boosters + rotary telephone + adirondack chairs + dolly parton

Kids, you kinda get a barrage of posts from me instead of neatly sprinkled mind farts throughout the month because I tend to fixate on ideas that then lead to other ideas, and then it all spills forth via the interwebs and you are forced to digest my BS in large doses.

Anyway, Jay asked me a couple weeks ago or so regarding our upcoming trip, "So, what are we gonna do out at the holler this time?" Which, of course, prompted me to compile the Last Trip Before We Move list of things we might want to do while the holler is still our vacation getaway and not yet the survivalist paradise that we are planning.

Numero Uno in terms of priority is to get our Wilson Electronics DB Pro signal booster set up. We previously bought the Wilson SignalBoost DT repeater kit and hauled it out with us on our last trip in November/December, and while it definitely worked to boost the signal on my phone (I'm normally able to text from the front porch but have to walk toward the barn to make a call - the booster gave me 2 to 4 bars of 3G inside the cabin), it did absolutely nothing for Jay's phone, which makes no sense because our phones are identical and we both have Verizon service. Jay would get bars but no 3G or 1X icon. This made him very angry, especially when I would flaunt my texting capability (and then when I actually got a phone call from my Ma on the front porch, which is when he just about threw his phone in the creek).

MUST HAVE CONNECTION TO OUTSIDE WORLD.
[ amazon link ]

I was told by the sales rep that sold us the previous kit that we really needed something stronger, so we returned it and are gonna give this new kit a try. We're hoping to use our phones as Wi-Fi hot spots for internet access from our laptop and desktop in addition to phone service. If it still doesn't work, we'll return it and have to resort to satellite internet, which I've heard sucks in a major way. I think having a landline phone again would be kinda fun because I would get a sick old rotary model like this one:

I have character but take forever to dial.
[ etsy link ] 

Alas, we'd rather have internet access than a bitchin' landline phone, so fingers crossed that this booster finally works.

The other item we have ordered through lovely Amazon and its fabulous free super saver shipping is the push reel mower. Even if it doesn't work well on the grownup grass, I think it will get a lot of use once we get it tamed. Which brings me to the next item: securing a mowing service so that things stay neat and tidy until we move out there.

We plan to bring several checked bags again (up to three free with first-class service) chock full of miscellaneous crap we don't really need right now but can't bear to part with. Like my clothesline, some decorative throw pillows, and my halogen landscape lighting. Don't laugh. I already yanked the latter up this past weekend and hosed it off and plan to package it up somehow this weekend (because we leave on Tuesday, woot woot!).

I'm going to experiment a bit with rearranging furniture, like maybe floating the sofa in the middle of the living room and using the cheap-o plastic dressers we got from Devil-Mart as a headboard of sorts and positioning the queen bed in the middle of our bedroom. I don't know why I always want my furniture to be floating - maybe it's partially due to the awkward layout of the cabin. I have furniture arrangement issues.

I want to build a simple a-frame level and mark the contours of the finish-mowed area so that I can get a better idea of where swales and terracing will need to be used for the future garden. As I plot them them out, I thought of using the reel mower to mark the contours instead of flags or inverted spray paint because the biodegradable stuff is really expensive and I can only find it online.

I'd like to tidy up the porches on the cabins and stow some of that stuff in the barn for now. Speaking of which, I think it would be fun to do some organizing in the barn, but I don't think Jay considers that kind of stuff fun or vacation-worthy, so that may need to wait.

Those resin adirondack chairs that were impossible to find on our last trip are finally back in season at Home Depot and Lowes so I plan to get two pairs of those - an orange pair for the big cabin and a red pair for the small cabin. 

A few local attractions we might be interested in are Elrod Falls, Bays Mountain and its fire tower lookout, Lawson Falls, Wake Forest Falls, and Natural Tunnel State Park. And.... DOLLYWOOD! I love Dolly Parton, and the guy that leases the hunting land above ours called the other day to find out when we'll be in town and to tell us that he scored us some free passes, woo hoo! So we hope to hit that up on the Monday of our trip.

I've bookmarked some restaurants that we'd like to try, mainly based off reviews on Yelp, a few of which include:

• Amis Mill Eatery in Rogersville
• Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview (VA)
• Scratch Brick Oven in Johnson City
• Ridgewood Barbeque in Bluff City
• Purple Cow in Kingsport
• Cafe Jubilee in Rogersville
• Rain Restaurant in Abingdon (VA)
• Cootie Brown's in Johnson City

Of course, this week seems to be crawling by at a snail's pace, and Tuesday can't get here any faster.

~ Mitsy

push reel mower + our kitty cats

Not sure what mowers and cats have to do with each other, but this is what comes spilling out of my brain,  so you should just sit back and enjoy the ride.

On mowers: one thing we plan to do during our upcoming trip to the holler is to get started on our mowing upkeep. We've discussed at length  how we plan to manage mowing chores long term (ATV vs. riding mower vs. letting it grow wild - that last option is a big fat NO because we dig the holler's tidy appearance and have never had a lawn before and are really excited about laying in the grass - A LOT), but for now, mowing poses a bit of a problem since we've got about 2,500 miles between us and the grass.

That being said, we don't want to jump the gun and purchase a big, expensive mowing device before we really even know what we want. Also, anything with an engine is going to require fuel and some level of maintenance, and we'd like to keep things as simple and cheap as possible. (Cheap is subjective, but we're happy to fork over the dough now for a quality product if that means less hassle down the road.) With mowing season looming ahead, though, we need to figure something out.

So after an exhaustive online search, we decided to get a push reel mower. Mowing a half acre of hilly lawn with a reel mower may sound a bit daunting and sweaty, but I'm looking forward to the exercise (and P+Q). 

Behold, the Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower:

[ linky ]

People seem to love this bad boy based on the reviews. Amazon has it on sale for 200 bones and free shipping (same price at Lowes and HD, but they don't have it in stock anywhere near us), so we plan to order it a week or so before we leave like we did with the memory foam mattress, and it should arrive while we're there (or a few days early, but we're not too worried about thievery [ knocks on wood ] because the neighbor's got our back).

Of course, there's still the question of what to do with the lawn during the time between our trip and when the Big Move actually happens, so we're hoping to maybe finagle the aforementioned neighbor to keep up the mowing every couple weeks or so for us (and pay him for the service, of course). Although I don't think it would be the end of the world if the grass were allowed to grow unkempt for a few months, the crazy in me wants to keep it neat.

In other news, Jay informed me that he saw our cat Gravel up the hill above our house yesterday (the last time I saw him was probably two months ago). Gravel and Nekkie are half brothers from the same litter (momma cats can be very promiscuous, you know) that we rescued from a local shelter in 2008.

Nekkie Monster is a total homebody and wants nothing more than to cuddle and purr in our laps and bring Clyde Dog gifts of dead mice, decapitated birds, and tail-less lizards. We think he is going to do a fine job of keeping the barn and other outbuildings vermin-free.

Where's dem birdies.

Gravel, on the other hand, has turned into a menacing, feral, pure wild cat that we're pretty sure lives with the mountain lions now and fights off bobcats and massacres deer in his spare time.

Back when he still needed human-supplied food to subsist. And liked the glow of a Mac.

Gravel probably won't be coming with us when we move. We briefly considered somehow trapping him and flying him out because he would probably graduate from mountain lion to bear patrol out at the land and have a really fabulous time out there, but then we came to our senses and realized how absurd that would be and that Gravel would probably hate us forever and take off, never to be seen again. [ plus the unlikeliness that we could ever catch him anyway ]

We also have a very old tabby named Trouble whom we rescued as a kitten from some asshole up in Oregon that told us he was going to shoot whatever remained of the litter if they were not all taken away that day. We brought Trouble home (waaaay back in 1997) but lived in an apartment at the time and had no way of taking all the kittens, but our neighbor took it upon herself to go get them all and was able to find homes for every single one. We love Trouble and he loves us, but he discovered a couple years ago that the neighbor's house down the street offered a bit more solace because it lacked two bumbling kittens (Nekkie and Gravel) and a horse-esque puppy (Clyde Dog). Trouble's original buddies, Turbo, the siamese, and Big Blue, the American Bulldog, are on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge now. < sniff >

Trub-a-lubs.

Trouble is going to be 15 years old this summer. He pays us a visit now and then, and he seems happy and in good health but is pretty rickety, and we don't want to put him through the stress of a cross-country move. We're not totally sure which neighbor he shacks up with most (we think there are a few), but I plan to find out between now and the Big Move so we can at least bid him adios. His comfort in his final years is more important to us than trudging him away when he seems perfectly content without us (although I do appreciate his periodic check-ins to let us know that he hasn't forgotten his mom and dad).

As far as Gravel is concerned, if he's happy and healthy, we're fine with letting him be a free mountain cat (like we have any choice), but it will still be tough when the day comes to move away without him. Who knows, though, he may decide that he's had enough of the California mountain lions and needs to move up to taking down Tennessee black bears.

~ Mitsy

storage baskets (aka, parents who buy this for their child should be sterilized)

So, I was searching online the other day for storage baskets. Specifically, baskets or boxes or bins or containers or whatever that would fit nicely under the platform bed frame. You remember it.

You should see the two closets in the cabin. They're only maybe four feet wide each, and half of one is taken up with the furnace - there is absolutely no chance of fitting both my and Jay's clothes in this storage space. Zero. Now, I do plan on drastically thinning out my wardrobe and have actually been actively doing so for the past few months or so. If I haven't worn it in the last six months and it doesn't have sentimental value or isn't incredibly expensive, to the thrift store pile it goes! for the most part

I do have some expensive attire, some of which is second-hand and some I actually spent good money on. don't let me back into the Chanel store in Waikiki Beach. However, I hesitate to sell any of the spendy stuff now because we might end up never finding real jobs and possibly have to resort to selling my top-drawer shit to buy top ramen. That being said, we do need some place to put this stuff, and because the platform bed frame is an awesome 14" tall, I want to get some vessels to contain said spendy shit and hopefully not ever have to pawn it off on ebay or etsy or wherever. And besides, I do actually wear these things occasionally.

Anyway, I was looking at the usual suspects, like IKEA, Amazon, and Overstock and couldn't really find anything that I liked. I'd rather not have those ugly transparent plastic boxes. Looking at Target, I found more along the lines of what I'm envisioning as our underbed storage mecca by searching for "storage basket". And these were the results:

Whoa, back it up. Considering that this is on the Target website, I can only assume that it is actually for real. In my opinion, no parent has any business buying their child a quadruplet baby doll stroller. That is fucked up. Like, how much more pressure can a parent put on their child than to saddle them with a stroller pushing around four baby dolls? Talk about overzealous expectations. I'm so glad I don't have kids because if I had to deal with seeing this kind of horseshit all the time, I would seriously go live in a cave.

I realize that I'm an anomaly, but I can't imagine what little girl aspires to have quadruplets at that age unless her parents are feeding her some messed up shit. I was searching for baskets, and a quadruplet baby doll stroller shows up in the results. The irony.

Back to the baskets. The space under the bed is divided into four quadrants by the support posts, each of which is approximately 32" wide x 14" high x 30" deep. This is the longest and largest basket that I could find that will still fit.

Oh, how I hate you, Wal-Mart. I keep telling Jay that I refuse to shop there once we move because of their business practices, China-made crap, blah blah blah, but dang it, they have just the basket I need. I could fit eight of these under the bed, which would provide quite a bit of storage space but is a little spendy at almost 150 bucks. That's still cheaper than an particle board armoire or another garbage IKEA dresser, though, so I'll have to think about it.

Do you shop at Wal-Mart? Do you try not to but then keep sneaking back? Tell me I'm not alone.

~ Mitsy

somewhere to park my ass and melon

With all the money we saved by using our miles to buy our tickets back to the holler, we'd like to get a few basic furniture items for the cabin. Thanks to the eagle eyes of my BiL, we were able to find some bar stools for the kitchen island last time, and we almost bought a small love seat, but funds were already tight at that point, and we didn't want to spend anymore money than necessary.

Poorly done www.floorplanner.com 3-D layout of the big cabin.

The layout of the main room in the cabin (living room/kitchen combo) is kinda awkward in that there's only really one place to put a sofa or seating, which is up against the wall between the two bedroom doors. It might be possible to float a sofa in the middle of the living room, but regardless, we need something pretty short. I saw this sofa in person at Target the other day and it's quite petite and it folds down click-clack style into a guest bed.

Target's Thompson sofa bed in Mocha.

I can't believe I found a mid-century-ish sofa bed at Target for $200! I'm sure it's cheap as all hell, but as long as I can fit it in the Grand Cherokee, I'm totally stoked on it. (Target does have free shipping, but it requires a delivery appointment be set, and I don't know if we will be able to do that with our limited cell service out at the holler.)

We slept on the shittiest air mattress in the universe last time and would like to not repeat that experience. Also, I've been dying to try out one of those memory foam mattress and platform bed combinations, so here's what I think I've decided on (yes, I realize I'm saying "I" instead of "we" but Jay just really doesn't care about this stuff):

I better get some lucid dreams like this mattress promises.

For $249 and free shipping, I don't see how you could go wrong with it. The smell is supposed to be a bit strong for the first few nights, but it has the best reviews, and I'm sure the consumption of many cocktails will help alleviate any issue we have with plasticky smells.

Of course, you gotta have something to put the memory foam mattress on - a regular bed frame won't work since there's no box spring.

This is about as basic as it gets.
Because this is the holler and we're not fancy like that.

Good (non-squeaky) reviews and $135.99 with free shipping.

My only concern is that although we have an address, we have no mailbox, but I don't think that really makes any difference to the shipping companies. I guess we'll find out. I will sleep on the floor before I get onto that air mattress again.

Less than $600 for what looks like will be a pretty dang comfortable bed and a decent place to sit and relax while imbibing and/or possibly playing Mad Gab.