Tag Archives: Costco

Up on the roof!

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I came back from my morning walk yesterday and spotted the tiles on our roof. This is turning out to be a bigger project than I had previously imagined.

When we had solar installed, they broke roof tiles and put holes in our roof. First big rain (it poured for several days) we had water damage on the inside.

I called the solar company and sent a letter with photos of the damage to Costco (we bought the solar through them.) A Costco manager called me back as soon as he got the letter. Unfortunately, the solar company no longer works through Costco and they moved out of Arizona. But still the manager gave me a number to call and file a complaint and he said he would, too.

Nothing has happened on that end, but we needed to move forward with fixing our roof and the interior of the house. We got a roofer over and our handyman said he’d do the inside repairs once the roof is fixed.

The roofer said we needed to hire a solar company to remove the panels and supports. And then replace them when he was done with the roof repair. That was the hard part. It took more than three weeks to find a solar company who would do the job. They are too busy selling and installing complete home solar systems and not interested in a small maintenance job. We called people we found online as well as referrals from friends and neighbors. The referrals never returned our calls! Isn’t that something?

I’m glad we found a roofer, a solar company and have our handyman — who is the best.

This is our roof a few hours after the first photo was taken! Yes, I’m thankful. Solar gets reinstalled Monday. Then the handyman comes to repair the damage inside.

A bright flower on a small Beavertail Cactus. All photos were taken with my new phone.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my mom friends.

What are your plans to celebrate or enjoy the weekend?

What’s in Your Closet?

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This is my office which has been taken over with stuff from our closets. The painting is of our Palm Springs backyard.

Yesterday, we were getting new carpet installed in our guest room and casita. We went through Costco because a neighbor recommended them. First, you have Costco’s backing if you aren’t satisfied or something goes wrong. Second, you get a percentage back from Costco on a gift card.

We had a salesperson come to the house with samples. We selected what we wanted, signed a contract and paid. The salesperson did measurements with an electronic device. He said I needed to empty out the closets and remove little things, but they would do the heavy lifting of beds and dressers.

We decided to replace the carpets after Christmas. My son is very allergic to cats and even though I raked the carpets to get rid of Olive’s hair (yes, there is such a thing as a pet rake) and I had the carpets professionally cleaned, my son couldn’t breathe. His doctor told him to leave or go to the ER. Not a great Christmas memory.

I’m sad to lose Olive and I miss her every day. She loved to hibernate in the daytime under the beds in the casita and guest room. Hence the cat dander.

We have a friend who is a retired pulmonary physician. He said cat dander can last in carpet up to three years. There’s no getting rid of it.

We had no carpet in our Palm Springs home. We replaced the carpet in our kids’ bedrooms with hardwood floors because of the allergy issue.

I can’t believe how much STUFF I had crammed into two closets. Now that it’s all out in public view in my office, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to go through it all. We are having guests for a week starting Sunday. What a great time to empty out the closets and have new carpet.

In those closets I had Christmas ornaments, gift wrap, and giant jugs to purify water from our pool in case of an emergency. Also, a sewing machine and fabric. And lots and lots of photo albums. Where will I put these things now? That’s the question.

What oddball things do you have stored in a spare closet?

The Desk

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My desk, clean and tidy.

When we moved into our new home, December 2020, there was a formal dining room. The prior owners asked us to buy their gorgeous dining room furniture which was Chinese lacquered in shiny black. I really liked it, but formal dining is not our style. We ended up buying the sellers’ furniture in the casita which was the best decision we made — because our furniture didn’t arrive until the next day or two. (That’s another story. The moving truck wasn’t big enough. The two guys moving us had to find a U-Haul, which were scarce. The closest one was two hours away….) Because we bought the casita furniture, we had a bed to sleep on plus table, chairs and a sofa.

Anywho, I turned the formal dining room into my office. We bought the desk and chair at a consignment store a few weeks after moving. Then I promptly stuffed the drawers from boxes that said “desk” on them. I’ve barely been able to use the desk because the drawers were so full they were hard to open.

Then last week, a mere three years later, I was looking for some paperwork. I found the paperwork plus two envelopes from Costco that I never opened. Thankfully, before throwing them in the trash, I discovered rewards checks totaling more than $900! Woohoo! (Did you know that rewards from Costco never expire?)

That prompted me to clean out my desk.

That’s why I’m feeling smug and love my desk. It’s so organized and one drawer has hanging files with everything current neatly filed. No, I didn’t find any more money. But the $900 will do just fine. Some of the funny things I found were a pile of cords for old Macs I no longer own and connections that are out of date. Also, a device I bought during the pandemic that was an ultraviolet light cleaner for my iphone. (I convinced myself that because it was from China, that once I placed my phone in it and pressed the on button, it was sending all my data to China, rather than sterilizing my phone against COVID.)

Here are a few items in my office that I love:

A present from my dear friend Phyllis. Isn’t that cool?

A large painting of our backyard in Palm Springs where we lived for 28 years.

Paintings by my grandmother of Robe, Wash. where our property is on the Stillaguamish River. The top painting is of me around age five (sorry for the glare). The bottom one is of the cabin my mom and dad built themselves.

What area in your home needs a thorough cleaning and organizing?

I had a friend who called these places “hot spots.”

Mystery solved!

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Olive sitting at the kitchen counter.

Weird things have been going on lately. It’s stressing me out. First the dishwasher quit working, next it was the garbage disposal.

Then the power went out and I wrote about my mishaps with the garage door HERE.

Then I mistakenly threw out a Costco gift card we received for having solar installed. I had a stack of junk mail to recycle — and the Costco letter — which I hadn’t opened yet got mixed in.

The next day, it occurred to me that the Costco letter was in the recycling bin. But of course it was recycling day and the bin was empty! Costco was great about replacing the gift card, although I lost a night’s sleep fretting about it.

We hired a serviceman to fix the dishwasher. He had tools to diagnose it and said several motors were out and it would cost $1,000 to repair it.

I looked at the paperwork from the prior homeowners and it was installed in 2014. We decided to buy a new dishwasher. It arrived but it was broken. I’m waiting for the new dishwasher to come in.

In the meantime, I called the garbage disposal company and over the phone they had me unplug and plug things in the outlet under the sink. They told me it was an electrical problem, not an appliance issue.

Duh! My synapsis snapped and I realized the dishwasher and the garbage disposal are plugged in the same outlet. They would both start and then suddenly stop after a minute.

The electricians came yesterday morning. They called their boss when they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. After consulting they figured it out.


“The neutral wire was tied into a 220v circuit, so technician untied it, resolving the issue and converting the circuit back to a 120v circuit.”

The electricians

The solar people upgraded our electrical panel three weeks ago and they made a mistake. My problems with the dishwasher and garbage disposal happened at that time. I didn’t make the connection. Instead, I thought everything was breaking down at once. At least the solar company is picking up the bill for the electricians.

We were driving back from Costco after a spending spree with our gift card when a rock hit our windshield. I made an appointment with Safelight to have the one inch crack filled. The next day, the crack was 10 inches across. That means a new windshield.

Notice most of our problems are caused by going solar?

Stuff happens. And we don’t have our solar approved by the power company and city yet.

What weird things have you experienced lately? Or is it just me?

Dilemma from a dream

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Olive cat
Olive giving me that look before she jumps in my lap.

I had a weird dream last night. It was short, but got me thinking.

In my dream I was at Costco. I was standing up front where they have electronics. I watched as a young woman in her 20s, got a display camera unattached and put it under her arm and walked towards the exit.

I pointed at her and yelled to a nearby employee “She’s taking a camera.”

The employee ran after her.

Another employee came up to me and told me to mind my own business. “She’s not hurting you or anybody else,” he scolded me.

“Yes, she is. It’s wrong to steal and it makes everything cost more for us,” I answered.

“Costco can afford it. Besides they have insurance for theft.”

Then I woke up.

I wondered about it.The dream me did what I feel is right. Would the awake and out of bed me do the same if I was standing in a store watching someone shoplift?

My son’s first job in San Francisco was with a retailer he worked part time for during his college days. He got robbed and was instructed to let the shoplifters take the clothing. This was one of those stories where my husband told my son, “Don’t tell mom. She doesn’t need to know.” There’s been a few of them and guess what? Mom (me) always finds out.

What would you do if you witnessed a robbery or shoplifting? Would you report it, let it go, or get involved another way?

What’s annoying…

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hiking in the preserve
McDowell Sonoran Preserve

I like living in Arizona. I really do. I like being across the street from 130 miles of hiking trails that will never be developed. I also like the wildlife — bobcats, mule deer, coyotes, hawks, owls and coyotes.

But what annoys me are the grocery stores. It’s 30 minutes to drive to Trader Joe’s or Costco, which we make a special trip to do. There are four grocery stores much closer. But I have to stop at two to three of them to get my shopping done.

The one that is closest is very small. It’s not a national chain, but a family-owned local store.They never carry what I need. But they do have the only kitty litter Olive the cat will use — Johnny Cat. It’s the only one of the four stores near us that carries it. They also are the only store that carries Brown Cow yogurt. (If you haven’t tried Brown Cow, please give it a try. It’s amazing.)

So I start my shopping there for cat litter and yogurt. Next I go to a major chain to get mostly everything else. Specialty items I go to the upscale store down the street from the chain store.

I don’t mind driving, but I do mind going in and out of stores for what should be one-stop shopping. I never had this problem in Palm Springs. Maybe it’s still a supply chain issue?

Are you able to do your shopping in one stop? Or do you have to go to several stores to complete your list?

Don’t try this at home!

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Healthy saguaro in the Sonoran Desert
A saguaro across the street in the nature’s preserve. It’s well over 100 years old.

Saturday was errand day. My husband and I drove to Tempe — 45 minutes away — to pick up a bookshelf for my son’s birthday present at IKEA. It’s out of stock in California, but he found it here. Our plan was to pick it up and ship it — after the one that I shipped last week was damaged en route. I’ll keep my fingers crossed on this one.

After IKEA, we spotted Dick’s Sporting Goods across the parking lot. We stopped in for a few plates of weights. At Dick’s, the clerk mentioned that their cameras had picked up the murder suspect’s vehicle during their getaway.

“Murder suspect?” I asked.

“Yes, didn’t you hear? We had a shooting in the IKEA parking lot a few days ago.”

No I hadn’t heard, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I googled it and it was a drug deal in the middle of the day gone bad. Yes, in the IKEA parking lot. The shooters were 17 and 18 years old!

Not the story I cared to hear about on a sunny Saturday standing right where it happened.

During the time we left the house, to the time we left Dick’s and headed to our final stop at Costco, my phone rang every two minutes. It was nonstop and I was going nuts. I was already stressed by the crazy drivers on the freeway and learning about teen murderers. I didn’t need my phone blowing up with “Spam Risk” and random lending companies.

I was exasperated and asked my husband “Why do you think my phone won’t stop ringing? What’s going on?” I finally realized I could turn the darn thing off.

“Uh, I was um looking online this morning and I saw some sites about interest rates,” he confessed. “It asked me to fill out a little information and they’d tell me where the interest rates are now. I just wanted to know.”

“And you entered my phone number???!!!”

“No, I put in mine,” he said.

“Funny! It’s my phone ringing.”

It’s now days later and my phone still rings, although it’s not constant. I asked some of the companies to take us off the list — that we aren’t interested. That doesn’t stop them.

My son said the same thing happened to him. He was looking to buy a car and there were some sites that offered to find the best deals. He made the fatal mistake of entering his name and phone number. His phone immediately blew up with car dealers from throughout California.

Don’t try this at home! Unless you enjoy your phone ringing every two minutes. If you want information on cars, interest rates or whatever, take the time to contact the businesses yourself.

Have you ever filled out an online form and gotten a million phone calls? What was it for? How did you get them to stop? What would you do if your spouse entered your info on a random website?