Settling Into Our New Home

7/3/04 - New Appliances
Today we purchased a new Maytag washer and dryer. We splurged and got the top of the line Neptune washer that has received very high acclaim.While we were at Lowes, we decided to also replace the refrigerator that came with our new house. It was working OK but was many years old and we wanted a more energy efficient model. It was our first experience with an ice-maker and water dispenser, which we quickly fell in love with. So our new refrigerator has these features too. Lowes gave us a pretty good deal on all of the appliances and included free delivery and no finances charges until January.

7/7/04 - Low Water Pressure
This morning the guy in charge of the Carlton water system came out to check on our water pressure. We've been experiencing very low pressure since we moved in. He got a pretty good reading on his meter though and said that he thought there might be considerable corrosion in the pipes, both leading to the house and in the house itself.

We called the former owners and they said that sometimes the pressure got a little low but most of the time it was just fine. I don't know what we'll wind up doing. Replacing all the pluming in the house seems like a pretty expensive solution, but since we're planning on remodeling the master bathroom anyway, it might not be too much extra at that point.

When we got to Carlton we discovered that the T-Mobile phones we got in California did not work at all in our new house. So we switched to Sprint who sent us two cool new Nokia phones today. I rather liked the T-Mobile phones and calling plan, but Sprint should work out just fine too.

7/13/04 - Unpacking and Settling In
It's been a busy couple of weeks getting moved in to our new home. We still have many piles of boxes to deal with, but we are progressing slowly. We have also spent a considerable amount of time getting to know our surrounding towns and cities. This is a beautiful and bountiful place to live.

Today we had all of our locks changed by a local contractor by the name of Tom Baker. He did a very professional job in a reasonable amount of time. We'll use him for many projects around here I'm sure.

We have identified several projects which we are currently getting bids on. These include a concrete pad or deck for our hot tub, a gazebo for the hot tub, a new concrete pad for our RV and a master bathroom remodel.

Before we left Redwood Valley I decided to try T-Mobile for our cellular service. It worked great all the way up to Carlton, but at our new home, there was no service at all. So we switched to Sprint. Yesterday my wife went to Costco and traded in our new Nokia phones for some state of the art Sanyo PCS phones that can take pictures and even act as walkie talkies. I still haven;t figured out what to do with all these features, but they are cool, I guess. I'll probably never use the Walkie Talkie feature because it is rather complicated and no better than a phone call.

The best part of the Sprint service is that we only pay for the first 300 minutes and then for each 50 minutes above that we get charged a low, set amount. Sprint calls it their Fair and Flexible plan. This is the second cell phone I've had, but the first I've used extensively. It will be interesting to see how many minutes per month that I use.

Tonight we ate at a Chinese restaurant and when we pulled into the parking lot we saw a truck with the license plate GARTH. Inside I took a wild guess and met a nice guy about my age who is a contractor named Garth. I've met a dozen or more Garth's in my life, but none lately. It is such a rare name it is always cool to find another.

Creating Lace at the Fair

7/16/04 - Yamhill County Fair
We went to the Yamhill County Fair today and were very disappointed. There were very few people, animals and exhibits as compared to any other fair we have attended. Plus we paid more to get in than I have ever paid before. I was most impressed with the Lace being created. We'll try out the Oregon State Fair in August.

Today Garth the contractor came over to discuss the various projects that we have in the planning phase. It was kind of weird referring to someone else with my name. We'll have to see how his bids compare to others.

7/20/04 - New Versions of SpiritWorks Software
I released new versions of most of my software today including Activity & Expense Tracker, Inventory Tracker Plus and Small Business Tracker Deluxe. It had been several months since the last update, so I was glad to get the new version out. I take some pride in adding a few new features about once a month, but I've been so busy with moving, etc. lately that I have not had a chance to do it.

If you have a need for timekeeping or inventory tracking software, I invite you to go to productivity-software.com and download a free trial copy of any of my programs. Each package includes a contact tracker, schedule tracker, task tracker and the universal calculator. Most include some kind of invoice generator too.

One of the newest features is a form letter generator which uses the names and addresses from Contact Tracker. You can also export the list of contacts and create mailing labels with Excel.