Week 3

I’m starting to see a pattern out of all this, more weeks keep passing by and although we are making progress it never seems like enough. There is always something else that needs to be done. So this week, with some help since both of us were sick & out of town for two days, we got a fair amount of work done. We we’re able to finish painting the master bedroom, both bathrooms are completed, the office has it’s first coat of paint, the hallway painting is completed, the air conditioner is fixed and running, the trash has been hauled away (for legal reasons we had to keep it around for a certain time period), and the pump on the pond is running (hopefully it won’t get green so fast anymore).

Our goals for Week Four:

    Finish painting office

    General clean up of living areas

    Start painting guest bedroom

    Get packed

    Move the furniture that we didn’t move last week (sofas & beds being the priority)

 

I didn’t get any pictures this week. Since I’ve been sick I only made it to the house once or twice to check on the progress and the dogs and I wasn’t there very long. Hopefully, I’ll be getting over this cold soon & we can get some serious work done and progress made.

Since we’ve determined that taking down some of the faux brick paneling is a much bigger project then we want to try right now (it was installed behind the crown molding and baseboards, so we’d have to replace all that molding just to take the boards down, not to mention we have no idea what the wall lookalike behind the boards). I’ve been throwing around the idea of trying to white wash it, of course the DH is not a fan of it at all. He did say though that he liked how it looked with the “grout” lines white. But that’s a project that we can do once we move in. My goal is to be moved out of the old house by the end of the month (next week!!!) so that we are not in a big rush when the close of escrow comes.

 

Anyway, it’s time to keep moving on. Until next time. XOXO

iOS 7

If you know me at all you know I’m an huge Apple fan. So when iOS 7 was released I was very excited. However, when you live in a small town things like fast internet don’t really exist and if they do it’s usually super expensive to have them. Recently, one of the new internet services companies installed free wifi at one of the public parks & the community center. It just so happens that this company is the fastest in town. So, I can now proudly tell you I’m running iOS 7 on my iPad and it’s installing on my iPhone 4. I thought I’d do a little post about some of the new features, the old ones, the hidden ones & a few of my favorites. I apologize now if this becomes a long picture heavy post.
The Overall Look has Changed:
From the new lock screen to the home screen, you will notice right away when a device is running iOS 7.
New system font – The system font has changed and seems it be easier to read (and if it’s still difficult to read you can adjust that in settings> General> accessibility> Bold text & increase contrast).

Icon in status bar are larger on the lock screen – this is pretty self-explanatory and you probably won’t notice this just by looking at you device, but when you slide to unlock you’ll see the status bar go smaller.

 

 

 

Ability to view timers & snooze from lock screen – you’ll now notice a second smaller time under the time.

Dynamic wallpapers – iOS 7 comes with 7 dynamic wallpapers, but when third-party apps start producing these I imagine you’ll never switch back. This isn’t a feature I can show you a picture of, but the wallpaper moves.

New animations – what you see when switch from one app to the other, opening a folder, opening an app, etc. is new and improved.

New icons – personally I think the new icons make it look like an android or windows phone. I was hoping for a theme option that you can choose between three or four different icon looks & while there are some third-party apps that do this, they don’t work the same.

New keyboard – the keyboard has taken on the transparency that is new throughout iOS 7. The buttons that used to say next and previous when filling out a form are now just arrows.

New system sounds – the standard ringtones have always been a little off for me. The new system sounds are now something I could see myself using (in fact, I already switched my phone over). Plus, they kept the old sounds as well.

New downloading icon – when an up is downloading or update it now looks a little different.

 

Safari: 

Not much looks different in Safari when you first open it, but when you start using it you’ll notice a few minor changes.
No .com button – The .com button has been removed from the keyboard when typing a web address. Now to access the shortcuts for .com, .org, .net, etc. simply press and hold on the period button.

Bookmarks Bar is now called Favorites.

iCloud tabs – You can now have your safari tabs sync through iCloud and have all your tabs saved and available on all of your devices. If your not a fan of this, it can be turned off in settings.

 

 

 

 

Pages that sort vertically instead of horizontally – they can be closed with a swipe to the left or by clicking on the small x. These allow you to see almost the full web page as you glance through everything you have open.

Photos:

You may have notice your photo app got smart. It now groups photos together by Years – Collections – Moments. This is great for a vacation or a single event (or when your taking screenshots for a tutorial).

Music:

The music app was not left behind in the updates. The app has seen an improvement in the icons at the bottom of your screen. The most obvious update is the addition of iTunes Radio. Similar to Pandora or iHeartRadio, but built in. When a song is playing on iTunes Radio you have the option to buy it from iTunes right there on the Now Playing screen.

 

 

 

 

Calendar:

This app has a whole new look & feel with the redesign. You can view by day, month or year, with the weekly calendar staying at the top of the screen in the daily view. This new calendar will take some getting used to before it flows seamlessly again for me.

 

 

   

 

 

Overall, I like it & I think it will easily become the most used iOS ever. What else have you noticed in iOS 7?

Week 2

Week 2 came on us out of no where. It feels like we’ve done so little & there’s still so much to do. This past week we focused on seeding more of the grass before the weather gets bad, finishing up the painting in the living room & dining room & starting to paint the master bedroom and hallway. As it sits right now the living room & dining room just needs some touch ups & the master bedroom and the hallway is ready for a second coat of paint. We also officially started escrow on the old house; it took us a couple of tries since we were writing the paperwork ourselves.

Our goals for Week 3:

   Finish painting the master bedroom

   Finish painting the hallway

   Start painting the office & guest bedroom

   Get the sink installed in the guest bathroom

   Pull all the weeds in the backyard

   Get air conditioner repaired & working

   Start bring over the furniture (Sofas & bed for this week)

   Take more pictures (Sorry, I don’t have any this week)

Starting this weekend we have something going on every weekend until mid-November. Hopefully that won’t impede on the progress of the house. We are trying to be completely moved in by the end of the month, so that we have time to clean the old house before the close of escrow.

At this point neither of us have taken time off work to get things done at the house, but it is an idea in the back of my mind…

 

Week 1

One week in & we’ve gotten so much done, but there’s so much more to do. Here’s a recap on what we’ve done so far:
Cleaned up all the leftover stuff.

Pulled the weeds from along the front edge of the property.

Raked along the driveway to clean up the trash, pine needles, & weeds.

Drained the pond and gave the fish fresh water.

Started to reseed the grass.

Trimmed up a couple of the overgrown trees.

Got some expert help cleaning the kitchen.

Caulked all of the crown molding in preparation for paint.

Called in the pros when we started to texture walls & paint.

Brought the dogs over for our “security system”.

Almost completely gutted the master bath & fixed the plumbing for the shower.

Pulled out the vanity in the guest bath.

Repaired one of the two broken windows and got estimates on fixing the second.

Got 4 different estimates on fixing the air conditioner.
And we still have to:
Get rid of our rodent friends.

Clean the stove.

Put the new sink in the guest bath.

Finish painting.

Finish reseeding the grass (we’ve had some wet weather that helps water everything, but, makes it difficult).

Build the dog run.
Oh and we still need to move in & clean out the old house before the close of escrow.
We definitely have our work cut out for us, but we couldn’t have made it the far without the help of our family and friends.
We even had a visitor already.

Welcome

Welcome to 2400 Oakridge! Pull up a chair and stay awhile.

We received keys to the house (well, manufactured home) on Monday, September 2, 2013 and have been working nonstop since then. To give you the background of our house my in-laws purchased the land & home almost 9 years ago & this is the house my husband grew up in. Last year a few months after my husband & I purchased our current house my in-laws decided they were going to rent the house. Needless to say, the renters just about trashed the house. (See the pictures below for details.)

My father-in-law had spent ten years babying the grass & trees, pine trees lined the front of the property, fruit trees were scattered throughout the front & back yard. In the back there was a garden that had tomatoes & melons galore.

The renters did not care about the home, or the yard. They let everything go. On the outside of the white picked fence that lined the front yard there were weeds taller then the fence itself. The lanterns by the front door were left broken & missing pieces so they are unable to be repaired. The grass died in the back yard & in the front wt is barely alive in some spots thanks to some great monsoon thunderstorms. Two windows were taken apart, one is completely broken, unable to be repaired. They broke the air conditioner, the plumbing for the shower in the master bathroom, three interior doors, took up the baseboard in a couple of spots, cut a 2×4′ hole in the Sheetrock in one bedroom, and stole a ceiling fan (even tried to put a smoke detector over the hole so we wouldn’t notice). They tried to steel my father-in-law’s beautiful 4×7′ built in barbecue and having not been able to steel it, left it broken in pieces. The pond by the front door was black, the goldfish inside barely alive. The counters in the kitchen were covered in mice droppings, so much so, that you couldn’t tell what color the counter was. The cabinets in the kitchen were covered in a thick layer of grease & grim. They stole the bucket to the ice maker on the freezer & left raw fish openly sitting on shelves in the fridge. There was coloring all over the walls. To top it all off, they left trash all over the floor & furniture on the porches. The photos below aren’t to incriminate anyone, but to show what we are starting with.

The view from the front property line.

The backyard.

The pond, if you look carefully you can see the fish to the right hand side.