Tonight's Desert Colors

Michael took some photos of tonight's usual boring sunset.

Life is hard here in the desert - we are awaiting the 20 Mule Train for our supplies.

Dressed for the cold

Most people don't believe this but when it freezes here you need to cover some of the different kinds of cactus to protect their sensitive growing tips.

Some species are because they are from warmer climates south of here but the saguaro is a native here. You only need to protect the smaller saguaros.

New End Table

We found a very nice end table - where else but Craigslist?

It is in the same style as our sofa table which you can see part of in the background of one of the photos.

Weekend with Bev and Cliff

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Bev and Cliff came down this weekend for a visit and, of course, we had a couple of projects - mostly for Cliff this trip.

Although Bev did bring her hard floor steamer/cleaner and cleaned all our floors on her own while replacing sink drains in the master bath and handing outdoor art. The amount of dirt she cleaned up was disgusting - couldn't believe how dirty the floors actually were.

So, we hung our metal art, replaced corroded sink drains and plungers in the master bedroom, steam cleaned all the tile floors in the house, attached the large trellis by the back door to the outside wall with an eyebolt (required drilling in to our home!) and worked more on the low voltage lighting outside - repairing old lights and adding a new one.

We also ate like pigs and had a great visit.

New Bar Stools

We found a set of three bar stools that we liked a lot on Craigslist so we wrote to the sellers and went by their home to see them.

We both bought the bar stools and gained two new friends - Richard and Grace W. - we only wished they lived closer.

The week after we bought the chairs Carrabbas had one of their manager's nights and the four of us met there and partook of wine and food and had a great visit.

The Surgeon at Work

We are very happy with the meat slicer we bought from Costco Home in Fife, Washington, and carried down to Tucson.

Yesterday we drove to Tempe to have our car serviced and made a side trip afterwards to Costco Business where we bought hunks of meat and cheese that we could slice.

Today we sliced some, froze some and ate some.

Does he look happy or not slicing away?

4th Avenue Street Fair

Michael's cousins (and mine) George and Marj suggested that we go to the 4th Avenue Street Fair this last Saturday for a photo shoot.

We arrived early, shot a lot of pictures, had a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen with a 2 for 1 coupon (an annual tradition) and of course bought a couple of items.

Guest Room Bed

We know it is hard to believe but we now have a bed in the guest bedroom.

Of course there is still an air mattress but we're working on that, too.

Just finished assembling it tonight - there were four long screws missing. They were metric, a special pitch and longer than we could find with the right type of head.

We did find hex headed bolts that were a bit too long so Michael ground them down and rounded off the heads on our bench grinder (from last Black Friday).

Now we need to find a bed for the master bedroom!

The piano is home

We received a request that we show the piano actually in its new home.

So here she is!

Our piano just arrived

Big Al's Movers just came and went leaving behind our piano in the
formal dining room.

Hooray!

We are both soooooooooo excited!

Guest Room Mirror

Another find on Craigslist.

Two of our guests made the suggestion that we have a mirror in the guest bedroom.

So, we found one!

Finally, Dining Chairs

After perusing myriads of furniture stores and spending a lot of time this year and last year looking on Craigslist for dining chairs we found them!

On Craigslist.

Our friends, the Messinas, were on their way here for a visit and called about twenty minutes out so we were looking at our computers waiting their arrival when these chairs popped up on Craigslist.

Michael called Guelda back and told her that when they got here we would empty their HHR, have Guelda look at our dining table and room, then have her go with us with two cars to see the chairs.

We all loved them. The styling and the fabric. They are heavy! which also impressed us. There are two chairs with arms and four without.

So there are two very happy campers here now.

Now, two beds and dressers and a sofa, etc. to go.............................

Halloween 2009

We wanted to be here for Halloween this year as last year we had such a good time.

So, we carved pumpkins, hung decorations, lit candles, made signs, bought candy and got dressed up.

The kids were just as much fun as last year.

However, last year we had 75 or more Trick or Treaters and this year only about twenty. We don't know why there were fewer but it was fun anyway.