Miss Kitty's doings

Miss Kitty is adapting well to her new housing situation -- even though it means that she has about 3 times the amount of space to have to supervise, and her food dish and litter pan are now about 5 times further away from each other!

It was time for her annual vet appointment, so we took her to the Banfield at the local PetSmart for a checkup. She continues to lose weight, and her bloodwork shows that her kidney disease is continuing to progress, but they were impressed with her agility and general wellbeing.

She likes looking out the window that is in front of our computer desks...

"Who? Me?"

She isn't very photogenic, but she sure is sweet!

 

Tuesday Coffee and Donuts

Each Tuesday, our new community, Sunland Springs Village (SSV), has an update hosted by the HOA office about the events coming up in the community. They have coffee and donuts available, and it is a good time to meet folks in the community.

Margaret, from the HOA office, shares about things coming up...

... information about many of the events are displayed in stands displayed on the tables, and we take pictures of the things we want to participate in so we remember to put them onto our calendar.

The community also puts out a small newspaper each month (Sunland Springs Village Voice) with a few articles about new things in the community or highlighting individuals and their contributions. It has listings of all the activities available. The activities are also listed on the community's website. No excuses for being uninformed!

The other half of the gFiber installation

The folks had come to lay the fiber from the "flower pot" to the house, but a technician from gFiber still needed to come to do the work inside the house.

The internet service previously was called "Google Fiber", and started in 2013 by Alphabet (parent holding company of Google) as an experimental project to bring fiber broadband internet service to households. It is now owned by investment company Stonepeak with Alphabet retaining a minority stake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber).

Connection outside our house -- the folks who dug the trench and ran the wiring had put this box on the outside wall. The fellow who came to do the inside installation drilled the hole through the brick wall into our front bedroom.

The connection inside the house

We appreciate having fast internet service -- we had brought our Verizon "home" device from Gracie over to the house temporarily, but it was not giving us great service in our new house. GFiber works very well and we're enjoying making use of it.

A Costco run

We have been busy going back and forth between our properties in Venture Out and our new home in Sunland Springs, loading up the CR-V each time with as much as we could get in. Carl estimated 1000 trips would be required (I was figuring a few less...).

We stopped at Costco to get a few things... but it was on the way back from Venture Out back to the new house, so the CR-V was already pretty full...

But! Pumpkin pie is already available!

We figured out how to get the items into the car -- who needs room for their feet?

Pumpkin pie the way Carl likes it - with enough whipped cream that you can't see the pie!

Lots of trips back and forth between VO and SSV -- but 1000 won't be required for moving. However, going back and forth to our properties still in VO, and Gracie in the storage lot, and seeing friends... well... eventually we might make 1000 trips back and forth!

More folks come to perform services

When we purchased the appliances from Spencer's TV and Appliances, they let us know that they have recently started a pest control service, Spencer's Best Pest Control. Since we had purchased from them, they offered us a free initial pest control service. We decided to take advantage of it...

Spencer's Best Pest Control guy spraying in the back yard

Treating back yard spaces

Spencer's truck out front

Still treating perimeter of the property in back yard -- he had already treated the perimeter of the house and inside the garage.

We had also arranged to have gFiber installed for our internet service. They had to run a line from the "flower pot" (at the corner of our neighbor's lot) to our house...

A man and a woman came to do the task... they first cleared the gravel off the area where they would be burying the fiber...

The man ran a jack hammer about every 6 inches to break up the hard soil, while the woman used a sharp-shooter spade to make the trench -- hard labor in this hard soil and under the hot sun (100F+ temperatures).

We're getting things in place so our new house will feel more like a home!

Furniture

I wrote that we attended The Springs Chapel on our first Sunday in our new community. I noticed at "meet and greet" time that the folks at the end of the row where we were sitting looked familiar, and I was pretty sure we had met them at the resort in Show Low where we stayed this past summer. I spoke with them and found out that, yes, they summer at Venture In in Show Low and we had met there. They have also just recently moved to Sunland Springs as they sold their primary home out east of Mesa in Gold Canyon -- but they are renting at Sunland Springs as they wait for availability before entering another 55+ community.

After the service, we talked with them a little more, and someone came up and asked them how their estate sale was going. They indicated that they had not been out to their (now sold) house, but that the estate sale agent said that not many folks were coming through, and that the furniture pieces weren't selling well as the people who came already had all the furniture they needed. 

Estate sale? Furniture? We need furniture... how long is the estate sale going on? (until noon, and it was about 10:30am) Where? We got the address and went out to their former home in Gold Canyon.

When we got to the estate sale, the sign on the door indicated everything was at 75% off, wow!

We found that they had a bedroom set (our friends' guest room's furniture). While our new home has a Murphy bed, we had made it up and wondered how comfortable it was going to be. But, how could we get a bedroom set transported to our new home?

Carl asked the estate sale agent when we would have to get the items -- she indicated that an auction company would be coming to get everything not sold on the next day. Carl asked if the auction company truck might be willing to deliver some pieces to our house instead of the auction company. The estate sale lady made a call and the auction truck guy would be willing to make a delivery to our house for a reasonable fee.

We were able to find quite a number of pieces for our new home:

Dining room hutch

Dining room table and chairs

Kitchen table and chairs (to replace the card table and folding chairs we'd been using!)

55" TV

Bed...

... nightstand...

... mirror...

... and dresser.

The pictures are from our friends' former home. The truck delivered the furniture on Monday afternoon...

Inside our home, the dining room chairs have been brought in.

Besides the furniture pieces, we also got some art pieces. We're still figuring out where everything should go!

Chapel in our community

Our community, Sunland Springs Village, has a Sunday morning worship service called "The Springs Chapel. It is held in the auditorium. We visited it the first Sunday after we purchased...

They didn't have printed bulletins that Sunday (I guess they normally have printed bulletins) so before the service started, they displayed the program on the screens, so I took a picture so I'd have the information for later in the service and to read during the week.

The service located in the Auditorium

The worship leader

Unlike many of the communities here in Mesa, there are enough people here in our community year round that the service continues on through the summer. However, the service we went to (the first Sunday in October) was the first Sunday that the worship leader was back and the pastor commented that all the members of the chapel were very glad that he was back.

We were warmly welcomed and appreciated the clear presentation of the gospel provided by the pastor.