Old and New, Part 2: Desk

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series of big new things. Typically, these sort of things might not be noteworthy, but they all converged in a small period of time, making the changes stand-out. Also, each has a short little story; thus, my mini-series.

Like the Washing Machine, I got my old desk for my first apartment in college. The desk was a "new" purchase for the apartment because the space I had that could hold a desk in the bed room of that apartment was so small that most student desks, with enough surface space for a computer and printer, wouldn't fit. We looked at several stores and finally found one that measured up. I was never completely happy with the desk we found because it had no drawers, leaving everything out in the open. Also, it didn't quite match my style, but it looked decent and most importantly, It Fit!

That desk made 3 moves with me after that first apartment, and it served its purpose well, squeezing into a couple more small places and faithfully holding my computer. In the new house, I've set up my office in what a Realtor would call the Formal Living Room - and it's the first room you see when you walk into our house. Though I'm not sure if it has ever been a formal living room (the most recent previous owners used it as an office too), it is a focal point to guests that come over.

The space is quite a bit bigger than my previous desk spaces, and the clutter of the drawer-less desk really bothered me when we hosted people.

The old desk. Note that the floor was a necessary storage location, and there's no extra desktop space to use.

I tried to buy a new desk in the Black Friday sales last Thanksgiving, but when the desk arrived at the house, it was damaged and the place we bought it from was out-of-stock. We returned that desk, and I had been casually looking at other furniture stores for a new one since then.

Last weekend, while we were over at a friend's house, the topic of IKEA came up.  I've never actually been to IKEA, but John is familiar - that's where he got his bed. We thought it would be fun to visit IKEA just to experience the store, and if I happened to find a desk, that would be an added bonus.

I had looked online at IKEA for desks, but being unfamiliar with the numerous configuration setup of most IKEA furniture, all I could see was a bunch of desk tops with no drawers, which wasn't going to help my cause any. In going to the IKEA store, I was enlightened. I found a desk line I thought I liked, and we left that first visit with a booklet of all my many options for that desk.

My little project.  The final layout of the office (to-scale) is on the right and all the other option pieces are on the left.

Being the nerd that I am, I came home and made a scale drawing of the space and made little puzzle pieces to match the various IKEA desk options. I played around with the options for about 30 minutes and then John joined in my play for another 5 minutes before a final decision was reached.

A few days later, we returned to IKEA and purchased the appropriate parts. Unfortunately, I overestimated the opening of the hatch on my car by about 3.5 inches, and the desk top wouldn't fit. Luckily, our friend and frequent dog-sitter wasn't too far away and came to the rescue. (He actually has great taste in cars, so he drives the same model car as I do, but it's in shop for hail damage leaving him with a larger loaner vehicle that held the desk top nicely. Thanks again, Forest!)

Lo and Behold - Spacious and Uncluttered

After the multi-hour process of assembling IKEA furniture, the new desk is in its home.  It's amazing what a drawer set can do. The desk actually now holds more in it than before - Everything the starting picture above, plus a few things that I had stashed away in the guest bedroom closet, all fit nicely in the new, tidy desk. Hooray!

Stay tuned for "Old and New, Part 3: Oven" which is still a continuing saga that will hopefully end soon.

Old and New, Part 1: Washing Machine

This is the first of a three part series that I'll call "Old and New."  A bit by coincidence and a bit because we had wedding gift money, we've made several new additions to our house to replace some old troublesome items.

First, the washing machine.

When I got my first apartment in college, I scavenged furniture and appliances from many relatives, either recently deceased or moving to a smaller space.  One thing I was not able to scavenge was the dryer, so it was one of the very few items that I got new in that first apartment.  The washing machine on the other hand, was far from new... Our best guess from online research and looking at pictures and model numbers is that the washing machine was made in the late 1970s, but since it's previous owner had no more need of it, it was free if we could haul it away.

Before John met me, his goal in home furnishings was to have as little as possible, so that if he needed to move, all of his belongings could fit in the back of 1 or 2 pickup truck loads.  Needless to say, he didn't bother himself with owning a washer or dryer.  Thus, my 1970s washer became our joint washing machine.  Behold:

Though, in most cases, it did get our cloths clean, the gentle cycle had become a little too gentle, so my delicates often needed soap rinsed out before moving them to the dryer. Also, it was quite loud, off-balance, and since it has a center agitator, frequently tangled and stretched on our clothes.  

Along came Texas tax free Energy Star appliance weekend.  We decided to take advantage of the tax free and Memorial Day weekend sale combo, and we relieved the old, warn-out washer of its duties. And I think it was about time, seeing as the old one had more years on it than either of us do.

As an added bonus, our laundry room is much more presentable now.  Not that I plan on leaving the door open when guests come, but I won't be as embarrassed when we bring people in through the garage.  :-)

What Now?

Since we got back from the honeymoon, we've:

• Unpacked
• Cleaned up the mess that was our front room
• Opened all our gifts and put them away
• Written all the Thank You cards
• Hosted 2 poker nights
• Gotten the pictures from the wedding (http://johnchristopherphoto.com/marleta+john/)
• Spent a portion of the money and gift cards we received on registry items we didn't get and other things that have been on our wish list for a while.

I just finally got the Thank You cards in the mail yesterday. Now, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next.  For the first time in over a year, I don't have a project or any deadlines in my personal life. (We were only engaged for 9 months, but before that we spent about 4 months choosing and buying our house.)

It's a nice feeling to not have something big looming... We've watched movies at home the last two nights, which we didn't do as much in the past year because there's always been some task to focus on. I like being able to goof off and not feel like I'm shirking some responsibility. I hope it stays that way for at least a little while.

I Hear Miami is Nice this Time of Year

Honeymoon Day 8 - Monday, May 9, 2011 - Return trip to Dallas, with unplanned Miami excursion

Monday morning, we woke early at 4:00 am (3:00 am Dallas time), so we could get ready in time for our taxi to pick us up at 5:15 am. It was a 45 minute ride the airport. Luckily, we were able to leave a little later than airline regulations would suggest because the airport in Tortola doesn't open until 6 am.  (Our flight was scheduled for 7:20 am, so according to airline recommendations we should have been at the airport at 5:20 am)

When we got to the airport at about 5:55 am, there was no counter agent at the American Airlines counter until about 6:20, so we just waited. In Tortola, after clearing the counter agent, you have to go to another desk to pay the BVI exit fee before going through security. After all the various check-points, we were waiting at the gate at about 6:45. Boarding should have started in about 10 minutes. We were headed home... or were we?

Several loud speaker announcements reminded passengers for our flight to San Juan to get to our gate for boarding, but then at 7:05, 15 minutes before our scheduled departure, they finally told us that the plane was having mechanical problems that would cause a 30 minute delay.  At 7:30, the delay was extended; at 8:00, it was extended again. By this point, passengers had started calculating the latest we could depart and still make the 11:20 connecting flight to Dallas (about 20 of us were headed for that Dallas flight). The verdict was that, if we left by 10:15, we'd probably be okay because it's a 30 minute flight, but we also had to clear customs in San Juan.

Because the Beef Island airport is very small, there is just a glass wall through which you can see the tarmac and all the planes, so we could see the mechanics on a ladder working on the propeller. There was a general murmur of excitement when the mechanics stepped away the propellers were fired up for a test. At 8:30, they announced to us that the plane was fixed and we would begin boarding when the crew arrived.

When the crew arrives?! They're not here? We were supposed to leave over an hour ago; why aren't they here? The crew did not arrive until 10:15. The gate attendant could give no explanation for why the crew wasn't there. I should point out that you could get to the airport from the furthest point on the island in an hour. Taking an hour and 45 minutes for the crew to arrive was absolutely ridiculous, particularly given the fact that the plane was already delayed over an hour for mechanical issues.

After all that frustration, the plane finally took off at 10:45 (30 minutes after our deadline to make our Dallas connection). When we got to San Juan, we got through customs relatively quickly, but despite our Dallas flight being 30 minutes delayed, we saw that the flight had already departed when we got through customs. All the Dallas-bound passengers got in line for re-booking. The agents were a little overrun. In fact, one said in a loud  voice to us that only passengers who have missed their flight should be in this line. We all, slightly annoyed, responded that we had, in fact, all missed the same Dallas flight because of the crew not showing up for our flight until 3.5 hours late.

Luckily though, American Airlines was able to rebook us through Miami to make it to Dallas that same day.  It would be at 10:15 pm instead of 3:30 pm, but at least, we weren't having to spend the night in the San Juan airport for the next flight to Dallas.

We ate lunch at an airport grill. We were both starving by that point because we'd just had a couple pieces of bread left over for our breakfast, thinking that we would have a better breakfast in San Juan 3.5 hours earlier. I had Quesadillas and John had a Bacon Burger.

The flight to Miami was un-eventful. The Miami airport was particularly overpriced and annoying. We ate dinner at the Corona Beach restaurant, which refused to make even the slightest substitution (which resulted in me eating the rice off John's plate and John eating the fries off my plate).  I had ribs and John had fish tacos... it was by far the worst meal of the trip.

We were exhausted, but delighted to finally be on the way home when we boarded the flight to Dallas.  John's parents met us at baggage claim in Dallas, and we finally got home a little after 11 pm, we'd been awake for 20 hours, and a particularly frustrating 20 hours at that.

Since we didn't take any pictures on that long day, here's a few pictures from after we got back.

The scene we came home to

Another view of the mess that was our entry room.

A few gifts had come while we were away, and this is probably John's favorite

Day 2 to Day 7 - See the difference?

When we got back several people said to us, "You didn't tan at all".  To those people, you are wrong... we were just pretty pasty when we left.  :)

And thus ends the account of the Hansen Honeymoon.  Despite the frustration of the last day, we really enjoyed ourselves, and we hope to go back and stay on Cane Garden Bay for a long weekend or holiday in the future.  

Yea!  We're Married!

Did I Mention We Like Relaxing on the Beach?

Honeymoon Day 7 - Sunday, May 8, 2011 - Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

When Sunday came around, we were a little sad to know it would be our last day on the beach because our flight was at 7:20 the next morning.  Sunday morning, we slept late again, read some, and went to Myett's office to check-out of the cottages (they don't open the office until 9 am the next morning, by which time we should be long gone, so we wanted to get checked-out in advance.  We also scheduled to have a taxi pick us up at 5:15  Monday morning.

An interesting note about the Beef Island airport: It doesn't open until 6 am, so despite the fact that American Airlines insists that even in the BVI, you should arrive 2 hours before your international flight, that would be silly in Tortola if your flight is before 8 am. We were glad we checked with the office staff on when we should get the taxi because otherwise, we'd have been waiting outside the airport in the morning.

We were running low on cash by day 7, so we found the local ATM and stocked up.  Then we spent a little of that cash at the gift shop at Myett's.

Our 2 souvenirs: The free bottle of rum from Myett's and some wooden turtles

We realized that we didn't have a picture of the outside of the cottage.  We were staying on the left side.

1 of 2 signs at the road.

The other sign out front.  We're a little sad the cottages are for sale.  Hopefully, whoever buys them will keep them hotel style property because we'd like to come back, and we think they're a great place to stay. - In case you're curious, the 4 cottages (basically 4 small, 1 bedroom duplex halves) are listed for $1.3 million. 

We ate the rest of our sandwich fixings and ice cream for lunch.  Then, we went out to enjoy the beach.  The water was a little chilly, so we read a bit until it warmed up. We swam and then laid out on the beach a little more.

Ready for one last swim

After the beach, we showered and packed. Then we went back to Myett's to check our flights and emails. (I felt like we didn't have enough pictures, so the phone came with me)

The beach from where we checked email

Myett's bar and restaurant (Dinner on Thursday and our internet access locale)

We took a stroll along the beach before dinner to get some more pictures and soak in our last evening.

For dinner, we went to Big Banana Paradise Cafe. John was attracted by the Lime Seared Mahi Mahi, and I got the Caribbean Chicken. We asked for desert options and the only thing they had was Key Lime Pie, so we had Key Lime Pie for a second day in a row.

The view from our dinner table

Sunset during dinner

We asked someone on the beach to take this shot, so we'd have one picture with both of us taken from more than an arm length away.

We tucked in to sleep a little early that night with our alarm set for 4 am to get ready for our taxi at 5:15 am. Reflecting on the trip, we were both very pleased with how it came out. We hadn't tried to do a ton of activities, and in the end, we were really glad that we had just relaxed instead of having a schedule and activities to make. Other than breaking the camera, everything had gone smoothly, and both hotels we stayed in were great. 

Unfortunately, we failed to knock on wood about everything going smoothly. Stay tuned for one last entry about our journey home.

Cruise Ship "Invasion" and "Cookie" Birds

Honeymoon Day 6 - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

On Saturday, we slept in, as was our usual. This morning we planned to save our swimming for the afternoon since the previous morning had been a little chilly. Instead, we decided to bring our books to the beach and read while sitting out in beach chairs.

Before we headed out that morning

When we got to the beach, we found something quite different than we'd see the previous 2 days.  There were about 100 people on the beach, instead of 4-10 like we'd become accustomed.  If you've been reading all these honeymoon posts, you may remember that our taxi driver from the airport when we got to the island warned us that there were 2 days (Tuesday and Saturday) during our trip when there would be cruise ships docked at the island.  On Tuesday, we slept in so late that we barely saw the cruise passengers and those we did see were headed back to the ship.  On Saturday, though, we were up a little earlier and shared the beach with them for about 2 hours before everything returned to normal.

It was a little strange to see; the beach was bustling in a way that it wasn't the rest of our time there.  There were other beach chair vendors who chairs were stacked and chained the rest of our trip, but on Saturday morning, all the chairs were set out and several beach bars were operating. One of the vendors actually mistook John and I for cruisers, and asked us when we had to be back to our boat. By about noon however, everyone from the cruise had cleared out, the vendors stacked up their chairs, and the extra bars closed up.

We decided to eat lunch this day at the one beach bar that was open everyday: Stanley's Welcome Bar.  We heard one of the other patrons explaining that, years ago, when they first came to this beach, Stanley's and a restaurant on the far end were the only things on the beach.  Now, there 6 or 7 restaurants.  We started our lunch with some Conch Fritters, which were quite good, and then I had a Salmon Burger and John had a Bacon Cheese Burger.

After lunch, we went for a swim and read on the beach a little more.  Then, we showered, ate some ice cream, and headed back to Myett's for some internet action.  I brought my phone again to get some sunset pictures.

Not sure what inspired me to take a picture of my feet in the sand, but it seemed appropriate at the time.  :)

There were a couple interesting large sand sculptures out on the beach that evening

John catching up on a little internet news

For dinner, we went back to the cottage and had sandwiches (and more ice cream). Then, like most other evenings, we read our books while relaxing in the breeze. Each evening as we were enjoying our nighttime read, there were some unusual sounding birds in the area - John nick named them "Cookie" birds because they sound like a little kid saying, "Coo-kie?" in a high pitched squeak. There were bird noises all day, but the "Cookie" birds only made those noises in the evenings. After John pointed out the sound they make, it was hard not to laugh and say "Coo-kie?" all evening.  Just one of the many things that add to the charm of the island.

"Coo-kie?"

Sandals, Salad, and top it off with Key Lime Pie

Honeymoon Day 5 - Friday, May 6, 2011 - Cane Garden Bay, Tortola

We woke mid-morning on Friday and went out to the beach to take a swim. Clouds were covering the sun though, making the water a little chilly.  Instead of swimming, we just walked the beach and sat out on the chairs in front of Myett's.  Eventually, we went back to the cottage to read, but not long after we got to the cottage, the sun peeked out from the clouds.

We went back out to swim and enjoyed the slightly chilly water. After that, we showered, napped, and ate sandwiches at the cottage, followed by some ice cream for desert. We relaxed and read for a while, and then we decided to go check out the internet (available from the bar at Myett's), and I brought my phone with us to the beach to take pictures.

One side of the beach.  The cottages are a few second walk from the beach (maybe 25 yards behind the tree line), pretty much directly behind the farthest stack of chairs you can see in this picture.

The other side of the beach.  Myett's hotel and restaurant is the closet building in this picture.  We could use the chairs at Myett's for free, so when we would just sit out, this is typically where we did it.

Note that in all these pictures (taken in mid-afternoon on Friday), you see very few people and only 5 or 6 boats anchored in the bay.  This is how it was most of the time.  It felt like a secret get-away.  I love going to places in off-season.  (The only drawback to the off-season thing is that a highly rated restaurant on one end of the beach was closed, we supposed because the owners were on vacation for the first week of off-season)

Imprints from the novelty flip-flops my bridesmaids gave me at my bachelorette party

This time out on the beach was the only time I wore those flip flops because the rubber makes my feet sore, but John spent the whole time walking in my footsteps behind me to wipe out cutesy imprints they left.  It made me smile to see that he missed a few when we were back on the beach at dinner time.

We took a nap before heading back to the beach for dinner. This time we ate at Rhymer's on the Beach.  I had Mahi Mahi and John had King Fish, but the real story from this meal was what I ate before the Mahi Mahi: Salad.  Anyone who's been out to eat with me knows that I eat very few vegetables, and I never get salad.  We didn't notice that the meals at Rhymer's come with salad and, it being off-season, we were the only people in the restaurant.  When they brought out the salad, it just seemed really rude, not to eat it. I was in the middle of wagering with John to get him to eat some of mine and some of his, but he suggested that I try just dousing mine in the French dressing on the table. I had never had French dressing, but I now know I really like it... With French dressing's help, I actually ate half the salad, and the crazy thing is, I didn't hate it... I didn't much like it either, but it was tolerable.  :-)  We topped off our meal with a slice of Key Lime pie.

After dinner, it was back to the cottage to close out another wonderful day with reading in the dinning area and a good night's sleep.