The Splendour of Lake Superior

I've never been a big fan of the beach or of swimming in general. I know when I was little, my dad and I would always venture out to my uncle's camp where it was situated along a lake. My uncle had ski doo's, speed boats, canoes, you name it. He took his kids water skiing, wake boarding, and inner tubing. As for me, I was mostly content swimming by the shore and watching my cousins be acrobatic in the water. Heck, they spent all of their summers by the lake so you can understand how used to the water they were. As for me, I never found the water to be all that enjoyable. I am mostly afraid of the water, to be honest. I would rather have a life vest on than to be stuck with absolutely nothing in the middle of a lake. My swimming is very amateurish at best.

Where I live, I am within a short walk to the sandy shores of Lake Superior. In fact, all my life I've been close to the big lake. You know, I think for those who live here and anywhere throughout the Great Lakes, it's something we take for granted. It's rather fascinating for me to watch people traveling through marvel at how big the lake is and how you're not able to see land over the horizon. And when you think about it, it really is a spectacular thing. These lakes are hundreds of miles long and encompass thousands of gallons of fresh water. It's a place unlike any other on the entire planet. And for us, it's right in our own backyard. I make it a necessary thing to walk along the beach and to soak in the whole lakeside environment at least a few times a year. The water is so clear and the sandy beaches are so pure. Anytime of the year, the water is usually pretty chilly, so it's not often that I'll venture into the water unless it's rediculously hot out. But still, to have this grand and beautiful lake right at your feet is something to behold and enjoy.

A couple of weeks back, my family and I enjoyed a picnic by the lake side just three miles down the road from my house. My dad cooked burgers and hotdogs on one of the grills at the park and we all sat down and ate at one of the picnic tables there. It was really a fun thing that we did and something we hadn't done in many years. I think the last time we did something like that was when all of us kids were little and we were on a trip heading to Ohio or something. After the picnic, we went by the lake side and enjoyed the nice weather while the kids went swimming. It was an enjoyable three hour event and it's something we're all looking forward to do in the future. See what advantages there are to living so close to a Great Lake?

Yes, there are a few disadvantages to living close to Lake Superior, but they are so minor in comparison to the positives, I'm not even going to list them. Another great thing about where I live now, is on those breezy days, you can hear the water of the lake splash onto shore from the big waves. What an amazing natural feature of this great land! And where ever you live, make sure you come to embrace a feature that makes it special. We can all hate certain aspects about where we live, yet we also should make an effort to enjoy it, too. Afterall, we live in these locations for a reason, and it can't all be for not.

Hometown Celebration

It's been about three years since I was able to attend the last homecoming and county fair activities in my home town. The work schedule I was on didn't allow me to travel the short distance home to attend the festivities. This year, I switched work crews with another individual which allowed me to have this upcoming weekend off. And you know something, I'm pretty excited about it. Now don't get me wrong, this is a small-town, small-county celebration we're talking about. Year in and year out, things basically remain the same. But this celebration allows people to come back and reminisce about the old times, if you will. I like to refer to it as reunion-weekend, as well. Many class reunions from the high school are held during the weekend, so it's not uncommon to see a few old faces from the past. In ten years, it'll be my classes' reunion (which totally blows my mind). I wouldn't be surprised to see a few familiar faces from the class of '99 this weekend.

The homecoming and county fair celebrations have been a part of my summer for as long as I can remember. There have been a few family reunions and gatherings held during this weekend, as well. The parade through town is probably the biggest highlight for me. I've even been in the parade on a few instances when I was younger. Again, it's a small town parade but it seems like in the smallest of parades, that's when you get the most candy. And I'll tell you, candy is no longer a big priority when you're an adult, but my niece and nephew will be joining us at the parade in a few days and they'll get a kick out of being thrown all that candy. No matter how old you are, you can never get tired of a parade. And it typically features just about every local business in the area. I mean, this is probably the biggest weekend of the year to experience hometown pride.

As part of the county fair, we used to submit exhibits to put on display and to be judged. It was actually a really good way to earn money, because if your displays were awarded a blue (first place), red (second place) or white (third place) ribbon, you also earned money depending upon the ribbon you won for your respective display. The majority of the ribbons my sisters and I won through the years were blue. Heck, one of my sisters consistently won top prize ribbons for her sewing and for my mom's vegetables. It was actually a nice way to earn some money in the summer time especially if you're a young kid. Not only that, but it was neat to see all of the animals on display and to check out some of the vendors that had merchandise on sale. This particular county fair was never known for having any rides for the kids to enjoy as there's not a tremendous amount of space for such things, but they offer many different activities for kids. So it's not a total snooze-fest for the kids that do attend.

So needless to say, I am pretty happy about getting the opportunity to attend this year's homecoming and county fair for the first time in three years. Hopefully the management where I work doesn't decide to switch crews on me again like what has been rumored, otherwise this might be the last weekend I'll be able to attend the hometown celebration for awhile. And although it's a small town celebration and typically not much changes year in and year out in this town, its still always about the people. And this is one chance throughout the entire year for the whole community to get out and see what's going on in the community and to reunite with individuals they may not have seen in years.

Summer Flying By

It's already July 29th, meaning there's only one month of summer weather to enjoy.  Honestly, though, this summer has been one of our coolest in quite some time.  Many of the weather experts around here are comparing it to our last "year without a summer" in 1992.  That year we had a lot of rain and cool temperatures.  This summer, it's just been cool and dry.  I can't remember the last 80 degree day we had and I don't believe we hit 90 degrees yet this summer.  I'm not really complaining about missing the heat and humidity, though.  However, temperatures in the low 80's would be nice to see.  Maybe taking our cool summer into account, mother nature will bless us with an unseasonably mild autumn!  One can only hope.

It's been another very busy month of July - and I am happy to say I have now lived in my new house for a month!  So far nothing extremely wild or crazy has gone on at my new residence.  There is one incidence that was a little troubling during the first few days I officially lived in the house, however.  I had just got home from work around 11:30 PM from afternoon shift and was trying to get into my house from my garage into the kitchen.  I go to unlock the deadbolt, turn the doorknob, but the door would not open.  No matter what I tried, I could not get in.  I even tried getting into the house through the front door but even the screen door was locked!  So I took that door right off, got to the exterior door, and found out I didn't have keys for that door, either.  It was back to the drawing board; which then I finally started taking apart the door knob that was giving me trouble in the garage.  I got out the electric-powered drill and started drilling away at the problematic knob.  The thing is, it was around midnight at that time and the noise coming from the garage was getting pretty loud.  So after awhile I knocked it off - for fear of waking up one of my new neighbors.  I certainly didn't want to piss anyone off the first week I was hear!  And it's not like the house is all that close to the other homes around here.  There's a good distance between homes.  Still, I didn't want to chance it, especially around midnight!  Well needless to say, after about 45 minutes, I eventually got the old doorknob off.  It was certainly a struggle, but I never gave up from getting inside my house!  It ended up being a broken spring inside the doorknob that caused it to fail.  Why couldn't this have happened a week prior when the old owners were still here?

In addition to keeping up with the daily chores of my new house, I have also been busy helping out my dad put new siding and windows on his house.  The project is progressing quite nicely and we're now down to the last wall of this particular phase of the house.  But the last wall certainly isn't going to be the easiest, either.  It's the largest of the walls and there are many obstacles to put the siding around, including about four different windows and utility boxes/meters.  The electric power for the house comes from the roof and runs down the wall through a large piece of conduit, goes to the meter box and through some more conduit into the house where the fuse box is.  My dad put siding up on this wall 15 years ago so there is no more room to pull on the conduit and slide the new siding under it.  So we're thinking of creating a whole new box for all of the different utilities on this particular wall.  It's going to be a challenge and will end up taking a lot of time.  But eventually we'll get it figured out.  The rest of the house looks super nice and it really makes the house stick out as the nicest in the neighborhood now.  

From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like this hectic summer of mine is going to slow down anytime soon.  This weekend is my hometown's annual homecoming celebration - that along with the county fair.  And this is the first time in over three years that I'll be able to attend!  I'm actually looking forward to it, although I don't expect things to be all that different from year's past.  My niece and nephew will also be around, so we'll be busy taking care of them.  Then we'll continue to work on the siding project on my dad's house this next week and then the following weekend, we'll be making a trip down to Wisconsin to visit my sister.  We haven't been down there in six months!  It's been long overdue but you know what?  It's better to be busy than bored out of my mind.  Summertime is when you want to get out and make the most of it.  

House Plans

All in all, things are going quite well with the new home. It's not entirely a new home since it was built in 1969. But considering it's 40 years old, it really doesn't seem like it's that old. The ex-owners have done plenty of work to the place to modernize it over the years, including making exterior improvements like vinyl siding and a new roof. Inside, the kitchen is relatively new with new cabinetry and new flooring. Yet when you're a new homeowner, there's always things you want to do to personalize the place. At this stage of the game, I am not going to go crazy and make mass improvements to the place. I want to stage out the improvements gradually. And as I've posted previously, not a lot of work needs to be done with the home. Just minor improvements for now, if you will.

So it's a three bedroom, one bath home. At some point in time, I'd like to add another bathroom somewhere, whether that'll be in the basement or if I convert one of the closets upstairs into one. But the main bathroom is already on the west end of the house where all of the bedrooms are. On the other end of the house is the kitchen and living room. It'll take some planning and engineering to decide if another bathroom can be built somewhere upstairs or not. I am sure it can happen, but whether it's the absolute perfect location or not is left to be determined. The basement is probably the most logical location since I've got lots of room down there and it's where I'd like to build a sauna at some point in time. And as far as the size of this new bathroom, I'm only looking at a toilet and a sink, so it won't be tremendously large. The sauna, which will be located in the basement, will be large enough to accomodate a shower. So at this point in time, the new bathroom would be best located downstairs. But at this point, those two projects won't be in the immediate future.

As for projects that I am planning to tackle in the near future, they involve repairing walls and repainting rooms. Two of the three bedrooms, the hallway, and the living room I am all planning to repaint at some point. One of the things that all these rooms are lacking is baseboard trim. I believe when the ex-owners installed new carpeting, they also removed the baseboard trim and never re-installed it. There are few trim pieces in the garage and basement, but not nearly enough to install it in all the rooms. I would like to buy new trim for all of the rooms, stain it, and install it in a room-by-room basis. I'm looking to start in one room of the house, probably the guest bedroom, by this fall. In addition, many of the electrical outlets do not match other outlets or light switches in the rooms. I plan to buy new outlets or match outlets properly and put up the wall plate that matches the best. Again, not major improvements but little things to make the place my own.

Most of the additional "major" projects involve landscaping improvements and additional exterior fixes. I am hoping at some point to get some top soil for the front lawn and re-seed the lawn. As it stands now, the entire property is comprised of sandy soil. Needless to say, the grass doesn't grow real thick. Eventually I'd like to try upgrading the lawn, but that might be a pretty large task to overcome. I am also tinkering with the idea of installing a doorway leading into the basement from the rear-side of the house. The ground slopes away from the house in the back and it actually could work. But all of that will have to figure in as to where I plan on putting the sauna and bathroom. It all takes planning and I've got many years to make it work. All in all, when time comes for me to sell this house or for someone else to sell it for me, I want to be able to make a profit off of it and to really be proud of the place I've come to call home. Hopefully these improvements through the years will allow me to do just that.

First Blog from New Home

It's been ages since I last posted in my blog (shame on me) but its been a busy three week stretch for me. Not only did we celebrate the Fourth of July, but I also enjoyed my birthday and the very important occasion of moving into my new home. The closing for the home was on June 26th. For those unfamiliar with a closing on a house - it's basically the final hurdle in the long home buying process. You meet with the bank, sign a ton of papers, hand over down payments and other assorted checks, and then it's basically the handing over of keys and voila! It's officially you're own home. At least for me, I had to wait a day before the ex-owners were officially moved out. But with all things considered, that delay in ownership worked out for the best.

When I first started the process of buying a home, I had no idea how exhausting it could be. I mean, you can't simply pick out a home and buy it right then and there. You have to find a bank where you can acquire a loan, you need to have your home inspected by a professional to detect any potential problems that could hinder the purchase of said home. You also need to transfer utilities into your name or move utilities prior to closing. You need to find home owners insurance, especially if your plan on including it in an escrow account as part of the home loan from the bank. Then there's the whole packing and moving from the old place of residence. It's a whole whirlwind of activity that I'm certainly glad is over. However, I'm glad I went through it because I ended up with a really nice home.

I would say that since I moved into this home, I have found very few surprises left by the previous owners. One thing I was a bit surprised to find out was how much stuff they decided to leave behind. Mind you, it's not tremendously a lot. But there were a few treasures here and there that were pretty awesome. And obviously the home is not perfect - there are things that I'd like to change eventually. But considering the age of the home (it's 40 years old this year) and how good the previous owners took care of the house, there's not really any major work that needs to be done to the place. A lot of the work is cosmetic and minor. I am very thankful I was able to find a home such as this because many others I went and saw on my first initial tour were pretty dreadful. And they wanted a lot of money for them, too!

So there you have it folks, I am officially a home owner. It's nice not needing to worry about paying rent at the beginning of each month and being stuck with a place you absolutely cannot change. Sure, you can change around the furniture from time to time, but with the way my old apartment was set up, it was very difficult to do that. So from the time I moved in three years ago this month at the old apartment to last month, the furniture was in the exact same spot as it was when I initially moved in there. In the new house, I have the freedom to do whatever I want. If I get sick of my current bedroom, I can move to the one across the hall or into the room next door. I can paint, wall paper, and completely gut rooms if I wanted to. But at this point in time, I'll just stick to painting. And with me being involved with re-siding my parents house this summer, I probably won't be able to get to many of the improvements on my home until this fall. And I'm okay with that, because actually I'm pretty happy with the stauts quo at this point in time. But I'm sure in time, that'll change. After all, doesn't that come with owning your own home?