A Unique Estate Sale November 30, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 50 Low 30

Today was a nice semi-warm day. It has been a little cool at night, but warms up a lot by afternoon.

As you probably have gathered, we like to go to yard sales on Saturday. Today was no exception.   The first one was a yard sale that had a lot of material. Most of it was not quilting material, so Cindy was only able to get one box. I had looked at the yard and estate sales listed on the internet, and one was advertised as an estate sale. Only it had a special twist. You had to take at least a box of stuff and it all was free. That's right, FREE! We almost didn't go to it thinking it would all be junk, but when we got there they had a whole house full of stuff for free. They just wanted to get rid of it so they could clean out the home.

We found about 20 almost new stuffed animals, a lot of them from Disney. Some still had price tags on them. There was a box of Disney collectible Christmas ornaments, and pins. Cindy found a box of small cars for kids that had never been opened. We got a Rubbermaid 5 shelf kit, that as close as I could find at Walmart would have cost at least $250.00.

We got one stuffed bear that is huge. We have a room upstairs that we call the Bear Cave, and it is full of stuffed bears. This bear is going in there. The grand-kids all like to play in the room and crawl into the cave. I should add at this time, the bigger room was going to be a storage closet, But Cindy wanted a play room for the little kids. So we added the split door and made a small room in the attic and had the entrance painted to look like rocks. As the sign says, we love bears. I thought the kids would like the swing and it has proven to be true for the smaller grand-kids. The table is for the Teddy Bears picnic. In one of my former lives, I built homes, and ours was in the Parade of Homes in the Salt Lake area. We had to come up with unique things and this room was one of them.

The big black bear is one of the ones we got today. We added one or two others today, but we already had most of the others.

This room and the cave are the kids favorite room.

Cindy found one bear named Mary Mocha that Cindy found was an antique collectible bear. There is one on eBay that the person is asking $398.00.


Cindy even found a pair of running shoes in her size that had never even been tried on. (When she tried them on, they fit.)

We got lots of new Beanie Babies for the kids.

There were miniature houses like Department 56 and lots of other accessories of that sort.

I found some books by my favorite authors and some other kid books. There were new unopened games.

We found some Mexican pottery. We finally got the car full and had to quit looking. I joked with Cindy that I could leave her there and fill her seat and come back later.

As it turned out, we were very glad we went to the free Estate Sale.

Thanks for visiting.

                

Quilts and More Black Friday November 29, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 48 Low 30

We started the day out early. Cindy wanted to go to Jo-Ann's for some of the bargains they had for Black Friday. We got there about 7:00 AM so a lot of the rush was over. It was still quite busy, but not so bad as Walmart last night. They advertised a couple of things she wanted to look at, and ended up buying a small lamp with magnifier for her sewing machine.

Then she started to look at the flannel they had on sale for $1.74 a yard. We usually don't buy fabric at Jo-Ann's, but Cindy said it would be OK for a baby blanket. When I pulled a cutting number it was 91 and they were only waiting on 31. So I told Cindy I didn't want to wait that long, but a lady came by and said she couldn't stay, and would we like her number. It was 43 which wouldn't be too long a wait, so we told her thanks. Cindy was still looking when they called #43, so she had to quit looking and come to the cutting table.

We also had a 25% of everything except door busters, so she saved quit a bit on several of her purchases.

We went to Kohl's and Walmart, and there weren't too many people, so it wasn't too bad.

I wanted to put some of the quilts I have been quilting on this post. Hopefully you can see the patterns we picked out. They are both more lap size than anything else.

This is the kit we bought in Roseburg, Oregon. Above is the back view. It's hard to see the quilting pattern on the top.

I don't remember where she got this pattern, but it looked like hearts, so the heart quilting.








Thanks for visiting.

Happy Thanksgiving November 28, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 48 Low 34

Today we had a big Thanksgiving Day meal planned for some of the family. Cindy cooked a large turkey with dressing and all the other treats. I overate I'm afraid. It all was so good!


Cindy likes to put out her nice china, at least for this one day of the year.

 We had nine adults and kids over. We had planned on two more, but they cancelled at the last minute.

I went over to Walmart's black Friday thing this afternoon. Tammy wanted to get a basketball stand for Devon for Christmas. It was on the 6:00 sale, so we had to go at about 4:30 to make sure we got it. It turned out that they only had 5, so it was good we went.

I guess to do a Black Friday thing, you don't have to be crazy, but it sure helps. When we left, the parking lot was entirely full, and people were even parking on the street. I don't think I have ever seen so many people in a store before. They even had the police for security. I'm not sure I would do it again without a very good reason.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving Day.

Thanks for visiting.

More Quilts Stores November 26, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 46 Low 34









I got the part for Cindy's stove and got it put in, and now her cook top works OK.









We decided to go see some of the local quilt stores. Cindy said she just wanted to go see the Christmas quilts. She wasn't looking to buy anything, but you know how that goes. She saw some cute 3D baby quilts, one with bears, and one with bunnies. They had a lot of patterns for many of the 3D quilts on display, but she only had to have the bunnie/bear pattern. I still got off cheap.
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The same pattern does either the bears or the bunnies.

One of the fabric stores we went to see has been in business since 1882. It sells fabric and quilting supplies and is also a general store. They had 2 Christmas trees all decorated and on display.

We then went to KFC for lunch. After that we went to see another store.

The third store we went to see had a lot of quilts on display, but we didn't buy anything at it or the old store.

That's about it for the day. Thanks for visiting.

The Flight From Hell November 25, 2013

  

Riverton, Utah High 45 Low 28

From reading about Patty and Nancy’s recent trip to Costa Rica reminded me of our trip to go on a cruise to the Southern Caribbean.

I should warn you that this is a little long, but it is all true. (I referenced Cindy’s scrapbook page to make sure.)

We were scheduled to go one a cruise put on by one of my wholesalers on the third of February several years ago (while I was still working). It was an incentive for the amount of sales, so we had no say in our flight arrangements.

It started out innocently enough, but went downhill from there. We had ordered a shuttle to the Salt Lake airport. We expected him about 5:30 AM, but he was a half hour early, and we were not ready. He agreed to wait while we showered and got ready. Cindy remembers that she didn't even get to put on make-up or do her hair. The group of about 100 was divided into two, with half going through Dallas to San Juan, and the rest of us going through New York. Good so far! Except that New York was snowed in. The Dallas group made it with no problems. The New York group was sent to Denver, then to St. Louis, Then to Pittsburgh. We had long delays in some of the airports waiting for New York to open. I might add at this point, Salt Lake would have laughed at the amount of snow that closed New York!

When we finally arrived in New York, I remember it being dark (our flight from Salt Lake was scheduled for 8:30 AM). We had to take a large shuttle from one part of the airport to another, and had moved about 500 feet, when the shuttle broke down on the runway. After waiting 45 minutes, we finally got on another shuttle, and got to our plane. The plane then went to the runway, and sat there for another 2 1/2 hours before taking off. All this time the cruise ship, which was scheduled to leave San Juan at 6:30 PM, was waiting for our group. We were finally on our way…Wrong! 

The plane passed over Bermuda, headed to San Juan, when a child started having trouble breathing, so we had to make an emergency landing in Bermuda. All the delays caused an older gentleman behind Cindy to have the symptoms of a heart attack, because he was so agitated, and he also went to the hospital.  We can say we have been in Bermuda, although only on the airport runway. Since it was an unscheduled stop, we were not allowed to leave the plane.

Meanwhile the ship, having heard about this latest delay, left San Juan without us. We had to sit on the runway, to get fueled, and wait for paper work from New York, for about three hours. We got to San Juan at about 4:30 in the morning and the doors from the plane into the airport were locked. We had to wait for someone to come and open the airport to let us in. All this time, from Salt Lake, we had not eaten, and we all were very hungry. Finally about 2 hours later we got to eat a small amount from one of the airport vendors. At about 6:30 AM, we were divided into 3 groups to take us to the Dominican Republic to catch up with the Ship.

While we were waiting to board our plane, Cindy and some other people noticed money falling out of the pockets of some men in front of us. The airport officials investigated and caught some suspected drug runners getting on our flight. They then had to unload all the luggage, and then had to reloaded ours which we had to identify, before we could continue on our way. This took about another hour. We finally got in the air at about 10:00 AM. This plane was a smaller 50 or 75 passenger plane.

When we finally landed in the Dominican Republic, we were informed that we had to pay a $10.00 tourist tax. For this we were given a nice certificate, which we thought would make a nice souvenir. Except when we got to the ferry to take us to the ship, they took the certificate away. We did get our passports stamped!....Big whoop! 

We finally got to the ship at about 1:30 in the afternoon. By now we were so tired that we didn't do much on the private island. Cindy says it was only 29 1/2 hours to get to the ship, which should have been 14, but from when we woke up, I think it was longer. The cruise itself from then on was excellent, but everyone on the cruise had heard about our troubles and asked us about The Flight From Hell. Part of the group that had taken another flight from San Juan had to take a bus that took over 3 hours to get to the ferry, while we were only 1/2 hour away.

I have come to expect delays and such when you travel, but it seemed like we got them all at once and the cruise line, which had booked the flights, wouldn't do anything for us for our lost day. They said it wasn't their fault, but they should have known better than send 50 people through New York on the third of February.

Because of this happening to us, I can really sympathize with Patty and Nancy.

Thanks for visiting.

Kid Will Be Kids November 23, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 45 Low 32

Today we bought an incline board for Cindy to see if it would help her back. The incline board holds your ankles and lets you tip back to a partial upside down position to take weight off your back. we found it at a yard sale for a lot less than a new one.

We also went to see Cindy's friend Alice. She had several nice quilts she had finished. Her husband Jerrol showed me his wood shop in his garage he has been working on.

We then went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for lunch. The fries are sure good.

When we got home and set up the incline board in our upstairs room, we noticed candy wrappers all over the chandelier that we can look down on from the walkway upstairs. One of the grand kids had been sneaking candy and instead of taking care of the wrappers, just threw them down on the chandelier. I guess she thought no one would notice, and we might not have for a while if we hadn't gone upstairs.

I wasn't too happy about having to get the extension ladder to get the paper out of the fixture.

This reminded me of some of the things my kids did when they were younger. One of my daughters had a party with beer, when my ex and I were gone on a small trip. the thing that gave her away was that instead of taking care of the garbage, they threw the empty beer cans in the wood burning fireplace in the basement, and then left them. I went to start a fire and found all the cans.

One of Cindy's daughter told us she used to sneak out at night. She got out her window, and to get back it was easier to get in her brother's window. One night she woke him up coming home. He didn't know who it was and started screaming and she was afraid he would wake Cindy, because the room she came into was right below her mother's. She was able to get him quieted down without waking Cindy. Cindy had never known until today.

All this reminded me of when I was a 16 year old. My dad had a 1940 Chev he put a 56 Chev V-8 in. It was quite a hot-rod. Anyway I was allowed to drive it. One day I had two of my friends with me, and I decided to show off for some girls by squealing out. I didn't know it but I started out on gravel and when I hit the pavement, the axle broke. So we got my buddies car and towed it home. When I told my dad, I thought I would be in lots of trouble, but all he said was "You broke it, you fix it."
I did know how, and he got me a used axle, and I got it fixed.

So I guess it doesn't matter what age or generation, kids will be kids.

Thanks for visiting.

Slow Days November 22, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 41 Low 30

As you can see, the days are slowly getting cooler. It is supposed to freeze tonight, and get even colder tomorrow night. At least it's not snowing, just cold.

Yesterday I spent part of the day working on Cindy's cook top. One of the burners wouldn't come one, so I tore into it to see if I could get a new electronic switch. Unfortunately no one in Salt Lake has the part, and in fact the parts place told me the part is no longer available. He did suggest I try on eBay and see if there was a replacement anywhere. There were a couple of places that had the new replacement for the old part number, so I ordered one. It is coming from California, and should be here by Monday. Cindy told me she would like to have all the burners working for Thanksgiving, and it looks like I'll be able to do that. After taking it all apart, I found out I went to a lot more work than I needed to. I could have left the top in the counter and just taken off the burners and the stainless top.  It will be a lot easier to replace the switch now that I know what I'm doing.

In the afternoon I worked on Quilting another quilt. It should be finished tomorrow and I'll put pictures on when I'm finished.

Today the Estate sale company we like was having two estate sale, so we went to them. The first didn't have anything we wanted.

The only thing we found at the second was an antique Pfaff sewing machine that we thought might be a nice addition to the Pfaff store we deal with, so I called him to see if he had any interest. They wanted $45.00 for what is probably a 1940's machine. He told us to go ahead and buy it for him, and I told him we would bring it over.



After we got  to his store, we plugged it in and it runs. It also came with a seat that has drawers in it to hold thread, feet, and even had an old oil can to oil the machine. He seemed glad to have it, and plans to display it in his store. Kind of a fun thing that probably is worth a lot more as an antique.




This afternoon, I worked on Cindy's quilt some more, and nearly got it done, before I got tired.

I' m afraid there's not much else going on. Thanks for visiting.

 

Grand Parent Activities November 20, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 48 Low 37

This morning we were invited to take our grandson to school for a special presentation. There were about 25 kids in the whole school that got special presentations from the school principal. They got a certificate and a token for a special prize from a vending machine in the office. We were proud of him.

He really was happier than this picture looks. 

The principal making her presentation.

There were a few kids absent.

I worked on making some templates for Cindy to use with her quilting patterns. We also tried loading the new 6D Embroidery Program on her computer. It took most of the day and we are not sure if it is correct. It seemed to want to keep reloading, something to do with the dongle.

I also got some other of the honey-dos completed. I had several phone calls to make that I have been forgetting, and got them done.

I helped Cindy cut out some of the material for one of the patterns she bought in Washington. It is now made into a kit that she plans on taking south with us.

I'm afraid not much else going on. Thanks for visiting.

Slide Problem November 19, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 48 Low 37

Today it rained a little bit. It was cloudy all day and tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same.

I finished quilting two of Cindy's watermelon picnic quilts. Now I'm probably only 20 behind her. The pattern of quilting is watermelons and baskets, but I don't think it shows up on these pictures.

This is the bad solenoid.

We have been having a problem with the slides on our fiver. Three of the slides are hydraulic and when they come in, they only come in part way and  I had to reverse them several times to get the slides all the way in. I found a reversing solenoid that operates which way the pump runs, which determines whether the slides go in or out. I checked the power to the in side of the solenoid and the switch kept power to it, but the power didn't stay on that runs the motor. I tried to find a new solenoid in Salt Lake, but wasn't able, so I ended up buying one on eBay. It's not a hard fix, just a little aggravating.





This afternoon we went to see Cindy's mom and then her sister. They both seem to be doing OK.

Tammy got an email from one of her teacher friends tonight. I thought it was worth passing on :
Me (to the students): "to those of you who did poorly on the test... if you take it home tonight and write on a separate piece of paper why your answers were wrong, I will up your score".
On a student's paper today: "I wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't thinking". I don't think she explained well enough! (She wanted the correct answers.)

Thanks for visiting.

Yard and RV Things November 18, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 57 Low 39

Today we woke up to a nice, but cool, day. By noon it had warmed up a lot, and Cindy decided to do some more yard work. Hopefully she's done and things can sit until next spring. She had a lot of it finished when we were here at the first of October. I have to admit, the yard does look a lot better.

We got the fiver unloaded from our last trip to Oregon (lots of fabric). I wanted to power wash the trailer and see if I could get a lot of the dirt off while it was fairly nice. I haven't used the power washer for a while, and it refused to start. If I put a little gas in the carburetor, it would start and run until the gas I had put in ran out. Gas was going into the carburetor, but just refused to run. I ended up taking the carburetor off and cleaning out the small orface with a pin. After that it would run OK.

I got the fiver washed at last. It's not as good a job as I would have liked because of no hot water, but it looks a lot better. My hose leaked and I wasn't able to stop it, so I don't know who got the wettest, me or the trailer.

I looked and felt like a drowned rat.

We took Cindy's computer to the sewing machine store (Rocky Mountain Electric Quilters)  to see if Nick could do anything with the embroidery program that Cindy wasn't able to open. He worked on it for about five minutes, and told her it was good to go. This was a big relief to her because two other stores told her she must have a bad file that wouldn't let her open the 1000s of embroidery patterns. Just a matter of knowing your program and computer. He also told her he gives one on one lessons to learn the 5D or 6D programs. She is hoping to design the Hummel quilt we saw in Fairbanks.

I sent an email to Sandi to see if we would be able to get together with her and Jim when we are in Q or Yuma or Mesa this coming year. I hope so, because they are good people. We had fun meeting them last March, and would like to get together with them again.

Thanks for visiting.

Yard Sale Score! November 16, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 39 Low 30

Today when we got up  it was snowing. I still have to ask myself: Why are we home?  Oh yes, we promised to be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Not a lot going on, except we found an estate sale put on by a family of a woman who was an avid quilter. It seems she lived in eastern Oregon, and the family felt they would do better here than in the small town she lived in. She told me they rented a 24 foot U-haul to get every thing to the sale. There was a whole lot of quilt materials and kits. I found a very large cutting mat to use on our pool table. That makes two weeks in a row.

Cindy found a lot of kits she liked, and they only wanted $10.00 for the 40 inch by 6 foot cutting mat. Cindy found a box of scraps that had free on it. She asked the lady running the sale if that was right, and was answered yes. Cindy didn't even hesitate and told the lady she would take it all.

We got the small cabinet to put thread in for another $10.00.

A lot of the kits had original price tags on for $120.00. She also got a lot of larger pieces of material.

The free box.

In the free box there was enough civil war fabric to make a fairly large quilt. It had been cut ready to sew into blocks. There were also lot of fairly large pieces. I measured one of them, and it was 1/2 yard. The whole box weighed about 25 pounds.

Altogether, we spent $168.00. Two or three of the kits would have cost more at one of the fabric stores. Cindy was on quite a high on our way home.

The rest of the day it snowed lightly.

Thanks for visiting.

Made it Home November 15, 2013

Riverton, Utah High 43 Low 34

Last night It was windy enough to wake us up. It seemed to last about 2 hours, then settled down.

When we woke up this morning it was snowing. The phone said it would last until 10 AM, then clear up. It did quit by about 10:00 and we had a little sunshine.

The forecast also said it was snowing in Riverton and would until noon. It is supposed to be snowing tomorrow and Sunday.

We decided to leave Tremonton about noon and try to get home between storms.

We did have a little wet road, but it was a nice ride home. All of the mountains and some of the homes in northern Utah are covered with the four letter word, SNOW.

I decided it was going to be cold enough here  that I needed to winterize the fifth wheel. I do it the air compressor way, and add anti-freeze to the drains. It was very cold while I worked on the trailer, but I got it done except I didn't have any anti-freeze. I'll wait until tomorrow while we are out to get it.

We got most of the trailer unloaded and will probably finish tomorrow afternoon.

The grandkids got home at about 6:00 and acted glad to see us.

We plan on being home until after New Years, and then head south to warmer weather (we hope).

Sorry no pictures today. Thanks for visiting.

Drive toward Home November 14, 2013

 

Tremonton, Utah High 54 Low 36

Yesterday we left the SKP Park in Sutherlin at about 9:30. We headed north toward Eugene, then toward Bend. We followed the Mackenzie River for a long way. We came to a covered bridge over the river, and Cindy got some pictures of it.

Just before Bend, we went through the Town of Sisters. It looks like a cute town, and we saw a quilt store we wanted to stop at, but were unable to find a place to park.

As we got to Bend, the terrain changed to desert. It looks like a lot of Utah. We saw snow on some of the higher mountains, but were unable to get any photos. After bend we found out that not only is there a Sisters, Oregon, but also a Brothers. While Sisters is a nice town, if you want to see Brothers, you better look quick because there are only about 4 rundown buildings and a nice Restaurant. The whole town is about 1/4 mile long.

 I was going to stop at a rest stop east of Burns, Oregon, which would have been about 325 miles from Sutherlin. I thought that was plenty, but when we got to the rest stop……it was closed.  There weren't any more until Ontario. So I had to drive about an extra 125 miles. It was about 8:00 when we finally stopped (Mountain Time). It was still a long day and I usually don’t like to drive in the dark.

We slept in and didn't get up until after 8:00 this morning, so it was about 9:00 when we finally got on the road. Last night wasn't very restful because of the trucks running in the rest stop and we were close to the freeway, so we could hear the traffic all night.

We drove about 325 miles today, all of it on the freeway, so the drive wasn't too bad. We had decided to stop at Tremonton and stay at Camper World Hot Springs Park. We are members, so we don’t have to pay to stay here. This park is far enough away from the freeway, that there is absolutely no noise.

The TV weather report tonight predicted snow here Friday, but with a possibility of snow tonight. Why are we going home when we could be headed south toward warmer weather???? We have to be out of our minds, but Cindy did promise the kids we would be home for Thanksgiving.

The phone says there is a chance of snow here after 4:00 in the morning. If it does, we will stay here for a while until the storm passes by, because I have no desire to drive in the awful Four Letter Word, Snow. We only have about a 3 hour drive, but we might end up staying until Sunday. It is still good not to have too many plans set in stone, but in Jell-o. Truthfully, I’m good either way.

Thanks for visiting.

Old Town Oakland November 13, 2013

Ontario, Oregon High 61 Low 30

Today we started for home (Salt Lake City area) so I am going to post on Oakland, a day trip we took while in Sutherlin. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

We went to see the Old Town Oakland. There are many old buildings, which look like the commercial part of the Old Town.

The large sign gives some history of the Town, and how it came to be where it is.

Originally it was built somewhere else, and then moved to it's present location in 1872.

The town was rebuilt in the 1890's when the wooden buildings were burned down. At that time they were constructed with bricks, which are still standing.

A lot of the old shops are now Antique shops, which we went into. Most of it looks like Junque to me.

Junque?

More junque?

This is a barber shop that houses a Art Gallery. The barber is the artist and he is very good, and if you want he will cut your hair.









There is also a museum that opened at 12:30. There is no charge to see it. We went in it and enjoyed what was displayed.

Cindy got a picture of an old washing machine that was sold by Sears in 1902 for $2.75. Quite a difference from today.

We also got to see one of the old houses in the town. It is the original mansion.

Fall colors.

We also got a picture of this plaque, which someone with a sense of humor placed on one of the buildings.

If you are ever in the area, The Old Town Oakland is worth a visit.




Thanks for visiting.