House Clean

A week ago tomorrow was our regularly scheduled cleaning ladies day.  Every other Tuesday evening, we get a text from the company owner with the time the ladies will be arriving.  Last week's expected arrival time on Wednesday was 10AM.  At 10:30AM, they hadn't arrived yet so I texted the owner asking for an update.  

Her reply was 'they made a mistake and went to a different house'.  Huh?  She said they can be there by 12:30 and asked 'is that OK'?  I replied 'No, it is not OK.  How is that even possible?  We have been the 2nd house on their schedule every other Wednesday for some time'.  She was apologetic and said they made a mistake.  The only thing was - this wasn't the first time we've had crazy scheduling issues with them.  I thought about saying 'OK, see them later' but I've made that concession before.  More than once.  And that doesn't count the time they totally no-showed - having told their boss they were done working for the day.  I told her we would see them in two weeks - and she offered for them to clean on Friday.  She had offered Fridays before when there was a screw up on their end - so this time, I let her know that suggesting Friday just made it worse.  I had asked for Fridays when we first hired them and was told Friday wasn't possible.  

It appears to be available if they have to fix a screw up.

I had taken a picture of another cleaning company's car so I phoned them.  They arrived Wednesday evening and sent us an estimate later that evening.  It was more than we've been paying so I mulled it over and replied to them on Thursday.  I countered with the mid-point between what they were asking and what we had been paying - and also agreed to pay the higher amount (their ask) for the initial cleaning which I knew would be more time for them.  I also suggested that they have a business opportunity - husband and wife team - and the husband could do window washing, power washing of garage floors, exterior, sheds, patios, etc. and charge 'extra' for those things - and also suggested that seeing their company vehicle at another house in the neighborhood could be good for their business.  

They accepted our counter and will be here one week from today.  I texted the company owner of our soon-to-be-ex cleaning company to let her know to take us off their schedule.  She replied 'OK and I'm sorry'.  

Our new company promised we would have an impeccable clean.  I like the sound of that.  

It will be an adjustment - I think it's possibly mostly going to be the wife doing the cleaning so it will take her longer than the two (sometimes three) ladies we've had - but it's OK.  We're confident they will do a great job - and we were very impressed with them.  They are both attending classes in the afternoons to improve their English.  They were very easy to understand (something that has been hard with previous company - few of the ladies speak English) and I think getting to know what we like and what we want them to do will be much easier with better communication.  Trust me, I'm not picky.  I'm grateful to have the help.  This is a lot of house for two older people.  We keep up pretty well but it's very nice to have help with floors, window shutters, etc. .   

Two posts in one day.  Woot woot!  I'm on a roll!

True Winter

We enjoyed complete sunshine Monday through Saturday this week.  It was lovely - crystal clear bright blue skies and bright, warm sun.  The melting process makes all the gutters on the house sound cheery with the trickling of water down the spouts.  Streets thaw out a bit during the day so there's trickling water heading to the storm drains all day, too.  

On our weekly Saturday trip to Atlantis, we finally (FINALLY) saw blacktop in the street.  Still some patches of ice and definitely watery melt but it was so nice to see the road for the first time in weeks.  Only the streets in our neighborhood still had snow and ice - since they don't get plowed.  It's made getting out of the neighborhood a bit of a challenge this winter.  It's the first winter we've had so much snow and ice that cars on the street sound crunchy.  Loudly crunchy. 

The weather forecast said 70% chance of snow on Sunday but we've had so many days of the weather forecast being wrong, we were thinking 'no, it's not going to snow'.  But it did.  Boy did it!  It snowed most of the night and most of the day today and we've got more than 12 inches of snow on the ground now.  

When the snowfall slowed down a bit, I heard an engine running - and sure enough, the best neighbor on the planet was outside in snow gear with his snow blower clearing the sidewalks between our houses and also the driveway.  The worst of the storm was over so he got right to work.  He is the bomb-diggety of neighbors and we are so blessed.

J. passed most of the day watching football.  I should have worked on taxes - but I didn't.  Vegged rewatching The Crown.  

I've been tortured by Amazon for several days - attempting to use my rewards points to purchase iTunes gift cards caused them to flag our account as possible fraud activity.  They froze the accounts, cancelled the purchase and forced me to wait 2 hours before I could reactivate.  I phoned the customer service number and confirmed the gift card purchase was legit and completed by me.  After the two hours, I set up a new password and re-connected my Amazon Visa to our account.  All was well.  I waited a day and did a new purchase of gift cards.  When I went to bed that night, the order was 'scheduled' so I figured the email with the activation code would be in my in box in the morning.  It wasn't - and when I clicked on the order status, I immediately received the same email messages as the day before - fraudulent activity.  Damn!  Another call to customer service [and yes, I gave them a piece of my mind because having just confirmed the day before in a long call that I had purchased the gift cards and did not understand at all how they flagged it as fraud again] - another two hour wait - another round of cancelled purchases including them deciding to cancel my Kindle Unlimited subscription which was 'new'.  The prior days cancellations didn't do that.  Completed another reset.  Then I noticed that all of my reward points were gone - not available to use and not showing on the account at all.  If it had been a few dollars, it would have been no big deal.  But the points were over $400 and I am going to use them so I want them back.  The current theory is the points will update when our credit card billing cycle updates to Amazon.  Fingers crossed.  The guy said 'the second fraud alert basically cleared your entire account'.  Great.  Not.  I just logged on to our credit card account and took a picture of how many points we have as of today - and the picture does include the date - so we'll hopefully get it straightened out soon.  

It's been a couple days from my initial start of this post and am relieved to say my Amazon points reappeared so all is well on that front.  So glad because the tediousness of calling their customer service line is not something I was looking forward to doing again.  

Sunny today - bright blue skies again.  Melting happening but it was zero degrees when we woke up this morning so it's pretty darn cold.  It's almost 3PM and the outside temp is 28 degrees.  Melt takes warmth and we don't have any.  LOL.  We saw a bald eagle on the tee on the course outside our fence - he took off with some 'food' in his talons and his flight was so beautiful.  Amazing to see him up close - we see bald eagles on the trees near the lake when we drive north to Reno - but it was really awesome to see him right outside our yard. 

We just finished the quarterly call with our finance guy - as always, I was nervous about the call - and also as usual was reminded by the call that there's nothing to worry about.  Our account took a huge hit in 2022 (as did many accounts) but it's already inching it's way back.  Our finance guy is confident we will recover quite a bit by the end of 2023 and that's a relief.  We are keeping things pretty much status quo for now but we did mention we plan to make a withdrawal and will work out the details of that in the next month or so.

Tons of leftovers in the fridge but I'm hankering something else - which is pretty much the norm.  I'm going to use the air fryer to make something.  Roasted potatoes I think.

 

Snow Ice Cream

There is close to a foot of snow on the ground after some huge snow storms.  It snowed all Sunday night and all day Monday and we watched an inch be added in a very short time.  This is the most snow we've had since we moved here. 

I joked with J. that I thought we should get some snow pants - would make being outside shoveling and/or doing anything outside easier when there's that much snow on the ground.  I went to the Scheel's website and got us each a pair for 1/2 off!  SCORE!  

We are going to go outside and get some clean snow - not the top or bottom but middle - and try making some snow ice cream and/or do shave ice.  We have lots of sugar free flavoring syrups to use and it sounds yummy.  It would be yummier if it were 100 degrees outside but we have to take advantage of the opportunity. 

Our niece is getting married in June so we are busily planning our road trip and a long weekend in Paso Robles, CA. .  AND it's looking like B. is going to be able to get there as well.  We are excited.  We got another free cruise certificate from Atlantis for NCL (the only cruise line we use) - so I spent time today looking at available cruises. No matter how hard I try to really want to go, I don't.  A cruise leaving out of Qatar visiting Africa sounds awesome - but it's 17 days and that doesn't include the days to get to/from.  We embark from Qatar and disembark in Mauritius.  Flights to/from are 15 hours minimum and that's only if it's non-stop.  I just can't get excited about that.  I wish I could.  

Maybe we'll do a 7 day Mexican Riviera again out of Los Angeles - I think I could manage that.  Maybe. 

J. is busy with a host of things he's working on for one of his golf groups.  He's the current 'Little Sir' which apparently is code for the guy who has to do a shit-load of stuff to coordinate the monthly meeting.  Getting confirmations of attendees, confirming the number attending with the casino they rent space from and also get lunch from, arranging interesting guest speakers.  He also implemented a somewhat automated RSVP system - and he's been incredibly patient with the guys who just won't 'do' technology.  Picture a bunch of SOS (Senior Old Stubborn) men refusing to cooperate.  I picture them throwing a hissy fit as they dial a phone call on their flip phone to say yes or no to attending - but J. says it's truly guys who don't use any technology - at all.  They don't have computers or smart phones.  I picture them with rotary phones.  Anyway - J. is his usual super patient self and hopefully as the new system becomes the 'usual', people will adapt.  I hope so.  

We spent a little time at a casino south of us yesterday as we both acknowledged that we're feeling a little 'closed off' these days.  Not going out all that much given getting out of our driveway and out of our neighborhood is fraught with a host of challenges - our streets are not plowed so they become thick and slick with ice as soon as the snow starts melting.  Once we get past those streets, all the city streets are plowed regularly as is the freeway.  I watched an Amazon van slipping quite a bit as he tried to get moving after making a delivery - not easy to make progress in neighborhoods with no snow plowing.  

As usual, our epic neighbor T. has been shoveling our driveway for us daily - and our other epic neighbor M. shovels the sidewalks.  I went outside on Monday to thank T. for shoveling for us - and he said he makes a point of keeping a clear path between our houses so in case we have any emergency, we can get to their house to get help.  His 4WD GMC truck is a beast and there's virtually nowhere he can't get to - even in the worst of the snow. 

I'm hoping to make a Target run tomorrow or Friday - just need a few things that Target is the easiest option.  Or maybe Walmart which is much closer to our house.  Target is way south of us and even though the freeway is plowed, it's still a trek.  I remember fondly the days of a Target run being such a fun thing to look forward to - but that was in the days of young kids and always fun to get out and window shop.  Now, it's just getting necessities and not much looking at things I know I don't need.  

My first born 'baby' is turning 32 on Monday and I managed to get a small package off to him today.  I hope he likes it.  I told him it was 'schmaltzy' and he asked what that meant.  I said 'you'll see'.  Overly sentimental.

Crazy Snow

I reveled in seeing the actual street yesterday after the rain had melted the last of the snow and ice on our street.  J. even drove his car for the first time in a while with the streets out of the neighborhood safer and not requiring all wheel drive.  This morning, we woke up to more snow.  LOTS of snow.  It's been snowing (literally) all day including some periods of really huge flakes in high volume floating down.  

It's always interesting to check out the snow view from both the front windows and the back windows.  The wind direction is almost always completely different depending on what side of the house you're on.  

Amazon just sent me a message from the Amazon driver that he can't make a delivery and asking if I want to come to Walmart in North Carson (we have two Walmarts) to pickup.  I wrote back (after stressing myself out to accept the message requiring multiple logins and worrying that I was being hacked - I wasn't) that I can't travel to Walmart to pickup for the same reason you can't get to our house.  They will return the package to Amazon and it will be set up for delivery later this week.  

It's coffee and we're not in dire straits for that right now so all is good. 

It is very cold and I made myself a double hot chocolate with whip cream to warm myself from the inside out.  It worked but now I'm cold again. 

A fish and chips truck is visiting a grocery store parking lot in our area today and we had planned to do that for dinner - but it's looking like we can't get there so we will make dinner at home.  

If Amazon can't deliver, it's a sign we should just stay home. 

Winter Storms

We've had plenty of storms the past month - and lots of snow.  There has been snow on the ground for weeks and then we'll get some rain and it will be warm enough to start the snow melting.  Then back to cold and more snow.  Our 'pond' is back today on the golf course but no ducks or geese today.  At least not that we saw.  I think the coyotes scared them away for a long time?  

When we put the deposit on the lot in July, 2018, our home was going to be on the 3rd tee.  Shortly after that the course switched the front nine with the back nine and we were on the 12th tee for the building process and move in.  As of a couple weeks ago, we're back on the 3rd tee again.  

Atlantis changed my free play offer to be Sunday through Wednesday - it was Tuesday through Thursday.  It's actually going to work out well because in January, there are two events planned on Sundays that we planned to attend - so I can do my free play on Sunday when we show up for the other offers - and save us a trip to the casino.  I mentioned our friends B. and J. who go to the casino daily - lots of people I play with regularly do that - and I suppose if we lived closer we might go more often, too?  But tying our visits to events and free play helps us limit our loss exposure and that's a good thing.   Which is also nice 'cuz I'm a homebody and just enjoy being at home. 

Remember I shared about our fun brunch with our neighbors in December?  On New Years Day, one of the neighbors posted a bunch of their holiday photos - and one of those photos showed a 'progressive cocktail party' with neighbors - including the two sets of neighbors we had brunch with....but not us.  Not going to lie - I had a high school flashback of never being in the 'in' crowd.  But I ratcheted it back - while it was a (very) small group, I have to assume that the two sets of neighbors we brunched with were not the hosts - or we would have been invited.  That's what I tell myself to stop feeling hurt about it.  I do know which neighbor posted the pics and I have to truly ponder why she included a photo that might hurt someone?  I mean really?  Just skip posting that pic.  But no, she didn't.  And that says a lot about her in my opinion.  So...clearly there is still a 'sting'.  I'll get over it.  

The darker skies have helped me sleep in a bit most mornings - the past couple days I've gotten up close to 8AM and feel more rested than I have in ages.  

We managed to get the tree down and put away - Muf made it out the front door onto the porch and was heading into the 'rocks' (which were covered with snow).  She let me scoop her up and didn't claw me and we got her back inside and J. managed to get the hand truck with the huge tree box over the front stoop and down the step into the garage.  I'm thinking a table tree is in our (not too distant) future.  The tree was so pretty this year - even with ornaments only on the top two thirds of the tree.  Not that it made any difference with the cats - 

Hello 2023

Well, our New Years celebration didn't turn out like we thought it would.  The forecasted weather of rain turned into a huge storm that left six inches of snow on the ground at our house.  We packed like we would go but as the morning continued, the weather became really bad very quickly.  We had 'lakefront' property as a small pond formed on the golf course just outside the fence.  In a 20 minute span, we had a dozen ducks hanging out, followed by at least 30 geese (who chased the ducks away) and then two coyotes who cleared out the geese.  (No blood was shed).  The coyotes seemed amused and proud they were able to get all the geese to take off en masse. 

It was hard to call our host and tell her we wouldn't be able to make it - and then I called our friends B. and J. to let them know we wouldn't be at dinner that night.  B. called me back a little bit later and said they had also already cancelled - and they live just up a hill from Atlantis.  They made it to the casino in the early morning (they go every single day) but her hubby had already decided they weren't going to trek down the hill again for dinner.  I felt much better knowing we hadn't missed dinner with them - they are the nicest people and when B. asked if we would like to plan to be at a table together for the NYE dinner, we were so happy to have their company.  They are in their late 80's and still going strong.  

So....the decision having been made that we were staying home, J. opened a bottle of champagne and we made mimosas.  We rarely have OJ in the house - but one of the casinos we visit uses a splash of OJ in my Blue Moon so I bought a couple small cartons on our last grocery run.  The mimosas were delicious and we both felt really festive!  We ate leftovers for dinner.  I tried super hard to be awake until midnight but couldn't do it.  If we were out at a party, I'd be fine.  But in our house when 10PM arrives, I can't stay awake.  

We had left our reservation for Sunday night in place - and we were able to get to the hotel yesterday.   We took the old Hwy 395 route which was OK but had some moments of 'uh oh'.  Trees that shaded the road created some ice but the Rav4 did just fine.  The hotel parking lot was full of snow and we struggled to get our rolling suitcases from the car (we lucked out and got a space right out front) to the bell desk.  J. said 'I'm going to see if they have a room ready' and because they had so many cancellations, we were able to check in before noon!! It was a fun day of play including some big wins - though no hand pays - and while I ended the day down, it was a lot of fun.  Lots of friends there and it was nice to play long.  

I really thought we should consider heading home last night - but J. convinced me it would be better to make the drive when we could see the road in daylight.  He was right.  The drive home this morning - on the freeway this time - was easy.  There was fog coming down the hills as we approached Carson City and it was so pretty.  The cats were glad to see us - and begged for food immediately even though they ate ALL of the extra dry kibble I left them in a bowl.  I left extra food and water in case we ended up stuck for an extra night - the weather was that dodgy and I figured 'better safe than sorry'.  It was deja vu from last year's weather nightmare for J.'s hip replacement.  (Actual anniversary of that monumental day is tomorrow).

I had a Facebook memory on New Years Day - 10 years ago, B. was picked up at the house by the Army recruiter to start his military career.  10 down and 10 (at least) to go.  He just finished a two week road trip traveling from New Jersey to Nashville, Nashville to Destin, FL and then to Indiana.  He arrived back in New Jersey today and it was good to know he was home.  He still has a(nother) week off - which he will enjoy.  

J. decided (unbeknownst to me) to start taking the tree down and I went out to the kitchen and saw a zillion ornaments all over the island.  His motivation is admirable but it was a bit confusing.  We sorted it all out and did a lot of consolidating so we have most of the ornaments we will use year after year in two bins.  Tomorrow, we will put the artificial tree away, get other holiday decor items back in storage boxes, take down the live wreath on the front door (a gift from my sister P.) and the house will be holiday free again.  Nala has spent quite a bit of time either IN the tree (lounging on the branches) or under the tree lounging on the tree skirt.  She will miss her little hideaway. 

H. called this evening - which is not a usual call day so my heart jumped a bit - he was allowed to call because today is the last day he will have free phone calls.  The center used to allow visitors but with COVID protocols in place, they stopped all visitation and started allowing attendees three free 15 minute calls each week.  It's OK - we are going to see how it goes having H. makes calls to us using his commissary account to transfer money to his 'call' account.  I hope it will avoid all the 'scripts' and disclaimers we have to go through when we get a call from a 'correctional facility'.  Having to always have a debit card ready to enter along with all the 'yes, I accept the call is recorded'; 'yes, I accept all the fees we will be charged for this call'.  It has been very nice to just answer the phone and say 'Hi, H.!  How's your day been?'.  

It's only 8:30 PM and I'm fading fast.  We were up before 7 this morning and were home a little after 9:30!

Happy New Year - I always love the feeling of possibilities and newness the New Year provides.