Author: peterb51

24th September 2023

The day of our party arrived, I ran down to the corner shop to buy ice to keep the beer and wine cool. Then a quick tidy up and we were ready. We had high expectations of who would turn up, and as alway, tried to cater for the number.

Although we asked our guests to bring a bottle I had bought a few to start things off, and pushed them deep into the ice.

Kelli had the Mac and cheese warming in the crock pot, and it was to prove popular.

The family were the first to arrive, but there was a little disappointment that several that we thought were positives didn’t make it.

I was pleased to see Tom Newhouse and his wife Jill and I spent time talking to them. The food selection that looked a bit light suddenly was more than sufficient. The wine was flowing, especially into my glass as I circled around talking to our friends. Then just as they arrived, they gradually left and the last die hards helped to pack away what was left of the food, and most of the drinks I had bought was still in the bucket.

It was the end of a fun day, both of us were exhausted, and crashed out for the evening.

23rd September 2023

We headed down to Saugatuck hoping to buy some Mac and cheese from the Farmhouse Deli. When we drove up to the car park it was deserted, which is unusual because the place is very popular, and their Mac and cheese is to die for. There was a notice on the door saying that the place was closed for the whole of September for renovation. That took the wind out of our sales, what were we to do?

The only option was to make our own. So back to Aldi for raw materials. We found a few other ideas and bought those to, but we still doubted that we had enough food.

Once we got back I re-grouted the paving to freshen up the patio and pathways.

Kelli started on the Mac and cheese. Soon the large pan was bubbling with the glorious concoction, the smell was wonderful.

We did a bit of cleaning up in the back garden before tiredness took over.

The kitchen will be busy tomorrow.

22nd September 2023

It is anniversary day, Kelli and I have been married five years, and what an interesting time it has been. We have been together every day for four years and none of us drove the other crazy, well almost.

There were times when I felt trapped over here, with Covid, and the residency process, then the vaccine restrictions, all of which were sent to try us. We try to laugh everyday and continue to re-love old furniture.

We plan a small party on Sunday with our friends, so on top of our weekly shopping we bought a shed load of party food and drink.

We did ask that people bring a bottle (not common practice here) we will see if that happens.

We cycled to the big lake, it was sunny and warm and the water looked great. There were many boats taking advantage of the good weather to burn up hundreds of gallons of petrol before they take them out of the water and into storage for the winter.

My trip back is getting closer, it will feel strange to fly again, for so long I didn’t think about distance, more about the time.

I’m sure the piles of leaves will still be here when I get back, there will be no reprieve from that task.

21st September 2023

All sorts of twists and turns today after a disturbed night. We might have got four hours, not ideal, and we couldn’t lay in because the chairs were being collected. This all happened before breakfast, and we were hungry.

After filling my tummy, I started on fitting the wire mesh into the two doors of the hutch.

Then the stop/start crazy lady arrived to collect the two dressers that she finally decided to buy. However then she saw the base unit for the hutch and fell in love with it. She asked how much it was and I gave her a price off the top of my head. I was thinking that she would buy that as well, the big problem was she didn’t want the top part, also Kelli didn’t want to separate them, she saw the hutch as a complete ensemble. This was uncharted territory, I was all for selling the complete piece then she can use all of it or just the base unit. We don’t usually worry about how a buyer uses it, but Kelli was adamant that it should go to someone who would use it as intended.

The messages went back and forth, until we decided to just refund the money for the small dresser and then draw a line under the whole episode.

Once that was over we finished the hutch, took pictures and posted it, I hope we can sell it.

20th September 2023

We woke to the news that the lady who bought the two small dressers yesterday decided that she didn’t want one of them. As she had already paid she wanted a refund. This sent Kelli off the deep end. Because sales have been slow what income we get goes straight out to pay for something, so giving a refund hurts us.

One part of her didn’t want to give the money back, but unless we publish our terms of business we couldn’t really do that, as it could be detrimental to our good name.

That was not a good start, but I had a doctors appointment, so things could get worse.

My main issue was blood pressure, and any treatment was focused on that. A week ago I did check it with my own device and it had dropped a bit, so I had an expectation of a good result.

That was born out by the check the doctor did.

Not only had my blood pressure dropped I had lost two and a half stone. This was a relief, and living without bread, grains and potatoes hasn’t been hard, because Kelli can create amazing meals.

I also had a bit of body tuning, a few clicks and snaps, and I was ready to get up and walk out.

I couldn’t wait to get started on something.

First we had to take a bike ride.

Then we heard that the lady who wanted a refund on the dresser, decided to buy it after all, this could only happen in America, because they’re indecisive, and feffin mad.

19th September 2023

I really thought it was Saturday, it felt and smelt like it, which shows how disoriented I am.

You would have thought I would have got over it by now, but with no actual reference point I drift from one day to another.

We had someone from Grand Rapids coming to collect our three drawer dresser and mirror. We were excited that some activity was happening after a week of nothing.

When she arrived she looked at all the other dressers we had and wanted all of them. Her husband tried to keep her on a tight rein, so she relented and focused on the one she had already paid for. The other one was promised to someone else who was due later, but Kelli promised to let her know if the sale didn’t happen.

We then had to drive to the north side to collect a free dresser from the Waukazoo area.

This was not a quality piece, but a simple paint job will make a difference, and although it won’t sell for much, it will help a bit.

We took it to Kelli’s mum to store until the space became available in our garage.

I gave a final coat of acrylic lacquer to the chairs, and Kelli started on the hutch.

The person who wanted the small white dresser failed to materialise, so Kelli call the lady who visited earlier, offering her a deal on the two small dressers and they were sold.

18th September 2023

It was definitely a landmark day, despite a restless night sleep. Kelli had a doctors appointment in Zeeland and I was a little apprehensive that she would be okay for it.

I was pleasantly surprised because she didn’t appear to be affected at all. Things got even better as the doctor checked her resistance to the supplements she is on. He was able to knock off four of them drastically reducing her monthly expenditure. That was fantastic news, and all mainly due to eating meat again.

This has been a major shift in our eating pattern, and I have to admit that I feel better for it. I really need to build muscle mass to stop me becoming scrawny, so throw another burger on the grill.

These visits do have an impact on our day, because once we have our bike ride and some lunch there is only a few hours left to do any work.

There seemed to be a little interest in our finished pieces, hopefully they turn into firm sales, that would give us room in the garage and some money in the bank.

17th September 2023

There wasn’t much on the agenda today, we moved the small round table into the sunroom marking the end to outdoor eating.

There a chance to catch up on all the unedited news, I’ve got fed up with all the two party slanging match. I learnt that Americans are kept at each other’s throat through fear so the news is designed to keep the fires burning.

After breakfast, I had to mask up a couple of chairs that had been returned to us with paint scratched off part of the back. We had painted them almost a year ago. The masking is what takes the time, carefully sticking small pieces of masking tape around the spindles is a real fiddly job.

In the afternoon, we had to go to Kelli’s mum for Brenda’s birthday cake cutting and eating, I like that bit. It was fun kicking Brenda’s small dog’s ball in difficult places and watch the little bugger try to retrieve it. For once I had a decent slice of cake, although that was because there was only a few of us there.

Once the celebration was over we came back and took the dogs around the lagoon, of course Phoebe had to poop on someone’s lawn, fortunately we always carry a poop bag with us.

16th September 2023

No work in the garage today, instead I got the pressure washer out, it was time to clean the house. The north side gets all the green muck, and the washer works well at a distance of one inch. The downside is the spray that comes back on me. I carried the extendable ladder to the front of the house and tried to remember how it worked. It has a clever latching system, that in my opinion is too clever. There is a knack to operating it, unfortunately I had forgotten what that was. There was a couple of false starts, but I did get it working in the end. I leaned it against the side and ascended the ladder with the nozzle in hand. The first blast rattled the ladder, but I soon got the hang of it. Five hundred gallons later the side of the house was clean again.

15th September 2023

It was shopping day, more drama over the lack of the kind of dog food in stock. The packets of salmon and sweet potato were missing from the shelves. Don’t mention the disappearance of the canned version, the dog have been depressed, well not really they will eat anything. Sometimes I feel sorry for them, they have eaten the same food twice a day since they came into this family. They don’t care, they still rush into the house like their asses are on fire and gobble it up, and even licking up any essence left. Dhama still pushed her bowl around the house in her desperation to engulf the food. I can relate to that, although I could not eat baked beans on toast everyday for twelve years. I tend to eat fast, I don’t know where that came from. I look at Kelli’s plate and things slowly disappear, it’s so frustrating, many times I’ve offered to help he finish it. Of course the dogs circle hoping to grab any morsel that drops on the floor. I keep telling them that there is no point in hanging around me, I drop nothing on the floor, my clothes, maybe, but they would starve to death waiting for my morsels.

We had another unsuccessful bike ride searching for eggs, nothing in the two places we know, we may have to spread our area wider.

We finished another small dresser, joining the other unsold pieces. We are not sure what is happening, even John and Patty were experiencing slow sales, and they never admit this, so things must be bad.