As I look back on 2019 it is incredible what a difference a year makes. A year ago we were on our way to spend 3 months in Florida after a long gloomy cloudy fall in CT. I was struggling with my arthritis and not sure if I would ever be better.
12 months later we are fully downsized into our on level townhouse and almost totally settled. Although I still am having some mobility issues, my arthritis is under much better control with medication and we are looking forward to our new life in Florida. I am grateful for so much this year. We are blessed to have three awesome loving daughters and son in laws who welcome us whenever we want to visit. 9 extraordinary sweet grand-kids that are growing up so fast into lovely young men and women. I love when we get a chance to face time with them and see their beautiful smiles and hear their voices. I am grateful for my amazing sisters, a brother an his wonderful wife who is my 5th sister. Their love and support has been nourishing to us especially during this transition to a new chapter in our life. And so many special sister friends across the country that have touched my life in special ways and still are close to my heart even though we don't see each other very often. They each are so special to me. Despite my arthritis issues, I am grateful that I am generally healthy for a 72 year old. I am grateful for our real estate agents both in Florida and CT that held our hand and protected our interest in the buy and sell process. I am grateful for the wonderful builder that managed the reno project on our new home. After talking to people in Florida and hearing all the horror stories of inept shoddy contractors and no show or slow tradesmen, we have had top notch people working on every aspect of our project. And most of all I am grateful for my husband who is traveling this journey with me. He is the love of my life and my soulmate.
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Today our under counter water filter was installed. The cold water supply line is filtered to remove all the chlorine and now we have water that actually tasted good! The Florida water is not the worst I ever had but it is not that great either. Since water is the main beverage for us, the water filter means we don't have buy bottled water for our everyday drinking. I know-first world problems. We have been told that we need to start stockpiling water for hurricane season. I am not sure of the actual amount we need but they said to have a weeks worth of water in case the power goes out.
We also need to look into a generator. Luckily the house is wired for one. But we have some time before Hurricane season is upon us. The goal this week is to get my office unpacked and my new computer set up. I have been using my laptop and it will be fun to have my big iMac up and running. Tomorrow I have nothing planned.......Hoping to get all my clothes sorted out and put away or in the donate box. We had a lovely Christmas. With all the unpacking going on I found our silver tree and the ornaments and set it up along with all the awesome Christmas cards we received from all over the country. Thank you to everyone who reached out to us in our new home.
We then got all dressed up and went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for an early Christmas Dinner. We each had a version of surf and turf and it was delicious. White tablecloths and excellent service made for a great experience and maybe a new Christmas tradition. We spent the rest of the day continuing to get settled in our new home. Our days have been full of unpacking and trying to mange all the packing paper. Luckily the trash pickup comes twice a week and takes all the paper and boxes in the recycle truck! We finally got all the kitchen stuff unpacked so today I hope to get rid of that paper and boxes. Then I can start to organize the kitchen.
So far the only thing missing are drinking glasses and my big wooden knife holder. In the downsizing process when we packed up the house I gave a lot of stuff to savers. Our glasses were pretty mismatched I am thinking maybe I decided we should get a new set. I did unpack a couple small glasses so I can't imagine why all the glasses were not together. And my wooden knife holder? We rarely used most of the knives in it so......did I decide we didn't need it. I still have a few boxes to unpack but they are supposed to be my office stuff or garage stuff, so time will tell what is in those. So far we are generally very happy with all the reno. The induction cook top is amazing. I love it. The dishwasher is so quiet. We never had a garbage disposal in Andover so that has been a fun addition. The bathroom fans are awesome and no more foggy mirrors like we had in Andover. Yesterday the big job was to get the fountain running. It had not been run since closing and I wish I took a before pictures. It was green and good worse the closer to the bottom we got. Of course we didn't have a pump and there is no drain since the fountain just recycles the water so we scooped it out with 4 quart kitchen pot (that I discovered won't work on my cooktop) and a 5 gallon bucket that we dumped into the bushes out front. I brought one of my carts so we could wheel the bucket to the front yard to dump. We used to have 4 small palm trees in the courtyard that we took down soon after we moved in. They were a dirty variety of palm that flowers an has hundreds of berries that drop and covered the courtyard, beds and of course fell into the fountain and those were at the bottom of the fountain and added to the much. The upper portion of the fountain had 3/8 of an inch of green gunk that we had to scrape off. After a little sopping up the final gunk at the bottom and wiping down the walls, we found out hose in one of the garden boxes and filled it back up. And when we plugged it in, the water flowed!. We added some bleach and by morning all the green is gone and the water is pretty clear! The lights in the bottom do not work but they are on a wire that comes out easily and I think could be replaced. So happy that it works and it is actually on a timer and that works too! WIN WIN. Today I will try to find a home for the rest of the stuff I unpacked. We decided to celebrate Christmas day by going out to lunch at Ruth's Chris Steak house. We enjoyed going there for Thanksgiving with Deb and Joe so we wanted to go back. I think we got the last reservation! I will post some more pictures once we get a little organized. It has been so crazy and exhausting the last week that I have not had the energy to post our progress.
Finally our Journey has ended. We moved into our new home. 426 Coral Cove, Juno Beach, Florida 33408 We are knee deep in boxes both full and empty and packing paper and stuff we have to figure out where to put. We mostly have the furniture placement decided. Richard's has his office mostly organized. We are still waiting for shower glass so the bathrooms are not fully functional. we are using the guest bath with a temporary shower curtain. The kitchen is about half done. I found plates, silverware and some cookware so it is functional. Trying to decide how I want to organize everything is the time consuming activity. Meanwhile trips to decide on Window treatments, get hangers, paper products, food, and what seems like an endless list of things we need to replenish. And the technology is another time eater. Need to set up extenders for the wifi to reach all the rooms of the house. Trying to decide if it is better to go with a second network or bridge the Xfinity gateway with my old Eero system. Hate to go buy Xfinity extenders if I don't have to. TV is connected. Sound bar is functioning but needs to be fine tuned as soon as can find the actual TV remote! Computers are mostly working. Richard's is having some issues that I need to trouble shoot. His computer was a refurbished one when we bought it three years ago and has been glitch ever since. I would never buy another refurbished piece of technology. But all in all everything is functioning if not at an ideal at least at an accepable level. Christmas is right around the corner and not one decoration up yet. Not even sure if we will have the energy to do much decorating this year. I don't even remember exactly what we brought. I did not anticipate how totally exhausting the last few weeks would be. And being on my feet all day walking over 10,000 steps inside the house has my ankle very cranky and swollen. I will be glad when all the boxes are unpacked and we are able to get back to some form of normal whatever shape that takes. Hope everyone is getting ready for Santa to arrive and that you are all staying warm. Lots happening on the house and I updated the blog page. Amazon will be bringing towel holders and tp holders today and tomorrow. I think I am mostly done with all the decisions.
Yesterday I had a peaceful afternoon at the beach. The place we are staying only has a small chair that I think is a kid beach chair so I sat on a towel and enjoyed the nice warm sun and cool soft breeze. Today is I am going week the beds in our courtyard and start cleaning them up from all the tile, paint and stucco work that has been done. Then a walk around our new neighborhood and beach time this afternoon. Getting excited about moving day on Saturday. It has been such a long slog of being without a permanent home so we are very ready to be HOME. After church this morning I went to the clubhouse for an HOA meeting on the budget for the year. There were only two other people there and no one from the board of directors. I met a nice lady from the neighborhood and we chatted for 15 minutes and then we all left. Later today we get an email from the Property manager, who by the way never seems to be working, and she said that there was some unforeseen issue and that they would reschedule for tomorrow.
Then over to the house to meet with the window treatment lady. Yesterday she showed me some Hunter Douglas vertical cellular shades for the sliders as well as normal ones for the windows. The quote came back about three times what I thought it should be. Today she came back with a different line of shades so I am waiting for her quote which she said would be more affordable. Then Mike, our builder, came by and we discussed mirrors for the bathrooms, towel bars, etc. We were going to put in a whole house water filter but the only place it can go is outside by the front entrance and would be too ugly and I am sure never approved by the HOA. So we are putting that on hold for now. When they painted the trim and doors, I questioned the color but we thought since the lights were not in that it looked ivory and the color on the paint can said it was the right color. So today the paint company owner was there at the house with us and he said he painted a little board and took it to Sherwin Williams along with the paint and told them they must have mixed it wrong. This paint company works almost exclusively for our builder and they use the same white all the time. The paint company admitted the formula on the paint can was wrong and that is why the color is wrong. It is not bad in the bedrooms, but in the kitchen next to the white cabinets it looks terrible. He said they would make it right and so on Saturday they will cover everything again in plastic and spray the correct color. So impressed with this builder and the people he works with. The closet people did the master closet and will be back for the laundry room cabinets. Appliance install crew came at 4:30 and we have the fridge, oven, and microwave drawer installed. They will be back for the dish washer, cook top and vent hood after the electrician is there tomorrow. I will post some pictures on the Reno Page. Friday I am off to find towel, closet light. TP holders ect. A week from Saturday our Bed and mattress arrive. Comast comes on Sunday to connect the cable TV. Hopefully. We are settled in our new temporary home. The move was exhausting but the next move is to our new house. Our new place is only 3 minutes from our Coral Cove house by car and is all on one floor. There are two bath rooms but the guest bath has no outlet for a hair dryer. I messaged the owner to ask if it was hidden somehow and he said he had never been asked that question before. So weird not to have an outlet. I am the morning person and like to go off to mass early during the week so I shower in the guest bath so as not to wake Richard. Oh well we can mange for 12 more days!
Lots happening on the house. Painting almost done, appliances delivered and scheduled for install on Thursday. Stucco repair happens Wed. Most of the plumbing is in. Closets will go in next week. Electrician due this week to install lights. Comcast comes Saturday to hook up the cable. Friday they they do a cleaning, pull up all the heavy paper covering the floor and take all the construction stuff left to the dump. Meanwhile we am trying to schedule delivery of our new bedroom set and mattress. Fallon movers still can't tell us when they will deliver our stuff. We gave them the 14th as the delivery date but they have a 10 day window to deliver. They never told us that when we hired them. In retrospect, I should have hired the company that was going to move it to Florida and store it here. Then we would be able to have it on our timetable. Hopefully it will all be done and unpacked by Christmas!!!! Will post pictures of the progress tomorrow after the appliances are installed. |
Author: Penny
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October 2020
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