Sunday, October 09, 2016

Ikea/new couch, hiking and Broadway

PixlrUgh. What a miserable, chilly, rainy day. Had originally talked about going to the CT Garlic and Harvest Festival b ut this weather is really not the kind of weather you want for that.  Don't want to be walking around in the rain,  getting drenched,  chilled to the bone. So instead we went to the movies to see "The Girl on the Train". I liked the Don't and thought they did a decent job converting it from the book,  even though it's of course not the same.  

Yesterday we went to the city to see "Something Rotten" on Broadway. Such a fun show. It was really amusing and well done. Our seats were in row A in the balcony so we had great views. Afterwards we went to Chevy's for dinner and then headed back home. 

The weather wasn't too great yesterday either. But it was really nice Wednesday through Friday so we took advantage of that and went on a hike. And on Friday I was able to meet up with my friend Falguni in Scarsdale. Was nice to catch up and hang out for a bit.  

And on Tuesday we rented a pick-up truck from U-Haul and went to IKEA to pick out our couch. Had fun checking out all the various options and found one we liked. Brought it home and decided to unpack it in the driveway cause the box weighed 130lb. Then assembled it and now we have a new couch. Yay. :) 

So that's all the news at the moment. Still waiting to hear on news from the job. Hopefully next week. Fingers crossed.  

Letter/Mail Update: Letters went out on Friday to: Lotte/Denmark, Laura/Spain and Jessica/DE.  

Posted by Hanna at 04:40 PM in Home Improvement, Nature, NYC, Outdoors | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 02, 2016

Fall Weather, Waiting Game & Ikea

PixlrHappy October :) It has definitely turned very fall like this past week even though we haven't seen too much color on the trees. I guess I just mean just in general it's been a lot cooler, breezy, often misty/rainy and chilly.  Definitely more of a fall-feel rather than late summer. But I suppose that makes sense considering it's October now. We often do get nice weather throughout October here though so I hope that the weather turns back to being nicer soon. I like fall weather but I like it better when it's sunny and breezy rather than damp and chilly. 

Went to my 4th interview at a company this past Monday. At this point it's a big waiting game. Hoping to have an answer soon, hopefully a positive one but honestly any answer so I know where I stand. There is a second job that is also hanging in limbo, plus still looking at different postings online of course. Well hopefully on next week's post I will have something more solid to write. :) 

Went to the movies yesterday to see "The Dressmaker", an Australian movie starring Kate Winslet. It released in Australia ages ago and seemed to have won a bunch of awards. I really enjoyed it even though it wasn't a big release here in the US at all. But sometimes finding gems like that can be truly fun. 

On Friday we saw our friend Tim who now lives in Florida. Was fun to hang out and catch up over lunch. Going to see him and his girlfriend Sam again later today for dinner. Will be nice to be able to hang out and spend some more time. We used to hang out a lot when he lived in CT so it's a nice treat to see him. Always fun to be able to catch up with friends you don't normally get to see that often. 

In other news my parents got me a $500 gift card from IKEA for my upcoming birthday later this month. Super excited. :) I love IKEA. We want to finally buy a new couch so maybe we can do that next week, depending on what else comes up. We will see. Right now I am looking at a few different options, maybe this one or this one or maybe this one. So many choices. :) I figure we will go there and look at them in person, sit on them and see how we like them and make a decision from there. We also need to measure the inside of our car to try and figure out if we can fit the boxes inside our car. We might have to rent a pick-up or van at U-Haul. We will see. 

Letter/Mail Update: Received a letter/owe a reply to: Lotte/Denmark.   

Posted by Hanna at 12:22 PM in Film, Home Improvement | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, April 26, 2015

IKEA .. Kitchen .. Table & Chairs .. Yay :)

Collage_20150426130144584_resized_1The really nice weather took a turn back to winter this week as we had frost warnings for several nights in a row plus temps below freezing overnight. Monday and Tuesday it rained and was pretty miserable. Wednesday wasn't so bad for half of the day. As I was home I was able to take a walk to the library to check out some books (Nora Roberts' "The Dark Witch", Laura Childs' "Steeped in Evil" and Sarah Addison Allen's "Lost Lake") I am currently halfway through "The Dark Witch" and am really enjoying it. Great book.

Had to work Saturday and today we slept in. Also went to the movies to see "While we're young" which was a pretty good movie. And most importantly put together our table & chair set we picked up from Ikea a week and a half ago. Well, I say we, Mike really did all the work. :) I just helped with cleaning up the boxes, bags and random stuff plus vacuumed and cleaned around some other parts of the apartment while he worked on the kitchen stuff.  

Very happy with the outcome and nice to have a table and chairs in the kitchen again. So much nicer than the old set we had in our house too. And it was only $149 which really is a bargain. Can't complain about that whatsoever. :) 

Will head out for a late lunch in a bit and relax for the rest of our Sunday. And then it will already be Monday again. Why do weekends always go by so fast? Ugh. On Tuesday we have to head to Port Chester as I have to get a new picture & fingerprints taken for renewing my green card. Can't believe I have already been here this long that it's time to renew my green card. Time really does fly. 

 Mail Update. Letters went out on Thursday to: Laura/Spain and Celia/MA. Owe replies to/received letters from: Nina/WA and Eunice/Malta. 

Posted by Hanna at 01:30 PM in Home Improvement | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, November 09, 2014

More organizing .. slowly getting there

Collage_20141109182327921_20141109182340084Another busy week. Getting things done at work both in preparation for both Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is definitely always a big holiday at work, lots of scheduling, figuring out what customers can get what delivery days so everyone is happy and taken care of. Always a bit of a challenge but it also always works out somehow in the end. :)

Spent Tuesday and Wednesday night after work at home unpacking and arranging some more. And this weekend we had Saturday and Sunday off so we were able to do a few more things over the weekend as well. Mike put together the coat rack we bought and also hung up a bunch of the pictures and deco we have.

Also went to look for a bedframe at Target but turns out that seems to be an online only item so we will end up ordering one on Amazon. A few more days sleeping on the mattress on the floor won't kill us. We did get some storage boxes I can use on the shelves of my computer table and also a rug for the hallway. Slowly getting everything organized the way we want, just takes a bit of time.

This coming week I will be off on Tuesday so I should be able to get a few more things done as well. Also planning on starting my Christmas cards on Tuesday. I know, I know, it's early but we will be leaving for Austria on Nov. 27 (Thanksgiving) so I want to make sure all the cards are written before we leave. Have also ordered some Christmas gifts for people to bring with me. Trying to be organized if possible. :) 

Mail Update: Owe replies to: Katie/Germany, Tiffany/OK, Charles/TN, Jessica/DE and Carmen/Malta. 

Posted by Hanna at 06:49 PM in Holidays, Home Improvement, Work Stories | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Home Improvements

HelpAnd another week gone by and already November. Where has this year gone? Busy week at work but that's about normal for this time of year. Just going to get busier as we approach the holiday season. Speaking of that while running various errands today we went to Kohl's to return some items and were faced with Christmas music and holiday decorations all over the store. Halloween has barely passed. That just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry. 

Anyway, spent the morning running errands, heading to various stores. We needed to buy a new radio alarm clock and thought it would be quicker to get it in a store rather than order it online and wait for it to ship. Well apparently that was a wrong assumption. It took us four tries but we eventually found a reasonably priced one at PC Richards & Son. 

After all the errands we stopped for lunch at TKs and after that headed back home to put together some more furniture items. I am convinced that they try to make it as impossible as can be on purpose whenever you have to put together anything. We had a bathroom shelf (one of those that sits over the toilet so it can save space) and some hooks to install and let's just say it wasn't a lot of fun. 

Rearranged some furniture in our bedroom to try and get everything into its final space. Still have some items to unpack but now that the dresser is in place I can unpack the items that were sitting on top of the dresser and put them back. Also can unpack the rest of my bathroom items now that I have more shelf space in there. 

We still have pictures to hang up and some other deco items but all in all it is getting there. Plus of course the bigger purchases like the washer/dryer, bedframe, couch, kitchen table etc. Well, we will get there eventuallly.

Mail Update: Owe replies to: Tiffany/OK, Charles/TN, Jessica/DE and Carmen/Malta. 

Posted by Hanna at 05:38 PM in Home Improvement | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, October 20, 2014

Surprise - we moved :)

Collage_20141020113606550_20141020113622745.... yup, we moved. :) I know this probably comes as a surprise to a lot of people since I haven't talked about this at all on here before now. It's been in the works for a while now though but hadn't been finalized so we didn't want to say anything until it was all done. 

The main reason for selling and moving was the condition of our house. It just wasn't in the best shape and needed a lot of work. It's been getting close to impossible to keep up with everything. So we either would have had to pour a lot of money into it and renovate from the ground up or sell. So we decided to take an offer we got and sell.

For right now we are happy renting and happy to let someone else worry about maintaining things, general upkeep, snow plowing, yard work and all that. We might buy again eventually. Just have to see what we want to do.  

Our apartment is still in Danbury, only about 10 minutes from where our house was. It's in a neat Victorian building that has been split into three units. Our unit is on the second floor (only complaint - moving all of our furniture and things in there was a huge pain) with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, living room and a big kitchen. We also have a large unfinished attic for storage which is nice. 

So I apologize for my absence but been quite busy with packing everything up, renting a truck and getting everything moved. Luckily we had some help taking things apart and two of our friends helped us move all the bigger items so that helped a lot. I did have to work Saturday but spent the late afternoon/evening and all of Sunday unpacking most of our essentials. Still have a lot of stuff left to unpack but at least things are starting to come together.

I will post more pictures of our new place once not everything is in boxes anymore. Right now it would look quite chaotic. If you want to see a picture of the outside of the house click here. I love those type of houses. They look so New England to me. I remember adoring them when I first visited this area in 2000 when seeing Mike for the first time. I had no idea I would actually be living in one fourteen years later. :) 

Mail Update: Letters went out last week Tuesday to: Lotte/Denmark, Celia/MA, Charles/TN and Laura/Spain. Owe replies to: Charles/TN. 

Posted by Hanna at 04:31 PM in Home Improvement | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, March 02, 2014

Burst Pipe = No Sunday Fun

Burst_pipeWhy do things always break in the winter at the worst possible times? Last year our water heater broke and leaked all over the basement during a blizzard. This year I am waking up to water spraying all over the basement from a broken/burst pipe during an arctic cold spell. To be fair today is actually one of the "warmer" days with temps hovering right around freezing but that's just one day as tomorrow night the low is supposed to be -2F (= -18C) again with the highs just below freezing for the next few days at least. No fun at all. 

My plan for today was to sleep in, get up, take a leisurely shower and then head out for lunch somewhere. Instead I got to go up and scoop water out of our basement as half of the basement had standing water in it. No shower either because the broken pipe in question was a hot water pipe which means we now have no hot water in the bathroom. Not my idea of a great start to my Sunday. Plus I also had to get the cats out of the basement who had already started to put wet paw prints all over the house. Had to move their litter box upstairs too. 

Gonna stop at work and wash my hair there before we head out to lunch at the YardHouse in Yonkers. Later we are going to come back, watch some shows from our TiVo and then the Oscars. Always enjoy watching those. Gonna have some wine, relax and try not worry about hot water, a wet basement and whatever else. 

On top of all that one of our good friends was let go on Friday as his position at work was eliminated. Not really happy with that either, as it means more work for me as I try to figure out how to cover some of his work. So yeah, like I said, just going to have some wine and relax later, no thinking about anything else. :)

My mom is back at rehab and doing well. Her speech issues are going to take time. Improvements can be seen but unfortunately it's one of those things that needs time so it's gonna be a little bit longer before things are back to the way they were. For right now I am just happy that she is doing as well as she is and I'll get to see her again in just a little over a month which makes me happy too. 

Mail Update: Letters went out on Wednesday to: Charles/TN, Jessica/DE, Carmen/Malta, Celia/MA and Nina/WA. Received a letter/owe a reply to: Laura/Spain and Tiffany/OK. 

Posted by Hanna at 12:03 PM in Austria , Food and Drink, Home Improvement, Weather, Work Stories | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Busy Week, 4th of July prep etc.

Telephone

Definitely another busy week. Worked six days (Mon-Sat) which really was the only way to get everything done in preparation for the 4th of July holiday next week. Since we are actually closed for the holiday all Thursday customers have to be assigned a new schedule for that week which then has to be communicated to them and kept track of manually. Always prone for errors of course, as much as we try to avoid it. 

On top of that school has ended and some systems have begun their summer programs plus summer camps are starting up, etc. As always that tends to be a mess at first until everyone is settled and we are familiar with their way of ordering and their exact delivery location and procedures (a lot of these camps are in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, 200 plus miles from any other stop, on dirt roads with no cell phone signals so there isn't much room for error)

Well, we made it through the week. Now we just have to get through next week and past the actual holiday. Mike and I have no plans for th  4th itself really. I am working again next Saturday so in a way it will be just like a regular day off. Only difference that I will receive a comp day for it that I can use later on for a vacation. So that's not bad. :)

Not too much else new really. Yesterday after work we went to see the new Superman movie "Man of Steel". It was pretty good, definitely very action packed. Not sure if it was amazing but it was entertaining for the most part. 

Today we slept in and are heading up to Oxford in a bit for lunch at 121 Restaurant at the airport. Always a fun place to hang out and it's been a little while since we have been there. Originally we were thinking of doing something outdoors like a hike but the weather has been so weird, humid and unstable, almost like Florida weather. Not good outdoors activity weather. 

Mail Update: Received letters/still owe a response to: Jessica/DE, Charles/TN and Lotte/Denmarkt 

Posted by Hanna at 11:35 AM in Food and Drink, Home Improvement, Work Stories | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Just one more week ...

 Sydney_opera_house_02 One more week until Sydney. I can't believe we will be leaving for Australia in just one week. We leave Monday January 24th. Don't actually get there until Wednesday the 26th (it will be interesting wrapping my brain around the massive time difference) though. I am definitely looking forward to 2 weeks away from work plus getting out of the cold. We have had such cold weather this winter and have already exceeded the snow amounts for an average winter and it's only the beginning of January. Had another storm last week on Wednesday that dumped two feet of snow on us. They are forecasting another storm for Tuesday but right now they are saying it will probably just be a wintry mix turning into rain later in the day. Will probably make for some messy roads but hopefully nothing else.

 Not too much else going on. Just trying to get everything ready for when we leave in a week. Still a lot to do at work and also things to get together for our trip. I don't think it's going to seem real until we actually get on the plane and maybe not even until we leave San Francisco (we have a layover there) Definitely not looking forward to the LOOOONG plane trip.

Been busy today wrapping a bunch of our wires in wire protective sleeves because our two new cats decided it would be a fun game to chew up wires. So far they have chewed through Mike's cell phone charger cable, two long cables we had running between the computer and TV, a wire for the TiVo, various speaker cables for our surround system and a string of Christmas lights. I don't think it's possible to protect all the wires in our house, WAY too many but we figured we would start with the most expensive/most difficult to replace ones. So we will see how that goes.

 Mail update: Received letters from/still owe replies to: Jessica/DE, Celia/MA, David/IN, Becki/KY and Jetta/Finland.

Posted by Hanna at 08:22 PM in Home Improvement, Travel | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack