Moving Into Our House Before Christmas

Hey all.  It's almost been half a year since I posted here so here I am - back into blogging.  It's been a while I know, and the reason being is that I kept thinking what would I be writing about?  No more tropical jaunts, no more walking to the beach, body slamming with the surf, fish harvesting, coconut harvesting or island hopping or swinging by the fish sanctuary for a quick swim.  I was thinking who would be interested to know what's going on with us now that we're back in the States?  I don't see why there would be a need to keep on blogging about what we're doing - back to the grind, the same old, same old.  Who cares if we went house hunting in the Fall - a lot of families do that.  Who cares if we moved in before Christmas into the ranch house we purchased - that's nothing new.

The hallway to the three bedrooms and bathroom:

We have a spare"'oom" (in reference to Narnia by C.S. Lewis, except it doesn't have the magic ward robe, hehehe) for anyone who wants to visit and stay a while:

The living room has a skylight overhead that lets in plenty of sunlight (even on dreary days like today) and the moonlight during the night.

The kitchen and dining combo has outdated features but Mike plans to remodel the kitchen sometimes.  The house has a full finished basement also.

And then I thought who cares if we celebrated Christmas 2018 as a family again - Mike and I watching the three boys tore on their presents Christmas morning.  It had seemed a long time ago, many Christmases ago, when we watched all three do that.

And on and on my "who cares" kept rolling.  But one day I thought to myself - why not?  I consider this another "new season" in our lives and surely something exciting is in store for us.  Why would the Lord take us back here if He hasn't a plan for us, right?

So, if you all are game about it, I'll keep blogging or vlogging about everyday life back in America.  I am, however, going to switch (although not totally) my platform somehow and I hope you'll like the change of pace.  Mike and I thank you all for following us on our adventures all the way to the Philippines and back and pray you'll stick around for another "season" in our lives.  I promise I'll make it fun and engaging for you all.

I pray you all stay dry from this "unusually wet" Spring.  Enjoy your summer y'all....and thanks for being patient with me.  God bless!

FURNISHINGS

So here we are back in the States.  We are renting a two-bedroom apartment while we figure out where we'll settle down.  It felt like we're newly married, having to start from scratch with furnishings.  Good thing it was the start of garage sale season.  We knew it would not be hard to find "stuff" at little to no cost.  Now the fun begins.  One Saturday morning we were driving around and turned, by mistake on MacVicar Ct., and lo and behold, we saw Matt and Karen Davis having a garage sale.  So we stopped and chatted for a while and before we knew it we were loading the truck with small kitchen necessities.  Matt Davis, bless his heart, told us we can have this and that and those as a housewarming gift from them.  We offered to pay him for all the stuff but he refused.  Then Karen gave me her old rice cooker and added a steamer and a blender and other stuff from the garage sale table saying they are hauling them anyway to God's Storehouse the next day so "you might as well take them" Karen told me so they don't have to haul a lot.  Well, that was a good start!

I budgeted under $1,000.00 for furnishings, let's see if it's doable.  

We moved into the apartment on a Thursday and the next day Pat texted me wanting to know if I would be interested to buy a small dining table with four chairs he saw at a garage sale. It was for $30.00 and it is now in our dining area. I also picked up a metal chair in the same garage sale where the small dining table and chairs came from.

We slept on the floor, padded with a two inch foam, for several nights while we waited for Amazon to deliver our memory foam mattresses.  JJ's mattress came first and then ours came four days later.  These mattresses come in a rectangular box, rolled and vacuum packed.  Once you unpack it it kind of "grow" before your eyes.  We paid $260 for both JJ's and ours.  I bought JJ's headboard from TRM for $7 while I found ours from the Marketplace for $30.00.  We're on the ball.

Unboxing the mattress:

Watch it grow before your eyes:

....and VOILA! we have a bed...

We have one occasional chair in our living room given to JJ by Mom and Dad which is a good start.  We bought a smaller flat screen TV at Best Buy for $240 and found a stand at the Marketplace for $25.  One day Pat messaged me about a couch at Goodwill Store for $50.00.  JJ and I went and looked at it and bought it.  That afternoon, we chanced upon a black six-drawer dresser by MacVicar street.  I got out of the car and asked the owner who happened to be puttering in his garage if I could have it.  Of course he said yes, so we got that and it is now in JJ's bedroom.  The only problem with it is the top drawer pull which is an easy fix.

The wall clock is a clearance from Hobby Lobby and I found the TV stand at The Marketplace:

Lynette, Michael's sister gave us back Grandma Hamme's lingerie chest so we have that in our bedroom plus a chest of drawers that I found, once again, at the Marketplace for $30.00.  It also came with one matching night stand which I am using as my printer stand, and the drawers are perfect for office supplies.  Michael and I found a microwave stand at a church garage sale for $10.00, table lamp for $3.00, and oscillating fan for $5.00.  I also found the oldest vacuum cleaner I've known for $1.00 which still works, heck if I can use this one until we find a house then why not?

Well, how old do you think this vacuum cleaner is?  I could probably sell this on eBay as a vintage, LOL!

On several garage sale haunts I snagged another lamp for Mike's bedside for $5, a small girly lamp for $3 for my side of the bed, a metal plant stand for $6, a torch lamp for $7.  We visited Owl's Nest Antique Store and I found a $30 end table that matches the microwave stand - the microwave was from Mom and Dad's RV which they gave to us.  At the TRM North I found a nice lamp with a very pretty shade that complements the end table. I paid $15 for it.

It looks like I'm finally done......but the walls are bare. I needed a couple of picture frames for our family portrait which I found at Gordman's on clearance.  I also picked up a rustic wall hanging that would go with the frames -  $48.00 total.  And here it is:

Michael bought a sound system for $50 at a garage sale which works great.  It's got surround sound which we can't really use yet since we are on the third floor and the people who live below our unit let us know that it is loud by banging on our floor - which would be their ceiling :).  One weekend we watched Star Wars and we were enjoying the musical scoring and that's when it happened.  Ooops!..sorry.  Sometimes you just forget that you live in a place where there are people living below you and beside you.

I found a mid-century bookshelf from Owl's Nest South for $68.00 and my biggest splurge so far is the Pulaski lighted curio cabinet that I found at Owl's Nest North which I thought I could only dream of having.  The curio was priced at $400.00.  Then one day I found out everything in that booth is 40%.  I needed a display cabinet to put some of my 30- year collections that went and came back with us from the Philippines.

I think I'm done with furnishing our apartment.  We got everything we need to make it feel like home and yes, it does feel like home now that we can see the things that we hold dear, instead of them being in boxes.

Michael misses his recliner and one day we found a perfect one for him at God's Storehouse.  And how he loves it!

So, you ask, did I stay within my $1,000.00 budget?  Well - no.  I went $226.00 over budget...hmmm maybe next time I'll do better.

As always, thank you for following.  I apologize it took me so long to get this blog done.  I learned when you try to work on a project on a budget you have to learn to wait and be patient and not be in a hurry to get the things you need.

Thank you all...God bless and we love all of you!

CAR SHOPPING MICHAEL'S WAY

When we lived in the Philippines, we only had one car and it was Mike who drove us everywhere.  It worked just fine for us.  If I need to go somewhere without using the car there are different ways to commute there.  There's always the tricycle, the jeepneys, buses and vans and habal-habal which is basically a motorcycle that you hire the owner/operator to take you where you need to go.

This one here is a tricycle.  It seats 7 people:

 This is a jeepney and I think it seats 25 or more if the operator places a bench in the middle:

This is the habal-habal which I am not so sure if I would ride:

I admit the first weeks when we got back here in the States I sort of miss the tricycle especially when I need to go somewhere.  We were borrowing my in-laws' truck to go places but when Mike is using it and I'm stuck in the house that's when I wish there were tricycles right around the corner just like in the Philippines.

Before we moved back Mike had been doing some research on vehicles.  He decided we needed a vehicle with all wheel drive or four wheel drive, but not a pickup.  He owned a pickup since the early 80's and can only remember a few times that it was actually used as it was intended, as a truck.    Also, the cost of operating a pickup is more than a small SUV or sedan.  Looking at our finances, he figured out the year and model that we can afford to get.  He made a mental list of what we want in the car like miles to a gallon, the car's mileage, it has to be an AWD and so on.  And, he was very specific in the car's color, yes ma'am, the color is a big thing for him.  According to him it has to be a "tactically neutral color" (thanks John O'Conner) - whatever that means.  Some car salesmen get it, others didn't 😏😁.  But what he really wants is a conservative color, no gaudy gold or purple or neon green, etc..

So off we went car shopping one day and, as expected, as soon as we walked into the car lot we were greeted by a very young gentleman who looks like he's about Zach's age.  He was extremely accommodating and very friendly and, Mike thought, must have just started in this field.  He "borrowed" somebody else's desk and we were seated.  Mike told him what we were looking for and what we needed.  He told him the price range we want and gave the poor salesman a warning: that if he tries to sell us a car that is more than the amount he stated, EVEN IF IT'S ONLY ONE CENT MORE, that we will walk out.  I thought "oh boy, the poor guy."

It turned out there was a 4D AWD Subaru Forester available in our price range.  We test drove it and between Mike, JJ and I we agree we all liked it.  Back at the dealership we made our offer along with the request that a hitch for a trailer be installed in the vehicle.  We agreed on the price without the trailer hitch.  It would add another $1,000 to the price of the car which is more than what we know the installed hitch would cost.  They would need to fix a rattle under the hood and detail the car before delivery, so two days after, we came back with a cashier's check for the amount and after further inspection we drove it home.  We also asked the salesman to keep an eye for us another Subaru in the next week or two in the same price range as we will be buying another one.

Mike's Subaru Forester ("tactically neutral color," according to him):

 

We then found another Subaru sedan which we bought for my use.  It was priced way below our budget so Michael went ahead and have a trailer hitch installed in the Forester.

The Subaru Imprezza rides nicely and smoothly and its a/c cools quickly.  I drove it to Wichita and it did well on I-70.  We also took it to Scranton on country road and did well too.

So far we are happy with our vehicles.  We plan to drive them until they quit on us hopefully for another ten years, hahaha.  By then we should have saved enough to pay cash on our next purchase.  Debt-free living is the way for us and we like it that way.

Thank you all for following our journey to and back from the Philippines.  We love you all and God bless.

TO SCRANTON, KANSAS WE GO

Last week JJ and Flor where in Walmart and a lady asked JJ what type of candy he liked.  She was participating in a parade in Scranton Kansas and wanted to know what type of candy to throw to the kids.

The parade was on June 23 and since Scranton is only about 25 minutes south of us we decided to go.  I tried to find more information about the parade and found it was in part by the Lions Club of Scranton.  It appeared there was a biscuit and gravy feed from 6:30 to 9:30 with the parade at 10:00.

Our close friends, Pat and Esther, planned to come too but we head there early because Mike wanted to go to the Lions' biscuit and gravy breakfast.  The Lions were not charging for the biscuit and gravy, but were taking donations.  As we sat down for breakfast, both Flor and I thought we could have been in Lebo Kansas 25 years ago at their community center with my grandparents and their neighbors.  In fact there was a lady there that was very similar to Fern from about 25 years ago in look, dress and manner of talk.

After eating, we went to the park where people were setting up various booths.  What was going on after the parade was day long events with fireworks later in the evening.  Bouncy houses were being set up that got JJ's attention.

One gentleman was setting up a home-made ice cream stand.  He had a John Deere stationary engine running an oversized ice cream maker.  He had the boxes of an old John Deere planter as dispensers for toppings.  This was all on a trailer being pulled by an old Minneapolis Moline tractor.   Mike enjoyed the set up because his grandfather Jesse used Minneapolis Moline tractor when he was farming and his grand father Harvey used John Deere.  And Mike does like antique tractors.

About 9:30 Pat and Esther arrived and we walked a block over to the main drag to wait for the parade.  There were the fire trucks, old trucks and cars and tractors.  And there was a contingent of Shriner's in their go-carts.  Of course there was a lot of candy thrown.  The kids loaded up on candy.

After the parade we walked back to the park and bought the wrist band for the bouncy house.  The kids then spent the next hour or so bouncing.

The fire department had a couple of old vehicles in the park that they were letting people beat on with a sledge hammer.  JJ wanted to beat on the vehicles.  He wore a fire helmet and safety goggles and went to town.  He was impressive in throwing the sledge at 9 years old.  After about 20 - 25 hits he did get tired and stopped.  He then announced that he wanted to be a fireman someday.

There was a family there that was smoking ribs to sell for lunch.  We had ribs with beans and cheesy potatoes and that was very good!

After eating JJ went back to beating on the vehicles.  After this time when he got done we headed home.

For something we did not have a lot of information on and unsure what was going on, we had a good time and the weather was perfect too.  The Lions Club does this every year to raise money and do something for the community.  We plan on doing it again next year.

Thank you for following.