Holly’s Happenings

Over the past 25 years I’ve lived in several different places! Some have been pretty decent places to live, a few have been places that would turn your stomach…LOL! In 2005 my husband and I decided that we had spent too much time living in the city and it was time for he and I to take the kids somewhere that we thought would give them a better quality of life! I honestly have nothing against the city, it truly serves a purpose! But I grew up in the country, basically in the middle of nowhere, and so did my husband, and we thought that our kids should get a taste of what life is like when you’re not in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city!

I won’t pretend that living out in the country has been a bed of roses, it’s definitely had it’s rough times. And yes, at first the kids absolutely hated it! But more than 3 years later, they both agree that they love living out here! We’ve lived in our current house just a few weeks shy of a year now, and I’ve grown to love the beauty of nature that surrounds this house! Over the past couple of months we’ve been a bit up in the air about whether or not we were going to continue to live here. A friend of my husband’s offered us the chance to rent his house, which isn’t too far from where we are right now and still is pretty much in a country type setting. But the more we’ve thought about it, the less we feel comfortable with moving into his house.

It kind of goes without mentioning that if you want to keep a friend, don’t do business with them! If we honestly thought that renting our friends home wouldn’t totally mess up our friendship with him, we might think more seriously about moving. But right now, I honestly don’t foresee us needing any moving services to move into our friends house. Yes, it would save us a little money, which is a good thing. But the more time I spend with my husbands friend, the worse I feel about the thought of having him as a landlord. He’s a great friend to my husband, and I think we really need to keep things that way! So, since there’s no moving in my immediate future, I guess we’d better get stocked up as good as we can on firewood!

It’s amazing the things that you can do around the house when you aren’t dealing with two teenagers that are fighting non stop! I’m honestly not a neat freak, my house has dust and dog hair build up on a fairly regular basis and there are usually at least a few dirty dishes in the sink any time you walk by it.

I decided that I was going to try and take advantage of the kids being gone and get this house in order! For the first time since we moved in here in October my laundry is completely caught up, we managed to make some major changes in our room and move the furniture around. We’re also going to go through all of our clothes and the stuff that is in boxes in the attic, my sister is having a garage sale this weekend and I’m going to take some of my stuff up there to sell as well. We just have entirely too many clothes that either no longer fit or we simply don’t wear and they need to GO!!!!

But anyway, things are really starting to come together nicely. My next “major” project is my sons room, but I have to finish putting the stuff away from my room that I put in there…LOL! He has some shelves that I also want moved to make his room a little more “usable”, if that makes any sense…LOL! Once that’s done, the only thing that will be left for me to do is remove the clutter from the kitchen and get the painting done. But I’m going to put that off as long as I can ;o)

As you know from the previous post, I have one heck of a mess on my hands. It’s going to be a heck of a process getting it done, but I have faith, especially after the progress I made today! I was chatting with my gal Sassy this morning telling her how overwhelming it felt after looking at the pictures and that I didn’t even know where to begin. Her words were “Start where you spend the most time”. Now, if you know me well, you know that I spend a good part of my time in my new memory foam bed….LOL! Yes, I do spend a good amount of time there, but the bulk of my awake hours are spent right here at my desk, and the fact that you couldn’t see the top of it really was embarrassing! So I decided that I’d start with the family room since that’s where my desk is, as well as my desk, printer table and bookshelf area. I took the before pictures from this morning and put them side by side with the after pictures of the same area. In some of the pictures I noticed that there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the after pictures, especially the bookshelf, but there really is! The entire thing is much more organized, so much so that I have a completely empty shelf now…LOL! And yes, you’re seeing right, although it’s all cleaned and organized I totally did not dust off that bottom shelf. The photos are after the fold!
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Yes ladies and gentlemen, you are about to embark on what, to date, will be my most embarrassing blog post EVER! I am going to put myself “out there” 100% because if I don’t embarrass myself about this, I’m never going to do anything about it! Ladies and gentlemen, I am a pack rat and a clutter bug! I’ll admit that I’m not the worlds best house keeper, not even close! But I always have tried to make sure that I take care of the important things, i.e. dishes, laundry, floors, etc.

Lately I’ve been in a “funk”, so to say. My hubby and I have been arguing quite a bit lately, it’s gotten to the point that I’ve seriously wondered if my marriage could possibly be ending. Add to that the drama with the kids that’s gone on lately, and some of the financial stuff, and I’ve just not been in a good state of mind at all! Usually when spring arrives, I’m able to shake off my winter “blues” and get my butt in gear, but this year I just have not been able to do that at all, and the pictures you are about to see are the end result of what can happen when you don’t do something about a fairly significant case of depression.

Before I show you the pictures I have to add a little something in my defense. Yes, I haven’t done the best job of keeping up with things, which you are about to see, but I also have another adult and 2 teens living in this home who absolutely are 100% incapable of picking up after themselves, and frankly, it just gets FRUSTRATING! I don’t expect them to do major work, I just want them to rinse their dirty dishes and put them in the sink and/or pick up their dirty clothes, nothing that major!

So, without further adieu, click on the “read more” link to see pictures of my clutter! Starting today, I am going to be AWOL from my computer until I get this mess under control, because it’s completely ridiculous and makes me sick! I figure if I put them out there for the world to see, then you all can keep asking me for updates….LOL! Here goes, pictures below “the fold”, click on them to view larger
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I’m sure you’ve heard me talk here about the problems that we’ve had with our phone company. Since we live out in the country having cable TV and/or internet is not an option. I tried to convince the cable company to bring service to our old house, even going to the extent of drawing up a petiton and taking it to the neighbors and asking them to sign it if they would be willing to switch to cable if it were offered. Amazingly better than 75% of the neighbors were more than happy to sign, they all agreed with me in the fact that they were tired of the monopoly that the phone company held over the area and wanted other options! Unfortunately, the cable company didn’t “bite” and said it just would not be financially feesible for them to bring service any further.

Since moving to the new house, we’ve been faced with problem after problem when it comes to the phone and internet service. Once again our only option is the same phone company we had at the old house. But we also found out that lightning had gone through the lines at this house sometime after the last people lived here, and we also found out that the current lines would only support a lower speed DSL connection than what we had at the old house. But a recent letter from the phone company talked about changes and upgrades that they plan to start implementing to their customers starting this spring. One of the upgrades is supposed to include replacing the current phone lines with better fiber optic cables that are supposedly going to give us better phone service as well as the option to upgrade to a faster DSL speed. They’ve replaced the lines once since last October with very little improvment, so lets hope the upgrades they plan on doing this Spring are an improvement because I’m really NOT liking their services and I don’t like not having options!

We received some awesome news from our landlord this week! Well, it’s awesome news for us, but not so awesome for him. He decided that since our local economy and real estate market is in such bad condition, it would be better for him to keep this house as arental property investment than try to sell it. This is good news for us because it means that we have more time to establish our credit better and put ourselves into a position so that we can buy the house ourselves! His original intention was to put the house on the market this summer, now he’s not sure when he’ll put it up for sale.

The one thing that really bothers me about this house is that the front living room does not have some type of lighting on the ceiling. Every other room in the house does, but for some reason that room never had light fixtures installed in the ceiling. After we get the bills caught up and Christmas with the kids done two weeks later, we’ve decided that since we have full access to the attic that we’re going to install a ceiling fan with a light in the living room. Even with two table lamps, the room just gets so dark at night and it drives me nuts! And adding a ceiling fan will also help with heating and cooling too, which is definitely a plus!

We got the keys to this house on October 1st, but we didn’t move in until the following week. So if you want to get technical, we’ve been in the new house for almost 2 months now. I have no regrets about moving here, and although it’s a smaller house than the one we moved from as far as square footage, in many ways it has more room than our old house. For instance, at the old house we had a huge kitchen and a huge dining room, but a small living room with a foyer off it that, in my opinion was wasted space. The old house also had 4 bedrooms and one bathroom. The new house has a large eat in kitchen, but no dining room, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and a family room. The extra bathroom is awesome and we’ve actually set things up so that the living room “belongs” to the kids and the family room “belongs” to the hubby and I. And for the first time in more than a couple of years, he and I can actually sit and have a conversation without one of the kids being right on top of us and butting in! I guess the only thing left to do is find a good real estate agent and make sure that this is our house for keeps!

Since we moved into the new house, we’ve had one problem after another with our DSL connection. At first it was because the phone lines in the house had been struck by lightning so they had to replace all of those. Once they replaced all of those they discovered that there were still problems and the eventually discovered that the phone line from the phone box to the house must have also been hit by lightning so they replaced that as well. Once that line was replaced we finally did get a dial tone, but there were still problems, so they came back into the house and started testing all of the phone jacks. One by one it was discovered that they all needed to be replaced as well. All of that cleared up the majority of the problem but last week they discovered there is now a problem with the fiber optic cables that run to the phone box outside. Unfortunately we’re going to have to sit on that problem for a while because they’ve said they won’t replace those until spring. I love living in the country, but I sure do wish we had the option of cable!

From the moment we woke up this day went down the tubes and it hasn’t come close to coming out of them yet.  When we woke up this morning I went to get water for coffee and there was no water coming out of the tap.  Fortunately I had some water in a jug, so I made coffee from that.  My hubby went downstairs in the crawl space to see what was going on and found that the water pump was hotter than all get outs!  So he unplugged it in hopes that if it cooled down all would be well.  I guess thinking that it would be something simple was simply too much to ask because almost 9 hours and a brand new water pump later, we still have no water.

The worst part is the fact that when the old pump was disconnected, there was no water in the lines at all, which is making my husband wonder if maybe the well has gone dry?  But with what we know about water pumps and wells, if the well had gone dry we would have had some sort of indications before the water just completely running out.  I don’ t know what’s going on, but what I do know is that not being able to use the bathroom SUCKS!  LOL

Although you won’t find me doing too much complaining about living in the country, there is one thing that definitely needs to be improved! My husband and I have cellular phones from 2 different carriers and neither one of us can get service on our cellular phones when we’re in the house. For me, it’s not that big of a deal because I really don’t get that many calls on my cell phone, but 99% of my husband’s work related calls are done through his cell phone. We’ve decided that we’re going to look into a cell phone booster for the house, from what we here, it just might do the trick!

I went against my better judgment and rather than stay at home last night and try to get some things done, we went ahead and went to my sisters house for dinner.  I’m really glad that I did because it gave me the chance to finally see her new kitchen, which I must say is TO DIE FOR!  Her new cabinets have a mahogany finish and she topped them off  with beautiful black granite counter tops.  She painted the kitchen a clay color and then her new appliances are black, the combination is absolutely gorgeous!

She decided on tacos for dinner, which was a good choice because it’s one of our favorite meals!  So good food and good company made for a great evening.  After dinner we all went outside and sat around the fire pit.  It was a little chilly, so the fire felt wonderful!  The kids all ran around like chickens with their heads cut off and mine actually fell asleep during the drive home…LOL!  I think the break from being at home, the good food and the company did us all a world of good!  It was just what we needed before things get insanely crazy!

Today I plan on getting some homework caught up then doing laundry while trying to get some cleaning and packing started.  The week is going to be crazy and I’m pretty much going to be on my own when it comes to getting things done.  I just hope I don’t stress out as badly as I did the week we were getting things ready to move into this house.  My hubby was working big time and the kids were of NO help to me in getting this house cleaned, so everything fell on my shoulders.  The night before we moved in here I had a total melt down!  Our apartment was nowhere near packed and I was just totally overwhelmed.  Fortunately the kids are older now, and a “little” more responsible, so hopefully they’ll help more!

OK, so I’ve only seen the outside, but I was able to look in some of the windows and doors, which I was very glad to be able to do! But knowing what I know right now, I’d gladly buy the house in 2 years! There is a large chunk of land that comes with the house, 2 1/2 acres to be exact, and the house is surrounded on 3 sides by woods, with a decent width of woods between the house and the only neighbor it has.

The house is ideal, with enough land that we can expand and even build a nice little barn if we wanted to! So, if I had my choice of places to live, this would definitely be one of my dream locations! It’s close enough to town that getting there isn’t a hassle, it’s only a couple of miles from the interstate, which makes my drive to school that much easier, and it’s still in the same school district as we are currently in, which means my kids don’t have to change schools. But to me, the biggest plus is the peace and quiet! Being surrounded by woods is going to be a little piece of heaven! With the acreage that the house is on it will help when looking into loans when we are able to buy the house.

Now I just need to make sure I don’t get into a mess when we do go to buy the house, by making sure that we look into fixed mortgages rather than one of the adjustable mortgages that are getting such a bad rap these days! Either way, I have no doubt I have finally found my dream home!

Yes, that’s right, we’re moving again. We had so many hopes and dreams when we moved into this house, many of which we now realize simply aren’t going to happen. Fortunately, we’re going to move into our new home with the blinders off. We know up front about what is going to happen and what needs to be done. And with great websites like DoItYourself.com knowledge is power! Their informational DVDs will give us all of the information we need to help us finish off the work in the new house that needs to be done!

They offer DVD’s on every kind of do-it-yourself project you can think of. Some of my favorites include basic home remodeling, floors and ceilings and kitchen remodeling. You can even order the entire set of 10 DVD’s that includes DVD’s on floors & ceilings, wall treatments, plumbing & electricity, kitchen remodeling, basic home repair, exterior projects, basic home remodeling, woodworking 1 & 2 and their DVD giving you tips on how to buy & sell your home.

Their website is full of all kinds of information on every type of do-it-yourself project that home owners will need, as well as a very informative forum for people to ask any questions they might have. I wish I had known about their forum when I tackled painting my kitchen because it could have saved me a lot of hassle if I would have had somewhere to ask the questions I had. At least now I know where to go when we’re working on the new house, especially when we replace the kitchen cabinets and counters, which the new landlord plans on doing in April.

We’ve had, what seems like, tons of phone problems lately. First there was a surge through our phone lines that zapped our cordless phone that had a built in answering machine. After 2 days with no dial tone on the phone line the phone company suggested that we start unplugging our phones one by one to see if we get a dial tone back, which is what finally proved that phone had been zapped.

Now the cordless phone we have left is starting to not hold it’s charge, which has sent me shopping for a new cordless phone battery. Fortunately replacing a battery is not only easy, but also much less expensive than replacing the phone!

One of the things I learned from my sisters experience while she was selling her house is that not every real estate agent has the same idea. One may be more motivated for the seller while another is more motivated for the buyer. I know that we have a long road ahead of us in looking for and purchasing a new home, but thankfully now I know more about what to ask and look for in an agent when I do decide that I’m ready to find a new home!

Although I’m not one to get really political here on the blog, I do actively participate in another local political blog and pay attention to politics, both locally and nationally. I’m also an avid news reader as well, so when I seen a news story with the title Democrats court liberal bloggers my interest was definitely peaked!

The story is about a yearly convention of political bloggers in which Presidential hopefuls were in attendance. It talks about how the blogging world as changed politics and how

The days are gone when candidates and political parties could talk to passive voters through mass media, largely controlling what messages were distributed, how the messages went out and who heard them.

This has been more and more apparent to me while reading over at Glass City Jungle. Local politics are normally calm and peaceful this time of the year, but not this year. It seems like it’s been one thing after another. The local politicians and gearing up for this years elections and those seeking seats in different areas are out hitting the campaign trail full force.

I have to admit, I’m starting to enjoy being “political”. It hasn’t been until the past few years that I’ve really started paying attention to politics, with this past year being spent paying the most attention. But I also owe some of the credit for that to my best friend Lisa, she’s helped me to realize just how important paying attention is!

I’m a firm believer in ceiling fans; I have one in all rooms of my home that it’s possible to have them in. In the warmer weather months they help move the cooler air and in the cold weather months they help move the warmer air. I’ve given my praises to the inventor of the ceiling fan many times in my adult life!

As with all technology, time brings change and improvement. Ceiling fans are definitely not an exception to this. I remember how plain my first ceiling fan was, but if you’ve paid any attention while in the stores, today’s ceiling fans are far from plain and boring! For instance, Casablanca ceiling fans come in a variety of styles varying from a traditional Panama Halo fan, to a contemporary Verrazono style ceiling fan.

If you are looking for a more exotic look in a ceiling fan, you might want to consider checking out Fanmation ceiling fans. They have a wide selection of fans that have a more modernistic style to them, including one style of ceiling fan that has blades that are fully retractable as well as fans with designer styled blades including one fan with leopard print blades.

So no matter what your personal style is, with the advances in both technology and design, you are sure to find a ceiling fan that will suit you perfectly!

No, it’s not raining this morning, well, not outside anyway.  Inside, however, is a completely different story.  I was getting ready to go up to my sisters to help her pack for moving day tomorrow when I walked through the kitchen and got hit on the head with a big drip of water.  I looked up to see that a large area about the refrigerator had water almost running out of it.  I quick unplugged the fridge and grabbed a couple of large bowls.  One to sit in top of the fridge and another to sit on the floor in front of it.  The area about where the water was leaking is the bathroom, so I went upstairs and shut off the water valves to the bathroom sink and the toilet.  When I got back downstairs the amount of water leaking out of the ceiling had pretty much subsided to just a few small drips.  Apparently either the bathroom sick or toilet has sprung a leak.  I’m waiting for the hubby to get home and let him do some more investigating.  **UGH**  Not a great way to get the day started.  Hopefully it’s an easy fix!

I’ve been looking at furniture online since we turned our furniture back in to get out of the payments. Although I need to be looking for living room furniture, I find myself wandering through the web sites looking at all different kinds of furniture. I have to admit that I’ve found some very cool beds that I’d love to call my own! Our current bedroom is a little on the small side, but I am sure that I could talk my son into switching rooms so that I could have a larger room and add a beautiful bed to my list of desired furniture!