Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Stuck My Toe In The Water!

I actually answered an ad for someone who has a 1996 Winnebago Vectra that they want to sell or trade. The price for the unit is about what fixer-uppers are selling for in our very economically depressed neighborhood. While I hate thinking of my house as a fixer-upper, it DOES need new flooring and carpets, and a ceiling patch in the garage, so I suppose it would qualify? We're working on all of the above though, and if no trade materializes in the next few months we'll list it for sale in the spring...

I would think this would be a good time to seek out a motorhome barter, if people don't want to winterize and store it over the winter...but what do I know? :).

Anyway, big step to leave that voice mail message, not planning on anything coming of it (s/he wants to trade for 5th wheels or dirt bikes or something...but having a house in this area...I don't know, if it was me that would sound mighty attractive!) but I won't be planning on anything happening until it does!

Meanwhile, we continue to purge and organize and purge some more! It helps that a friend is in the process of opening a 2nd hand store, we are more than happy to help her out with donations of merchandise and she is more than happy to have it :).

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Where The Heck Have I Been?!?!?

The first rule of blogging is, well, to BLOG. You lose readers when you don't. And I haven't. For almost 2 months. (I'd have thought it was just a month but the numbers don't lie!)

During this time I've been sick for over a week, I've spent a couple of weeks downstate when my sister had to have an unexpected, serious surgery, we've been working on things around the house to get it ready for barter (preferably) or sale (if we must), and just been busy!

What we've accomplished so far is cleaning the carpets (which we'll need to do again, why do old stains seem to reappear from nowhere after a couple of humid days?!?); we've had the deck power washed, then stained it. Hubby as done a lot of yard work. We've gone through accumulated stuff in the garage, my former shop, our bedroom, and the kitchen, and cleared out much of it. A full vanload and a truckload of stuff has been hauled away with LOTS more ready to go.

So we've hardly been sitting around waiting for things to happen :). Still a lot to do obviously, unless we want to promote the house as a "fixer-upper" - the roof over my old shop sprung a leak, it's a good roof, but apparently the garage shingles were laid by amateurs who made a couple of mistakes in placement, so we have to fix that as well as replace the drywall ceiling in that spot; replace the flooring in the utility room, bathroom, and kitchen (all very small, shouldn't take much); replace the toilet, probably the original, just wearing out like the floors. And the big thing - GET RID OF THE FLEAS!

This has been an awful year for fleas. I work for a pest control company - so I know. Whenever we have a really hot summer, there are lots and lots of fleas. This year we were hit hard! To make things worse, our minpin had a mild reaction to the flea stuff we use. Didn't bother him last year, didn't have a problem earlier this year, but last week he showed some neuro signs after it was applied (of course late at night when the vet's closed - thankfully by morning he was ok)...so no more stuff on him! But we'll have the house treated, continue treating the other dog and the cat, and make do with weekly flea baths for poor Pharaoh.

During this time, with so many other things going on, it has seemed pointless to go looking at motorhomes - online or in person - so I've just concentrated on getting ready. I will still keep putting feelers out there, maybe there is someone who has a motorhome they don't want to store yet again this winter, and will be ready to trade even before everything is done in the house, best case! We're working on being ready for God's timing, whenever it happens...or whenever He shows us how to MAKE it happen :).