Thursday, April 28, 2011

Trashy old Broads

It has suddenly accrued to us that we’re just a couple of trashy old broads. That’s right, you heard it here first. We’ve only just realized this after taken notice to all the trash we have gathered and thrown out.

O.K, maybe it wasn't that bad! It just seems like it.

We have been busy cleaning out a small out building we have and most of what we have taken out has been placed in the trash pile. We did find a few treasures but for the most part it has been nothing but trash. At one point it was all good STUFF but over time the contents of this building has deteriorated. Some of this STUFF has been in this out building for more than thirty years. We have filled at least sixteen large contractors’ bags full of old papers, boxes, clothes and assorted miscellaneous trash.

O.K, maybe there weren't that many bags. It just seems like it.

We only have two more days to get this trash loaded up for the annual city clean up and we have been busy. Our small flat bed trailer is stacked pretty high with big black bags.

Once we unload all this trash I suppose we can be referred to as the Former Trashy Old Broads!

Anyway, that is what we have been doing this week. Next week will be a whole new adventure!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Trashy Work

35 More Days!

We spent another weekend moving STUFF to the storage unit. Luckily it’s less than a mile from our house so it doesn’t take long to take a load over. We moved more furniture on Saturday. And are now down to the bare essentials.

We moved a lot of framed art and mirrors that we wrapped in cardboard. We moved a few more boxes and still have more to move.

This weekend is the community clean up day and we plan on taking full advantage of the free service. The volunteer fire department has large dumpsters set out and they will unload all your old lumber, fencing, dried up paint and the likes. We spent yesterday loading all we could out of an old small storage building. I really should stop and clear something up before I get into trouble. Dawn and my son are the ones that cleaned out the building. My allergies are so bad I have a difficult time breathing in all that dust. It rained on and off all day. They worked in between the rain storms. They got a lot done and will work on it again today to finish it up.

The following weekend we are planning on the last big garage sale. That’s right; it will be our last garage sale. We have decided to hold it on a Friday and Saturday. What doesn’t sell will be donated to our local charity to be sold in their thrift store.

The weeks following that will be designated to painting the interior of the house and doing a thorough cleaning. We want the place to look like a brand new house when the new owners move in.

Still making progress!!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Friday, April 22, 2011

39 Days to GO!

39 DAYS to go!!!! OMG!

We still have so much to do!

The weather has not been very cooperative here this week. Almost every day this week we have had rain or misting rain. We are using a stock trailer that has partial open side and don’t want to move anything that could get wet. So this week we didn’t get much accomplished. With that said, we are planning to spend our Easter weekend moving more of our STUFF to the storage unit. We don’t have a lot more to move as far as furniture. The remainder of the furniture is small things like the dining table and chairs, two recliners, dresser, queen mattress, box springs and a few small end tables. It is all furniture we can easily move by ourselves.

We are planning to have our last garage sale the weekend of May 6th and have everything moved out of the house by May 9th. Once everything is out of the house, I can start painting. I have patching nail holes in the walls as we go.

I still need to scrap the popcorn off one bathroom ceiling. That should take me long to do. I can have the interior of the house painted in a few days.

Time is moving so fast right now. It is hard to believe that we will soon be living our dream of being RV full-timers. We are so looking forward to the opportunity to travel freely and stay wherever we choose for as long as we choose.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Senior Pictures

Senior pictures, not mine, I did the senior picture for my niece (Ashley). She is my brothers daughter. It was fun taking pictures of her and her dog (Buckle). She is a girly-girl that likes the western rustic look.

We shot these pictures at a local park (Myers Park) in Rockwall. Ashley is a beautiful girl and she’s very photogenic.

Ashley was this years Grand Champion in Goats for the 44th Annual Wylie Livestock Show & Sale.  


In the 2010 Wylie FFA  her goats were named Grand Champion Supreme and Reserve Grand Champion Supreme at the Collin County Youth Livestock Show and Sale.

Ashley will be attending Tarleton State University this fall.

I only have three nieces and their names all start with A. Angel, Amanda and Ashley. They are not sisters either.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Wild Fires in Texas

It saddens me to say that the wild fire here in Texas has really taken a toll on the land and the people. Saturday’s newspaper read;

EASTLAND, Texas — A 21-year veteran volunteer firefighter gave his life Friday trying to halt flames that were racing toward the community of Gorman. Gregory M. Simmons, 50, was a volunteer with the Eastland Fire Department for the past 11 years after serving for 10 years in the Sachse Fire Department. A DPS report indicates that as Simmons was trying to escape from the fire he ran into or near a smoke-obscured road and was hit by an unknown vehicle.

I went to high school with Greg and for a time lived next door to him and his parents. Greg was one of the sweetest guys I knew. He will be missed by many

Today’s newspaper read;

The dangerous situation continued near Possum Kingdom Lake late Monday night as the massive wildfire west of Fort Worth burned out of control. Four large fires linked, burning an estimated 63,000 acres. The Texas Forest Service says 32 homes and one church have been destroyed since the fires began last week.

The winds don’t seem to be letting up. We are approximately 140 miles away from the wild fires and the skies are a Smokey haze here.

A long time family friend (Darla) was hospitalized last week with a brain aneurysm. She’s 49. She was at work when she suddenly fell to the floor. She had surgery Friday morning and is in critical condition in ICU.

Our prayer go out to the Simmons Family for their lose and we are praying that Darla will have a quick recovery and be back on her feet very soon.

These are just a couple more reminders that life can change in an instant.

On a lighter note, We are recovering! Last night we opted to go out for dinner with a friend instead of packing and moving. We are still both a little sore from last weekend. Dawn spent yesterday in the wind doing some more lawn trimming. She wasn’t in the mood for moving any boxes. Can’t say that I blame her. The yard looks really nice too.

We can’t spend all our time moving because we still have 2 acres that has to be mowed and trimmed. We still have things around the house that need to be addressed.

It funny how we thought we would never get to this point of having the house sold and needing to move our STUFF to storage. Now it seems the time is flying by and I’m starting to wonder if we’ll get it all done by June 1st.

I know we’ll get it done. Where there is a Will, there is a Way. We both have very strong Wills.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Monday, April 18, 2011

On a Mission

We almost killed ourselves this weekend! We moved all of our totes (over forty) and a lot of boxes (enough to fill a stock trailer) to storage Saturday morning. Then we got serious and decided we could move a lot of our large furniture too. OMG! That was really almost too much for these old fat girls to handle. We loaded a book case, extra large dresser, china cabinet and hutch, queen headboard and footboard, wash stand, TV stand and one large night stand. I still can’t believe we loaded all that ourselves.

I’m 5’5” tall and Dawn is about 5’ give or take an inch. It’s difficult for her to raise anything very high since she’s so close to the ground! I’m not making fun, just pointing out a fact.

We had to lower the furniture down two steps to get it out of the house and then raise it almost a foot to get it into the trailer. Anyway, we did get it loaded and we both used muscles that we haven’t used since our twenties. We are two old fat girls on a mission!

We had one last thing to load for the day; it was a six foot armoire. I moved it to the back door where it sat for several hours. We ran out of gas. Our arms and backs were so tired.

Around four Dawn cooked dinner and I picked up around the house. My brother and niece came over for dinner. I had taken my niece’s graduation announcements pictures and we wanted to look them over.

My brother helped me load the armoire and then followed us to the storage facility to unload the trailer. My brother is a real sweet heart. He unloaded most of the furniture by himself and kept repeating that he couldn’t believe we loaded that heavy furniture by ourselves. My brother is seven or so years younger and a whole lot stronger.

We had friends we could have called but it was a beautiful day and everyone had better things to do. My son had to work and my brother fished a tournament. We just like to do as much for ourselves as possible and only call on people to help us when we just can’t do it ourselves. We’re independent (hard headed) that way.

After we finished unloading the trailer, Dawn and I went home and collapsed in our recliners.

Sunday morning we were moving pretty slow. We had to return to the storage faculty to rearrange some boxes. We stacked all our totes and boxes along one wall of the storage area and then placed our furniture against it. We still have more to add to it and need to use every bit of the space we have. After wrestling with the storage area we went home and mowed and trimmed most of the yard. I rode the mower and Dawn used the weed trimmer. We called it a day around three. We showered and went for fast food. Tacos! Yes we had tacos for dinner. After we inhaled our tacos we stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. We went home and fell into our recliners.

Our bodies hurt all over, but we’re making PROGRESS!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Monday, April 11, 2011

Work and Bargins

This was a busy weekend. Friday night we had dinner with friends. We had a great visit and the evening was very relaxing. Saturday we worked in the RV garage getting one side cleaned out so the new owners could store a few things. After a few hours of that we decided to run some errands. We drove to Greenville for a CB’s burger. This is a small burger place that has been around since 1941. It is family owned and operated. The hamburgers are cooked to order and they melt in your mouth. I’ve never had a burger anywhere that even compares to the CB’s Burger. We stuffed ourselves with burgers and fries.


I had a gift card for Atwood’s. We found a couple of bargains. I found a fleece lined hoody for seven dollars and a large knee cushion (will come in handy when I have to pull the pin on the landing legs). Dawn found a pair of gloves. We left there and drove back to Rockwall. We made a stop by Walgreen’s. There we found a few really nice t-shirts for two dollars each.

After Walgreens we stopped by Target. We found a really good deal on a small Kodiak digital camera. It’s a 12 megapixels with a 5x optical zoom. It’s a very slim little camera and it was just what we needed for those times it’s not practical to carry our large expense Nikon. The camera was a display and it was marked down to $58.00. We talked to the salesclerk and he said if we were interested in buying that camera he would mark down the price even better since it was a display. We told him we were definitely interested but wanted to make sure it worked first. He plugged it in and we played with it for a minute. Everything seemed fine so we bought it. We also bought a replacement battery and a memory card, both of which were also on clearance. The camera retails for $119.00, but we got the camera, spare battery, 4G memory card and a carrying case for less than $100.00.



Dawn also found a Sony under cabinet Radio/CD player/Clock that she wanted for the 5th wheel bedroom. It was also on clearance. Oh Happy Day! We love finding good deals.



When we got home I installed the Radio/CD player in the bedroom for dawn. I installed it under the overhead cabinet above the dresser. It fit perfectly and is great for the bedroom. It also has a remote control.

Sunday Dawn mowed the yard and I did some laundry and cleaned around the house. We also loaded over thirty totes into the front of the horse trailer. I’m talking over thirty, twenty gallon and larger totes packed full of STUFF. We finally had to call it quits for the day. We’ll load a few totes and boxes into the trailer every afternoon until we get it filled. Once it is filled, we’ll take it to storage to be unloaded.

OMG. We are soooo sore. I can hardly raise my arms.

We’re making progress!!!!!

We didn't get much sleep last night due to the terrible storm that blew through about midnight and lasted until around four this morning. One of our big dogs had several seizures and Abby was terrified. She doesn't do well with storms.

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Running in Circles

Wow, this has been a busy week. We’ve got a lot of small things we need to take care of before we hit the road. This seems to be the week to get some of them taken care of. First of all we packed our dishes and are now using the Correll dishes out of the 5th wheel. We also wrapped and packed some of our larger mirrors and other wall art.

We also needed to get my mom another cell phone. Hers is a couple of years old and the battery is going bad, it has to be charged every night. Dawn took her to the Verizon store on Friday to find her a replacement phone. The only phone they found that was easy to use was not in stock. Dawn ordered it and had it shipped to our house. We programmed all her numbers and set it up for her. On Tuesday we drove over to her house and explained all the new features to her.

Remember the laptop we purchased? Well we’ve been going back and forth with Best Buy regarding that laptop. They were out of stock the night we purchased it so we went through the channels at the customer service desk at our local Best Buy store to order one. We ordered and paid for it on March 31st. Later that evening we received an email thanking us for our purchase. On Friday, April 1st we received an email stating our laptop was on its way to the store for pickup. On Tuesday, April 5th we receive another email stating the laptop was NOT available for pickup and if we still wanted the item to notify the store.

Dawn went to the local Best Buy and talked with the customer service dept. they couldn’t tell her why the order was not being delivered to their store. They told her they could order another one and have it sent to the house but it would take a week or so. That would not work for us. The girl in customer service then noticed that another store about twenty miles away would be receiving a dozen or so that evening and she could call that store in the morning and see if they had indeed received them. Well, that doesn’t work for us either.

Dawn called me and told me what was going on and I immediately started sending out a few emails to the district manager, vice president of customer service and the customer resolution team of Best Buy explaining our dilemma and asking how Best Buy was going to do rectify the problem. Within an hour of placing the emails, Dawn received a call from the customer service resolution team telling her that they couldn’t explain what happened but the other store would be setting aside a laptop with her name on it or they would find her a compatible laptop to replace it. That doesn’t work. Dawn and I wanted the one we ordered and paid for.

In the middle of all this, Dawn lost her wallet. You heard me right, she lost her wallet! She called me in a panic and said she couldn’t find her wallet. She said she had been to several places and remembered having her wallet at each place. I asked if she had looked in the car. Yes, she said she had already torn the car apart looking for it. She said she’d been in every room of the house and still couldn’t find it. She called the vet clinic she had visited and left a message asking them to please call her back. I called the Best Buy store. NO, no wallet there.

I called her back and she said she was still looking around the house. She said she remembered having it at each location she visited and that maybe it somehow it fell out of her pocket. She was really panicked and said she was feeling sick to her stomach. I tried to reassure her that it would be o.k. but that didn’t work very well.

A couple of hours later Dawn called me back to tell me she had found her wallet. I asked where she found it and she said “right where she left it!!!” It was in the house the entire time in plain sight. She was in such a panic she just didn’t see it.

On Wednesday morning Dawn drove to the Best Buy where we originally bought the laptop and talked to the customer service department. They placed a call to the other store. The other store did indeed have a few of the laptops. Dawn told them she would drive the twenty miles to pick it up in person.

When Dawn arrived at the other location, they did have the laptop set aside with her name on it. Finally! But remember this laptop was on sale when we bought it. The sale ended last Saturday. The order had been canceled by Best Buy when they decided they couldn’t deliver it to the store where we purchased it. So now we have to purchase it again. Another problem, it was ringing up at the regular price. Dawn gave the cashier the paperwork we had received from the other store when we originally bought it and pointed out the sale price. The cashier told Dawn that sale price had expired and it is now full price. Wrong! Dawn asked for the store manager. That took a while! When the store manager did show up, she was already well aware of the situation and instructed the cashier to charge the sale price. Thank You.

We received an email last night from Best Buy stating us that our order was ready for pickup at the Mesquite store. You got to be kidding! That order was canceled. This morning we received an email asking for our input on our recent purchase. They want us to fill out a survey. O.K! They asked for it!

I recieved this one from a friend


Travel Safe Dawn and Denise

Friday, April 1, 2011

New Tool Box and Laptop

It is starting to sink, It’s really happening! We have a lot to do by June 1st. We stopped by a new storage facility on Tuesday afternoon and looked to see what they offered. It is a very nice facility and has a unit available the size we need. The manager is placing a hold on it for us. Another good thing about this storage facility is that it’s right around the corner from the house.

We’ve also made a list of things we need to purchase before we leave. One thing we needed was a tool box for the truck. On Wednesday we bought one. It’s a tool chest that sits in the bed of the truck below the side rails. It was fairly easy to install because the previous owner of the truck had a tool box and the holes were already in the bed. Dawn and I installed it in about thirty minutes. The salesman had sold Dawn bolts that were too long but we put them in and decided we would change them out later.


Thursday our good friend Mickey gave me some shorter bolts and helped me change them. The tool box will not only carry our tool box and straps but will also carry our king pen stabilizer. That’s now marked off the list.

Last night after dinner we decided to walk through Best Buy. We need a wall bracket for the bedroom TV. The problem with this is we walked through the computer section of the store first and noticed they were having a really good sale on laptops. Our laptop bit the dust a few years back and we have been using our netbook. It is small and we really need a larger computer. Neither of us is all that computer savvy but it seemed like the Toshiba 15.6” with Intel Pentium dual processor they had on sale was a really good deal. Dawn called our IT friend and asked her about it and she told us to give her a minute and she would stop by and take a look at it. We looked at the other laptops but really liked this Toshiba. Meanwhile, our IT friend showed up, she looked it over and told us it was just what we needed and she did some quick research and told us this was the best deal she could find on that laptop.
We located a salesman and wouldn’t you know it, they were sold out and the sale is over Saturday! We asked if they would make a deal on the display and he sent us to the service desk. The girl at the service desk said she could order that laptop and we would receive it within a week. Great, now we can mark that off our list.

Our plans for this weekend is to reorganize and restock our garage sale garage for the next big sale. It will be a big sale too. Maybe we can wrap up the garage sale stuff with one last sale!

The great thing is we have already boxed up a lot of the STUFF we are keeping and it is ready to be moved to storage. We really are ahead of the game with that much. We will be renting a storage unit in the next week or so.

We making Progress!!!!!!

Travel Safe Dawn and Denise