We are back!

One week ago, we flew to Clearwater to look at our new place.  We got in early afternoon and went to Sandy and Rich's to get our key.  When we got to our place, Sandy and Rich had been there, delivered our two boxes, and also set us up with a rotisserie chicken, a loaf of bread, a bowl of grapes, and a bottle of champagne and a case of water, along with a Congrats balloon!  That was so nice!  We were able to eat 3 meals off of that and just finished the grapes today.  We haven't had the champagne yet!  We loved our new place.  The only problems were that it was pretty dated - it had never been painted inside...still had the 1982 light blonde paneling and it was dirty.  Terri had been ill for a while so wasn't able to clean it like she would have wanted.

Sunday night we went with 10 others from the park to The Wise Guy Cooks (or something like that), a dinner theater starring a guy from our park, Vinny.  The cost was $45 each, but Vinny gave us a deal - $45 per couple.  It was a 4 course Italian meal - salad, pasta, meatballs & Italian sausage, and dessert.  After the main course, the play started.  Vinny was the wise guy who had his own tv show, about cooking Italian foods.  He made 4 recipes which were wonderful, he sang beautifully, and there was lots of comedy!  After the show was over and cannolis were being served, he came to our table to tell us his mom had died that afternoon and he would be leaving immediately to go to her home to make arrangements.  We all had a fun evening!

Monday and Tuesday mornings, we got busy pulling out carpet and removing knickknacks that we didn't want, as well as furniture that wasn't our style.  We had a garage sale Wednesday.  Anything that was left was taken to the shed for the Chinese Auction we have in either January or February.  We moved everything out of the two bedrooms and bathrooms so that the bedrooms could be painted first.  Laurie told us she'd love to paint for us and would do so for $10/hour.  She also said she was fast.  We couldn't turn that down.  So now everything is in the living room, including our bed.  Everything is off the walls and out of the closets.  On Thursday, we picked out paint for each room and organized it so Laurie wouldn't have any problems deciding which paint goes where.  Laurie will also paint all the ceilings too.  When Dave takes furniture down in September, he'll move everything out of the living room, back into the 2nd bedroom, leaving the master bedroom empty so we can lay laminate in there first.  We worked hard, but we were able to get lots done and even get to have some fun!  I played cards 2 nights and we went to the water to eat 2 times!  It was really hot and humid there, so the a/c was on the whole time!  One day it was 102!!

We were happy to get home safely today and even went to church to make up our last 101 class.  201 won't start until Sept. 21st.

More later...