlier.
Monday morning, packed up and made the short drive back to Lansing. Did a good final dump, with repeated rinsing, filled the propane tank, and filled the gas tank and added treatment for winter storage. We went through 14 gallons of propane for the season. Not bad for as much as we ran the furnace in the spring and fall. :-)
Back home, I spent the afternoon taking stuff out of the mo-ho. Food, water, toiletries, anything that might freeze. I also removed batteries from everything. Will put new ones in , in the spring.
And now, time to wake up Craig. We have a lot of running around to do today......

we're back! again

2011-10-31T12:40:00.002-04:00

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from our last mo-ho trip of the season. :-(
But we did 13 weekend trips this year, and except for a few very minor things, it was a very good season!
More to come, but right now, it's time to unpack and unload the motor home in preparation for winterizing and winter storage.
More to come....

a short post

2011-10-28T06:28:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
It's a cold dreary Friday. 32 out this morning, and dark. The days are getting rapidly shorter. I now go to work in the dark, and go home in the dark on my 2 long days. It's looking to be only about 50 for the next several days and a chance of rain, so not sure what I'll do this weekend. We'll see.
It has been a busy week at the Salon. And other than that, not much to say.
Have a good weekend!

post #1174

2011-10-26T06:41:00.005-04:00

Good morning.
Yesterday was mostly a wash-out. Drizzly rain, off and on all day.
Sooo, I spent a good part of it cleaning out the garage. That seems to be the accumulating point for everything. But I got it cleaned and straightened, and a car full of stuff I'm dropping off at Goodwill. Now Craig has room to park the Kia when the snow starts flying.
Craig did pick up his new glasses. And of course, balked at letting me take his pick for the blog. :-)
Today, I'm calling our electrical guy to replace a couple of sodium lights on the outside of the Salon. I think the sensors have fogged over too bad and the lights stay on most of the time., except one that keeps going on and off. I've tried cleaning them, but they're just too bad. And I know, "isn't that the landlord's job?" But anyone who's rented commercial space knows it's like pulling teeth to get any money out of them. And by the time they did get around to it, it would be spring, and the days are rapidly getting shorter, and the girls need dependable lighting at night.
Sooo, with that, its time to get ready for another work week. Looking pretty decent so far.

it's not quite over, and what do you think

2011-10-25T06:36:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
The weather has been cool, but sunny. It rained all night Sunday night, but quit by morning. I've accomplished a lot during the last 2 days. I now have about 85% of the yard cut back. All that's left is some late blooming perennials and all the grasses.
Here's whats still blooming.....
A pretty l\plant called Toad Lilly. Above a closer view of the tiny flowers.

Above, Monkshood. Because each individual flower resembels the hoon on a monks robe. Below. Japanese anemones.
So even though most of the yard is tired looking and mostly done for the season, there's still a few spots of color. :-)
And for our anniversary, we went out to lunch yesterday. We decided on Finlay's. I had their famous ribs, and Craig had their American Cheeseburger. Both were very good.
And we're in the process of deciding on new dryer chairs for the Salon.
We have a couple of styling chairs that have cracks in the vinyl seats. The seats are the same ones we have on the dryer chairs. Soooo, I want to swap the dryer chair seats for the cracked styling chairs. Styling chairs are about twice the cost of dryer chairs, so it makes sense to get new dryer chairs instead. Her's are 3 choices......
A...

B....
And C....
I like C with the chrome handles, Craig likes A with the ribbed back. What do you think?

a special day

2011-10-23T08:03:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon.....as usual....
I ended up getting out of work fairly early Saturday, so I came home and worked on the leaves. Every few days, there's more. Should be another 2 weeks before they're all down.
And today is a special day. 35 years ago today, Craig and I decided to move in together. Of course, back then, who knew how long that would last. I was 23, him 25. I was in beauty school, he was teaching at MSU. But apparently, it was meant to be. And now, 35 years later, I can't imagine life without him.
So, today, even though it's a milestone, we'll be doing our usual Sunday routine. Oh, we'll have an anniversary lunch, but that will wait until tomorrow. Restaurants are too busy on Sunday. That also will make our anniversary last longer. :-)
Gifts? No. We haven't exchanged gifts in years. We have everything we need, and can't afford every thing we want. :-)
I'll let Craig sleep in as long as he wants today, and I'll look through my digital photo albums thinking of everything we've been through over the years, and wondering what direction our future may lead us. Because today is a special day.

A saturday post

2011-10-22T06:00:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
I got out of work early yesterday, so I went shopping for the weekends meals. We were having a new dish Friday, Beef Broccoli. Today will be home made pizza, and Sunday, Ham steaks, mashed potatoes and butternut squash.
When I got home, I tackled the bathroom. I hate cleaning, and always let it go until it's nasty. So I dove in and spent a good 2 hours on it. And it's not even very big. A very small bathroom that was typical of the 50's when this house was built. We've remodeled it twice in the 26 years we've been here.

We now have all the fixtures in bone which I really like. Not as sterile as white, but looks clean and neutral. And not only do I need to scrub the tub and shower, But it also needs to be 'waxed'. When we last remodeled the bath, we replaced the tub with a whirlpool tub. They make them to fit where a standard size tub fits. The sides are just a few inches higher. But it's fiberglass, and looks best if it's 'waxed'. I use a product called Gel-Gloss.
Oh, and in the first pic, the louvered door is only like that from the front. Once closed, the back looks like a 2 panel door. One need a little privacy in the potty. :-)
And here's a pic of our new dinner dish.
It was yummy! I'll post the recipe when I have a little more time, as for now, I need to get ready for work. My first customer is at 8am.

this and that

2011-10-21T06:13:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
It's been a wet, cold, windy week. Everyday. But the weekend looks dryer.
Work has been steady this week, but not without issues.
I got to work Wednesday morning, and was straightening things up when I noticed we needed more coffee cups on our coffee stand in the reception area. As I got out more cups, I noticed quite a bit of water on the counter around the cups, and sugar and creamer container. I realized right away, the coffee machine was leaking. It's happened before. This coffee maker keeps a pot of water inside heated and ready whenever you want to make another pot of coffee. Because of that, the heating element eventually 'cooks' through the bottom of the water chamber, and it starts to leak. In our 14 years here, it's happened twice. So over to the store I went for another one.
I got the new one set up and the old one out in the trash. I then went out to get the mail. Our mail is delivered to a central location in the mall. It's not delivered to the individual stores. On the way back, I notice our open/closed sign was missing the lower half of it's P. It now looked like a small D instead of a P.
That's the problem with LED's. I've seen it on cars too. One section of lights go out, and the entire thing is ruined. So now we need to put that on our shopping list.
And it was time to order our pocket calendars that we hand out for Christmas.
We've done this for more years than I can remember. We don't give out near as many as we use to, with all the smart phones and such, but we still have a good size core of customers who look forward to them every year. So after our staff agreed to the style and number needed, I went online when I got home last night and place an order.
And now with that, it's time to get ready for another work day....

weather, water heater, and business

2011-10-19T06:19:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
Yesterday was a typical fall day in Michigan. Cool and cloudy.
Craig got the yard mowed while I blew the leaves off the deck and vacuumed the leaves off the driveway and along the garage. The windy weekend blew a lot of the color away. Fall can be so pretty, but we often get wind and rain to spoil it.

Craig mowing the front yard.

Before and after.
Of course, this will be repeated time and again until all the leaves are down. Usually around thanksgiving.
And it appears we'll be getting a closed system water heater. The furnace guy said there's no venting problem with the vent he put on the chimney. He says it's more likely a faulty water heater. With the 6 in tube he put into the attic, there's plenty of make-up air and no reason air should be coming down the water heater exhaust. So we're kinda stuck between the furnace guy saying one thing, and the plumbing people saying another. Craig says he's just tired of it all and wants an end to it, and a closed system will do that.
So since we haven't had any venting issues since it's gotten colder, I've got time to get a couple more estimates, since it looks like it'll run a couple thousand dollars. :-(
In better news....
Craig has done the totals for the third quarter at the salon, and we are currently a little ahead of last year.
Business has picked up a little more. We've also seen a few new businesses opening up in the area. So some people must think the worst is behind us. We don't see much new hiring, but at least it appears to be no more layoffs. But with the economy so stagnate, I'm not sure it can get a whole lot better. Time will tell.
And with that, time to get ready for another work week. It's looking pretty good so far.

trip # 12

2011-10-18T07:33:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
Recapping the previous week.....
The work week ended very busy, with us leaving early on Friday for one of our last weekend trips of the season.
This trip took us back to Indiana Dunes State Park. On Lake Michigan, about 10 miles south of Michigan City Indiana.
The weather wasn't the best. We drove down with gusty winds, and it was windy all weekend, including the drive back. But, we got there safe, arrived home safe, and without incidence.
The weather wasn't a big issue, since this was our casino weekend. From the park, we are with-in a 30 minute drive to 4 casinos. And over the weekend, we hit them all. When all was said and done, we came home with over 3/4th of our gambling budget. Not bad, a good value for the entertainment.
We started out Friday afternoon, after arriving at the campground, we headed a short drive into Michigan City, and the Blue Chip Casino. Here, we spent a couple of hours playing the slots. Left with Craig up a tiny bit, and me down a little. Headed to the truck stop by the highway and got Popeye's chicken for dinner. Was delish! After a cozy night in the mo-ho, we headed over to Gary Indiana, where 2 casinos sit with-in a few blocks of each other, the Majestic Star, and Ameristar. We did one, had lunch, and then the other, taking a break to watch some football, where our Sparty's beat Michigan. Left for the campground with me up quite a bit, and Craig down some.
Had turkey kielbasas for dinner.
Sunday, we awoke to more wind and this time rain also. We headed out toward the Four Winds Casino, about 25 miles north, just across the Michigan border. This is one of the largest, nicest casino's in the area, and it was busy. They must be doing good, as they are adding a large hotel expansion. It's probably form all the money they're wringing out of customers, as we both did poorly there. So it was lunch at the Stray Dog in New Buffalo, and back to the Blue Chip Casino.
There, I got lucky and hit a couple of small jackpots, while Craig's bad luck continued. But like I said, when all was said and done, we didn't do too bad over all. :-)
Back at the campground, we relaxed with cocktails and the Sunday paper. Dinner was delicious sirloin steaks on the grill with potatoes and grilled carrots.
Monday morning, we packed up, dumped, and arrived home early afternoon.
It was another good trip. :-)

sorry

2011-10-17T13:36:00.002-04:00

Good afternoon.
Sorry for my long absence, I was lazy Friday, and we were gone for the weekend on another weekend trip.
Details to follow. :-)

the water heater saga continues.

2011-10-12T05:21:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Our beautiful summer like weather is slowing coming to an end. High today in the low 70's, but by Saturday, only mid 50's. It was nice while we had it. :-)
Now on to the water heater. Michigan Plumbing came out in the morning, studied the situation, and decided since it's not venting into the house every time the air is running, there must be another factor at play here. He suggested wind might occasionally be blowing into the vent cover creating a negative pressure keeping the water heater from venting normally. He said to contact the furnace installer and ask if another type of vent cap is available. If the furnace guy doesn't think that's an issue, they'd be happy to replace our water heater. But for the expense, we should try all other possible ideas. I thanked them, and they left. In the afternoon, Moore plumbing came over. He also checked everything out, thought it was possible air could be sucked down the exhaust and said a self contained water heater would eliminated the issue. The cost? $2200.00.
I thanked him for coming out, and said I'd think about it.
Sooo, I think I'll call the furnace guy first and see if there's any chance the wind might be causing problems with the vent. I'm sure he'll say it couldn't, but it never hurts to ask. :-)
The rest of the day, I blew and vacuumed leaves. They're coming down pretty fast, and the trees haven't even completely turned yet. Very odd.
Craig returned home from the eye doctor. His overall vision hadn't changed much, but his reading did. So new lenses are in order. He also decided on the new frames. With the discounts he got, the exam, frames and lenses ended up costing $550.00. Not bad, really, since we don't have vision insurance.
And now, another work week. Looks to be fairly busy. That's good, we have glasses and possibly a new water heater to pay for. :-)

and it was good.

2011-10-11T05:35:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes here, on Facebook and e-mails. :-)
It was really a nice relaxing day. Let Craig sleep in while I washed the mo-ho and cars. Then we went out for the weeks grocery shopping. For lunch, I had a gift card to Red Robin. Never been there before. One of our stylist from the Salon who retired a year ago joined us. It was nice catching up. I had the Avocado, bacon burger, and Craig had the patty melt. Both were very tasty, but they were rather small for the $10 price. I guess they think the bottomless fries make up for it, but I'm not crazy about steak fries. To much soft potato and not enough crunch. Would not go back without another gift card. :-)
Back home we relaxed, read the paper, and I puttered in the yard.
For dinner, we cooked Craig's tasty wings! I must have ate over 2lbs by myself! Yummy!
Today will be filled with waiting. While Craig goes for an eye exam, I have Michigan Plumbing coming between 10 and 12 for an estimate on a new water heater, and Moore Plumbing coming at 1:30 for another estimate. Will be a good reason to clean . :-) I'll let you know where the estimates run....

oh no, not again!

2011-10-10T08:29:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Yep, it's that time of year again. The annual birthday. 58 years. Time sure does fly. And they seem to go faster every year.
No big plans today. I washed the mo-ho this morning. Did quite a bit of cutting back perennials yesterday while Craig mowed. The weather has been awesome!
Today, for my birthday, we'll go to lunch. I have a Red Robin gift card to use. Dinner will be one of my favorite dishes. A big plate of wings! Craig made up the marinade yesterday, and this afternoon he'll bake them up. He also got me a card and some smoked salmon. He's a good guy. :-)
If the mood strikes, I should do more yard work, but we'll see. :-)

Sunday

2011-10-09T07:28:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
I've just returned home from cleaning the Salon, as usual...
The work week ended in a flurry. Despite the slow Wednesday, it ended as a very good week. And I got my hair cut also. :-)
Arrived home late for a Saturday, and we relaxed on the deck with cocktails.
I was planning on washing the mo-ho before I got Craig up, but at 7:30, it's still not daylight yet.
I think that's what I dislike most about winter, going to work in the dark, and coming home in the dark.
Anyway, Craig wants me to wake him up early so he can get a beef pot roast going in the crock-pot. It has to cook 10 hours on low. I will enjoy the smells all day. :-)
And our week of Indian summer is still here for a couple of more days, so I hope to get a lot of yard work done.
And that's all i've got for now....

Friday

2011-10-07T05:52:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
After a slow start on Wednesday, (at least I got my hair cut and highlighted and cut Craig's) the phone started ringing, and I became completely booked Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And actually working later Saturday than usual. The weather has been great, though I've been inside. :-( But it looks like it'll extend through the weekend. :-)
That will be good because I need to get out and start cutting back the perennials. A lot of them are way past their prime and the cold weather will soon be upon us.
The trees are turning quickly. We should be in peak color in another week or so.
And we've got a couple of companies coming out early next week for estimates on a closed system water heater. Even with the make-up air the furnace guy installed, we are still occasionally getting the water heater exhausting into the house. It isn't happening very often now since the air conditioning season is done, but when it does, the carbon monoxide detector goes off, and we get dull headaches. Can't be good for us long term.
Well anyway, have a great weekend!

back to work, again

2011-10-05T06:59:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
Yesterday was a beautiful day. Sunny and near 70. Gorgeous! And of course, just as we get back to work, it's going to warm up. Mid 70's for the rest of the week. :-\
We did our usual Monday running around, bank, PO with a stop at Lenscrafters to get Craig's eyeglass nose piece fixed. One side came off during the weekend. He also made an appointment for an exam, since it's been a few years since he has had one. We then checked out new frames.
Here's what we picked out....
Back home, I spent most of the day, cleaning the mo-ho, cleaning bird baths, and yard work. Craig did book-work, laundry and vacuumed. I cooked chicken on the grill with skewered vegetables and served them with long grain wild rice.
We've got just 2 more weekend trips planned for the season as fall is quickly moving along. The trees have started changing, and we should be reaching peak color here in a couple of weeks.
I usually winterize the mo-ho by November 1st, as by then, the night-time temps are averaging around 32. We could use the mo-ho later than that, but there are very few campgrounds open after Oct. 31st, and we'd have to leave the furnace on to keep the pipes from freezing. All and all, it'll be time to but him in storage. :-(
And now, another work week is upon us. Not real busy looking so far. Maybe I'll be able to get a haircut. :-)

Our Ft Wayne trip

2011-10-03T16:34:00.006-04:00

Good morning.
I've just returned from cleaning the Salon, since I wasn't in town Sunday. :-)
After finishing an incredibly busy week on Friday afternoon, we headed out with the mo-ho down I-69 south about 2 1/2 hours to the city of Ft Wayne, In.
Here we stayed at the Johnny Appleseed campground.
This campground is run by the city parks dept. and is located right in the city on the St Mary's River. The site had 50 amp electric and water at the site for only $18 a night.
We had a spacious pull thru site. We arrived near dinner time, set up, and decided to have an easy dinner. Since we were right in the city, we drove a few blocks to KFC for some tasty chicken. There was to be no campfire that evening due to too much wind. It was also a very cold weekend with highs in the mid 50's to near 6o.
Saturday we awoke to 44 out, but were nice and warm in our mo-ho. The campground was mostly rv's, but there were 3 tenters. Now they are true campers. :-)
We headed out with our coffee's to the South side Farmers Market, where we picked up some taters, peppers, and carrots to go with one of our meals, and we also found in their flea market section a carafe to replace one we had broken. When we travel, we like to support the local economy. :-)
Then we headed downtown to the Headwaters Park for the Ft Wayne Chilifest.

For $5 we got to try numerous chili's as much as we wanted. We received 5 tickets to use to vote for our favorites. After trying all the different chili's we went back an retryed some of our favorites. We settled on 2 that we liked and did our voting.

Back at the campground, with the sun out, we took a walk along the river across from the campground.
With so much chili in our bellies, we opted for a lighter dinner of turkey kielbasa's.
Sunday morning greeted us to 41 out, but with the sun, it quickly rose to 58. :-\
The event of the day, was Brickworld. A Lego extravaganza!

I'm not into Lego's, but there are people very passionate about them and theses displays showed that. It was a very interesting day, looking at all the different Lego creations.

They even did portraits with Lego's!

They did an amazing job recreating the worlds famous skyscrapers.
All of these things were made with those tiny little Lego blocks. For the rest of the 30 some pics if your interested, see my webshots album here.
Then it was lunch time and we went to a place called Granite city Food and Brewery. I had a tasty Buffalo Chalupa, and Craig had the Prosciutto Olive Flatbread Pizza. They were very good!
Then on the way back to the campground, we took a stop at the historic Ft Wayne.
This was a replica of the fort that stood here. Glad I didn't live back during those times. :-)
Then back at the campground, we took a short hike over to the namesake of the park, Johnny Appleseed's grave site.

It sits on a hill that now overlooks the Ft Wayne Coliseum.

And if you look closely, on the right, behind the solid fence is the campground, and next to it, some of the parking lot for the Coliseum which is off to the distance on the right. So our campground was truely in the city. Made for an easy drive to everything.
For dinner, we had pork cutlets on the grill with grilled tater's, carrots and peppers. Delish!
Monday morning, we broke camp, and arrived back in Lansing just after noon. We got there safe, we arrived home safe, and no incidences. It was a very good trip. :-)

I'm back!

2011-10-03T13:00:00.003-04:00

Good afternoon.
As usual, my absence from posting meant we've just returned from another trip.
Details coming when I get more time.....

my new wheels

2011-09-28T06:35:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Well, our wet cold weekend is over. But not the wet and cold. It is again a drizzly, cold morning. Currently 54 with a high expected of only 63. It looks to be wet and cold the rest of the week. At least I'll be busy working. I'm almost completely booked this week. Just a few openings left.
The rain let up and it dried out enough for us to mow the lawn and I did a little yard work. We also got delivered the new snow tires for the Kia.
If you remember this post, my Kia got beat up last winter. Slid right into a light post. But anyway, with the automakers trying to get every mpg out of their cars, they use tires that have less resistance on the roads, that also means less traction, especially in snow. So Craig went online and found these 'snow' tires. Especially treadled for winter driving. He did that a few years ago for the Cruiser. It makes a huge difference!
He got them online from a company called Tire Rack. They were cheaper even with shipping than from Discount tire or other local dealers.
And then, for dinner, Craig made some tasty latkes to go with my grilled chicken and zucchini.

Ummmm, yummy!
And now, it's time to get ready for another work week......

it's wet and cold...

2011-09-27T06:04:00.003-04:00

Good morning from a cold, wet, Lansing, MI.
Yesterday was a complete wash-out. Cold with a day long drizzle. Needless to say, not much accomplished. We did have some running around to do. Bank, P.O., and such. We did find new trash containers for the Salon. The old ones were looking pretty bad. And we did manage to get our flu shots at Kroger's. I'm always a little leery about them since our friend Craig from Memphis/Palm Springs had a reaction a couple of years ago. But I'm fine this morning, so I guess all is good. :-)
The rest of the day, I pretty much played on the puter. Fixed us egg mc muffins for brunch and Craig made turkey burgers for dinner. We watched another episode of 2 1/2 men. I'm not sure it's going to work with Ashton Kutcher, but so far so good. :-)
And that's all I got.....

It's raining men

2011-09-26T05:07:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
Actually, it's just plain raining. :-)
I didn't do my usual Sunday post because I didn't have much to say.
The weather has been on the cooler side. It's been a very cold September, and has me not wanting to do much outside.
I did do my usual Sunday cleaning in the Salon, and Craig did his usual laundry and bookwork, but the rest of Sunday, I was a slacker. :-)
I read blogs, played games, and researched our next trip.
Craig made ham steaks for dinner with butternut squash and mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy.
This morning, I've got to place an online order for Salon supplies and after Craig gets up, we have a number of stops to make.
So that's it for now....

yummy

2011-09-24T05:39:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
As I said previously, the Salon has been very busy, and today is also. I have to start at 7:30 this morning.
Last night, Craig fixed a tasty stir-fry with chicken sausage, onions, peppers, snap peas, and apples. Yummy!

Tonight, he's making home-made taco salads. :-)
Now I'm off to get ready for work!

summer's gone

2011-09-23T05:44:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Fall has sure settled in. Our highs have been only in the low 60's. Summer went by so fast again. As usual. :-( The locust trees at work are all turning yellow, and the rest of the trees won't be far behind.
Work has been crazy busy. I'm working late today and tomorrow. That's what happens when you take an extra day off. ;-)
And speaking of Wednesday, I did nothing...nothing. I was a lazy slug. Hope this doesn't become a habit. :-)
Anyway, I'm off to get ready for work, so have a great weekend!

our latest trip

2011-09-20T16:01:00.003-04:00

Good afternoon.

We've just returned from our latest trip. This was our longest, at 4 nights/3 days. This trip took us about 2 1/2 hours south to the Elkhart/ Middleberry KOA.
We arrived late on Friday after working most of the day. The campground was busy, and the sites were fairly close. Our pull-thru site was barely long enough for our mo-ho and car caddy, but we made it fit.
We set up, and fixed chicken kielbasa's for dinner with broccoli slaw. We retired with a movie.
Saturday, after our coffee walk, we headed out to the near-by town of Goshen for the Russian Festival. This was a small congregation of a Russian Orthodox church, but they put together a nice little festival where we dined on Russian chicken, kotleti, (meat patti) Cucumber salad and kasha, a type of Bulgar. Everything was tasty except the chicken was cooked in a covered pan so you had to peel off the yukky skin, which was probably better for us anyway. :-)

Then we watched the children do their Russian dances.
They were very cute. They also had baked goods and crafts. We found a loaf of Russian spice bread we had later that evening. A hearty dark bread with raisins and nuts and a strong ginger snap smell. It was very good!

Then it was off to Elkhart,(about 12 miles north) to see the RV Museum. A very large building housing old and new rvs and assorted rv related stuff. These pics of of the first known RV....
We spent a few hours checking everything out.

Fascinating the different types of rv's they had back then.
Back at he campground, we prepared our dinner of grilled pork steaks, baked potatoes and grilled zucchini. The campground stayed busy the entire time we were here. A lot of the rigs would stay only 1 night. They appeared to be people working there way from the east and north to the south and west. It was like a migration. There was a wide variety of rigs.

Sunday was to be a relaxing day as being in Amish country, a lot of places were closed, so we took our morning walk, fixed a nice breakfast of eggs, toast, and morning star farms sausage links. The we headed out to a shopping strip between Goshen and South Bend. We stopped at a Kohl's where I needed to get some new work slacks. I totally ruined a pair last week when I got some bleach on them. One of the hazards of working in a Salon with chemicals. :-)

After shopping, we stopped at a TGIF for a light lunch of spicy chicken avocado egg rolls and fried dill pickle strips. They were both yummy. We then headed to the small town of Middleberry, just a few miles from the campground for their autumn festival. Browsed the crafts and food, but didn't buy a thing. :-)Back at the campground we relaxed with cocktails and the Sunday paper.
The campsite had a paved patio and a standing grill. Craig thought it would be fun to cook with charcoal for a change so he went to the camp store and got a bag of briquettes and lighter fluid.
We cooked chicken thighs and legs on the grill, and Craig made a pasta salad to go with them. They were very good. That evening, we sat by a nice campfire. Monday morning, we left the campground early. This was the reason for our trip to this area. We were on our way to the small town of Napannee, about 40 miles from the campground. There, we were to take an RV factory tour. And not just any RV tour. This was Newmar, the company that built our motor home. I thought it would be interesting to see how it's done. After arriving and having a difficult time finding building 9, (I discovered they didn't number the building in a logical order, they numbered them as they were bought) we found the waiting area for the tour. They had quite a good size group. About 30. After a brief history of Newmar, we were off for the tour. Manufacturing motor homes is very different from cars. They build each piece to order. Either from a customer, or a dealer who wants a certain type for their sales lot. So depending on what's in the order line, depends on what you'll see being built during your tour. I was very disappointed we were unable to take any pics. They employ a large number of Amish. and they can not have their pictures taken due to their religion. Probably just as good, since they have awful looking hair-cuts, and those funny scraggly beards. :-)

The tour ended up lasting just over 2 hours and was fascinating! Instead of a conveyor belt type of production, the pre-built ford chassis comes in and the wheels are set on these large square pads. They must be an industrial version of the ones you use to push around furniture. When they were done at one station, they would, by hand, literally push it over to the next one. These are 20-40 thousand pound vehicles! At each 'station', a different group would do their part. We saw a unit go from a flat-bed chassis, then with walls, roof, wiring, carpet, cabinets and so on until it's done. They worked like pro's! :-)

It was really interesting to watch the progress. Right now, they're building 3 a day. Back before the recession, they were building 20 a day!
We even got to go through a few of the completed ones. Very nice!
After the tour, we headed back towards our campground, with a stop in Goshen for lunch, at a restaurant called Wings etc. I of course had their jumbo wings, and Craig had a buffalo chicken wrap. Both were very good. Them back to the campground to relax. We loaded the car for an early morning departure.
After breakfast and a nice lunch, we had a light dinner of turkey kielbasas. The evening was spent watching various shows on the discovery channel. it was nice havig cable for a change. :-)
Tuesday morning, we awoke to dense fog. Packed up the mo-ho, dumped, and we were on our ay. The fog hung around until we were near Lansing. we gassed up at $3.49 and arrived home safe. No incidents this trip. Another good trip! :-)

guess what...

2011-09-19T07:08:00.001-04:00

Good morning.
Yep! My lack of posts means one thing.....Another road trip!
details coming later...

it's over

2011-09-15T06:42:00.005-04:00

Good morning.
Yep, fall is in the air. It's all of 36 out this morning, going for a high of only 56. It's suppose to get back into the low 70's later this weekend, but you can feel that the seasons have changed. It happened the day after Labor Day. The 'heat' was gone. Cooler weather had arrived overnight. It's chilly in the mornings. And darker. The days are getting quickly shorter. I dislike and despise our long winters. But, as I do every year, I'll enjoy our last few trips, stretching the season as long as I can, then spend the long, cold, dark winter, planning next years trips.
Yes, I could plan a week in warmer weather, but it would go by so fast, and I'd still be stuck in the rest of winter. And that money could better go toward the summer trips I enjoy so much.
Anyway, the Salon has been busy. The phone has been ringing, and I'm completely booked the rest of the week. :-)
It's good to see business getting back to where we were before the recession.
Now, time to get ready for work...

lazy and busy

2011-09-13T06:28:00.002-04:00

Good morning.

As I suspected, Sunday was truly a lazy day. Outside of cleaning the Salon, Nothing else of substance was accomplished. I managed to read the Sunday paper, put together a Monday shopping list, and spent most of the day on the puter playing games, surfing our up-coming last few trips, and blog reading. It was nice taking it easy, but I did feel a little guilty. :-)

Monday was different. While Craig slept, I washed the mo-ho and 2 cars. After we shopped and did the usual Monday post office and bank, I waxed the front and caps of the mo-ho, and cleaned all the windows. Then I helped Craig mow the lawn.

Sunday dinner was a pork roast on the grill with baked potatoes and grilled carrots.

Monday was Craig's tasty Turkey Pie.

Today, is more shopping. I need some more tape for the slide-out awning, some touch-up paint for the mo-ho, and ink for my printer.

pretty as a picture

2011-09-11T07:43:00.001-04:00

Good morning.
The week ended on a busy note. The salon was very busy. The weather has warmed up a bit also, back into the mid 70's.
As per my usual Sunday routine, I've just returned from cleaning the Salon.
After we got out of work, we came home and relaxed on the deck with cocktails
Although the gardens are starting to look a bit ragged, I did pick some Zinnia's that are still blooming good.

Craig made homemade pizza for dinner yesterday, and we have enough left over for breakfast. :-)
Today looks to be a lazy day as I'm not feeling like doing much. We'll see how it goes....

brrr again

2011-09-09T06:10:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
It's another chilly start, but not as cold as the last few days. It should be back in the mid 70's this weekend. :-)
The Salon has been moderately busy this week, and looks to finish quite busy. I'm working late today and tomorrow. Other than that, it's been a normal week.
I appreciated the interesting comments and e-mails I received from my 'friend' post. Obviously, the term 'friends' covers a wide range of feelings for people. I'm probably analyzing the term too much, and should just accept the fact that I have a lot of friends! :-)
And to all my friends...Have a great weekend!

brrrr

2011-09-07T07:20:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
It's been a very chilly fall like weather here. It's all of 48 this morning. The last couple of days have hit a high of only mid 60's. brrrr
Fortunately, warmer weather is due to return by the weekend. :-)
Tuesday morning, while cleaning the Salon, I decided to check my messages on my phone. 3 messages. 2 for appointments, and 1 a dear john.
This customer I've done for years, off and on. She hadn't been in for a while, and apparently thought she should let me know why. I've had this call before. They always call on a day they know I don't work, so they won't have to actually talk to me. It's like a dear John letter, but with voice-mail instead. She went on as to why she hadn't been in for a long time. Her mother recently passed away, she moved again, bla, bla, bla, and her neighbor is a stylist and is cutting her hair.
She just wanted to let me know why she hadn't been in and if this neighbor thing doesn't work out, she knows where I am.
To tell the truth, I hadn't missed her at all. I've got such a large clientele, that usually the only time I notice if someone hasn't been in, is if I run across their card while looking for another.
I suppose this is a way for them to move on and have closure on their part.
The other funny thing about customers is how many think we're 'friends'. Lewis did a whole post on the subject. I've got customers I've done for years who consider me a 'good friend'. I'm not sure why, I'm friendly with the customers. Many I actually do 'like'. But outside of the Salon, we never see each other. We may talk about a number of personal issues such as what we did on our last trip, how are their kids doing, and so on. But we don't hang out together outside the Salon. I would think 'friends' would do that. Now would you consider them friends? But I think the word friend has become a very loose term. I myself talk about camping friends, blogging friends, Facebook friends. But I don't have a lot of 'good friends', I'm just 'friendly' with a lot of people.
Okay, enough on this subject as I appear to be rambling. :-)
So with the yucky cold weather, I did little outside. Spent most of Tuesday on the puter, catching up on blogs, and researching our last few trips for things to do. Craig mowed the lawn, and I cooked pork cutlets on the grill with baked potatoes and steamed broccoli.
The camping season is quickly winding down. Just a few more trips. How did it go by so fast?
And now, time for another work week.....

another trip

2011-09-05T16:25:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from our latest trip. A holiday weekend trip to Indiana Dunes State park. I must say, it was one of our best yet!
We left Friday after work, arriving safely around 3pm. We got set up, and everything was functioning normally.
We went out of the park, about 3 miles down the road to a Popeye's where we got our dinner. :-) We've been trying to do better with our trips, and have cut down a lot on our fried chicken, but I needed a fix! :-)
Saturday morning, we drove into Chicago. Did some window shopping, had a tasty lunch at a TGI Friday's just off Michigan Ave. and enjoyed the weather and people watching at Navy Pier. Arrived back at the campground as the weather went bad. Cooked turkey kiebasa's for dinner as we watched the rain pummel the tenters. :-) With out cable, we weren't able to watch our Spartan's in their first game of the season, so we joyfully watched the Notre Dame Irish being manhandled by a nobody team. Who were they? Someone called Florida State University.
Sunday, after our morning coffee walk, I fixed a tasty breakfast of Eggland Eggs on the grill, with Morning Star Farms sausage, and toast. Then we went out to get the Sunday paper, where we found our Sparty's won their game as expected. With the cloudy drizzly weather, we headed over to the Blue Chip casino, where we spent a few hours playing the slots, and left with $60 more than we arrived with. :-)
On the way back to the campground, we treated ourselves with lunch at Barlett's gourmet grill and tavern we found halfway between the casino ans campground. A very tasty lunch with Crab cakes and a pulled pork flat-bread pizza. Back at the campground, the weather had cleared, so we headed to the beach via the newly reopened beach trail.

The trail winds through the dunes, following a creek. It was closed for several years due to the creek, which was originally buried under the beach parking lot, flooded one spring, collapsing part of the parking lot. They originally redid the creek alongside the parking lot, but apparently ran into design problems. It sat that way for a couple of years. Finally, the got it finished. It's a lot shorter than walking along the road. They now have a bridge that goes over the creek, along with a dam to control the outflow. Anyway, the beach was packed, and it was fun watching all the people. But I swear, we felt as if we were in a foreign country. It seemed as if most people spoke Spanish, or some Eastern European dialect. It was really wierd! I wonder where they all came from for the day.
Back at the campsite, I got a campfire ready, and Craig prepared our steaks for the grill. We saw a cooking show the night before, and got a few tips on cooking the perfect steak. it also showed a recipe for grilled eggplant we wanted to try.
I have to say, we cooked the steaks according to the show, and they were the juiciest, tastiest steaks we've ever eaten! Can't wait to try that again!
You want the secret? Okay, it's too easy! The meat needs to be at room temp. Season with your favorite spices. It doesn't really matter here. The grill needs to be smoking hot! I mean as hot as you can get it! Put the steaks on the grill, cook for 3 minutes, turn half a turn. Don't turn over yet! Cook another 3 minutes. Turn over. If the grill starts to flame, move them to the side a bit, otherwise, cook until desired doneness. We like medium well, and that meant another 5 minutes. Remove from grill and cover, letting the meat 'rest' and finish cooking for 10 minutes. It was amazing!

So, after the delicious dinner, we finished the evening around the campfire.
Monday morning, we broke down camp, dumped the tanks, and arrived safely back in Lansing.
We got there safe, arrived back home safe, had a wonderful time, it was a great trip!

same-o is good.

2011-09-02T06:27:00.000-04:00

Good morning.
So far, it's been a busy week in the Salon. Nothing out of the ordinary. Same-o same-o is good. :-)
Looking forward to another weekend.
And that's all I got. :-)
Have a great weekend!

mo-ho's new look

2011-08-31T05:57:00.007-04:00

Good morning.
Here's the results of the grill project....
Above, you can see the grill with the left side missing, but the right side still in.
Surprisingly, the right side came our real easy. I was expecting the screws to be all rusted tight, but they came right out! :-)
We settled on using a screen door guard we found at Menard's. They had a bronze color that blended very nicely with the mo-ho.
I decided to attach the cutout screen material to the mo-ho by drilling small holes around the edge of the fiberglass opening, and securing it with wire.

Here's the finished left side...
And the right side before, and after.

It doesn't show up real good in this pic, but the screen looks great! Just click on the pic for a larger, better view. And I never liked the looks of the other grill sections anyway. :-)
Now we'll look to see if we can find a flexible bronze trim to give it a more finished look. And that may not be so easy. We'll see.
And would you believe it all took less than 2 hours for this project. :-)
And with that, another weekend over, and looks to be another busy week in the Salon.

the bug bit again

2011-08-30T05:22:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
Another beautiful day yesterday, and I started off washing the mo-ho so it would have time to dry so I could wax it later. Then I showered, woke Craig up, made us coffee, and off we went. First the usual, bank, post office, then it was over to Walmart. We needed a new trash container for the salon ans saw the perfect one here. Stainless steel, with a step opening lid. It replaces an old white plastic thing we should have gotten rid of years ago.
Then we hit the salvage yard. Now that was quite the experience! Walking through a field of old and newer smashed cars in varying degrees of being slowly disassembled by whoever needed whatever parts from them. And here we were, looking to rip some cars face off. :-)
But, none was found that we thought we would be able to modify to fit. Sooo, we've decided on another grid type sheet we saw the other day. I'll try to remember to take pics of the process.
Back home, Craig mowed the yard and did laundry, while I did more waxing on the mo-ho.
Later, as Craig started dinner, I got the cleaning bug. First, it was the patio doors.
Craig thought it was cute to take a picture of me washing the windows. It was in reference to when I wash a Salon customers hair, I ask them to take their glasses off because I don't do windows. Now he says he has proof I do. Ha ha, very funny.
Anyway, I didn't stop there. I hit the bathroom next, followed by the vacuum.
Craig made a tasty dinner of glazed pork chops, fried rice, and broccoli.
Today, we'll get that grid sheet for the mo-ho. And now that it's getting daylight, I'm going out to finish waxing the mo-ho.

morning chatter

2011-08-29T06:09:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
It's been a busy weekend so far.
My sister in Havelock NC made it through Irene. Lost power for several hours, but no damage.
Sunday of course, I cleaned the salon.
Back home, I woke up Craig, made us coffee, and read the paper. Then we hit the area big box home improvement stores, looking for something that might work for the grill. We did find some decorative punched metal sheets that may work. We've decided to hit the local auto salvage yards this morning. We've seen some plastic truck grills that we think would look better. I'll let you know.
Also I washed and waxed Craig's Honda Accord. Everything's waxed now except one more section of the mo-ho. Will try to get that done today.
We also vacuumed and cleaned the inside of all 3 cars.
After the busy day, we relaxed on the deck while I cooked a turkey breast on the grill with baked potatoes and corn on the cob.
And while I let Craig sleep a little longer this morning, I'm off to clean all the car windows......

TGIF

2011-08-26T06:03:00.002-04:00

Good morning, and a happy TGIF for those of you who are almost done with the work week.
I finally got the toilet fixed! I had to try 4 different flapper thingies before I got one that sealed properly.
Still no luck with the mo-ho grill thing. Only 1 salvage yard has e-mailed me back so far and no luck there. This weekend, we'll try John's suggestion of checking with local auto stores for aftermarket grills we may be able to use.
And after a slow Wednesday, the phone started ringing Thursday, and I'm completely booked for the rest of the week.
So I'm off to get ready for another day in the Salon.
Have a great weekend!

off to work, again

2011-08-24T07:44:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
Just a quick post before I run off to work.
Another beautiful day yesterday! And I spent a good part of it indoors. I cleaned the inside of the mo-ho and restocked it. But I spent a good part of the day working on the house toilet. It was leaking. Craig thought it was the inlet valve thingy, so we went out and bought a replacement. After all that work, it's still leaking. At least it's not leaking on the floor, but you can hear dripping. I'm now thinking it's the flapper thingy not sealing tight when it closes. I'll get another one of those and try that. If that doesn't work, that will mean taking the tank off the toilet to replace the drain assembly. Oh well, it's always something right?
And as I run off to the salon for another work week, here's a couple of current yard pics.....

trip #8, they're going fast!

2011-08-23T06:38:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
The beach pic in the previous post was from Hoffmaster State park. Just a few miles south of Muskegon.
We did just a short 2 niter there. My Mom's birthday is coming up, and I spent Sunday with her. So we went up on Saturday after work, and came home on Monday. I cut her hair, did a few chores for her and took her to Applebee's for lunch followed by the VFW. We had a nice day. Later back at the campground, Craig and I went down to the beach. They had just put up the red flag, but the swimmers didn't seem to care. The waves were pretty high, but without a lifeguard on the beach, people still went into the water. It was nice to relax, sit in the sun, and people watch.
Monday morning, we packed up, dumped, and made it back home safely.
The one incident I mentioned yesterday was on the way to Muskegon. Our mo-ho has a 3 piece front grill. The passenger side section has been loose every since we bought the mo-ho back in 2005. I had wired it in place, and it did okay until this trip. We were going down the highway through a section of rough road, when we heard this noise as if we had run over something, except we hadn't seen anything on the road. We drove until the next exit, pulled off, and got out to see.....
We'd lost that passenger section of grill.
We decided it wasn't worth the time to go back and search for it. It was several miles, and we weren't sure exactly when it happened.
Well, on the way home, we decided to loop around and drive back down that stretch and see if we could possibly find it.
It was a nine mile loop back, and we didn't see a thing. We saw a lot of stuff,but not the grill piece. It might have tumbled down the bank into tall grass, or someone may have seen it on the side of the road and stopped to get it.
Anyway, back home, I e-mailed Newmar to see if it was possible to get a replacement. They promptly e-mailed back, and I'd have to order the entire front grill, and it would cost $509.00 plus shipping. For some reason, even though the entire front bumper cap is fiberglass, these grill pieces are heavy metal. Shipping will be expensive.
Craig said we'll think about it. He has other ideas that may work. I'm not so sure, but we'll see. :-)
Now, I'm going out to clean up the mo-ho for the next trip before I need to get Craig up at 8 for his 9am physical.

another trip

2011-08-22T15:11:00.002-04:00

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from our latest weekend trip.
here's a pic of the beautiful beach. Can you guess where we're at? hehehe
We did have a nearly major incident, but got lucky.
Details tomorrow morning!

a so-so week

2011-08-19T05:12:00.002-04:00

Good morning.
I've been a lazy poster.
Also, I've been very busy.
Tuesday was another beautiful day, and I spent the most of it waxing the mo-ho. I got the front, back, and half of one side done.
Wednesday and Thursday, I went in to the Salon early, and stayed late. It's been a very busy week. Today, I start at 8am and am done around 3pm, so not bad today. And tomorrow doesn't look to bad either.
Other than that, not much to report. It's been a normal so-so week.
So have a great weekend!

A new chicken dish

2011-08-16T05:56:00.003-04:00

Good morning.
Sunday was a complete wash-out. It was a constant drizzly rainy day. I got nothing done. I sat the entire day on my puter. Reading blogs, playing games, surfing the net.
Craig cooked a pork roast with onions, carrots, and potatoes, so the house smelled good. :-)
Monday was much better. Sunny and mild. I accomplished a lot! Washed the mo-ho, Kia and Pt, polished the mo-ho wheels, cleaned the mo-ho windows and polished the bike tire rims and added air to the tires.
Didn't do a thing in the yard. I'm over it. Now that the wedding pics are done, it can coast until fall when it'll be cutting back time.
Here's a late summer pic of the main garden....
The Zinnia's add a nice touch of color, since most late summer flowers are yellow.
For dinner, we tried something new........

Wanchai spicy garlic chicken. We've cooked chicken just about every which way you can, so we're always looking for something new. This was an easy and very tasty meal! It came with everything but the chicken. We cut up 2 boneless chicken breasts, and added some steamed broccoli. I highly recommend it!
And now, it's just about daylight, so I'm off to do some mo-ho waxing.....

That was it?

2011-08-14T11:08:00.005-04:00

Good morning.
Sorry for my later than usual post. I got up this morning, and no Internet. :-(
So I called tech support, registered the problem, and went in to clean the Salon. Upon returning, still no Internet, so I went out and polished the mo-ho tires.
I survived the big wedding party on Saturday. Ended up doing 5 up-dos. Was exhausted when I got home. With all the rain we've gotten this month, it's not only nice and green in the yard, but a bumper crop of skeeters. The wedding was at 4pm, I figured they'd be at the house around 5-5:30 for the yard pics. I went out at 5 with 2 cans of yard guard to see if I could keep the skeeters at bay. At 5:15 no wedding party yet, but a massive down pour. We figured with the rain, they'd probably skip the outdoor pics and head to the reception. Around 6:15, a half dozen cars pulled into the driveway. The weather had cleared and they left the reception, which was right across the street, to get her out door pics. My yard guard had been long washed away. They ran to the arbor where some pics were taken. I took a couple myself...

The bride and her bridesmaids.

The bride and groom.
With my lush thick greenery, the skeeters were all over them. Arms flailing around trying to keep them at bay.It was a losing battle, and the photographer convinced her to go back to the reception. They were in the yard all of maybe 5 minutes. Just a few arbor pics. None taken anywhere else.
I spent all summer working on the yard, for 5 minutes of pics.......Oh well.

It's Friday

2011-08-12T05:51:00.003-04:00

Good morning.

Yesterday was one of my busiest in a long time, and today looks like another one. Of course, it doesn't help taking Wednesday off from our last trip. Also it doesn't help that I've marked off most of Saturday for the big wedding. So that leaves me just 2 days to do 4 days worth of people, and I've already pushed some customers into next week.
The early August rains have helped to keep the grass nice and green for the back yard wedding pics. But now they're talking rain for Saturday. We'll see.
Not much else to say, so have a great weekend!

the train museum, car show, medeivel times, and trip #7

2011-08-10T08:09:00.007-04:00

Good morning.
Sorry for the late post, but I got up late, cleaned the Salon, and was time to get Craig up.

Our trip took us all the way to Union Illinois. A small town northwest of Chicago. Me met our friends from Wisconsin, Tom and Dean. The reason for this destination was correctly guessed by mark, The Illinois Train Museum. The largest collection of train and train related stuff in the country. Dean is quite the train buff, and was eager to go here.
Instead of leaving our usual Friday afternoon, we decided to leave bright and early sat Morning. We thought the traffic around Chicago wouldn't be as bad Saturday late morning, as it might late Friday afternoon. We were right! A fairly easy drive, about 6 hours. Stopped halfway for a little lunch and a road break. I drove the entire way, and it went smoothly. We arrived, set up and visited with Tom and Dean whom arrived the day earlier.
That evening we had tickets to the Medieval Times dinner show.
The pics aren't very good due to the low light, and me not being very camera savvy. :-)

It was a very entertaining show! Decent food and plenty of it. The horses were beautiful, and the 2 hour show was fun. The crowd was 'divided' amongst 6 knights who battled through various challenges. Of course, our knight was defeated. :-(
Sunday morning, Dean fixed us breakfast, and then it was off to the main attraction, The Illinois Train Museum.
This place was ginormous! An amazing collection of engines, cars and accessories of the by-gone eras.
Craig was trying to get me to take a picture. It wasn't suppose to be of him...:-)

The sleeping cars were so tight and cramped, it was impossible to get pics of them.

Of course, Craig was much more interested in the massive car show they had there that weekend.
So, we wandered around, looked at a bunch of stuff, decided we'd seen way more trains than we cared to so we left Tom and Dean to take in everything else while we left and went and got the Sunday paper and some groceries.
Back at the campsite, we relaxed with afternoon beverages and read the paper. When Tom and dean returned, they decided to cook some of the Koegel Hotdogs we brought from Michigan. They can't get them in Wisconsin. They served them with a tasty homemade chili sauce and corn on the cob. It was good.
Monday was a shopping day for Tom and Dean. They live in a very small town in the middle of no where, so shopping is limited. They were here to get their shopping fix.
Dean once again fixed us breakfast and then we parted, them heading toward IKEA, us toward Elgin, Ill and the casino. ;-)
This trip, Craig won, and I lost. We really need to get on the same winning page here. ;-)
Then to an RV dealer we saw off the highway. Always fun to look at new mo-hos. ;-)
Fortunately, we didn't see any we had to have. :-)
Then, it was lunch and an outlet mall. We didn't find anything there to spend money on either. :-)
Back at the mo-ho, we loaded the car, and did some site prep for an early Tuesday morning departure, which was a good thing since a series of storms moved through the area through out the afternoon. During the rain, I played on the puter and Craig read the paper.
Tom and Dean returned later and they had found some good buys.
For dinner, they cooked a delicious beef roast which they cut into strips and served on buns.
We watched a movie together and headed to bed.
Tuesday morning, I finished breaking camp, and we said our good-byes. I tried to dump at our site, but the macerator pump whined weird and wouldn't pump. Craig thought something might be plugging it and we should try to dump at the dump station. I had doubts, but at the dump station, it worked fine.
The drive home was even easier than coming. Not nearly as much traffic. We stopped for a late breakfast at one of the service centers and returned home around 3pm. We got there safe, returned home safe, and everything functioned properly.
It was another good trip!
And if your interested in the rest of the so-so pics click here for Medieval times, and here for the train museum.

another trip

2011-08-09T14:35:00.001-04:00

Good afternoon.
Yep! My lack of posting means we were on another weekend trip.
here's a couple of pics of the places we went. Any guesses? :-)

More about the trip in the morning....

always check your bills

2011-08-06T05:44:00.004-04:00

Good morning.
It's been a crazy busy week in the Salon. The phone ringing off the hook.
There was one major issue I had to deal with. We have a 4yard dumpster we share with another tenant. I discovered we were paying double what he was. It appeared at some point way back last year, our rate doubled, and some how Craig didn't catch it. I called and got a totally clueless person who seemed completely unable to grasp what I was saying. He didn't seem to think our rate was out of line. I said , "you mean to tell me it costs $100 a month for every other week pick-up?" He said he'd have an account manager review the account and call me back. I hung up. I was steaming. They weren't going to get away with this! I waited, no call. The next day, for added ammo, I called a competitor, and discovered what I had already thought. The amount the other tenant was paying was more in line to what I should be paying. I called back to give them one more chance to correct their mistake before I cancelled and went with the other company.
This time, I actually got someone with a few brains. She looked through my account, agreed there had been a mistake, said she would discuss this matter with a supervisor, and would call me back first thing in the morning. She even gave me her direct phone #.
Well, the next morning came, and sure enough, she called me back. She apologized for the mix-up, credited our account $150.00, and reduced our monthly payment by 2/3. and eliminated a couple of other fees. She said this new rated would be locked in for 3 years, and to call her direct if there were any changes. She asked if this was satisfactory. I said I was pleased with the response, and thanked her for her time.
So now, our rate is $24.30 a month, instead of $76.52, quite the difference.
So once again, it's all about talking to the right person.
Have a great weekend!