After endless hours of searching on line and in store for the perfect fan, I met with the builder to see what else I needed to know before I ordered them. He gave me the down rod sizes I would need and told me he thought the fan for the tv room was too small. He recommended at least a 60 fan! Soooo.. Back to the internet.
Monday I went to the lighting store to order the lights I decided on last week. We started looking at fans. Of course I wanted ones with a light attached and liked the ones with LED lights. The new world order says we don't measure light or talk about it in Watts anymore but in Lumens. And the fans have actual lumens and dispersed lumens. Which means how much light you get once it is filtered by the glass surrounding it. Good grief. More research to see how the brightness compares to the old fashioned bulbs we used to buy. Sometimes you want a nice overhead light if you are doing something that requires more light especially in the Casita/Richard office and the Guest room/Penny office. I really didn't want the light kit that has 4 or 5 seperate lights and shades but a more modern sleek look. Anyway, I left the store on Monday to think about the ones we found and to talk to my builder again to see if the 65 inch 12 blade fan I found would be ok and not too big! Tuesday and Wed I searched a little more and finally settled on the fans I wanted and today I placed the order!!! When I first went to the lighting store I asked for a builder discount. I knew from working with CT lighting that most places will give you a good discount if you are doing a whole house. They gave me a 32% discount off the list price. The internet price was the same as their list price, so I got a good deal! Seems to get harder and harder to make decisions these days so I hope we are almost done. Thankfully we made most of the important ones early on in the process. We still want to do something about the gate to the courtyard which has been painted multiple times, it rusting in places and hard to open. But that decision will have to wait for another day. And to add to my fatigue, I came down with a UTI. WTF? Where did that come from? Went to the walk in clinic and am on antibiotic so I hope to get some energy back soon. Bye for now
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Nothing very exciting going on this week.
I talked to our landlord and he agreed to extend our lease here till the 1st of December. So at least we will not have to have Thanksgiving in a hotel room. Still not exactly sure when our townhouse will be done, but for sure not till the end of November. After that we will stay at the Embassy Suites. We told the moving company our tentative date is December 2nd. Fingers crossed!! I needed a new case for my new iPhone. I have a magnetic mount in my car that attaches to the vent so I can see the map program on my phone when I am driving. Yes, I have a navigation system in my car but I find it more difficult to use and hard to change course. My phone map program connects with my contacts and my calendar so with just a touch or two I can have directions anywhere I have saved in my phone. But I digress. I ordered a case on Amazon for next day delivery and although I like the case, the magnet is placed so my wireless charger that I love will not work through the case. My other phone had a MagBak case that has powerful magnet strips along the top and one side of the phone. It attaches to my car mount and I can charge the phone on the wireless charger. It only comes in 4 plain colors. Red, blue, grey and black. Red and Blue are sold out so I ended up ordering the grey one. Function won out over fancy case! Finally resolved the lighting decision so now I have to decide on ceiling fans! Mattress decision made and I will order it next week. Hopefully it will be as comfortable sleeping all night as it is in the store!!! I painted the legs of the table I bought from someone on Amazon Marketplace. the top is wood and I thought the legs were white but when I get there they were actually a creamy yellow. Since my island cabinets are going to be a light blueish a Sherwin Williams 6227 color called Meditation I thought I would paint the legs of the table to match. After the first coat, I am pleased with the result. Spent a few mornings at the beach early this week and Wednesday I noticed what I think are bites on the back of my thighs. WTF. Where did that come from. There are a few single bites here and there but only on areas that would have been exposed and so I am thinking something at the beach got me. They have been super ichy all week. So annoying. The day I think I got them, I did not spray sunscreen all over because I went to the beach very early and it was not super sunny but warm. I sat on the beach and read and I guess some kind of beach bug had a feast. Next time I guess I will bring some bug spray! It's always something. Thursday I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to look at pots and pans. I am getting a new induction cooktop so 90% of my existing pots and pans will not work on the new stove. I am amazed at how expensive good ones are. They mostly sell them in sets but I don't know if I want all those pieces. And do I want non stick or stainless? I am so used to cooking in my nonstick Pampered chefs pans and I am afraid the stainless will be harder to clean. I think I have a skillet and a nice covered pot in storage, so I can use those initially till I decide what I really need. And I think I will hit some of the better thrift stores and maybe pick up a couple of pieces that way. I used Analon pans at the West Hartford rental and I really liked them.
Friday morning I went to Verizon to see about switching service. I have had At&T since my first blackberry phone when I worked for Merrill, so maybe 20 years ago? Recently we found our data usage skyrocket as we were in a hotel in Manchester and then driving to Florida, so I had to upgrade to an unlimited plan. The plan included a lot of stuff I didn't need, like streaming of Direct TV and maybe HBO Anyway it was a lot of money for cell service. Plus the coverage where we will live does not seem to be very good. So after seeing an ad at Verizon for an over 55 plan, I went in to the local store to check it out. Being a new customer I was eligible for a lot of rebates....... So you can guess what is coming. Yup, iphone 11 Pro is now in my possession. They gave me $500 off the phone, and another $200 for each line for bringing my phone to Verizon. It was hard to pass it up! It took almost 3 hours by the time I decided, then the only phone they had in stock was the green one which is not my favorite so we were going to order a silver one for delivery next week. Turned out the black and silver were all back ordered and only the gold was available to order. I am not wild about the gold either, so I decided to take the green one they had at the store. The case covers it anyway so you really can't see the back color! Then we had to transfer the account for Richard and me, transfer all the stuff on my phone to the new one, which of course first needed an IOS update. When I got home I had to connect Richard's phone with the new sim card and then he decided he would upgrade to my old XS phone and we would trade in his iphone X. So a few more hours to wipe my old phone and restore his to it and finally all the correct phones are working and I brought the old phone it as a trade in to get the $500 credit toward my new phone. In retrospect, next time I think I will just sell my old phone myself. Friday afternoon I went to the home show. Mostly looking for ideas for window treatments but it was a little disappointing and not a very big show. Saturday I spend some time at the Mattress store looking at mattresses. I think I have narrowed down what I want and I will bring Richard back there to try it out. There are so many options it is overwhelming and there have been so many decisions lately, I think I have decision fatigue. The designer/sales person at the Yum Yum Tree store where I bought our bedroom set told me to go to City Mattress and talk to John. Turns out John is either the manager or owner and has been there for 20 plus years so he was a great help directing me to the right mattress after we had a long discussion about how we sleep and what we liked. Sunday is a day of rest. No shopping or decisions. It is going to rain today so looks like reading and napping are on the agenda! Monday, I left Doe's house and made a quick stop at Connecticut Lighting to see if they had any lights I have not seen in Florida or online.
Then on to see my sister (in-law) Barbara to share a cup of coffee before heading home. A stop at the cemetery to visit my parents and my babies grave on on to the airport. Of course all the potential delays did not materialize. Minimal traffic, got gas, car rental was quick and the shuttle was waiting, no line at airport (I had TSA Precheck!) so I was early and naturally, the plane was delayed! I walked around both terminals at Bradley in search of something relatively healthy to eat. Ordered a teriyaki chicken and rice bowl at D'Angelo's that was terrible. Chicken was dry, sauce was minimal and I ended up throwing it away. The delay ended up only 15 minutes and I made it to West Palm Beach safe and sound. We stopped at Cafe Sole on the way home for dinner. Shrimp pesto pizza is my go to meal there. I took half of it home for lunch another day. Tuesday was a lazy day. Kind of tired from the trip. I stopped at Yum Yum tree to look at bedroom furniture. It is literally around the corner from where we are staying. I talked to the designer, Steve and showed him the set we saw at Ashley Furniture, but the chest is too big. They had a similar set with a smaller (narrower) chest that I really liked and I bought the set! What a relief to have another decision made. Today was a beach day in the morning to soak up a little sun. It was a little hot and there was not much breeze, but when the sun went behind a cloud, it was perfect. Waves were gentle and I took a walk on the beach in the water up to my knees. Heaven!! I decided to replace the front load washer that came with our property to a top loading Speed Queen. The new "classic" model comes with a 10 year warrantee, mechanical dials and they removed the lid lock just like the old fashioned ones. Apparently they are in pretty high demand so my appliance guy suggested getting the order in now so it might be here by the time we get into our house. So I ran a deposit check over to them to get that process started. Now I will try to sell the washer and dryer I have at the house. I would like to get the matching dryer but need to sell the ones I have first. My next project is to do Medicare enrollment. Every year you have to evaluate the plan you have and choose to stay or go to a new one. I know we will stay with the Medigap or Supplement plan but we need to choose a new Part D drug plan. Too many choices and too many variables Have no idea how many seniors navigate the process. Today after coffee at Sandy's with Warren, Debbie and Joe, and Ted of course I headed to Doe's house. Josh's mother, Linda, and Aunt Sherry are visiting and since I was in town as well we decided we would celebrate both boy's birthday's. We had a nice visit and ordered pizza for lunch. The boys put on a concert for us and they are pretty good together. The boys requested dinner at Imperial Palace Buffet so we got to sample a lot of chinese dishes!! As we were leaving there was a beautiful sunset and that is the reason for the picture below of a parking lot! After dinner, back to Doe's house for amazing chocolate cake and of course to open presents. Ladies and Gentleman I present the Kelly Boys! They played this spur of the moment with no chance to practice or tune! I thought they were terrific. My little brother is 70 today. He is an incredible brother, husband, father, boss, friend and all around great human being. He is the only boy in a family of 6 kids. We are 2 and a half years apart. He has always been the most incredible brother, always there for me and I am proud to call him my brother and my friend!!! Here are some pictures of my brother and I. Warren and Penny
I took a flight on Jet Blue from Palm Beach Internatinal Airport to Bradley in Hartford. A quick surprise trip for my brother's 70th birthday and Sean's 12th birthday. My brother, Warren to his family and Norman to everyone else, is having a birthday party tonight but he and my sister in law , Barbara, do not know I will be there. So the surprise will be fun. I will post more about the birthday tomorrow which is his actual birthday.
Today I am going to to spend some time with my sister Debbie and Joe who are also in town for the birthday party. Tomorrow I will go to my daughter, Doe's house, to celebrate Sean's 12th birthday. These kids are growing up too fast. Harder and harder to pretend I am not getting older when the grandkids are becoming adult size so fast! LOL. Today I spent a lot of time on the computer. Yesterday I got about 5 alerts on my phone that my credit card was used several times at Sam's Club in St. Charles, MO. Really! How does that even happen. I have the card in my possession. So I called Citibank to report it and they cancelled the card and will be sending a new one out in 5 to 7 days. So today, I had to update all the places that are tied to that card. Since I get cash rewards, I put a lot of stuff on the card and then pay it each month. Makes it easy to track in Quicken. The good news is that we have new Bank of America credit cards with better cash back so I switched a lot of auto pay to that card. The rest of the computer time was searching for lights. The lights for over the island I really liked, the builder thought was too small. I am not sure I agree but I have not seen it in person only online. I finally decided to order one from Amazon so I could touch and feel it and hold it up at the house to see how it will look. I will post a picture next week on the Reno page. Wednesday we took Richard's car in to get a 3 hour software update and get the driver and passenger windows tinted. CT does not allow those windows to be tinted but Florida does and it sure cuts down on the heat in the car from the sun! The Lexus dealership is huge! The service department looks like a car return at an airport. You pull up to a covered area and there are three rows of cars that are dropping off for service. I was greeting immediately and brought inside to my advisor. Much better service than the one in Hartford. They gave us a loaner for the day.
Storms were predicted so we went to see Judy at the movies. I thought it was terrific. Renée Zellweger did an amazing job. I was amazed how thin she was. Skinny thin. I thought her singing was excellent but I am sure there must be a lot of critics. Clearly she does not have Judy Garland's voice. But it was a good movie to see mid week when the prices are half of the weekend price! An early dinner at Cafe Sole and then home just one minute before the skies opened up with some torrential rain. Decided to wait to return the car till Thursday morning. Here The big excitement today was a hair appointment. I have been trying to see if I could live with letting my natural hair grow out and just put some highlights in but there is too much gray and the base color is a dark gray. So I asked the hairdresser or is it hair person? I asked her to do some light and medium highlights and the rest in a darker copper color closer to the darkness of my roots so when it grew out it would not be quite so obvious. I even had a picture. I swear I must speak a foreign language when I go to the hair salon because they always seem to do what they think would look good. Although she did listen to me when I was picking the color from the color samples. But she didn't listen when I said I didn't want bleached highlights but just two different colors in the foils.
Alas, it did not come out exactly like I wanted but it looks fine, just lighter than I really wanted. And the gray is covered and the dark roots are gone, So overall I am happy. I will probably go back one more time I think to see if I can explain better what I want. Or maybe it is time to find someone else! Here a a couple pictures in different lights! First one looks like the praying Selfie!!! Today my first grandchild, Charlotte, will celebrate her 17th Birthday. Imagine that! I swear it does not seem like that long since she was born. Boy, I had a lot more hair back then! Four Generations. Jennifer, my Mom, Charlotte and I. This and That Spending a lot of my time looking at furniture and lights on line and in stores. I think I figured out Bedroom furniture but one of the chests is too big for the space I wanted to put it. So back to the drawing board! But I think I have lights picked out and will meet with my contractor Monday to be sure they will work.
This is a little long today as I haven't updated in a few days!
This week so far have been a little bit of this and that. Monday facetimed with Sean and Finn. They were home due to a school holiday. Then I went to the bank to open a local checking account. We tried to do it on Saturday but I forgot I have our credit locked or frozen so I had to thaw it out first before we could open the account. Took longer than I expected but finally got it done and made an appointment for Richard to go in the afternoon so they could add him to the account. Then I took a drive down to Boynton Beach ( about 30 miles south) to a lighting store that carries a light I saw online that I liked and they carried that brand. Of course they didn't have any in stock or on display but they did an estimate and gave me the builders discount so at least they are now reasonably priced. Still looking but haven't found any I like as much. Who would have thought picking out lights would be so time consuming and hard! We will have to look at them every day, so we want something that will look good a long time. I love the new modern LED lights in various designs but I think they will get dated fast just like the Edison lights that seem to be all the fashion right now. A quick stop at Whole foods and home in time to put stuff away before Richard got home from Golf. We headed out to go to the bank, I stopped in my car to get the folder from that morning and tripped on the concrete curb in front of the car and went smack down flat on my face! That ended our bank excursion as I spent the rest of the afternoon icing my knee and face! But no broken bones or broken bones or bleeding cuts! But alas my phone went flying and cracked the glass. Richard took me out to eat at Cafe Sole so we wouldn't have to mess around in the kitchen. Tuesday I tried for an Apple Store appointment but they were booked. Much to my surprise I found out that Best Buy is now an authorized repair center and they did have an appointment. When I got there to get the glass replaced, they took off the case and turns out the back side was cracked as well. Oh boy, am I glad I have apple care!!! They replaced the whole phone, updated the IOS and restored the phone from back up and an hour or so later, I walked out all set with my new phone. We did go to the bank in the afternoon and get everything squared away for a local bank. Really the only reason we need one is to get cash out now and then. Most everything we do is online anyway. We called Richard's Aunt Beedee who turned 92 on Tuesday. She and Richard are 20 years and one day apart. We sang her Happy Birthday and then she sang him Happy Birthday in Polish. Today October 2nd is Richard's birthday. Now we are the same age for 6 months!! We celebrated by having an early dinner or late lunch at a new restaurant the Great Greek. He loves Greek salad's and so we thought we would try it out. His was excellent and he added chicken on his. I had the Greek rice bowl with lamb. Hot rice Pilaf surrounded by salad and chickpeas and topped with a kabob of lamb. ( i don't think they call it a kabob). I was amazed how good it was. We will go back for sure. Next stop was the new house. We have 4 small sickly palm trees in the bed in the courtyard today the landscapers were coming to remove them. I had mixed feeling about taking them down but this variety has berries that make a terrible mess all over the courtyard and one was dead already. I have to admit it looks so much better with out them. And the big palms outside the courtyard can now grow our way and provide a bit of shade. Now I have a blank slate to plant in. So that will be fun once I get all the weeds cleaned up that are growing between all the pavers. While we were at the house we got a package for Richard that had a birthday cake from our Merrill Advisor team! So we came home and ate it. And so that is all the news to date. Tomorrow Comcast comes to the new house to get all the cable connections in the right places. Hopefully our electrical inspection will take place so they can start the drywall. And maybe the windows will arrive so they can start that installation this week. Stay tuned!!! |
Author: Penny
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October 2020
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