Car for Sale

I hate to see it go, but I have decided to sell my Kia Sportage. I don't really drive it much any more, so it's better to sell it to some one who can get some use out of it.

It's cute, isn't it? I hate to sell it...I love driving it, but it's not doing much good sitting around and I really need the money more than I do another car taking up space (we have 7 right now including this one). It'll make a nice cheap car for some one.

If any one out there in blogger land is interested in buying a car I'm only asking $3,500 and the book value is over $4,000 so it's a great deal! It's a 2001 with around 81,000 miles, 5sp, 4wd, alarm, about as loaded as a Kia gets and top is in excellent condition with no leaks and easy to remove. Really fun to drive!

That's all of my shameless advertising for the day.

When It Rains, It Pours

I am once again blogging after a long relapse. Its not that there's nothing going on here, its that there's too much going on and pretty much none of it is house related. And none of its good.

I am going to be unemployed at the end of May. For the second time I am working at a K Mart store that is closing. Our last day is tentatively set for May 24. I worked at Princeton K Mart and they closed, so I swore I'd never work for K Mart again. I went to work at the one here in Vincennes last May, and now, not even a year later, they are also closing. That's 7 total years of my life I will never get back.

To add to that, my throw out bearing is going out in my car so I'm putting a new clutch in (it doesn't really need the clutch, but there's 80,000 miles on it, I've only had it for 5,000 miles, so we figured it'd be best to replace it now) and shifter that will work better with the new clutch. I also had to have more brake work done. James got a new truck. Its a diesel and he had to put a new thermostat and oil pressure gauge it, which somehow caused the radiator to spring a leak, which cost over $400.

We're getting a new (used) fridge this weekend. James parents got a new one and we get their old one, which is actually better than the one we have now. Bad news is James wants to drill a hole in the hardwood floor in the kitchen for the ice maker. I told him no because when we gut the kitchen it's not staying there. He said the kitchen won't be redone for a few years so we'll just fill the hole in later if the fridge ends up somewhere else :(

I got overcharged at Kohl's the other day. The cashier didn't give me a receipt though so I'm just out the 20 some dollars.

I have an "emergency" doctors appointment later today. I have a skin problem that looks like blood spots on my skin but its not bleeding, and its been going on for over a year but has gotten worse in the last three weeks so they wanted me in ASAP.

Most likely nothing will be done to the house till this summer. Instead of being "house broke" like many housebloggers are, we are "car broke". All our money has been poured into our cars to keep them going. For what we've put into them we could have finished the dining room and almost finished the bathroom.

Like I said: when it rains, it pours. One bad thing after another.

The only good news: I'm on spring break. No classes this week. My midterm grades are in and they're all good. Oh, and I just started the third book in the twilight series which took me forever to find because they're still selling out as fast as stores get them in. Now I have to find the fourth one.

Snow Pictures

We have a ton of snow here in Southern Indiana, but thankfully we're far enough north that we didn't get the 3" of ice that every one to our south got. We just have a foot of snow. We still have power and the highways are clear now.

I couldn't go to my class today though because of this...
It doesn't really look that bad from this picture, but that is a Mustang (which sits low to the ground) and that is a two foot wall of snow in the background from the plows going down the highway. James four wheel drive made it, but there is no hope for my car moving today.

This is our backyard today. And this is after the melting that happened yesterday.

James tried to move his mom's car yesterday to the part of their driveway that had been plowed. That is about 12" of solid snow and ice sitting on the hood. He didn't make it far.

This was what happened yesterday when I let Sox out. He fell through the snow (which was taller than him), made it under the truck and sat down. I don't think he liked it.

James has to shovel the driveway when he gets home today so I can get out tomorrow. That sucks for him. And the news said we're going to get another inch or so tonight. Great.

If I actually make it outside today I'll probably post more pictures later today.

Antique Curio Cabinet Pictures

I have some pictures today. It's the cabinet I got for Christmas! (Please ignore the mess around it)

There are glass shelves that go in it and it has lights in the top that were added a few years ago. Not really sure if they're going to stay or not.

The pretty handle

Just a little bit of the antique glass that came with it. There are 3 boxes all together, and it's almost all antique and it belong to James grandma and great grandma. I haven't been through all the boxes yet, but so far I've found cobalt, green, and milk glass, and several old (1800's) medicine bottles and jars and cooking bottles (oil, seasonings, spices). I also saw some silver teapot shaped place card holders, some really old Christmas decorations, and a ton of glass ashtrays.

I'm going to stain it the same dark red-brown I used on the mirror. You can't really tell from the pictures, but it does need to be refinished...there's some wear on the corners. And it doesn't match the dark wood that we have all through the house.

I would have pictures of the garage, but it's been snowing and sleeting today on top of cold and windy. And I'm a baby so I'm not going out there. Hopefully I'll have them next time

Quick Update

I'm a little behind on posting, so there will probably be several posts over the next few days. I hadn't realized that it has been nearly two months since my last post so there's a lot of catching up. Things have been a little busy here. I am between classes at school right now so I don't have my camera which means no pictures right now. But they're coming.

Since my last post James got the garage cleaned up and installed a woodburner in there so he can be warm while working on cars when it's around zero degrees out (like it has been lately). He's also been slaving away at my moms truck when he hasn't been sick.

Not much has been going on inside the house though. I didn't get the dining room done cause I was working so hard on finals I kinda forgot about it. It paid off though, I just found out I made the deans list!! But we didn't have dinner here this year. Maybe I'll get it done by next year. Actually I'm hoping we have it done by next year cause I don't think I can look at it in the state it's in for another year.

For Christmas I got an antique curio cabinet that I think originally belong to James grandma, although his parents bought it for me from his uncles dad, and it came with a lot of antique glass, buttons and thimbles that had belonged to his grandma and great grandma. As soon as it gets warm out I'm going to refinish it and I think it's going to go in the living room until I decide where I want it to stay permanently.


School has started again so that and work and playing Wii Fit (I also got a Wii and Wii Fit for Christmas) and cleaning and playing more Wii and homework are about all I've been doing.


I'll be posting pictures of the woodburner, the clean garage (which is like a miracle...it was a disaster), and the cabinet before too long

First Refinishing Project Done!!

The mirror is finally done!

Before:
During:
After:

I think it came out amazing for having no idea what I was doing! I used Citristrip, cleaned it with mineral spirits, let it dry for a couple of days, then sanded it with an industrial strength scotch pad, used an attachment on the air compressor to blast the dust away, and stained it with Minwax Red Mahogany and finished with a coat of poly.

It's now ready for it's new home. It's going to go above the couch in the living room. That's really the only place where it'll look right because of it's size. It's about 4'x3'. I'll post pictures once it's been hung.

Ummm...

I left hubby alone with a chainsaw and this is what I came home to: (yes, that is him making a rare appearane in a picture)And there it is being hauled away. It is now sitting by the barn. And we are going to plant a new tree there in the spring, James just hated the cedar tree so much he decided it needed to go.

We are looking into having it cut into rough planks because I really don't want to waste all that cedar. I say rough planks because this past weekend I found out that we have use of a planer and band saw! They're not ours, they actually belong to James brother, but they're brand new still in the boxes and we have full permission to use them! If we can get find some place to rough cut them then we can plane them ourselves and save a lot of money.