Trees

Many years ago, Mom and Dad took some tree saplings from my sister Sherry's yard to put in their backyard. Sherry and her husband Stuart, advised against planting them because they are not the best trees and tend not to live long. Mom wanted them, so she got them.  I remember Dad used to grow his tomatoes down near the creek when there were no trees. He had to stop when the trees grew. No more sunlight.

After the Estate Sale, we put the house on the market. We got one low-ball offer and part of the problem were the trees. The potential buyer had an estimate to have them removed. He stated it would be around $5000. We did not accept his offer nor did we counter offer. 

We have had a few intense storms since living here and Mike has been worried about these trees falling over.  We did wake one morning to find a tree lying in our back yard.

Our property lines are a little strange where a thin line of land on our side of the creek, is not our property. The creek is not our property as well.  This tree was on that thin line of land, so we had to let the neighbors behind us know about it. They said they would have it gone within two days. After a week, Mike got out the chain saw and cut it up himself and made a pile. 

Mike became a little more nervous about our trees when this one fell down. It was time to get some estimates. Awhile back, we were having lunch at the Hy-Vee grocery store (that is the store that has a helpful smile in every aisle) when we overheard an employee talking with another employee about how he was cutting down trees all day with his Dad.  We asked for his phone number which he wrote down on a napkin. I called his Dad and two other companies. The Dad was the only one that called back. We set up a time for him to come over and accepted his bid right away. We knew it was a deal. We had a huge storm the night before which brought a total of 5 inches in a little over 24 hours. The creek was at the highest I had ever seen it.

It took one day to get the trees down and most of it cleaned up. It took another afternoon to get it completely cleaned up. I was very impressed. It is a family business of a husband and wife, with their three kids. The climber was exhausted after climbing six of the nine trees they brought down. He didn't have to climb three trees.

The following picture is the walnut tree close to the house.  We wondered if mom planted this tree or if a squirrel did. It had tons of walnuts for the guys to clean up.

These are more pictures of the exciting but sad day.

The day we had our trees cut was the day Sherry had one in her yard fall onto their greenhouse! It was the same type of tree. Luckily, the greenhouse was empty and the damage was just to the plastic covering.

This actually made me feel better that we were cutting all of ours down. You wouldn't believe how many times Mom popped into my head as the trees were going down. I felt the need to explain to her why this needed to be done, and I did that all day.

Below is all of their equipment, along with a bunny next to that log. I couldn't believe the strength of these kids.

Before and After pictures below.

We have created another project. Now that you can see the back of the house, you can see how badly the porches need painting. That will have to wait until I am back in town and able to lift my arm without pain.   

Tomorrow I am leaving Mike for two weeks to hang out with the girls. Since I will be gone for so long, I thought I had better eat all the food in the fridge that Mike would never eat.  Last night I made this........

I wouldn't tell him what was in it as he made a face when he first saw it.   Beet greens,  purple and white cabbage blended into a soup. I then added pearl couscous.

He had two helpings, and then I told him it was cabbage, which he hates!

Recovering

I should say upholstering and recovering. I was busy with several upholstering projects but then I had a little accident and not able to do much.

Last week as I was reaching deep into the recycling bin, I reached down too far and put too much weight on my rib against the bin. I felt and heard my rib pop. So, it is either cracked or extremely bruised. I have not been to a doctor because I know there is nothing they can do. I have had a cracked rib before.

Upholstering.....I started on the kitchen chairs awhile ago and this proved to be one of the more challenging upholstering projects I have done.  You would think by looking at the chair, it would be easy but it involves drilling holes in plastic and hammering nails where the heads want to come through the fabric.  Binx tried to help.

These are the chairs that my sister Sherry and I picked up at the dump years ago. I am happy she doesn't want them anymore, even though they are a challenge. I have two more to go. Luckily, I have two of Grandma's chairs to add to the table for now.

I have decided I am getting too much gray and blue in the kitchen and dining areas and since there is that little hint of yellow in the fabric (and I also have banana's out on the counter), I have decided to add yellow here and there. The knobs on the built in hutch are now yellow.

Hey....what is that picture on the wall? It's us girls several years ago.  It is a mystery as to why Jo was allowed to have swoop bangs.

Mike and I tried to clean the barrel chairs we bought from the thrift store. They were a lot dirtier than we thought. We had two different upholstery cleaning machines but we couldn't get either one of them to work. We then tried cleaning without the machines by just using foam cleaner and a brush. That didn't work either. I called a company and it would cost more to clean one chair than the price we paid for it. Mike and I discussed this issue and decided that we really liked the chairs, they are comfortable. I called and made an appointment for the professional cleaner to come.

After they dried a few days, the cleaning guy didn't seem too happy that I called to tell him  they were still dirty.  There were a few streaks and it looked like they missed one very large black area on the arm of the chair. I figured if I paid a professional to clean them, they should look clean. So they came back and cleaned them again. Hopefully this time, it worked. I will have to wait a couple of days to make sure. Those were dirty chairs from the thrift store!

While they were here the first time, we also had drain cleaning professionals here, snaking our kitchen pipes.  On move in day back in March, the kitchen drains backed up and we had two sinks full of black water. It smelled like dirt or soil from the yard. I remember Mom used to set her plants in the sink and water them. She also threw food down the disposal quite often. I poured a whole bottle of drain cleaner down the sink. The next day we tore the kitchen out and when I had a kitchen again months later, I had totally forgotten about the backed up sinks. It drained pretty well until last week when I noticed it was slowing down and I could smell drain cleaner.  The drain technician said it was starting to clog again, under our basement cement floor.

This is all new to me. We had a septic tank in Georgia so I wan't  sure how this city sewer thing worked. My neighbor Gary, gave me a little insight and then the drain guy did too. This is a weird picture because my feet are not really where you see them. 

Back to upholstering.

My neighbor, who moved into that beautiful apartment, gave me a chair that was in her garage. I didn't take a before picture but I found this one. As you can see, the cats love it. What you can't see is the huge hole in the cane, right above Pete's head. I had considered cross stitching the back to hide the hole but ended up not doing that.

More yellow. In fact it is the same spray paint as the hutch handles.

My next project are two chairs (besides the kitchen chairs). We bought these at the thrift store and tried to clean them as well. We decided I need to re-upholster them because there isn't enough foam padding in the arms. Much to my surprise, these chairs come apart! I hope they are easy to put back together and easy to recover.

One last thing. Mike is happy that I am making progress in my unpacking.  

The above picture is everything that needed to come upstairs (which makes me laugh every time I see this picture) and the below picture is a pile I have started for another garage sale. 

Mike can't believe I am planning another sale, for next spring! I hope to be totally unpacked by then.

One Year Ago, This Week

Before I get started on this story, I wanted to share with everyone what Mike bought me for my birthday. Believe me, this is exactly what I wanted! An extremely large spool of rope! I have so many plans for it.

It has been one year since we prepared and held Mom and Dad's estate sale. Even though they lived frugally, Mom had things hidden and stuffed away in drawers and cabinets. Most of you know me enough to know that I must have a price tag on every single item for my sales. I believe this is what makes a sale successful because customers don't have to ask you about prices, and you won't go crazy from people asking you about prices. You tend to sell more that way. too I always price items low to get rid of everything. Things you think are worth money, usually are not worth as much as you thought and if you price high, you end up donating with less money in your pocket. I love it when I find a bargain, and I love it when customers find bargains at our sales. One time I was helping a friend with an estate sale and there were so many tiny items that we told the customers if it didn't have a price tag, then it was 25 cents.  I was at the checkout when an elderly man came up with a piece of metal without a price tag and asked how much. I knew it was worth more than a quarter so I told him $1. The look on his face was priceless as he handed me the one bill and ran out the door. The man next in line asked if I knew what that was. No. He then explained to me it was a jack for the model T car and could have gotten tons more money for it. I told him yes probably, but I just made that man very happy!  I usually do research on items like that but my friend was doing this sale just to get rid of everything and the owner didn't care how much money she made. It turned out we made a lot of money.  That is how it works. The 25 cent items add up to make up the difference of the larger items sold for less than what you may have wanted for it.

Back to Mom and Dad. At this point Mike and I had no idea we would be moving into this house. The plans were to  put  the house on the market after the sale. The Realtor told us to sell everything in the house including the fridge, stove, the antique shelving in the basement from an old grocery store....sell everything. So we did. But, it took us a week to price every single thing.  Maggie and I came up a few days before the rest of the family arrived. We started out in the bedroom.








Once my sisters were here to help us, I would sit at the kitchen table while they would bring me piles of items and then once priced, would haul away to be displayed for the sale.  My mother did not keep her closet like the above picture. We were throwing things in there because this was the room my niece Meredith was sleeping in.



Maggie had to sleep with all the other stuff. Notice in the below picture the cork board floor and how it had faded. You can see where the rug was. This was a concern of ours because how would this look to a potential buyer? Once we had the piano out, you could see the piano shadow as well. The skylights must have done this.



Sherry came up with the idea to paint the cork board floor which I think turned out pretty good. Nobody who looked at the house seemed to like it though.

I had a hard time letting anyone else price the items because I guess I am really particular about it. Sometimes my sisters would just be sitting there waiting for me to give them the okay to price things. We had one day left before the sale would start and I finally told Jo and Gary they could price the kitchen stuff. They were so excited!






We were finally ready for the sale and everything was priced. We each had an area to patrol and help customers with any questions they might have.



Jo and Gary were in charge of the basement.



Meredith, Sherry, and Maggie were at the checkout while Mary and I walked around and helped anyone that needed help.
We met a lot of people. I even met a classmate of mine I had never met before. My graduating class had over 900 students.There were two guys at the end of the sale that took just about everything left, although Gary and I had to take two car loads to the donation center. I can't remember how much we made but I remember everyone was pleased with the results. The last day of the sale happened to be Dad's birthday, July 16th,  so we celebrated with ice cream cake. We all sang Happy Birthday to Dad, knowing he was right there with us somehow.

My Birthweek

Our family never likes to celebrate one day for a birthday so we always  celebrate our Birthweek. Since the 4th of July is a included in my birthweek, I always have a great birthweek birthday.

The Quad Cities celebrated Red, White, and Boom on the evening of July 3rd. Our friend Kelly told us they shoot the fireworks from a barge on the Mississippi River.  I don't know Davenport well enough to find the exact place to see the fireworks without a crowd. I would rather avoid crowds. I then thought about Athens and how Molly and I found a perfect place  where we could see the fireworks up close and we would be the only ones in the area. Remember that Molly? It was on the walking bridge over East Campus Road.  Since I didn't know where to go in Davenport, I decided to invite ourselves to our friend's apartment. Terre and Frank are the friends that have the really cool apartment which is mostly windows that overlook the Mississippi.

Here are daytime pictures of when we went over for a very nice dinner soon after we moved here.

The picture below is Frank dishing up some ice cream for us in his kitchen.

This is what we ate for dinner, before ice cream. I should let everyone think that Terre and Frank made all of this but it was actually take out, and it was excellent!

Because I had been to the apartment several times, I knew it would be the perfect place for fireworks. My sister Mary, went with us too.

When we first walked out of the elevator, we were excited to see the succulents my sister Sherry had put together for Frank. The pottery was painted by Frank's mom and he had a hard time letting some of that go for the  garage sale. I blogged about that sale awhile ago. I thought how nice it was that everyone who came to their floor, would see the beauty when the elevator doors opened.

The fireworks were beautiful. There were two barges and both barges were synchronized to each other. I am not sure if it was to music because we were inside. Very spectacular and Frank said it was supposed to be the biggest and best yet. We were very pleased. I took several pictures but you know how fireworks pictures turn out, they don't. I did get one of Terre and one of her dogs Juanita, who growled at the fireworks.

When it was over I thanked them for letting me invite ourselves and I would call them whenever I wanted to come over. They said that was fine. We had to leave right away because we had to get up at 5am on Tuesday to start our July 4th day. Weeks ago we received this in the mail.

The first stop July 4th was to pick up Mike's mom in Lisbon at 7:45, an hour and fifteen minutes away. We then headed to Martell (population 254) to meet more family for the firemen's pancake breakfast.

It was all you can eat, so I ate four. YUM.

We then headed to Monticello for the parade.
The parade had emergency vehicles, trucks, tractors, floats, more tractors, belly dancers, and horses. To see all of this, it took over an hour. Every vehicle threw candy except for the cheese and beef trucks. They threw cheese and beef sticks.  I left empty handed but the kids had bags full, probably more than what they get at halloween. This is less work for them too.

When the parade was over, we went to Sharon and Bill's house for lunch. This is Mike's mom's sister and husband.
This is the view from their driveway, beautiful Iowa.

I decided to bring something vegetarian to the luncheon besides buns, and introduce my Iowa family to some non meat foods.
I made a double batch of tabbouleh salad since there would be around 21 people. I ended up bringing a lot back home. There were a few that liked it and one family member asked for the recipe. Sharon said she is excited to have me bring new things to family functions.  Tofu will be next, and I will just make one batch instead of a double. When I mentioned tofu there was a lot of grumbling in the room. I will have to find the best tasting tofu recipe.

We spent the whole day at Sharon and Bill's and had a great time catching up and telling stories. We drove Janelle back to the farm and before we left she asked if I wanted anything out of her garden. Of course, yes.
I put my foot in these pictures so you could get an idea of the size of these vegetables. They are like giant green flowers.

I took pictures while Janelle picked and cut and pulled and did all of the work.

When we got home we were so tired but I had to clean up the veggies. They are so beautiful!

Mike said my birthweek is now over.