Category: Home Improvement

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Bar Rescue on Spike TV

One of my favorite TV shows that are on these days is called Bar Rescue. It stars Jon Taffer, who has been in the bar rescuing business for many years and can brag that he has saved over 800 bars during this time.

Mr Taffer gets a bit upset with many of the bar owners, blasts them from one end of the room to the other, which breaks them down to get them to realize the errors of their ways. Then he spends the remainder of his time training, grooming and rebuilding their bar along with their confidence.

A good amount of these bars have dance floors but they don’t seem to attract many dancers. Poor sound systems that need an update along with a new sound reflector or two and some new decor can make or break a good dance club. I would love to visit at least one of his bars that he has redone, especially one of the ones that have dancing!

I hope that Bar Rescue manages to stay around for a good long while. It always seems that the good ones don’t stick around very long.

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Mark Your House

There are certain things I think a house should have as part of being a responsible home owner. One of these things are house plaques. There are multiple reasons why I can think a home owner should invest in a house plaque. One of these main reasons is for emergency purposes. When a home owner has a medical emergency or some other type of emergency the personnel from the responding agencies must be able to find the home. This becomes a huge challenge when there is no mail box or numbers on the house. When emergency personnel cannot find the house with the emergency lives can be compromised and may even parish. This is why putting a house plaque on your home is so important.

Other options exist if the homeowner does not want to put a fancy house plaque on their home. Address numbers are much less expensive and still have the ability to save lives.  Address signs are another option. Either way this is a subject that should be given the time of day in order to prepare for any worse case scenario.

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Good Morning

Good morning peoples. Coffee was ready, the kids and my man are off to school and work, so I can start work early and get so much more done.

My new Keurig Coffee Machine has become my newest BFF! I can’t believe how quick and easy it has become to get a nice hot cup of coffee in approximately 3 minutes. Just look at how many flavors there are and I’m sure that there a plenty that aren’t pictured here. It seems that there are new and exciting flavors arriving each week at the stores that I go shopping at!

I am in the best of moods today. I have only some computer work and one load of laundry to do today. I scoured the house yesterday, and believe it or not, it is still clean. Hooray for me! Now on ward’s and upward today. Have an awesome day people, because I know I will.

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Stupid Coffee Pot

I am so buying a new coffee pot, one that doesn’t have a decanter. I clean out the basket and it still gets stuck with something and over flows all over the counter top. So then I have coffee grounds in my coffee and have to strain it so I can drink it. That is so annoying to have to do first thing in the morning. I don’t wish this on anyone.

This time around instead of buying another coffee pot that looks and works just like the one before it, and the one before that and all the other ones that I have purchase throughout the years, I am buying a single coffee maker the Keurig B200 one cup coffee maker which is perfect for my needs and wants. These Keurig Coffee Makers are certainly getting more popular each and every day.

I seem to see them everywhere, even at my bank, who has been offering free coffee for their customers for many years now. Both of my sisters have one and my mother was given one for Christmas and has fallen in love with it.

I look forward to trying out all the different varieties of coffee, tea and all the other drinks that can be found on the grocery stores shelves. Pretty soon the whole Coffee/Tea aisle will be used only for those products!

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Nice Quality Teak Furniture For Mother’s Porch

As I promised my mother I would, I have been spending some time looking at various outside wood furniture that she is seriously considering purchasing when she gets her tax refund that is expected to be direct deposited into her checking out any day now. My mother has always been the first person to file her taxes each year, while I tend to put if off as long as I possibly can. Each year I promise myself that I will be more organized with all of the paperwork that we all accumulate throughout the year that we need for filing our Federal and State taxes with Uncle Sam.

With all of the options of filing online these past couple of years has been a great opportunity for people to tackle this yearly task. But try as you might to deal with less paperwork there will always be papers and a decent filing system can make or break a person, sigh….

Mother has always wanted some good quality teak wood front and side porch furniture. But with the winters being so long and hard where we live it is a commitment when purchasing outside furniture. You can’t just stick it outside and ignore some type of maintenance every now and then. Nothing can withstand Mother Nature 24/7, 365, year after year. It only makes sense to take care of something that you have spent a chunk of change on, so that you can enjoy it for as long as possible. It seems a good cleaning for teak furniture tip is that a nice sealer can work wonders and teak wood is known for requiring less maintenance than most of the other wood types that are used for this type of outside furniture.

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Hummingbirds

While I was out in my future flower garden today I saw a hummingbird on my butterfly bush.  I could tell it was a female due to the nonexistent red throat.  She was amazing though.  I couldn’t help but wonder if she had some little baby hummingbirds waiting for her back at the nest.

Have you ever seen any pictures of hummingbird nests?  They are so tiny.  I personally haven’t seen one up close but I have seen multiple in nature periodicals.  Not only are the nests impressive but their eggs are nearly microscopic in size.  Again, really impressive.  These birds are miraculous and a jewel of nature.

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Time To Remove The Tree

Today, I finally took down my Christmas tree. I figured three weeks after Christmas was just about the right time.  It always seems to me that the holiday decorations go up more quickly then taking them down.  And every year  the task of taking down these decorations appears more daunting of a task.

Perhaps next year I will put up less decorations to make it easier come the month of January.  However, with this being said I probably will not take my own advice and will have my place looking like Santa’s Village once again next December.

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Pets

I love my pets, and have a house full of them, but let’s face it, sometimes I want my space and I want them in their space. Luckily I went online, as usual, and found an extra wide pet gate. This will fit nicely in the opening to my kitchen. They also have a regular size pet gate. This will fit nicely in other areas. The pets aren’t so happy about being separated, but I value a little time without getting loved to death. The reunions, even though our separations have been temporary, are always happy.

I wasn’t shopping for one, but while looking at that website, I also found a pre-charged water tank. I’ve been looking for one in my local home improvement stores. Online shopping can be so easy, and I have my packages delivered to my office.

Having a home can be a lot of work, and I have spent many weekends planning or completing home projects. I am looking forward to warm weather as many of my home projects are outside. As I am approaching the first year anniversary of purchasing my beloved home, I am actually quite excited about this upcoming Spring and Summer. Almost like a small child on Christmas Eve, I find myself counting the weeks until Spring arrives, and searching the internet for topics like “when can I plant tomatoes in Virginia?”

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Trash

Today was our trash pick up day and we had a lot of trash bags filled with leaves and sticks from the last storm out at the curb. The trash had been out at the curb for 3 weeks and last week they picked up about half of it. I was very pleased when I left for work this morning that they had finally picked up the rest of the trash bags. Of course after 3 weeks they had killed the grass under them and it was a ugly mess of stuff that they did not pick up, sticks and paper but I can fix that, I am just very glad that the trash is now gone.

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Carbide Bits and Vrious Other Tools

After the Labor Day holiday is all over and done with comes early on the first Monday of September this year, I am going to have to look for some handyman services in order to get some of the issues taken care of around the place that I just don’t have the time or the tools or the experience to tend to. I gave up trying to find the carbide bits that I had just purchased last year and other various tools seem to have taken a hike during the spring and summer season. I get so frustrated with trying to find things around here. One day I will get organized, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.

If you are a home owner you well know how much time, effort and money it takes to keep the house up and running in so many ways, it just isn’t possible to get it all done on my own so a good quality handyman will come in “handy” for most of my needs that should be taken care of before the cold winter months hit us. Something tells me we are going to have a real long and cold winter this year. A winter that starts early and last forever and a day, raising havoc on the population.

There are a few friends and family members that can and do come over on occasions to lend a hand with some projects but it seems that people are getting busier and busier these days and it isn’t always possible to impose on their time and talents. And now with the holidays and then the cold winter months ahead of us it will be more of a challenge so I’m just going to go ahead and pay a professional and get things moving.