Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Oh Captain my Captain

Chris finished his Captain's class and took the test last night and passed w/ flying colors!  So all he needs to do now is take the CPR/First Aid course, submit his paperwork, and the Coast Guard will send his official license in a few weeks.  I'm very excited for him!  This license will allow him to do fishing charters, boat tours, etc.  Sounds a lot more fun than sitting in an office planning and managing warehouses.

The test taking was not w/o drama.  The test was split into 4 sections and there was only one that he knew would be a challenge to pass.  He took that one first to get it over with.  When he got it scored, the proctor told him he missed 5 questions, which was a fail.  He said he knew there was no way he could have missed 5, but she was insistent on her scoring.  So he took it again.  This time he was told he missed 10!  After questioning her again, she finally whipped out the answer key.  One of the questions he got "wrong" was a true/false question, where the only answers would have been A or B.  Her key said the answer was "D", which wasn't possible.  She realized she had been looking at the wrong test keys all along and that he actually passed the first time.  So not only was the poor guy thinking he failed not once but twice (can you imagine the harrassment from Captain McLeod on this???) but she scored at least one other persons test as a fail.  This other guy left thinking he failed, but he actually passed too.  AND this proctor didn't even think about the other people she scored wrong until Chris pointed it out.  WTF?  Incompetent much? 

Anyway....that's behind us and now it's time to bring on the fishing trips!!

Monday, June 20, 2011

The contract is FINALLY executed

Wow.  What a ride.  After many, many, many go arounds....waiting...negotiating....paying lawyers....we finally have a done deal.  No turning back.  Friday we sent in our down payment and signed papers...which wasn't quite as smooth as it should have been due to a last minute request on the sellers part.  We realized last night it was so anticlimactic when we finally got it done because of all of the highs and lows, waiting, frustration, etc.  That and we were literally half way out the door for a birthday party weekend w/ 40 of our closest friends :)  Last night we finally toasted it and let it sink in a little.  Which was closely followed by the realization that we have a million things to do before taking over on August 1.  But we'll get there and I'm sure it will have been worth the pain and the wait.

So yeah, August 1 is the date!  Of course that's a Monday so it will be more like August 5-6 that we'll "open".  Not sure what we'll have in place other than the boutique.  We'll have to figure that out in the next 6 weeks as if the past is any indication, things will continue to change/evolve by the week.

Still no offers on the house but things have picked up a bit showing-wise.  After having the showings slow down to about one every other week, just this week we've had 3.  Yesterday we had a couple come to see the house by boat; that was a first.  We plan to hire a realtor in the next week or two to hopefully get this done asap.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Makeover #4 - Goodwill director's chairs

On a recent Goodwill trip, while I was really looking for another small desk chair, I came across two director's chairs for $15/ea.  They were in great shape, just had some chipping paint and dirty fabric.  So with my two BFF's - paint and fabric - they went from this


to this



I was pleased to see, as I was taking the fabric off, that they are from Pier 1.  I looked up the retail online and they sell for $50 for the chair and $15 for the fabric parts.  So I got both chairs, with much cuter fabric then they offer, for less than the price of one @ retail.  I used outdoor fabric from Joann's when it was 50% off so the fabric for each chair was less than $10.

I think they will look very cute out front of this cottage
or this one