My cousin who is more like a sister was here for the week and left on Monday. It was so good to see her and catch up. We always laugh so much together and that are so nice. Both my mother and husband are almost deaf and neither will wear their hearing aids so joking with either is extremely difficult these days. Nothing like repeating over and over and them hearing completely different words to kill a punch line, though both used to have good senses of humor. It was just good to laugh again.
THEN...
We finally found a lake house and it was where my husband and son wanted because of the lake and strangely within our price range since things there are usually very overpriced and sell as soon as they hit the market. It is small and stuck in the 70s but otherwise very nice and won't take a fortune to update a little but we are planning to leave it a little rustic. It is livable now so we are going to enjoy it while we do a few things to it. It is about 3 hours away and on a WMA lake where they also own acres of forest land that only allowed a few properties on the water to be sold, houses and boat houses to be built then they abruptly stopped. That makes it so quiet and peaceful but very rare to find a house there these days. As soon as it hit the market we put down a contingency bid sight unseen, visited it, fell in love the minute we stepped out on the deck overlooking the water and signed the papers. We feel so lucky.
My husband sold his older car a few weeks ago and challenged me to furnish the lake house with just the money he got from the sale except for the beds and refrigerator, which he was going to get. I love a challenge so I started looking for bargains and put the word out. The bedding place had a 40% off sale on bed frames and mattresses, we found a refrigerator at a big discount because the store had stopped selling that brand. A friend's sister was in charge of getting the estate of her parent's neighbor ready to sell. Our friend called her and found out that she had some furniture for the living room and dining room still in the box as well as some outdoor furniture. The couch and loveseat were not the color that I was planning but coordinated well and made me realize that I needed that splash of just that color. They are so comfy, too so I am glad that we got them. They also had some older solid wood chest of drawers exactly what I had been looking for to paint for each room because I want color there. I can't tell you how hard it was to walk through all that beautiful crystal and many sets of china still sparkling and dustfree as well as a lot of other beautiful antiques and walk away without a bunch of that but I am trying to get rid of stuff here and I am going for minimalist at the lake. A neighbor told us about a big sale on pellet grills at Sam's so we picked that up too. I got all the bedding that I will need as well as everything to furnish the kitchen on sale at Walmart, Sam's and Amazon. As a result, we were able to get my part and his for the amount he challenged me to spend furnishing the house, well, except for the towels, washcloths, shower curtain and shower mat. Oh, and a few pictures. Those things took us over MY budget a bit but he happily conceded his budget for them since we had already gotten his part in my budget. We were able to order everything except for the things we picked up from the friend and have it all delivered. It has been a whirlwind few days but I am so happy that we were able to find everything and not spend a fortune. It was great fun. I was expecting it to take weeks to get everything. Three things I am good at, challenges, finding bargains and packing--Daddy used to say that I could pack most of a house in a Volts Wagon van so I was in my element.
We are in the 95%-98% range for eclipse totality of the eclipse. Our new lake house is in the center of it but I am good with being here today getting things done. I have my funny little glasses to run out for a few minutes. It is like the Kentucky Derby. All the build-up for just 3-4 minutes.
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