$16,567.60

It is almost ten o'clock on a snowy Saturday morning and I am going to take you along on my activities of the day.

That sounds ambitious but it's not. I really only have a couple of little adventures to go out on. The rest is here at home and involves a lot of cleaning. 

Susan is working down at the arena today for the second round of the NCAA Women's Basketball tournament.

I am happy to report that we heard from our cabinet connection and have received the first round of our kitchen layout. It is not exactly how we want it but it's a start. The good news as far as I'm concerned is the estimated cost of this first draft of cabinets, shown above in the title of this post. I was expecting a much higher number.

The price is going to go up because we are going to be adding a lot more cabinets than what the initial drawing proposes.

So here is one of the things I'm working on today that is related to the kitchen.

This is the big kitchen window on the south end of the room. It looks out on the garage and back walkway. We normally have a shade over this window because it is broken and won't stay rolled up. I'm hoping to fix that issue today.

I'm also going down to a door and window salvage store to look at possible bay window replacements.

If I'm going to do all this, I had better get going!

The door and window salvage place was a bust. I think they are out of business. I can see in to some of the windows in the warehouse and there is still stuff in there. But the entrance in the alley at the old loading dock looks pretty abandoned. 

There was lots of graffiti on every wall. There was a banner hanging up the said the name of the business but nothing with hours. I'll have to keep trying.

Diet Buster Weekend

I am writing from our spacious accommodations in Wallace, Idaho. We drove here on Friday evening and are heading back home today. 

This years ski weekend will be remembered as the time we weren't sure we had a room when we arrived. We pulled up to the Hercules and Susan said we were in Apt 1. Apt 1 was unlocked but when we walked in, one of the TV's was on, the beds were unmade and there was a vacuum and cleaning stuff in the kitchen. It was if someone had been working but left very suddenly.

We tried calling and got no answer. We drove into town to the restaurant the people own and it was closed. We went back and unloaded, made the beds, and left a note. 

Then we drove to the 1313 Club to watch basketball and have dinner.

Then Susan turned her phone off and I left mine in the car. 

When we returned, the folks were back and very apologetic and said they wanted us in Apt 2. They said we did a great job making the beds.

We skied yesterday. Hence, we are sore today. 

We have also completely abandoned our South Beach-ish kind of diet. We drank beer, ate carbs and I'm sure I'll be up five pounds.

Wow! That really is a horrible picture, but it's my only proof I was there.

The skiing was delightful although we only skied for about three hours. I skied six runs and Susan got in five. Since it was a gravity induced exercise, I'm not thinking it did much to offset the eating and drinking.

We had a great dinner last night (St. Patrick's Day) at the 1313 Club. Susan had French Onion Soup and I went traditional with Corned Beef and Cabbage.

While there, we watched the Gonzaga Bulldogs advance to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. They played Ohio State. They led for most of the game and went into half time up by 11 points. But Ohio State came back and took the lead about half way through the second half and led by four or five points for a while.

Fortunately the Zags got it under control and won by about 5 points.

As we prepare to head out, we are greeted with a gentle snowfall. We'll see how widespread the snow is as we head back to Spokane.

3:06PM: We are back at home and winding down after our drive home. We're relaxing with more basketball. We just watched Syracuse beat Michigan, another upset in a tournament full of upsets.

We decided to try and find a place to have breakfast on the drive home. There are a few choices in Kellogg but we haven't found anything we really liked. We pulled off in Pinehurst to search for a nice country breakfast spot but came up with nothing.

A bit further west on I-90 there is the possibility of the Snake Pit being open and we decide to try it. It's located a mile and a half off the freeway and right off the Coeur d'Alene river in the town of Enaville.

As we approached the bar, we were happy to see cars in the parking lot and lights in the windows. The gal that was waiting tables was running her ass off and did a really nice job of getting to everyone. I finished off my diet free weekend with biscuits and gravy. Susan had an omelette. The only thing we forgot was to order Blood Mary's. 

Oh well, that gives us a reason to go back sometime.

Both Susan and I are participating in a bracket competition and we are both doing poorly. Hopefully, everyone else is doing as poorly and it all evens out.

So we are now back and ready to return to the routine humdrum of the week.

But first, we are going to go over to the Hub and watch the game between UMBC and Kansas State. Kansas State is seeded 9 and UMBC is the #16 Cinderella upstart that knocked out Number One seed, and my pick to win the whole thing, Virginia.

9:23PM: In order to put a nice cap on today's post, I shall say that UMCB lost by only a few points to Kansas State. We had a nice time watching the games at the Hub and now it is time for the weekend to end.

Step One and Two

We have taken the first step towards a remodeled kitchen. 

Last week, we met with our Financial Advisor. Let's call him Lee.

We have been building an account dedicated to our kitchen remodel. We are doing okay. We have about $30,000 in that account. I would like it to be $45,000. 

So we made some adjustments to stocks we own and are setting our sights on being able to remodel the kitchen in one year.

We are taking step two today. We are meeting with a cabinet guy to try and get an idea of the layout and more importantly, the cost of cabinetry.

Here is my self drawn blue print of the kitchen. That thing in the middle represents our current island and the sink. We want the island to be bigger and are open to the idea of the sink being moved to the south wall in front of the window.

I'm also bringing along pictures of the oven, cook top, fridge and dish washer. We are ahead of the game because we already own these items.

I hope to have some information to impart after the meeting.