The Daily Rave

DH is finally putting a top coat of paint on our hallways, downstairs and upstairs. He has been working on the hallways for months now. He goes around muttering “ 11 doorways! 11 doorways!” He means he has had to spend so much time on the trim for each one of these doors, and then actually hang and paint the doors.

We replicated the doors that were originally in this house in 1941 so it looks very cute and original. They are two panel doors.


Anyway – my rave for the day is the top coat of color is bland, a color of heavy cream, but it’s so soft and pretty. It’s just very cottage-y! This morning I viewed it next to the light blue of the cottage bathroom and honestly it’s so cute. This house is so damn cute.

That sounds lovely!

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Originally Posted by Klunick

Not only is it Friday but it's "end of the month" Friday which means it's time to deep clean the house and take down some of the September's seasonal decor and put up my Halloween decor. Since I don't have a ton of Halloween decor, I keep most of my Fall decor up and just add little touches of Halloween decor to it.

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Another deep clean has begun. I switched things up though. Normally on Friday, I deep clean my boys' bathroom, the hallway leading to that bathroom, the linen closet door, and my boys' bedroom doors. Tonight, I started in my bathroom and got that deep cleaned as well as my bedroom.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

DH is finally putting a top coat of paint on our hallways, downstairs and upstairs. He has been working on the hallways for months now. He goes around muttering “ 11 doorways! 11 doorways!” He means he has had to spend so much time on the trim for each one of these doors, and then actually hang and paint the doors.

We replicated the doors that were originally in this house in 1941 so it looks very cute and original. They are two panel doors.


Anyway – my rave for the day is the top coat of color is bland, a color of heavy cream, but it’s so soft and pretty. It’s just very cottage-y! This morning I viewed it next to the light blue of the cottage bathroom and honestly it’s so cute. This house is so damn cute.

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Cream is a lovely color.

I had a lazy weekend, but also a productive one. Got all my bedding and towels washed. Kitchen is clean. Bathroom is clean. I have to remember that the bathroom is so much easier if I do it weekly. I’d rather read than do housework!

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Originally Posted by Tradd

I had a lazy weekend, but also a productive one. Got all my bedding and towels washed. Kitchen is clean. Bathroom is clean. I have to remember that the bathroom is so much easier if I do it weekly. I’d rather read than do housework!

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Me too… I used to clean for 30 minutes to 1 hour and read for 30 minutes as a reward. I set a timer. It worked well. Lately there has been too little time for reading though.

Not sure if this is a rave or a rant… I have 9 things coming next week! I have been spending money hand over fist trying to get our place completely fixed and decorated. My goal is to have everything done by the end of the month. Everyone is telling me there is plenty of time. I hate shopping and just want it over with. Will call next week to see if I can get a few rooms painted. We were going to do it ourselves but decided to make it our anniversary present. I will be so happy to have everything done and get our lives back to some semblance of normal. It bothers me to have disarray.

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Originally Posted by frugal-one

Me too… I used to clean for 30 minutes to 1 hour and read for 30 minutes as a reward. I set a timer. It worked well. Lately there has been too little time for reading though.

Not sure if this is a rave or a rant… I have 9 things coming next week! I have been spending money hand over fist trying to get our place completely fixed and decorated. My goal is to have everything done by the end of the month. Everyone is telling me there is plenty of time. I hate shopping and just want it over with. Will call next week to see if I can get a few rooms painted. We were going to do it ourselves but decided to make it our anniversary present. I will be so happy to have everything done and get our lives back to some semblance of normal. It bothers me to have disarray.

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I’ve done a ton of decluttering over the last few months so I have a lot more space than I used to.

I spent last night and this afternoon after church reading a fabulous new book. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yannos. Fantasy, with dragons! Very different than Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, though. The next book, Iron Flame, comes out Tuesday! Thank goodness for Kindle versions. Talk about instant gratification! Anyway. Fourth Wing is incredibly gripping. I’m in the third chapter on a re-read! Yes, on the same day I finished the first read.

frugal, the redo sounds great. Please post photos, if possible, when you’re done.

Frugal, I am also bothered by disarray. I am slowly trying to get this place in better shape since we moved here under duress, in such a panic, and then spent the last three years dealing with my parents. I am going at it slowly, but trying to improve something every day.

This is not a rave, but it’s just a daily report.


For the first time in my life, I’m playing with liquid starch. I have napkins and placemats to starch. We shall see how that pans out.

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Originally Posted by frugal-one

Me too… I used to clean for 30 minutes to 1 hour and read for 30 minutes as a reward. I set a timer. It worked well. Lately there has been too little time for reading though.

Not sure if this is a rave or a rant… I have 9 things coming next week! I have been spending money hand over fist trying to get our place completely fixed and decorated. My goal is to have everything done by the end of the month. Everyone is telling me there is plenty of time. I hate shopping and just want it over with. Will call next week to see if I can get a few rooms painted. We were going to do it ourselves but decided to make it our anniversary present. I will be so happy to have everything done and get our lives back to some semblance of normal. It bothers me to have disarray.

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good for you in hiring it done. At this stage in life if we have the cash, hire it done! That’s my motto.

IL and frugal one, I too am in the "if I can afford it, I'll hire it out to be done." Last week our shed was painted in 3 hours by two painters!!!! I drank coffee and sat on the porch with my friend!!! It's hard to get the husband on board sometimes. But, what a great feeling to have that job DONE! Also had a tree trimmed. And we're getting new windows and storm doors.

Got a good jump on my Christmas shopping. Husband is done unless he comes up with more suggestions. Several things bought for one son. One thing about for my mom. Youngest son always waits until the last minute to give me suggestions.

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Originally Posted by nswef

IL and frugal one, I too am in the "if I can afford it, I'll hire it out to be done." Last week our shed was painted in 3 hours by two painters!!!! I drank coffee and sat on the porch with my friend!!! It's hard to get the husband on board sometimes. But, what a great feeling to have that job DONE! Also had a tree trimmed. And we're getting new windows and storm doors.

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swap out “I drank coffee and sat on the porch “with “I drank wine and sat on our deck “and yes, that is now my dream. Sit and watch the little worker bees do the work.

I am there. DH is not there yet


But we are limited of course by the unavailability of workers to do this work.

Yes, IL it is always hard to find someone. We were lucky with the painter- he is the retired custodian from the elem. school where I substituted and then volunteered after I retired. He retired a few years ago and we saw him doing painting around our little town. He had also plowed our driveway once. So I called him and he came fast! So now I need to see what else he does. We have figured out how to vaccuum the gutters without a ladder, so that's been done by us. There are many other jobs...and figuring out who to call is tricky!

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

But we are limited of course by the unavailability of workers to do this work.

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That's our dilemma. DH swore he would never do his own plumbing, but he has had to on occasion. I won't let him do his own electrical work, so we ask a retired master electrician how to do it, and then he helps us out with small things. Last time I asked a local electrician to add a light switch to our pantry, he told me, "You don't want to do that. This isn't a real house. This is just a cabin." People up here pick and choose their jobs, and they never choose my little requests.

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Originally Posted by catherine

That's our dilemma. DH swore he would never do his own plumbing, but he has had to on occasion. I won't let him do his own electrical work, so we ask a retired master electrician how to do it, and then he helps us out with small things. Last time I asked a local electrician to add a light switch to our pantry, he told me, "You don't want to do that. This isn't a real house. This is just a cabin." People up here pick and choose their jobs, and they never choose my little requests.

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That’s just it—I could find someone to paint my entire house. I can’t find someone to paint a closet. They don’t take the small jobs.

But those small jobs are what husbands are for. Unfortunately, my nearly 70 year old husband also slaves away at the BIG jobs.

Got my 2008 Suburu Forester (159,200 miles) sold today to a local friend. I think I was a little over-ambitious on the price, which started out at $5500. In my mind I knew I would never get the $5500 but was really wanting to get at least $5000. Then I lowered my expectations to $4800. Three weeks of dealing with various locals and people on Facebook Marketplace (trying to sell a car that way was a total dud - so many people asked if it was still available, I'd say yes, and then I'd never hear from them). Then I had a young local woman really interested in it for her first car and you could tell her parents were teaching her how to buy a used car. She definitely did her due diligence - I let her take it to their family mechanic in Santa Fe yesterday in which he gave her a HUGE laundry list of what was wrong with it to use as leverage on the price. I think she basically subtracted the total cost of the struts (over $2000 for those alone, plus another couple thousand for all the other things he deemed needed fixing) that he said needed replacing immediately (which I didn't quite agree with, as my mechanic had checked it out recently and never said boo about them). She only offered me $2800 for a car that was perfectly drivable for quite awhile. I told her that someone else had offered me $4000 for it the day before so that was that.

Finding an immediately drivable decent used car these days for under $5000 is pretty rare now. I am going to put $2000 in my emergency cash stash. Then I gave $1000 to my husband for my share of some home repairs we recently got done, and the final $1000 is going to go for a new laptop I need for business purposes and then I'll put what is left in my money market account to pay down bills.

I needed to get it sold by next week or else I would have had to renew the registration for it.

Wow, I am impressed; that could be in the frugal thread, Sioux!
I need to get my car ready for winter and then tuck it away in the barn as yesterday we had snowflakes.

We saw Craig Ferguson in his stand up act last night. That guy is very good. His show was 1.5 hours of him talking. No opener, just Craig. He is quite physical in his comedy, moving around dancing, singing, waving his hands, kicking his legs.This is quite a change from all the other comics I watch who are purely “stand up” (or perch on a stool ala Chappelle)
and talk.

He opened his show with the recorded song “Everybody Dance Now!” and he ran out on stage playing bagpipes to that tune. Hilarious!

I like Craig Ferguson a lot--partially because of the Scottish connection. I would really like to see him live--but DH is not a live comedy fan. He's not a fan of recorded comedy, either, for that matter.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

I’d rather read than do housework!

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+1

Re Craig Ferguson: For possibly the entire six years he hosted a "late late show," we taped the show to watch earlier the next evening. I think he's one of the funniest people on the planet. Spontaneously inventive.
In these sad news days, we've discovered some of the show monologues, and the best show interviews (skip the starlets), on youtube.
Especially good: His interviews with Ricky Gervais. Hard to say which of the two are wittier, but if I had to, I'm going with Craig.

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Originally Posted by Simone

Re Craig Ferguson: For possibly the entire six years he hosted a "late late show," we taped the show to watch earlier the next evening. I think he's one of the funniest people on the planet. Spontaneously inventive.
In these sad news days, we've discovered some of the show monologues, and the best show interviews (skip the starlets), on youtube.
Especially good: His interviews with Ricky Gervais. Hard to say which of the two are wittier, but if I had to, I'm going with Craig.

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I will look up that interview because I am watching old Ferguson clips on YouTube. I have not seen that one. Ricky Gervais is immortal.

At one time on this very website I had as my tagline “Ricky Gervais is my God “.

I’m currently reading Craig’s book called American on purpose: the improbable adventures of an unlikely patriot.

Today I am marveling about the difference in soil quality in our yard. Out of sheer luck, we placed my lily bed in an area of high-quality soil. It is loose and rich and friable. I have been dumping buckets of compost on it for two years now but that would not have altered the original structure yet, I would have to dump compost for a decade to make inroads.

It’s amazing because just 20 feet away where the iris beds are is crappy clay soil. I spent $800 adding Turface to that soil and it’s good enough for Iris because they are shallow rooted and don’t require high-quality soil.

Just ordered several boxes of Republic of Tea holiday tea assortments for gifts. Goddaughter’s mom and grandmother who always host at the holidays, plus for the coworker who gave me a lot of rides to work when I had car issues.

That should be the last of the Christmas stuff.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

Just ordered several boxes of Republic of Tea holiday tea assortments for gifts. Goddaughter’s mom and grandmother who always host at the holidays, plus for the coworker who gave me a lot of rides to work when I had car issues.

That should be the last of the Christmas stuff.

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The tea assortment sounds nice. Good choice for winter time.

Tea is one of my favorite consumables to gift. Thanks for the reminder and the brand, tradd.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

Just ordered several boxes of Republic of Tea holiday tea assortments for gifts.

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Borrowing this idea

Our favorite cherry orchard in Wisconsin, Seaquist Orchard, had their free shipping for Black Friday. We ordered almost all our Xmas presents from them. The bakers among our friends get dried cherries and another group gets special cherry jams. This year I am going to add a small bottle of cherry liquor to the dried cherries to they can try soaking some of them in it.

Consumables are the best.

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Originally Posted by sweetana3

Our favorite cherry orchard in Wisconsin, Seaquist Orchard, had their free shipping for Black Friday. We ordered almost all our Xmas presents from them. The bakers among our friends get dried cherries and another group gets special cherry jams. This year I am going to add a small bottle of cherry liquor to the dried cherries to they can try soaking some of them in it.

Consumables are the best.

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Cherries! Wonderful gift.

Put in my leave slip for Christmas break. Will be off Dec 20-Jan 7. I am 80 hours over the cap and if I don't use it, it will get dumped into my Sick Leave balance. I have almost 700 hours of sick leave so really don't need any more although the more I have, the more money I will get when I finally leave for good.

Had first appointment with new direct primary care physician. She is wonderful! She looked at all my xray, MRI, and CT results from past year and ordered a bunch of blood work to rule some things out, which I did that day, and she called last night to tell me the results of all the bloodwork and schedule more tests to look more into a few things. It was amazing! I highly recommend going this route, it was like going to the doctor years ago, when they listened to you and worked at diagnosing. Feel like I wasted last the whole last year, but it will be all right now.

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Originally Posted by Tybee

Had first appointment with new direct primary care physician. She is wonderful! She looked at all my xray, MRI, and CT results from past year and ordered a bunch of blood work to rule some things out, which I did that day, and she called last night to tell me the results of all the bloodwork and schedule more tests to look more into a few things. It was amazing! I highly recommend going this route, it was like going to the doctor years ago, when they listened to you and worked at diagnosing. Feel like I wasted last the whole last year, but it will be all right now.

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This is exactly my experience with my own direct care physician. I have been amazed at the times she reaches out to ask questions, give me advice, etc.

Yes, she even recommended specific vitamins I need to take. And she is not alarmist, very balanced.

I got a nice box of different types of bite size brownies from the customer whose hot air freight shipments I worked on every day of Thanksgiving weekend. Very tasty, but I had a few and put the rest out for the office to share the hip spread. LOL.

The Indian half of the owners who is such a jerk is now gone to India for about six weeks. It’s like a mini vacation for me!

My little house is looking especially cozy on this cold Vermont night so I thought I'd share a pic.

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catherine, how lovely! thanks for sharing.

That’s looks wonderful.

So nice! Have you all had a lot of snow there?