Tuesday, September 18, 2012

And Another Week Slips By....

First, some good news: We got "our" new fence and it looks pretty good, especially compared to what was there before.



The "however" is that it likely won't stay good looking for long. It's the cheapest grade of fencing you can get and there are no plans to attempt to preserve it in any way. I give it five years max before it starts looking as crappy as what was here to start with. Florida is tough on wood, even when it's well-cared-for. If history is any guide, this won't be. On the other hand, who knows what part of the world we'll be living in five years from now.

Rainy season continues. The first couple years we were in Florida, the rain started to taper off in September, but this year it's still going full bore halfway through the month. I don't know if moving across state is the reason or if things are getting back to normal after several years of "drought". (Most places in the US would start building arks if they received the amount of rain Florida gets in a drought year, hence the scare quotes.) Our recent yard work is hold up well to the onslaught, although the bare areas haven't started filling in like I had hoped. No matter; this is Florida. Something green will take over in no time.

We went through the last pile of bins over the weekend. It's all Christmas stuff that we've been carting around for 20+ years, most of which has never seen the light of day. It was a little depressing; after most of a day's of work, we still had the same pile of bins in our living space. We did get the stuff sorted into bins-we're-keeping vs. bins-for-yard-sale, but because the shed is already packed right to the door, we have to leave it all in the Florida room for now.

Which brings me to more news. I'll be driving a moving van full of left-overs to Michigan sometime between now and the end of October, unless a last-minute buyer jumps up on Craigslist. I seriously doubt that will happen given that everything has been listed for over a month and we haven't gotten a single inquiry on any of it. As of right now we have for-sure takers for everything but the dining room table and chairs. I'm pretty sure I know where that's going, but if the person backs out, I have two or three alternatives. In any case, it all will be gone in a month or so. Then we can finally start to figure out how we're going to live in this place. The last month has felt like we're living in a storage unit.

We are also going to start working on the biggest project so far: a full roof-over of the trailer and Florida room. That will probably put a serious dent in our savings account, so we won't be doing much else for a very long time. But it's the one improvement that will save us major money on utilities by beefing up the insulation in our roof, plus giving us over-hangs that will keep a lot of sun off the walls. Our electric bill for August just came; $122.33. That's the highest we've ever had anywhere we've lived. My goal is to cut that in half next year. The positive news is that this place is built and insulated so poorly (like nearly everything in Florida), we can easily make huge improvements.

So off to start making phone calls and stimulatin' the local economy!!

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