Sandblasting for dummies:

Sandblasting for dummies:
Buy $20 sand blaster from Harbor Freight
Buy play sand from Home Depot (recommended)
Have issues with clogging on blaster (curse)
Read instructions
Note: do not use sand
Curse some more
Start sifting sand to keep tiny little pebbles out of the $&@}%*+ blaster
Work for HOURS
Finish one item.....





There are a few spots on here that are iffy still. I'll have to hit it a few more times again with a sanding block.

I regret not taking a before picture. Sigh.

I hit one of the ceiling cents and it comes off OK, but not great.





Butch was a dear and sifted all of the remaining sand so I'm ready to hit it again sometime soon.

Until the were watching MLK movies and cleaning the house. (Finally putting Christmas - what little we had out) into the attic.

Tiny House - Investment or Money Pit?

I was asked by the 3rd or 4th person if we were in a Money Pit situation with our Tiny House.
The short answer is "no".
The long answer goes something like this:

Paid X for the house
Will invest 20% of the cost of the house to bring it up to the current century bringing the value to 1.2(X) we'll call this R now
House down the street with a similar layout is listed currently at 1.6*(R) so
What you have to understand is the house down the street is the same plan house however extended into the carport (maybe gaining 200sq foot) and done poorly in my opinion AND with horrible carpet and a general need of remodel that WE need in our house - paint, new floor, some small remodels to get it up to par. So THAT would be a money pit!

So, you see... the house down the street in its CURRENT state is still higher than my max investment into this house. I can figure I would double my money after renovations if I were to sell it then... so is it a money pit? Nope. Does it seem like it at times? Heck yeah!! It's a time sucker for sure... and it will take a GREAT outflow of money at the onset. Now did it have to? No, not really. I could have left the stupid kitchen wall in place, spiffed it up, bought a new electric stove (there was no recovering THAT stove), dealt with the lack of plugs in the bathroom and no electricity to add a dishwasher. But, let's face reality, it was LONG overdue for a remodel in most of these areas, it was still stuck firmly in the 60s.

I'm trying to be patient... I'm trying to do things in the right order, choose my contractors wisely. I think I'm there. I'm using Angie's list to get some good folks. I'm now waiting for our general contractor's calendar to clear to get the flooring and drywall done. I've chosen an electrician to do the electrical work... and now negotiating the order of work and the fact that some things just have to be rough in work until we can get the cabinets in place... which has to wait for floors, which has to wait for wall repair, which has to wait for electrical to be completed ... so you can see how things are just snowballs of fun, right? I think I have the order of work down pat now and now to coordinate and schedule and we'll get the party started and the money flowing.... then we'll deal with getting it rented a few times to pay for itself (or become a great tax shelter)

Animal from the trip

 

As we were rushing back to the ship in Cozumel – dashing through Playa Del Carmen, we heard a rustling in the bushes to our left and looked over to see one of these

I didn’t think to take a picture of it, so I snatched this off the internet.

I couldn’t figure out what on earth it was, but it was cute and appeared to be grazing in a little section there in the bushes…

So after a while of forgetting to look it up, I did today and here is what I found:

Agouti are about 16-25" long, weigh from 2 to 9 pounds. They are rodents with coarse black or brown hair, active during the day.  Agoutis are active during the day and live in monogamous pairs.^[4] They mainly feed on fruits and seeds, and are important seed dispersers

 

Ours was active and it was about 4:30pm … so that’s about right…

A mouse in the house...

Well, not really a mouse in the HOUSE, but a mouse at work. For those of you who don't know I have horrible floaters... they can look like spiders and mice they are quite large. Doc says there is nothing to be concerned about... I would beg to differ the first few years that I would about jump out of my skin when I would see something out of the corner of my eye... but as time went on I have gotten quite used to my skitterie little "friends". So, why the discussion about floaties and such? Well, yesterday as I was sitting at work I saw something out of the corner of my eye and thought... "hum"... nawh, has to be a floatie... so I moved my keyboard a little so I could see better into the darkness under my desk and what should I see but a cute little field mouse. Yep...
I'm glad I'm no easily freaked out... I just shooed him away and told the building custodian who brought me a trap. Yeah... I'm too lazy to live trap him and take him far away.. he will have to "go". Poor mousie.
I did joke that we should capture him and make him like the mouse on the movie The Green Mile.
Yeah, not going to happen... then came stories of the Big House in Missouri and the mouse in the chair - Freddie Krueger style in the arm of the chair eating off the lining of the vinyl! The mouse going up the stairs and me talking to it telling it that it better NOT get into my suitcase or we would have issues. Ha!
Why is It that mice don't gross me out as much as roaches and such?

Cruise Food...

Ok, so only the food Liz decided she wanted pictures of... I should have taken a picture of my rack of lamb I had...

And sometimes we just got too carried away and had to eat it as it came in because it looked and tasted sooooo good!

Day 8 - last day at sea as well as Day 9 - departing the boat!

would you believe there are NO Pictures of this day with the exception of the videos just as I got up?  Weird??  Maybe...

 yes, that would be water making it up to our windows... proof.. and the sun coming up on a stormy day.  The clouds stayed with us all day!

Butch managed to get a cold on the boat and was sneezing and blowing and decided to lay low for the day, so the girls and I had a free day.  Sally and I went to an early breakfast together as the girls and Butch were still in the rooms.... sleepy heads.  We then went downstairs to the Atrium to watch the cake decorating challenge.  The cruise director was involved and he was a riot.  They were making black forest cake and he managed to pour a WHOLE bottle of Cherry Liqueur into his.. it was DRIPPING with booze.  The person in competition with him did a good job with hers.

After that Sally and I went and played Bingo for an hour.

Then it was time for me to meet up with Liz at Izumi's for lunch.  I was waiting at the elevator and she was coming up the stairs.  Silly girl.  Silly mom.  About 1/2 hour late we finally met up and went just a little late.  We tried Sashimi and had salmon.  Yes, Both Angela and I stretched a little and ate the raw stuff too.  It was OK, nothing I would order on a regular basis.  Angela and I liked the Spicy Crunchy Shrimp (cooked) and the California Rolls (cooked) and we tried some Spicy Miso Ra-men as well - one bowl was enough to let us all have some.  It was a nice meal for we three girls.  Sally didn't want to try any Sushi.

We then met back up with Sally and She and Liz and I did some more Bingo before going to dinner.  Butch came out of the room for dinner and we had a nice final meal together.  I tell you, I could get used to being fed well every night.  :)

Day 9 - departing the boat.  Well, another VERY early morning for me as those blasted engines went off at 6am... so I went ahead and got up and showered in preparation for the departure.  I went up on deck and took a few shots while coming into port.  (7am port)

 What I didn't do was stay on deck the whole process as we nosed into port two, then swung all the way around backwards and backed into port 3.  Wow... talk about some maneuvering!

Another thing I didn't take a picture of is Butch's bare feet.  yep, he managed to pack EVERY pair of shoes he owned.  hahaha!  He went in search of a pair of flip flops - no such luck, so he had to walk off the boat without his shoes... poor guy!  When we picked up his bag he was able to dig in them and get the shoes out and put them on right there in the luggage area :)

Getting off was nice as we grabbed a porter and had all of our bags - there were 7 bags in total to be lugged out to the shuttle bus, so a porter was well worth it!

 the cross walk is our last connection to the fun boat!!

AND we're officially back on land.  After such rough water there for a while, I'm sure our world will be rocking for a few more days, but what fun we had on this trip!!

Even Butch who had always been a die hard "we have to get there and stay there" person is more open to a cruise, however, he's thinking we should get a balcony to make drying our scuba gear a bit easier.  We sat on the deck for an hour to get them a bit dryer then sitting in the room, however, we ended up with them hanging all over the bathroom for a 1/2 day and night anyway...  yuck!

Next time, right??

Day 7 - Christmas Day

There aren't a lot of pictures from today as it was Costa Maya, Mexico as it was a shopping day.  What do you take pictures of as you shop?  Nothing really...

 My toes as I waited for the others to get ready and come on up for breakfast.  We were right by where the ropes come out of the ship, or right under or something... either way there were engines that when we were coming into port would kick on and then that was the end of my nights sleep for sure.  I was up for the day from that point forward.

 you can see OUR room in this shot... the middle two port holes on the bottom row - just after the bigger picture windows...

 Yep, right there by the ropes... I had to keep the curtains shut while getting ready this morning :)

 The girls ahead of us heading into port.

 After we shopped and looked around, we headed back onto the ship to sit by the pool and have some lunch.  :)

Merry Christmas from us to you!!

Liz cheated with a selfie so she could compose it just so....

 Our servers were GREAT!!
Not sure why we didn't get a picture with them...

Our every other night towel animal - a bunny today :)

the seas as we prepared to go to dinner.. they only got worse over night...

Everyone kept meals down and slept well regardless.

Day 6 - Christmas Eve Bonus

 Guess who was eating a few tables over from us on Christmas Eve???  I guess he set Ms. Claus over to the cruise for the week.

guess he was taking a break from his deliveries