2015 Road Trip.....Day 11

If you want to catch up on this Road Trip Series use these links--
Part 1 PA to WV
Part 2 WV to KY
Part 3 KY to TN
Part 4 TN to AR
Part 5 AK to LA
Part 6 LA Sights
Part 7 More in LA
Part 8 More Day 10

At least I think it was Day 11.
It's so long ago now, who the heck knows! lolz
But I digress.....

Day 11 found us off on an adventure, Hubs and I and our Louisiana realtor.

We only had 1 day to look at properties but she got us information on a bunch of listings earlier in the week and we narrowed what we wanted to look at down to 4.
She also threw in a 5th house to see after we met up that morning, seeing as it was in our price range and we were literally driving past it during our day.

Here we are driving out of Shreveport.

Can you see the bumper sticker on that car ahead?

Community brand coffee is very popular down here.

We met the realtor at 9 am in a little town an hour away, east and north from the hotel we were staying at.

Here is our route to the house through this tiny town........

Fireworks and New Stuff inside a Comfy Store...lol

More Community Coffee sightings!

And a Piggly Wiggly right next to a "Sad" Store(Dollar General).

And we finally arrive at the house and the realtor doesn't arrive for another 45 mintues. grrrrr.
This older small home was on 4 acres.
The realtor couldn't get through to the listing agent as she was on vacation in Hawaii and no one from her office responded with the lockbox code.
Lovely.
So we wasted all that time and effort driving to a house we couldn't see inside. sigh.

The yard/lot was nice though.

 Mostly fenced in.

And the property ran all the way to the next block and the main road but the house was far enough from the road not to have noise issues from traffic.

Though at the fringes of town it was close enough "in town" so that you could walk or bike to stores.

So then we were off following the realtor's car westward over the Red River.

Louisiana had months and months of drenching rains last Spring and Summer and it shows in this shot of the Red River.......

The river was very far over it's banks and into the treeline beyond.

No point showing you the one the realtor added to the day as it was a "no way-no how" for us.  Too old, too many bad remodels and no land and right on a main highway.
Moving on...........

The next house held the most possibilities, at least on paper.
The photo on the listing showed a gentle slope up to the house and a rope swing in the foreground.
What it didn't show was that the area right next to the road when you pull off onto the driveway was a swamp.........

Perhaps not a swamp most times of the year, but after 4 months of nothing but rain, it's a swamp.

Here is the side front of the house....we had to go around through the back as there was a sofa and debris blocking the front door.

And here is what is behind the house.....a fallen apart shell of a mobile home sitting in the yard.
Seller was not removing it or any of the debris filling the house. ugh.

Here's the back porch.........

The kitchen(if you can call it that)......

The main bedroom(I think)......

The house has been abandoned(what they call a "ruin" in Europe)for quite awhile seeing as a wasp has built a nest in the overhead light......lol

The living room?.....

One of the bathrooms.....yes this place is a total gut and redo.  It is missing many windows too but the house seems sound and there is a newish roof on it.  The block foundation needs some work though too.

The property goes back 5 acres worth behind the gutted mobile home.
And this is the nicest feature of the whole deal.........

This lovely large magnolia tree behind the house.

So we get back on the road following the realtor to the next house...

Saw quite a few log trucks going through town.......

As well as oil wells and storage tanks.......

Get to the next property, which was suppose to be a 10 acre lot.
Had trouble actually finding where it was, as it was tucked back behind another lot along the highway with a gravel access road leading to the land........

Surprise, surprise, there is a derelict house on the land too! lolz
So overgrown we couldn't even get to the house though, let alone the 9+ acres behind it.  Might be a tear down, might not be, who knows?

So we break for lunch at Arby's......

A chicken salad sandwich......so exciting, right?

Then we were to meet up at the last house of the day but we got lost even with the GPS.

Called the realtor and finally got there.....

The grounds were groomed and the driveway was well maintained and the property was totally fenced in.

The house however was an older single wide mobile home.

It had a nicely maintained deck with an awning/shade over the bulk of it.

Two metal storage buildings and a lean-to shelter too....

Nice big lot(3 acres I think I remember?).....

The owner had moved out of the mobile home and was living in an RV parked behind the trailer until the property sold.

The problem, besides the house being a single wide was the master bedroom...

There was not enough room/configured to hold a king sized bed which is what we have/prefer.
Also there was no door between the master bath and the bedroom and carpet in the bathroom....euwwww!
So this won't work for us.
sigh.

So we went back to the hotel to refresh ourselves before picking Daughter up for dinner.
We hit a Chinese/Asian Buffet in town and I finally got to have my crawfish........

My fortune..........

And a selfie to commemorate the visit...........

Thus ended Day 11.

Sluggy

What's Going on Here

First off a storm came through yesterday.  We were on the northern edge of this weather event and supposedly we were on the rain side of this front.
But no one seems to have told the wet stuff it was suppose to be rain. lolz


No worries though as it all melted as the temps rose later in the day and now on Wednesday we are getting more rain and it's suppose to approach the 60F degree mark.

Did anyone watch "Finding Your Roots" last night on their local PBS station?

It was interesting at least to me that Neil Patrick Harris' (I don't recall how many X Great Grandfather)ancestor William Ferrar probably knew my 11 x Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Powell.
They both survived the voyage to Jamestown in 1618 on The Neptune.  Also on board The Neptune on that voyage was the 1st Governor of Virginia, Thomas West, 12th Baron of De La Warr.  Lord De La Warr died during the crossing some where off the coast of Newfoundland and his body continued on to be buried by his wife, Cecily Shirley West, in the Virginia Colony.
Without the arrival of Lord De La Warr in 1610 with supplies to save the floundering Virginia Colony in the year after "The Starving Time" it is doubtful if the colony would have survived and the founding of English history this continent would have been quite different.
But I digress.......

           What the Neptune would have looked like.

Having only hundreds of people in Jamestowne at that time, I am sure my ancestors and Neil's ancestors  knew each other, if only as neighbors and fellow members of that early society in Jamestown.

And also fascinating is that Mr. Harris' William Ferrar's future wife, Cecily Jordan, came to Virginia on "The Swan" in 1610, and  my 11x GG Thomas Garnett(Elizabeth Powell's future husband)also came over on that same voyage.
Small small world.

So both my ancestors were on board ship with both Neil Patrick Harris' ancestors.  Had fate been tempted otherwise, these people could have married other than how they did and perhaps Doogie Howser and I would be directly related or I'd be a bigtime celebrity instead of him.  ;-)

It's interesting though that Elizabeth Powell and her husband Thomas Garnett(my 11x GGs)are not listed among qualifying ancestors for admittance into the Jamestowne Society even though they each arrived in the colony in 1618 and 1610 respectively and were alive and listed in the 1624/25 Jamestowne Muster, effectively the first English census taken in America.
I guess no one has taken upon themselves trying to qualify them as gateway ancestors for this organization.  Their daughter Susan Garnett's spouse, Thomas Foster, however have been used and proved though.
Whatever.
I just find it interesting that most of us seem to be interconnected if you go far enough back into time.

And in Exciting News--

A big truck came to the house and dropped all this stuff off in the living room.....

And in the den.......

Yes, we are now officially living in a construction zone.  ;-)
Thankfully we can still get to the tv and the chairs. lol

This is the only photo I could really get that really shows something that will be going into the new bathroom........

Construction meeting still to come and then they start.

I.
Can't.
Wait.

Sluggy

Stuff and Such

I got a check the other day and I do believe that NOW Hubs can retire...woohoo!
Wanna see my check?
Here ya go.......

Here's a close-up of the amount....

I had a Fashion Bug account back before they closed up.  I paid my bill at the store one time and the clerk told me the amount incorrectly, meaning I overpaid that bill by .10¢.
That was back in 2012.
About a year later the FB chain closed up.
In January I  got a letter from whoever is closing out their books that a check for .10¢ was issued to me back in 2013 that was never cashed.
Now you KNOW if I had gotten a check, even just for .10¢ I would have cashed it, right?

So this letter said I either needed to let them know when that 2013 check was cashed, or if this money wasn't owed to me(which is was) or if it was still owed where to send the new check they needed to issue.
It's too bad an option wasn't D-Just keep the freaking .10¢ already!
But no, that would mess up their bookkeeping.

So even though it probably cost them something in the realm of $10 in labor, postage, processing and bank fees, they sent me a check for .10¢.
And yes, I do plan to deposit this later this week and I can't wait to see the smiles on the tellers' faces when I do. lolz


Then I went back up to Weis on Monday to do some Deals and made a little video for your viewing pleasure........

61% savings rate.  Of course the meat I got changes my meal plan a bit this week(the pork chops will go into the freezer until College Boy comes home for Spring break though).

Not much else to report in on yet this week.  Things are happening today and then later in the week which I'll fill y'all in on in due time.

We are suppose to get rain later and it's warming up into the 50's again in a day or two.  What a February it's turning out to be!

Sluggy

This Week on the Dining Table

It's the "Cook Once, Eat Eight Times" Edition--

No photo but I cooked Peanut Thai Chicken, a pan of Lasagna and a Meatloaf on Sunday.  I used up some odds and ends of shredded cheese bags, a jar of premade sauce, a box of lasagna noodles, a canister of bread crumbs, a jar of parsley, an old container of cottage cheese and 1 whole skinless boneless chicken breast and ground beef from the freezer.  These 3 dishes should give us the basis of 8 meal or so when all is said and done/eaten.   I'll probably have to throw some lasagna into the freezer too because we'll get tired of it(at least I will, Hubs could eat pasta 24/7).
I am loving doing a sort of batch cooking on the weekend when the electric rates are lower here. It frees up my week a bit and avoids that "it's 5 o'clock already and I don't have anything prepped for dinner" trap.

Onward to the meal planning!

Here's what was planned last week.......

1. Sunday--Bourbon Salmon, Mixed Veggies, Mac and Cheese
2. Monday--Chicken Parm, Veggies(Spaghetti for Hubs)
3. Tuesday--Chicken Fajitas
4. Wednesday--Bacon Mushroom Quiche(or another frozen pizza augmented with goodies)
5. Thursday--Shrimp, Cole Slaw, TBA?
6. Friday--Leftovers
7. Saturday--Leftovers

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Bourbon Salmon, Mixed Veggies, Mac and Cheese
2. Monday--Chicken Parm, Veggies(Spaghetti for Hubs)
3. Tuesday--Chicken Fajitas
4. Wednesday--Shrimp, Cole Slaw
5. Thursday--Frozen Pizza(dressed up)
6. Friday--Bourbon Salmon(again), leftover Mixed Veggies, leftover Cole Slaw
7. Saturday--Turkey Club Sandwiches

We needed to eat the frozen pizza as it wouldn't fit into the freezer so the quiche was nixed(besides, I used the mushrooms in the Fajita filling).  And we really didn't have anything leftover to reheat or repurpose as a meal so I ended up cooking every night.

7 meals cooked at home(7 new meals-if you count frozen pizza as a new meal).

As for my grocery spending so far for February.....
Added spending of $45.96 this past week.  That makes a running total of $288.24 spent in February and we have 6 days left in the month.  Between more cheap coffee and more Compleats for College Boy I know I'll go over $300 at this point, unless I advance myself some cash from March's budget.

Leftovers going into this week......Mac and Cheese and Chicken Fajita filling(enough for 2 Fajitas).
The Mac & Cheese came out dreadfully(a quick crockpot recipe using only 4 ingredients I tried) so I'll attempt to "fix" it this week. It was just a big gloppy mess so I'll make a roux and try to sauce it up.  If it can't be fixed it will get pitched.....I hate to do that but, like I said, it is dreadful!  The only other way I can think to "save" it is to breadcrumb it and make fried mac and cheese nuggets which will just make it more unhealthy(if that's possible lol).

And besides, who throws away mac and cheese??  lolz

I also have leftover smoked Pork BBQ too but that will get divided into two Ziploc bags and is going into the freezer for later as we are "bbq-ed out".

Here is this week's "food plan"--

1. Sunday--Thai Peanut Chicken, Rice, Broccoli
2. Monday--Meatloaf, Brussels Sprouts, maybe dreadful Mac&Cheese fixed up
3. Tuesday--Cheese Lasagna, Tossed Salad
4. Wednesday--Kielbasa on rolls, Saute Cabbage
5. Thursday--Fish, Potato Salad, Veggie TBD
6. Friday--Leftovers(Meatloaf)
7. Saturday--Leftovers(Lasagna)

This week will see 5 new meals cooked and 2 meals of leftovers(re-purposed into new dishes or not).
I cooked 1, 2 & 3 on the menu on Sunday(lower electric rates)and will reheat 2 & 3 on their days.  That just leaves 2 meals to cook fresh the rest of this week and they are quick and easy ones.

What I need to buy for this menu? Cabbage and Salad Greens.  We are also out of sour cream.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?

Sluggy

2015 Road Trip.....More Day 10

If you want to catch up on this Road Trip Series use these links--
Part 1 PA to WV
Part 2 WV to KY
Part 3 KY to TN
Part 4 TN to AR
Part 5 AK to LA
Part 6 LA Sights
Part 7 More in LA


Let's back up to Tuesday(Day 10) as I forgot to mention that Hubs and I visited a couple of manufactured home dealers in Bossier City, LA.
One of our retirement options is to buy land and put a modular home on it.
So we viewed two different dealers/brands of homes.

The first dealer had quite reasonable prices and a wide variety of homes/floor plans/models in the approximate size we were considering.

There were both open floor plans and traditional floor plans.
I kind of liked this one.....

Dark inside as there were no lights on....

Kitchen with a bar on the island.

I liked this bank of windows in the dining/kitchen areas.....

Laundry area off the back door....

The central bathroom/guest bathroom.

Then after lunch we visited another dealer/builder nearby.  This salesman was so full of himself and tried to make us believe that "his" modular/manufactured homes were far superior and should be priced as much as a stick built home on a foundation.
Riiiiiight......

So we viewed a couple......

The flooring looked cheap.....

And they had construction materials laying all over the place which you had to dodge when walking through......

More scrap wood and trim laying around..

One home had a built-in/on deck.  These models cost more due to them having to hand build the deck part onto the home, yet the square footage they showed for these decked models included the square footage of the deck, so you were actually getting less "house" for the money.

And the decks were narrow as it had to fit under the homes roofing.  I guess down in LA you'd want your deck shaded most of the year due to the heat.

Same cheap looking laminate flooring in the bathroom......

Nice closet though.

The kitchen finishes all looked so generic, not my style.....

I did rather fall in love with this walk-in pantry in one of the kitchens there.....swoon!

Finally! A put together room. lolz Still too expensive for what it is.

Before we left to go back to the hotel we hit one of these stores.........

Thrifty Liquors is a chain of adult beverage stores in this part of LA.  Between the liquor stores(not state run here like in PA), the Grocery stores and Wal-Marts that sell beer and wine and the Drive-Thru Daiquiri Stands on just about every corner this is a place I'd find easy to live in(in this regard).
Add in the multiple Casinos and I'd say I'd have a pretty easy time of convincing Cousin Sonya Ann to move down here too.  8-)

It's a good thing we aren't moving down there for the schools either.
While sitting in the car waiting for Hubs to finish up in Thrifty Liquors I noticed this sign they had over the door........

Suitecases?
Hmmm.

Ok,, I promise to finish up this Road Trip Report this week.....I am long overdue!

Sluggy